Chapter 1 (62): That He Could Have Freed Us In Some Other Manner, And Why
84 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
were redeemed not by corruptible gold and silver, but by the precious blood of the spotless Lamb.*
DISTINCTION XX
Chapter 1 (62)
THAT HE COULD HAVE FREED US IN SOME OTHER MANNER, AND WHY
RATHER BY THIS ONE.—AUGUSTINE, IN BOOK 13, ON THE TRINITY. But if it
is asked whether God could have freed man in some other manner than by Christ's death, we say that "another manner was possible to God, to whose power all things are subject, but that there would not have been, nor would it have been proper that there be, any other manner more fitting to cure our misery."
Chapter 2 (63) 1. THE REASON WHY IN THIS MANNER. "For what so raises up our minds and frees them from despair of immortality, than that God rated us so highly that the Son of God, unchangeably good, remaining in himself what he was, and taking from us what he was not, deigned to enter into fellowship with us in order to bear our evils by his death?"!
2. ANOTHER REASON.—AUGUSTINE, IN THE SAME PLACE. There is also another reason why he willed to free us in this manner rather than in another: "because in this way the devil is overcome by righteousness, not by power"; "and how this was done, | shall explain as I am able.'* "By some justice of God, humankind was delivered into the power of the devil, with the sin of the first man being transmitted originally into all and binding all by his debt. And so all men are by their origin in subjection to the devil; hence the Apostle says: By our nature, we were children of wrath:* namely by our nature as it was depraved by sin, not as it was created upright from the beginning. But the manner in which man was given into the power of the devil ought not to be so understood as if God did it, or commanded it to be done, but that he only allowed it, and yet justly. Once
God had abandoned the sinner, the author of the sin immediately invaded FPGA ealo:
'Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 13 c10 n13.
'Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 13 c10 n13.
*Ibid., bk 13 c13 n17.
*Tbid., bk 13 cll n15.
'Eph. 2, 3.