Romans 5:1–10

Faith gives us peace with God, not the law. For it reconciles us to God by taking away those sins which had made us God's enemies. And because the Lord Jesus is the minister of this grace, it is through him that we have peace with God. Faith is greater than the law because the law is our work, whereas faith belongs to God. Furthermore, the law is concerned with our present life, whereas faith is concerned with eternal life. But whoever does not think this way about Christ, as he ought to, will not be able to obtain the rewards of faith, because he does not hold the truth of faith.

The first fruit of grace is the remission of guilt. Whence the Apostle to the Romans: "Justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace, in which we stand and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God." As the Philosopher holds, one is not changed from viciousness to virtues except through habituation to the contrary habit; so guilt will never be remitted except through grace. The Philosopher considers vice insofar as it denotes a certain disorder; when I have knowledge of God, I judge concerning sin, that it is an offense against God; for "by transgression of the law you dishonor God;" whence it is necessary that you be subject to the vengeance of God. He who is disordered in guilt must necessarily be subject to punishment. Sin is subject to divine vengeance; therefore the punishment must be eternal, because the offense is infinite. For the offense is as great as he who is offended; but God is immeasurable, and his majesty is infinite: therefore the offense too is infinite: therefore the punishment too is infinite, not intensively, but processively: because it is impossible for a created active power to be infinite. It is necessary, therefore, that an eternal power operate: but God is infinite: therefore if he himself changes the soul, this must be done through some influx of grace. Likewise, hell is not remitted except through grace. See therefore how grace liberates from the servitude of sin and of the devil.

What does "Let us have peace" mean? Some say, "Let us not be at variance, through a peevish obstinacy for bringing in the Law." But to me he seems to be speaking now of our conversation. For after having said much on the subject of faith, he had set it before righteousness which is by works, to prevent any one from supposing what he said was a ground for listlessness, he says, "let us have peace," that is, let us sin no more, nor go back to our former estate. For this is making war with God. And "how is it possible," saith one, "to sin no more?" How was the former thing possible? For if when liable for so many sins we were freed from all by Christ, much more shall we be able through Him to abide in the estate wherein we are. For it is not the same thing to receive peace when there had been none, and to keep it when it has been given, since to acquire surely is harder than to keep. Yet nevertheless the more difficult hath been made easy, and carried out into effect. That which is the easier thing then will be what we shall easily succeed in, if we cling to Him who hath wrought even the other for us.

"Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of God." By this he most plainly invites the one who has understood what it is to be justified by faith and not by works to that peace of God which surpasses every mind, in which also the summit of perfection consists. But that we may examine the Apostle's meaning more carefully, let us inquire what the name of peace signifies, and in particular that peace which is through our Lord Christ. Peace is said to exist where no one is at variance, no one at discord, where nothing hostile, nothing barbarous is carried on. We therefore, who were once enemies of God, following the enemy and tyrant, the devil — if we now cast away his weapons and take up the standard of Christ and the banners of his cross, we assuredly have peace with God, but through our Lord Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God through the sacrifice of his blood, as it is written: "When we were enemies of God, we were reconciled through the blood of the cross of his Son." And elsewhere the same Paul added to these words, saying: "We entreat you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." If anyone therefore has peace with God, and has been reconciled through the blood of Christ, let him no longer touch those things which are hostile to God. But do you wish to hear what those things are which are hostile to God? Paul himself teaches you, who says: "The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God: for it is not subject to the law of God." If therefore you are wise after the flesh, or expose your life to the desires of the flesh, and are dissolved by an abundance of delights; or if concerning the understanding of the law you think carnally and not spiritually, and defend these views by assertions sought out through human artifice rather than by spiritual grace and subtler understanding, you are made an enemy to God through the wisdom of the flesh. Nor is Paul the only one who writes these things in his letters: hear James also, the brother of the Lord, declaring the like, when he says: "Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world shall be constituted an enemy of God." But John too testifies to the same effect: "Little children," he says, "do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world: for everything that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of God." Therefore the man in whom these things are cannot have peace with God, but rather stirs up again those enmities for the dissolving of which Christ came, as the same Apostle also says of Christ: "For he is our peace, who made both one, and dissolving the middle wall of the fence, the enmities in his flesh: emptying the law of commandments in its decrees, that he might create the two in himself, making peace in one new man." But if Christ came to dissolve enmities, to make peace, and to reconcile to God us who were at variance because of that fence of malice which we had woven by sinning — the fence of sin being dissolved — then whoever turns back again to sins without doubt restores the enmities anew, and weaves the fence of dissension again, and by these things undoes the work of Christ and empties out the cross of his passion. But let us, "being justified by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Let us have peace, so that the flesh may no longer strive against the spirit, nor the law of God be resisted by the law of the members. Let there not be in us "yes and no," but let us all say one thing, let us be of the same mind, and let there be no dissension either within ourselves or outwardly toward one another; and then we shall have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But this must be known most certainly, that everyone in whom there is the vice of malice can never have peace. For while he is always thinking how to injure his neighbor, while he is always seeking out arts of doing harm, his mind never rests in peace. But if you should ask of me how the righteous man can have peace, who is assailed by the devil, who sustains the wars of temptations — I should say that he above all others has peace. For see how carefully the Apostle writes. He did not say, "Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace," and then fall silent; but he adds: "Let us have peace with God." You see that war against the devil furnishes peace with God, and that we come more fully into the peace of God at the very time when we persist unpacified against the devil, and when we fight against the vices of the flesh. Finally the apostle James also speaks thus: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you: draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." You see that he too was of this mind, that one draws near to God precisely when one resists the devil.

Paul has discussed the point that nobody is justified by works, but all are justified by faith, and he has proved this by the example of Abraham, of whom the Jews claim to be the only children. He has also explained why neither race nor circumcision makes people children of Abraham but only faith, because Abraham was initially justified by faith alone. Now, having concluded this argument, Paul urges both Jews and Gentiles to live at peace, because no one is saved by his own merit, but everyone is saved in the same way, by God's grace. "Peace with God" means either that both sides should submit to God or that we should have the peace of God and not just the peace of the world.

It is a distinction of dispensations, not of gods. He enjoins those who are justified by faith in Christ and not by the law to have peace with God. With what God? Him whose enemies we have never, in any dispensation, been? Or Him against whom we have rebelled, both in relation to His written law and His law of nature? Now, as peace is only possible towards Him with whom there once was war, we shall be both justified by Him, and to Him also will belong the Christ, in whom we are justified by faith, and through whom alone God's enemies can ever be reduced to peace.

Faith has given you forgiveness of sins and made you spotless and righteous by the washing of regeneration. Therefore you ought to keep the peace by which you have been united with God. For when you were still enemies, the only begotten Son of God reconciled you by taking on human flesh and putting sin to death in it.

Here the Apostle reasons about the life of faith, so that after he has said so much in praise of faith and disparaged works, we would not become negligent. Since faith has justified us, let us sin no more, but "let us have peace with God" through a life pleasing to Him. How will this be? "Through our Lord Jesus Christ." He who justified us when we were sinners will also help us to be preserved in His righteousness.

After showing the need for Christ's grace, because without it neither the knowledge of the truth benefited the gentiles nor circumcision and the law benefited the Jews unto salvation, the Apostle now begins to extol the power of grace. Concerning this, he does two things. First, he shows what goods we obtain through grace; second, from what evils we are freed by it, at wherefore as by one man (Rom 5:12). In regard to the first he does two things. First, he indicates the manner of reaching or the way by which we come to grace; second, the good things we obtain through grace, at and glory in the hope of the glory. In regard to the first he does two things. First, he exhorts to the due use of grace; second, he shows us the entrance to grace, at by whom also we have access. First, therefore, he says: it has been stated that faith will be reputed as justice to all who believe in Christ's resurrection, which is the cause of our justification. Being justified therefore by faith, inasmuch as through faith in the resurrection we participate in its effect, let us have peace with God, namely, by submitting ourselves and obeying him: agree with God and be at peace (Job 22:21); who has hardened himself against him and been at peace? (Job 9:4). And this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has led us to that peace: he is our peace (Eph 2:14).

It is clear that in Christ we have access to the grace of God. For he is the mediator between God and men, who builds us up by his teaching and gives us the hope of receiving the gift of his grace if we stand in his faith. Therefore, if we stand (because we used to be flat on the floor) we stand as believers, glorying in the hope of the glory which he has promised to us.

The first fruit of grace is the remission of guilt. Whence the Apostle to the Romans: "Justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace, in which we stand and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God." As the Philosopher holds, one is not changed from viciousness to virtues except through habituation to the contrary habit; so guilt will never be remitted except through grace. The Philosopher considers vice insofar as it denotes a certain disorder; when I have knowledge of God, I judge concerning sin, that it is an offense against God; for "by transgression of the law you dishonor God;" whence it is necessary that you be subject to the vengeance of God. He who is disordered in guilt must necessarily be subject to punishment. Sin is subject to divine vengeance; therefore the punishment must be eternal, because the offense is infinite. For the offense is as great as he who is offended; but God is immeasurable, and his majesty is infinite: therefore the offense too is infinite: therefore the punishment too is infinite, not intensively, but processively: because it is impossible for a created active power to be infinite. It is necessary, therefore, that an eternal power operate: but God is infinite: therefore if he himself changes the soul, this must be done through some influx of grace. Likewise, hell is not remitted except through grace. See therefore how grace liberates from the servitude of sin and of the devil.

That afflictions and persecutions arise for the sake of our being proved. In Deuteronomy, "The Lord your God proveth you, that He may know if ye love the Lord. your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength." And again, Solomon: "The furnace proveth the potter's vessel, and righteous men the trial of tribulation." Paul also testifies similar things, and speaks, saying: "We glory in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us." And Peter, in his epistle, lays it down, and says: "Beloved, be not surprised at the fiery heat which falleth upon you, which happens for your trial; and fail not, as if some new thing were happening unto you. But as often as ye communicate with the sufferings of Christ, rejoice in all things, that also in the revelation made of His glory you may rejoice with gladness. If ye be reproached in the name of Christ, happy are ye; because the name of the majesty and power of the Lord resteth upon you; which indeed according to them is blasphemed, but according to us is honoured."

That all good and righteous men suffer more, but ought to endure because they are proved. In Solomon: "The furnace proveth the vessels of the potter, and the trial of tribulation righteous men." Also in the fiftieth Psalm: "The sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise." Also in the thirty-third Psalm: "God is nearest to them that are contrite in heart, and He will save the lowly in spirit." Also in the same place: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord will deliver them." Of this same matter in Job: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, naked also shall I go under the earth: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all these things which happened to him Job sinned in nothing with his lips in the sight of the Lord." Concerning this same thing in the Gospel according to Matthew: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Also according to John: "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. But in the world ye shall have affliction; but have confidence, for I have overcome the world." Concerning this same thing in the second Epistle to the Corinthians: "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted. For which thing I thrice besought the Lord, that it should depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for strength is perfected in weakness." Concerning this same thing to the Romans: "We glory in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we also glory in afflictions: knowing that affliction worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope does not confound; because the love of God is infused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us." On this same subject, according to Matthew: "How broad and spacious is the way which leadeth unto death, and many there are who go in thereby: how straight and narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it!" Of this same thing in Tobias: "Where are thy righteousnesses? behold what thou sufferest." Also in the Wisdom of Solomon: "In the places of the wicked the righteous groan; but at their ruin the righteous will abound."

If then He hath brought us near to Himself, when we were far off, much more will He keep us now that we are near. And let me beg you to consider how he everywhere sets down these two points; His part, and our part. On His part, however, there be things varied and numerous and diverse. For He died for us, and farther reconciled us, and brought us to Himself, and gave us grace unspeakable. But we brought faith only as our contribution. And so he says, "by faith, unto this grace." What grace is this? tell me. It is the being counted worthy of the knowledge of God, the being forced from error, the coming to a knowledge of the Truth, the obtaining of all the blessings that come through Baptism. For the end of His bringing us near was that we might receive these gifts. For it was not only that we might have simple remission of sins, that we were reconciled; but that we might receive also countless benefits. Nor did He even pause at these, but promised others, namely, those unutterable blessings that pass understanding alike and language. And this is why he has set them both down also. For by mentioning grace he clearly points at what we have at present received, but by saying, "And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God," he unveils the whole of things to come. And he had well said, "wherein also we stand." For this is the nature of God's grace. It hath no end, it knows no bound, but evermore is on the advance to greater things, which in human things is not the case.

"Let us" therefore "have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And he added: "Through whom also we have access into this grace in which we stand." How we have access to grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior himself says: "I am the door"; and, "No one comes to the Father except through me." Through him, then, who is the door, we have access to grace. But let us see what kind of door it is, that we may know what kind of persons they ought to be who enter through it and have access to grace. This door is truth, and liars cannot enter in through the door of truth. And again, this door is righteousness, and the unrighteous do not enter through the door of righteousness. This door says: "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." Through the door, therefore, of humility and gentleness neither the wrathful man enters nor the proud. If then there is anyone who, according to the Apostle's word, wishes through our Lord Jesus Christ to have access into the grace of the Lord, in which Paul, and any who are like him, says that he stands, he must be cleansed from all those things which we have mentioned above. Otherwise this door will not allow those to enter through it who do the things that are foreign to it, but is at once shut, and does not permit those unlike itself to pass through. This, no doubt, is what happened to those five foolish virgins as well, who, because they had not gathered the oil of good works in their vessels, on coming after delay found the door shut. For foolish souls could not enter through the door of wisdom and have access into grace. And well does the apostle Paul say that he stands in grace, who also said elsewhere: "But I labored more abundantly than all of them: yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Hence if there is any other who labors more abundantly, and who glories in his infirmities, who is often set in dangers — "dangers of the sea, dangers of rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers among false brethren" — and in all these stands always in faith, he likewise is said to stand in grace.

But let us also see what sort of thing that is which follows: "And we glory in the hope of the glory of God." It moves me to ask why he did not say that he glories in the glory of God, but "in the hope of the glory of God" — in which something of the expression seems indeed to be lacking, so that one ought to understand, "in the hope" of seeing "the glory of God." Yet by these words he teaches us, just as he himself says elsewhere, that "the things which are hoped for are eternal, but the things which are seen are temporal." For Moses too is said to have seen the glory of God; the people also is said, at the consecration of the house of the Lord, to have seen the glory of the God of Israel. But even concerning a glory of this kind, which could be seen, Paul, who was versed in the mysteries of God, dared to declare that that glory shall be destroyed which was seen even in the face of Moses; whereas this glory which is hoped for, of which he says, "In the hope of the glory of God," shall never be destroyed. For it is such as that of which the same Apostle speaks when he says of Christ: "Who is," he says, "the brightness of glory, and the express figure of his substance." Of seeing this glory, then, they bear the hope of whom it is said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" — then, when sorrow and sadness and groaning shall have fled away, and when those things which are now seen in a mirror and in an enigma shall be destroyed, and those things shall remain which are face to face. But if it should perhaps seem to anyone that against this exposition of ours there can be brought the objection of what the Apostle himself says: "But we, beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory into glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord"; and if he says: How does he still bear the hope of glory, who says that already with unveiled face he beholds the glory of the Lord, and is transformed from glory into glory? — see whether we can resolve the objection in this manner. The Apostle seems to me to be showing the differences of glories: that one glory was that which was revealed through the ministry of Moses, of which we have already spoken above; another that which was administered in the fleshly coming of the Saviour, of which John also says in the Gospel: "And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Of this glory we cannot say that it is the very one which is to be hoped for; for the apostles say that they saw it, and true is that saying which declares: "For what a man sees, why does he hope for it?" But that glory which is to be hoped for, concerning which the Apostle also in the present passage says that he glories "in the hope of the glory of God," can be understood to be that of which the Saviour says in the Gospel: "When the Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels." But when he said, "of the Father, and of the holy angels," it is not that he says the glory of the Father and of the angels is one; rather this seems to me to be what he shows, that these glories which were conveyed either through Moses to those of former times, or to us through the coming of Christ in the flesh, were not the glories of angels, but of men; for they were ministered to men, and were of such measure as men could receive. But that glory in which the Son of man is to come to judge the world will be so great a glory of the Father that it can be received by angels alone. And if some even of the saints prove capable of that glory, they will doubtless be those of whom it is said, that "they shall be as the angels of God." And in this way it seems rightly said of the future glory, which is to be hoped for, that the Son of man comes "in the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels" — that is, not such glory as earthly men, but as holy angels, are worthy to receive. For according to the capacity of minds God dispenses also the magnitudes of glories. But just as no one could either believe or receive that glory which the apostles say in the Gospels that they saw, "glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," unless that glory also which was ministered through Moses in the law had held the way of understanding — as he testifies who said to Nathanael: "Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote we have found, Jesus of Nazareth" (in which he certainly shows that, being illuminated by the Law and the Prophets, they beheld the glory of this one, which was as of the Only-begotten of the Father) — so also what the Apostle said, "We, beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory into glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord," ought to be understood thus: that he who contemplates that glory of the Only-begotten with unveiled face, that is, with the full understanding of faith, by the same image by which he came from the Law to the Gospels and to the fleshly coming of the Saviour, with the gaze of his heart illuminated through faith, should none the less strain the keenness of his mind toward the second coming of the glory, and be transformed from the present glory to the future glory which is hoped for. Whence I judge that no one can, or deserves, to become capable of that future glory, unless already from this life he receives some use and practice of it, according to what the Apostle says, beholding it in a mirror and in an enigma by [...] of meditation, so that by the constant image of the divine glory which he bears while still set in the flesh he may, better prepared, be carried over to the true capacity of that glory through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We have drawn near to God, because previously we were far away from him, and we stand, because previously we were flat on our faces. We rejoice in the hope that we shall possess the glory of God's children. What we hope for is so great that no one would try it on his own, in case it should be regarded as blasphemy, not as hope, and as something which many people think is unbelievable because of its greatness.

For through Him "we have obtained access to this grace." If He brought near those who were far off, how much more will He keep close those who are already near. And He brought us "to this grace." In what way? "By faith," that is, when we brought faith. And what is this grace? The receiving of all the good things that are bestowed upon us through baptism. "In which we stand," having firmness and steadfastness. For divine blessings always stand and never fall away. And not only do we firmly hold what we have received, but we hope to receive the rest as well. "We boast," he says, "in the hope" of the blessings that will be given to us in the future: since they pertain to the glory of God, they will assuredly be given, if not for our sake, then for the glorification of God Himself.

Hence he continues, by whom, namely, Christ, we have access as through a mediator: one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5); through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph 2:18). Access, I say, into this grace, i.e., to the state of grace: grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Wherein, i.e., through which grace, we have not only risen from sin but we stand firm and erect in the heavens through love: our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem (Ps 122:2); we have risen and stand upright (Ps 20:8). And this through faith, through which we obtain grace, not because faith precedes grace, since it is rather through grace that there is faith: by grace you have been saved through faith (Eph 2:8), i.e., because the first effect of grace in us is faith. Then when he says, and glory in the hope of the glory, he indicates the blessings that have come to us through grace. First, he says that through grace we have the glory of hope; second, that through grace we have the glory of God, at and not only so. In regard to the first he does three things. First, he shows the greatness of the hope in which we glory; second, its vehemence, at and not only so; third, its firmness, at and hope does not confound. The greatness of hope is considered in terms of the greatness of things hoped for. He sets this out when he says, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God, i.e., in the fact that we hope to obtain the glory of sons of God. For through Christ's grace we have received the spirit of adoption of sons (Rom 8:15); behold how they have been numbered among the sons of God (Wis 5:5). But to sons is due the father's inheritance: if sons, heirs also (Rom 8:17). This inheritance is the glory which God has in himself: have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? (Job 40:9). Our hope for this has been given to us by Christ: we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and to an inheritance which is incorruptible (1 Pet 1:3). This glory, which will be completed in us in the future, is in the meantime begun in us through hope: for we are saved by hope (Rom 8:24); all those who love your name will glory in you (Ps 5:11).

Since it is through tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of God, Paul teaches that we should rejoice in them. For suffering added to hope increases our reward. Suffering is the measure of how much hope we have, and it testifies to the fact that we deserve the crown we shall inherit. This is why the Lord said: "Blessed are you when they persecute you and say all kinds of evil things against you on account of God's righteousness. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great." For to despise present sufferings and hindrances and, for the hope of the future, not to give in to pressure has great merit with God. Therefore one should rejoice in suffering, believing that he will be all the more acceptable to God as he sees himself made stronger in the face of tribulation.Suffering produces endurance as long as it is not the result of weakness or doubt.

Paul says this in order to lead us gradually to the love of God, which he says that we have by the gift of the Spirit. He shows us that all those things which we might attribute to ourselves ought to be attributed to God, who was pleased to give us his Holy Spirit through grace.

For those who are well prepared, tribulations are like certain foods and exercises for athletes which lead the contestant on to the inheritance of glory. When we are reviled, we bless; maligned, we entreat; ill-treated, we give thanks; afflicted, we glory in our afflictions.

My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity to-day, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over--I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.

Divinely, therefore, Paul writes expressly, "Tribulation worketh, patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed." For the patience is on account of the hope in the future.

Now, consider how great the things to come are, when even at things that seem to be distressful we can be elated; so great is God's gift, and such a nothing any distastefulness in them! For in the case of external goods, the struggle for them brings trouble and pain and irksomeness along with it; and it is the crowns and rewards that carry the pleasure with them. But in this case it is not so, for the wrestlings have to us no less relish than the rewards. For since there were sundry temptations in those days, and the kingdom existed in hopes, the terrors were at hand, but the good things in expectation, and this unnerved the feebler sort, even before the crowns he gives them the prize now, by saying that we should "glory even in tribulations." And what he says is not "you should glory," but we glory, giving them encouragement in his own person. Next since what he had said had an appearance of being strange and paradoxical, if a person who is struggling in famine, and is in chains and torments, and insulted, and abused, ought to glory, he next goes on to confirm it. And (what is more), he says they are worthy of being gloried in, not only for the sake of those things to come, but for the things present in themselves. For tribulations are in their own selves a goodly thing. How so? It is because they anoint us unto patient abiding. Wherefore after saying we glory in tribulations, he has added the reason, in these words, "Knowing that tribulation worketh patience." Notice again the argumentative spirit of Paul, how he gives their argument an opposite turn. For since it was tribulations above all that made them give up the hopes of things to come, and which cast them into despondency, he says that these are the very reasons for confidingness, and for not desponding about the things to come, for "tribulation," he says, "worketh patience."

"And not only so, but we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope; but hope does not confound, because the charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." The very first phrase of this chapter contains something of ambiguity; for it does not have in what follows anything to which what he said, "and not only so," ought to be referred. Whence see whether we can in this way resolve the ambiguity of the expression. Since in the foregoing he has taught us that many things have been granted to us through our Lord Jesus Christ — as when he says that we have been justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, and that through him we have access into this grace, and that through him also we glory in the hope of the glory of God — to all these things which have been said I think that "and not only so" ought to be referred: that is, not only the things which I said above, but this also, that we glory in our tribulations, we have through our Lord Jesus Christ. For while others are made sad in tribulation, we, strengthened by the power of his grace, glory in tribulations. For we have learned a new discipline from his instruction, that through tribulations we may receive the good of patience; and having the good of patience we may be judged approved; and, tried through the patience of many tribulations, we may have the hope of the future reward from God — which hope, because it is certain and true, does not confound those who hope. For faith and hope are followed by the charity of God, which is greater than all, and which not only fills our mind, but also abounds and is poured out in our hearts, for the reason that it is not acquired by us through human art, but is poured in through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Let these things be explained according to the sequence of the discourse itself, that is, of the letter, for the opening up of the apostolic utterance. Now let us inquire what the inner sense contains. And first let us consider, concerning boasting, what he said: "We boast in our tribulations." For the word "boasting" is sometimes used in the Scriptures in a praiseworthy sense, and sometimes in a blameworthy one. Indeed, when Jeremiah says: "Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor let the rich man boast in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in this, to understand and to know me, that I am the Lord who establishes mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth" — in one and the same chapter he has placed boasting both in a praiseworthy and in a blameworthy sense. For if anyone, he says, boasts either in his own wisdom, or in his strength, or in his riches, he boasts blameworthily; but if anyone boasts in knowing the Lord, and in the understanding of his judgments and of his mercy and justice, he boasts in a praiseworthy manner. Since, therefore, this word looks toward both, we must inquire in what things there is right boasting, and in what things a less right boasting. And this we shall at last be able to recognize, if we hold to the natures of things with a fitting distinction. Now what we mean is this. All things that exist or that are done are either good, or evil, or indifferent. Concerning these, although a broader disputation ought to be held, nevertheless we shall set forth as much as suffices for the present passage. It is certain that those things are properly called good which pertain to the virtues of the soul; and that those alone are defined as evil which have regard to wickedness and are done against the law of God; but that the rest are indifferent — that is, are to be named neither good nor evil — such as riches, beauty of body, and strength or tallness of stature, and those things which serve the uses of the body. If, therefore, anyone is ignorant of the distinction of this diversity, and boasts in those things which are not truly good, nor pertain to the virtue of the soul, he boasts blameworthily. But Paul, who was most skilled in these matters, when he had said that "we boast in our tribulations," lest perhaps he should be thought to boast in things indifferent and intermediate, immediately renders the reason, and shows that his boasting, which he has in tribulations, pertains to the virtues of the soul. For he says that "tribulation," for which I boast, "works patience, and patience probation, and probation hope, and hope does not confound, because the charity of God has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit"; and in these words he teaches that, through virtues succeeding one another, the boasting of tribulations ascends even to the summit of the Holy Spirit, just as he also says elsewhere: "He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord." Therefore it is fitting to boast neither in one's own wisdom, nor in strength, nor in riches, but in God alone. But perhaps you may say: Does not wisdom have regard to the virtues of the soul? And why is it accounted blameworthy to boast in wisdom? See, then, how cautious is the word of Scripture, which seems unpolished and rustic. It did not say: "Let not the wise man boast in wisdom," and then fall silent; but it says: "Let not the wise man boast in his own wisdom." For he who boasts in his own wisdom, and not in the wisdom of God, boasts blameworthily, since elsewhere too the prophet says: "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and learned in their own sight." The wisdom of God, therefore, is to know God, and to understand his mercy, and his judgment, and the justice which he has wrought upon the earth; and he who boasts in this boasts in the Lord. But human wisdom cannot know and understand the Lord, nor recognize his judgments, and his mercy, and the justice which he has wrought upon the earth; and therefore it is indifferent and intermediate. For it can come about that one instructed in this human wisdom may come better prepared to the understanding of divine wisdom, and, being exercised in the former, may become more capable of the latter. In like manner is it with him who makes use of the other things which we have said to be intermediate, namely strength or riches: which, so long as they are intermediate — that is, so long as a man is not strong in the work of God, nor rich in mercies toward the poor — he ought to boast neither in strength nor in riches. But if these things which are intermediate are turned toward the virtue of the soul and toward the fruit of good work, they are made worthy of boasting; just as, on the other hand, if they are applied to an evil work, so that through riches a man oppresses the poor, and through strength lays low the weak, then these are no longer thought to be intermediate, but evil. For this reason, therefore, they are said to be by their own nature indifferent and intermediate, because, when joined to an evil work, they can be called evil, and when united to good works, can be named good. But apart from this inclination toward one or the other of the two, those who call them good must be believed to be unskilled and ignorant of rational definitions and appellations. Yet by a misuse of language we call a craftsman "wise," and a pilot, and an architect, and we name a woman "wise" in weaving. As to what, therefore, the Apostle says in the present chapter, "that tribulation works patience" — if it is established that patience is one of the virtues of the soul, then without doubt tribulation, which gives birth to the virtues of the soul, is to be called neither evil nor indifferent, but good. And to such a degree, as we said above, is patience to be called a virtue of the soul, that he says our probation comes about through patience, and that through probation hope is given: which hope assuredly, since it is placed in God, who is the Father of all virtues, does not confound the one who hopes. For together with hope it holds also the abundance of charity, which in the first place — because "the greatest of all is charity" — is coupled with the Spirit. But if someone should confront us and say that tribulation is intermediate and indifferent, since indeed we find that even the evil and the impious are afflicted with tribulation, and not at once, because they are afflicted for their evil deeds, is their tribulation to be reckoned a virtue of the soul: see whether we may be able to answer in this way, that tribulation properly belongs to the saints, but that the tribulation of the impious and the unjust should be called "scourges." Finally, in the Psalm he speaks thus: "Many are the tribulations of the just." But of those others he says: "Many are the scourges of the sinner." And perhaps for this reason tribulation and straitness pertain to the saints, because they are the ones who walk the narrow and strait way, and for that reason are said to be afflicted with tribulation. Which also I judge the apostles to have understood with respect to the Lord himself, who is the true way along which the saints walk, when they said to him: "The crowds press you and hem you in, Master." Therefore we ought to understand the tribulations of the just not only as those which come from without, from those things which we have above called indifferent or intermediate — that is, either from losses, or from illnesses, or from any torment of the body — but also in this, that even when placed in rest they afflict themselves and wear themselves down by resisting their own wills, by bridling lust, by restraining license, and by casting down all that stands against the good of continence, according to this same man who said: "I mortify my body and subject it to servitude, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate." And in this way the tribulation of the just cannot be called indifferent, but plainly good, since through it the goods of virtue are fulfilled.

The unrighteous, however, even if they are afflicted — which affliction we said Scripture rather calls "scourgings" — since in these very scourgings and chastisements they do nothing according to the virtue of the soul, bring nothing toward patience, nor hope for proof through patience: for that reason in their case what is to be named is not the tribulation which arrives at these good things, but scourgings, as Scripture willed, even if you may sometimes find the term "tribulation" used improperly and applied to the unrighteous as well. But that you may know that the tribulation of the righteous does not narrow the virtue of the soul but rather enlarges it, hear Paul himself, writing to the Corinthians, how he distinguishes these things; for he speaks thus: "In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not straitened; we are cast down, but we do not perish." You see that he says he suffers tribulation not in one thing, but in all: that is, both in those things which befall him from without and are inflicted by others, and in those which he himself endures within himself for the sake of bodily continence and in the labors of the best disciplines; and therefore he says, "In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not straitened." For he cannot be straitened who is enlarged by the virtues. And that what we are saying may become still clearer in this way, Paul himself writes in what follows: "I know both how to be humbled and how to abound (in all things and unto all things I have been instructed), both to be filled and to hunger, both to abound and to suffer want." Therefore, if that is true which he said above, "In all things we suffer tribulation," it is certain that this is indicated by him: that both when he suffers want he is afflicted, and when he abounds he is nonetheless afflicted. But he is afflicted in want, because something is lacking; in abundance, however, because he restrains himself, lest through abundance he be dissolved, or lest he dispense less fittingly those things which seem to abound. So too both when he hungers and when he is filled, and when he suffers persecutions and when he lives in rest. And in this way, he who is afflicted in all these things rightly glories in his tribulations: from which without doubt is born patience, which, being made approved, brings forth hope, which, joined with charity, associates us with the Holy Spirit. — But as to what he said, "The charity of God has been poured out in our hearts," it must be considered more diligently in whose hearts the charity of God is poured out. I think that it is in the hearts of those who no longer have "the spirit of bondage again in fear," but also of those in whom "perfect charity casts out fear," and to whom the spirit "of adoption" is given, which cries in their hearts, "Abba, Father." It belongs, therefore, not to just any man, but to the perfect, and to such a one as Paul was, in whose heart the charity of God is poured out "through the Holy Spirit." But this also seems to me to require consideration: whether here he means that charity by which we love God, or that by which we are loved by God, to have been poured out through the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And if indeed that charity by which we love God is understood, this statement needs no proving; but if, because he said that the charity of God has been poured out in our hearts, that charity is rather to be understood by which we are loved by God, it is certain that he sets charity as the highest and greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, so that, this having first been received from God as a gift, by this very thing we may be able to love God — namely, because we are loved by God. For Paul himself also names the spirit of charity, and God is called charity, and Christ is named the Son of charity. But if there is found both a spirit of charity, and a Son of charity, and God who is charity, it is certain that from the one fount of the Paternal Deity both the Son is to be understood and the Holy Spirit, from whose abundance also into the hearts of the saints — for the taking hold of participation in the divine nature, as the apostle Peter taught — an abundance of charity is poured in: so that through this gift of the Holy Spirit that word may be fulfilled which the Lord speaks: "As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so may these also be one in us" — that is, made partakers of the divine nature in the abundance of charity ministered through the Holy Spirit.

We glory not only in the hope of glory but also in sufferings which are most salutary, being mindful of the greatness of the reward. We should desire to suffer something for the Lord's name so that when sufferings come to an end we may obtain an eternal reward for them. For when we consider the reward, we cannot possibly begrudge the effort needed to be worthy of the reward.

"Rejoice in your hope, and endure patiently your tribulations; for from the patient endurance of tribulations the hope concerning the things which are to come increaseth in us," even as he said in another place, "Tribulation perfecteth patience in us; and patience, probation, and probation, hope; and patience putteth not to shame." Whosoever beareth not tribulations by his own constancy, in him it is evident that the remembrance of hope is not, for if he had hope, he would also be in tribulation because of his hope, even as all the righteous who have come into the world were in tribulation with all kinds of labours, and in many afflictions they trod this path which leadeth to the kingdom of God; and because they trod it in hope the experience of the afflictions was pleasant unto them.

But how Paul, an apostle, from being a persecutor, who first of all shed the blood of the church, though afterwards he exchanged the sword for the pen, and turned the dagger into a plough, being first a ravening wolf of Benjamin, then himself supplying food as did Jacob, -how he, (I say, ) speaks in favour of martyrdoms, now to be chosen by himself also, when, rejoicing over the Thessalonians, he says, "So that we glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations, in which ye endure a manifestation of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be accounted worthy of His kingdom, for which ye also suffer! As also in his Epistle to the Romans: "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, being sure that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed." And again: "And if children, then heirs, heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.

Not only, he says, do we boast in the good things to come, but, what is even more, even in our present afflictions. Do not be troubled, he says, by the fact that we are in afflictions: this is itself a matter of boasting for a Christian.

Then when he says, and not only so, he shows the vehemence of this hope. For anyone who vehemently hopes for something endures difficult and bitter things for it, as a sick person who strongly desires health gladly drinks a bitter medicine to be healed by it. Therefore, the sign of the vehement hope we have for Christ is that we glory not only in virtue of our hope of future glory but also in the evils we suffer for it. Hence he says, and not only so, i.e., we not only glory in the hope of glory, but we glory also in tribulation, through which we arrive at glory: through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22); count it all joy when you meet various trials (Jas 1:2). Then he shows the cause when he says, knowing that. Here he mentions four things in order: the first is tribulation, about which he says, tribulation works patience, not in the sense that tribulation is the cause that begets it, but because suffering is the material and occasion for exercising the act of patience: be patient in tribulation (Rom 12:12).

It is clear that if endurance is of the quality we have said, our character will be quite strong. That there should be hope in someone who has been tried and tested is perfectly reasonable. One who is thus made worthy is sure to receive a reward in the kingdom of God.

And viewing the hope as twofold-that which is expected, and that which has been received-he now teaches the end to be the restitution of the hope. "For patience," he says, "worketh experience, and experience hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is given to us." On account of which love and the restoration to hope, he says, in another place, "which rest is laid up for us."

Divinely, therefore, Paul writes expressly, "Tribulation worketh, patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed." For the patience is on account of the hope in the future. Now hope is synonymous with the recompense and restitution of hope; which maketh not ashamed, not being any more vilified.

Tribulations; that is, are so far from confuting these hopes, that they even prove them. For before the things to come are realized, there is a very great fruit which tribulation hath-patience; and the making of the man that is tried, experienced. And it contributes in some degree too to the things to come, for it gives hope a vigor within us, since there is nothing that so inclines a man to hope for blessings as a good conscience. Now no man that has lived an upright life is unconfiding about things to come, as of those who have been negligent there are many that, feeling the burden of a bad conscience, wish there were neither judgment nor retribution. What then? do our goods lie in hopes? Yes, in hopes-but not mere human hopes, which often slip away, and put him that hoped to shame; when some one, who was expected to patronize him, dies, or is altered though he lives. No such lot is ours: our hope is sure and unmoveable. For He Who hath made the promise ever liveth, and we that are to be the enjoyers of it, even should we die, shall rise again, and there is absolutely nothing which can put us to shame, as having been elated at random, and to no purpose, upon unsound hopes. Having then sufficiently cleared them of all doubtfulness by these words of his, he does not let his discourse pause at the time present, but urges again the time to come, knowing that there were men of weaker character, who looked too for present advantages, and were not satisfied with these mentioned.

"Because the love of God is," he does not say "given, "but "shed abroad in our hearts," so showing the profusion of it. That gift then, which is the greatest possible, He hath given; not heaven and earth and sea, but what is more precious than any of these, and hath rendered us Angels from being men, yea sons of God, and brethren of Christ. But what is this gift? The Holy Spirit. Now had He not been willing to present us after our labors with great crowns, He would never have given us such mighty gifts before our labors. But now the warmth of His Love is hence made apparent, that it is not gradually and little by little that He honors us; but He hath shed abroad the full fountain of His blessings, and this too before our struggles.

In what way? Affliction produces patience, and patience makes the one being tested proven, and a proven person, comforting himself in his good conscience with the thought that he is subjected to afflictions for God's sake, hopes for recompense for these afflictions.

Second, he mentions the effect of patience when he says, and patience trial: for gold is tested in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation (Sir 2:5). For it is plain that we accept the loss of some thing easily for the sake of another thing we love more. Hence, if a person endures patiently the loss of bodily and temporal goods for the sake of obtaining eternal benefits, this is sufficient proof that such a person loves eternal blessings more than temporal. However, James seems to say the opposite: the trial of your faith produces patience (Jas 1:3). The answer is that 'trial' can be understood in two ways. In one way, as it takes place in the one tested; then the trial is the very suffering through which a man is tested. Hence, it is the same to say that tribulation produces patience and that tribulation tests patience. In another way, trial is taken for the fact of having been tested. This is the way it is taken here, because if a person endures sufferings patiently, he has been tested. Third, he mentions the third, saying, and trial hope, namely, trial brings about hope, because after a person has been tested, hope can be had by himself and by others that he will be admitted to God's inheritance: God tested them and found them worthy of himself (Wis 3:5). Therefore, from the first to the last it is clear that suffering paves the way to hope. Hence, if a person rejoices strongly in hope, it follows that he will glory in his sufferings.

Hope does not let us down, even though we are considered by evil people to be stupid and naive, because we believe in things which are impossible in this world. For we have in us the pledge of God's love through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Who can hurt such a man? Who can subdue him? In prosperity he makes moral progress, and in adversity he learns to know the progress he has made. When he has an abundance of mutable goods he does not put his trust in them, and when they are taken away he gets to know whether or not they have taken him captive.

That God may be loved, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, not by the free choice whose spring is in ourselves but through the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.

It is through love that we are conformed to God, and being so conformed and made like to him, and set apart from the world, we are no longer confounded by those things which should be subject to us. This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit who is given to us that this charity, shown by the apostle to be God's gift, is the reason why tribulation does not destroy patience but rather gives rise to it.

The law was indeed given through Moses, and there it was determined by a heavenly rule what was to be done and what was to be avoided, but what it commanded was completed only by the grace of Christ. On the one hand, that law was able to point out sin, teaching justice and showing transgressors what they are charged with. On the other hand, the grace of Christ, poured out in the hearts of the faithful through the spirit of charity, brings it about that what the law commanded may be fulfilled.

When therefore this twofold knowledge has gone before in us, knowledge that may perhaps have grown up afterward does not at all puff up, since it can bring nothing of earthly advantage or honor that is not indeed inferior to the hope conceived, and to the joy of hope already more deeply rooted in the soul. But hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Therefore that hope does not put to shame, because this love pours in certainty. For through this love the Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God. What then could come to us from our knowledge, however great, that would not be less than this glory, by which we are numbered among the children of God? I have said too little: not even the world itself and its fullness can be regarded in comparison with it, even if the whole of it should fall to any one of us as a possession.

Furthermore, this revelation which is made through the Holy Spirit, not only conveys the light of knowledge but also lights the fire of love, as St Paul again testifies: "The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us."

And that is perhaps the reason why, in the case of those who, knowing God, yet refused to honor him as God, we do not read that they knew by a revelation of the Holy Spirit; for even though they possessed knowledge they did not love. As St Paul states: "God has shown himself to them," but he does not add: "through the Holy Spirit," lest those impious minds should usurp to themselves the kiss of the bride. They were content with the knowledge that gives self-importance, but ignorant of the love that makes the building grow.

When the bride received the gift poured into her, they at once perceived the fragrance—they who could by no means be far from the mother; and filled with that sweetness they say: "The love of God has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." Therefore the bride, commending their devotion, says: "This, O bridegroom, is the fruit of your poured-forth name, that therefore the young maidens have loved you." For they perceive it as poured forth, since they could not grasp it whole; therefore they have loved you. For the pouring forth makes the name graspable, the grasping makes it lovable—but only for the young maidens. Those who are more capacious rejoice in it whole, and have no need of the pouring forth.

But it is fitting that the seal of truth be impressed upon the soul, by which also the soul becomes "an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed." The first seal consists in its having the indissoluble bond of charity, which occurs when the soul loves in such a way that it says: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger," etc. Not that man could never fall away from charity, but when he does, that he never think of sinning. The second [seal] consists in this, that [the soul] has the irrevocable gift of divine charity, so that it loves everything God loves, both friends and enemies, both strangers and neighbors. Hence, "the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts." Through these means, then, the soul diffuses itself in order that it may love every good, and nothing but good.

When our mind has been filled with all these intellectual lights, it is inhabited by the divine Wisdom as a house of God, having been made a daughter of God, a spouse and friend; having been made a member of Christ the Head, a sister and co-heir; having been made no less a temple of the Holy Spirit, founded through faith, elevated through hope, and dedicated to God through holiness of mind and body. All of which the most sincere charity of Christ accomplishes, which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, without which Spirit we cannot know the secrets of God. For just as the things of a man no one can know except the spirit of man which is in him, so also the things of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

It is to be understood that the indwelling of the adorable and thrice-Holy Spirit is found only in our minds and hearts.

The hope of things to come casts out all confusion. This is why the man who is dismayed by Christ's injunctions lacks hope. The greatness of God's benefits arouses in us greatness of love, which does not know fear or dismay because it is complete. We also learn how God loves us, because he has not only forgiven us our sins through the death of his Son but also given us the Holy Spirit, who already shows us the glory of things to come.

And such hope is not fruitless; it "does not put to shame" the one who hopes. Human hopes, when unfulfilled, put to shame those who hoped, but divine hopes are not of this kind. For the One who bestows good things is immortal and good, and we, even though we die, shall live again, and then nothing will any longer prevent our hopes from being fulfilled. He assures us of the future by the love that God has already shown to us. He speaks as if to say: do not lose faith; the hope for divine blessings is not in vain, for He Who so loved us that He made us children of God, without any labor on our part, through the Holy Spirit — how will He not give crowns after labors? "The love of God has been poured out," he says, "into our hearts," that is, it appears abundant and rich in us, who have in our hearts the Spirit Himself, Whom God has given to us.

Then when he says, and hope does not confound, he shows the firmness of such hope. First, he asserts it, saying, hope, namely, by which we hope for the glory of the sons of God, does not confound, i.e., does not fail, unless the man fails it. For a person is said to be confounded in his hope, when he falls away from the thing he hoped for: in you, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be disappointed (Ps 31:1); no one has hoped in the Lord and been disappointed (Sir 2:10). Second, at because the charity of God, he presents two arguments for the certainty of hope. The first is based on a gift of the Holy Spirit; the second on the death of Christ, at for why did Christ (Rom 5:6). First, therefore, he says: we can be certain that hope does not confound, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. The love of God can be taken in two ways: in one way, for the love by which God loves us: he loved you with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3); in another way for the love by which we love God: I am sure that neither death, nor life . . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:38–39). Both these loves of God are poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For the Holy Spirit, who is the love of the Father and of the Son, to be given to us is our being brought to participate in the love who is the Holy Spirit, and by this participation we are made lovers of God. The fact that we love him is a sign that he loves us: I love those who love me (Prov 8:17); not that we first loved God but that he first loved us (1 John 4:10). The love by which he loves us is said to be poured into our hearts, because it is clearly shown in our hearts by the gift of the Holy Spirit sealed in us: by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit he has given us (1 John 3:24). But the love by which we love God is said to be poured into our hearts, because it reaches to the perfecting of all the moral habits and acts of the soul; for, as is stated in 1 Corinthians: love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful (1 Cor 13:4). Both interpretations of these words lead to the conclusion that hope does not confound. For if they are taken to mean the love of God by which he loves us, it is clear that God does not deny himself to those whom he loves: he loved his people; all the holy ones were in his hand (Deut 33:3). Similarly, if they are taken as referring to the love by which we love God, it is clear that he has prepared eternal goods for those who love him: he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him (John 14:21).

If Christ gave himself up to death at the right time for those who were unbelievers and enemies of God … how much more will he protect us with his help if we believe in him! He died for us in order to obtain life and glory for us. So if he died for his enemies, just think what he will do for his friends!

Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person—and he would not need it.

The business of becoming a son of God, of being turned from a created thing into a begotten thing, of passing over from the temporary biological life into timeless 'spiritual' life, has been done for us. Humanity is already 'saved' in principle. We individuals have to appropriate that salvation. But the really tough work—the bit we could not have done for ourselves—has been done for us.

But again, showing that Christ did suffer, and was Himself the Son of God, who died for us, and redeemed us with His blood at the time appointed beforehand, he says: "For how is it, that Christ, when we were yet without strength, in due time died for the ungodly? But God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." He declares in the plainest manner, that the same Being who was laid hold of, and underwent suffering, and shed His blood for us, was both Christ and the Son of God, who did also rise again, and was taken up into heaven, as he himself [Paul] says: "But at the same time, [it, is] Christ [that] died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God." And again, "Knowing that Christ, rising from the dead, dieth no more:" for, as himself foreseeing, through the Spirit, the subdivisions of evil teachers [with regard to the Lord's person], and being desirous of cutting away from them all occasion of cavil, he says what has been already stated, [and also declares: ] "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." This he does not utter to those alone who wish to hear: Do not err, [he says to all: ] Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one and the same, who did by suffering reconcile us to God, and rose from the dead; who is at the right hand of the Father, and perfect in all things; "who, when He was buffeted, struck not in return; who, when He suffered, threatened not;" and when He underwent tyranny, He prayed His Father that He would forgive those who had crucified Him. For He did Himself truly bring in salvation: since He is Himself the Word of God, Himself the Only-begotten of the Father, Christ Jesus our Lord.

"For while we were yet weak, Christ, according to the time, died for the ungodly." Wishing to show more fully the powers of that charity which he had said was poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, he set forth for what reasons we ought to understand this, teaching us that Christ died not for the godly but for the ungodly. For we were ungodly before we were converted to God, and Christ assuredly underwent death for us before we believed: which beyond doubt he would not have done, had he not had toward us an exceeding and most abundant charity — whether our Lord Jesus Christ himself, by dying for the ungodly, or God the Father, by handing over his Only-begotten for the redemption of the ungodly.

Why did Christ die for us when he had no obligation to do so, if it was not to manifest his love at a time when we were still weighed down with the burden of sin and vice? It was the right time, either because righteousness had virtually disappeared and we were weak, or because it was the end of time, or because Christ was dead for the prophesied three-day period. Paul wants to point out that Christ died for the ungodly in order to commend the grace of Christ by considering his benefits and to show how much we, who have been undeservedly loved, ought to love him, and so that we might see whether anything should be valued more highly than one who is so generous and holy. He neither valued his life above us ungodly people nor withheld the death that was indispensable for us.

Having said that the love of God is poured out in us through the Spirit, Whom we have in ourselves as a gift from God, he further shows the greatness of this love from the fact that Christ died for us while we were weak, that is, sinners, and what is even worse, for the ungodly, although hardly anyone would die even for a righteous person. So then, this is a superabundance of love—to die for sinners and the ungodly. The phrase "in due time" means at the fitting and foreordained time, for the Lord died when the fitting time had come.

After disclosing that hope is firm, because it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle now traces its firmness to the death of Christ. First, he asks a question; second, a difficulty arises in answering it, at for scarce for a just man; third, he answers the question, at but God commends his charity. First, therefore, he says: it has been stated that hope does not disappoint. This is obvious to anyone who wonders, why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, that is, languishing in sin: be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing (Ps 6:2). For just as the due harmony of the humors is destroyed by bodily sickness, so by sin the correct order of our affections is removed. Therefore, when we were yet helpless, Christ . . . died for the ungodly: Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unrighteous (1 Pet 3:18). And this according to the time, i.e., he was to remain dead for a definite time and then rise on the third day: for as Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt 12:40). Therefore, this is marvelous, if we consider who died; also if we consider for whom he died. But it could not have been so marvelous, if no fruit were to be obtained: what profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit? (Ps 30:8). None, if the salvation of the human race does not follow.

Christ died for the ungodly. Now if someone will hardly die for a righteous man, how can it be that someone should die for ungodly people? And if someone might dare to die for one good man (or not dare, since the phrase is ambiguous), how can it be that someone would dare to die for a multitude of the ungodly? For if someone dares to die for a righteous or good man, it is probably because he has been touched with some sort of pity or been impressed by his good works. But in the case of the ungodly, not only is there no reason to die for them, but there is plenty to move us to tears when we look at them!

It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense—if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining—then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immortal souls then I think it conceals a dangerous error. The infinite value of each human soul is not a Christian doctrine. God did not die for man because of some value He perceived in him. The value of each human soul considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. As St. Paul writes, to have died for valuable men would have been not divine but merely heroic; but God died for sinners. He loved us not because we were lovable, but because He is Love.

In what sense should we take what we read in the Epistle to the Romans: for scarcely for a righteous man will one die; for peradventure for the good man some would even dare to die. (Rom. 5:7) For two heretics, because they do not understand this testimony, being in different errors indeed, but with equal impiety, blaspheme. For Marcion, who makes God the righteous, the Creator of the Law, and of the Prophets; but the good [God] of the Gospel and of the Apostle, and would make Him the Christ, introduces two gods - the one righteous, the other good. And he asserts that for the righteous [God] none, or few, suffered death. However, for Christ's sake, countless martyrs have existed. Moreover, Arius refers to Christ as just, of whom it was said: Give the king thy judgment, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son (Psalm 72:1); And in the Gospel he himself says of himself: For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son (John 5:22); And, I judge as I hear (ibid. 30). But goodness belongs to God the Father, of whom the Son himself confesses: Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments (Luke 18:19). And since up to this point his blasphemies were able to find crooked paths, he stumbles and falls in the following [paths]. For who dares to die for the Father, and scarcely does anyone die for the Son, when on account of the name of Christ so much blood of martyrs has been shed? Therefore, whoever simply expounds this passage can say that in the old Law, in which there is justice, scarcely a few people were found who shed their own blood. But in the new Testament, in which there is goodness and mercy, innumerable martyrs have existed. But from that which he established, it is possible that someone may even dare to die, and with a measured step balanced the sentence, it should be understood that some who dare to die for the Gospel can be found not to be received in this way; but the meaning of this place should be handled from the higher and lower parts. For Paul said he boasted in tribulations: because tribulation works patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope; and hope is not confounded (Rom. 5.4-5), which has a certain promise from him because the love of God is poured forth in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Ibid.): according to what God had said through the Prophet: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh (Joel 1.28); he marvels at the goodness of Christ, that he wanted to die for the ungodly, weak, and sinners, and to die at an opportune time, about which he says: In a time accepted I have heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee (Isaias 49.8). And again: Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). When everyone had sinned, they became useless together, there was no one who did good, not even one (Psalm 13.1). Therefore, his incredible goodness and unheard-of mercy, to die for the ungodly, for it is scarcely that someone would die for the just or the good, and he poured out his own blood, with fear of death terrifying all. For it can sometimes be found that someone dares to die for a just and good cause. But the love of God, which he has for us, is most proven by this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and his life was taken from the earth. And he was led to death for the iniquities of the people; he carried our sins, and his soul was handed over to death, and he was reckoned with the wicked (Isaiah 53); so that he might make us, the ungodly, infirm, and sinners, pious, robust, and just. Some interpret it thus. If he died for us who are impious and sinners, how much more confidently should we not hesitate to lay down our lives for a just and good Christ? Moreover, we do not think that what is just and good is something different or signifies any particular person; but rather a thing which is absolutely just and good, for the sake of which some may find difficulty but at times it can be found, to shed their own blood.

Now what he says is somewhat of this kind. For if for a virtuous man, no one would hastily choose to die, consider thy Master's love, when it is not for virtuous men, but for sinners and enemies that He is seen to have been crucified-which he says too after this, "In that, if when we were sinners Christ died for us."

"For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet for a good man perhaps someone would dare to die." For since scarcely anyone dies for a righteous man, and each one hesitates to undergo death, even if the cause of death be just, how great is this one, and how great must his charity toward us be reckoned, who, at that time in which he suffered, did not shrink from enduring death for the ungodly and the unrighteous? In this, surely, is the token of that highest divine goodness. For unless he were coming from that substance, and the Son of that Father of whom it is said that "none is good save one, God the Father," he certainly could not have shown so great a goodness toward us. Whence, because from this token of so great goodness he himself is recognized to be good, for this good one perhaps someone would even dare to die. For when each one has come to know so great a goodness of Christ toward himself, and has had his charity poured out in his heart, he will desire not only to die for this good one, but even to die boldly. And we often see this fulfilled in actual deeds and works, when those in whose hearts the charity of Christ has been abundantly poured out offer themselves even willingly and with all boldness to their persecutors, and confess the name of Christ, with the world listening, before angels and men, so that they dare not only to suffer injury for his name, but even to undergo for this good one that death which one scarcely endures for a righteous man. For so great is the love of this life that even when a just cause of death has come, each one scarcely accepts death patiently. Now a just cause of death seems to be present when it is brought on by the law of nature; and although it is just by the condition of mortality, yet the mind scarcely embraces yielding to the laws of nature. "Scarcely, therefore, does anyone die for a righteous man." But for a good man someone dares to die, and boldly falls, especially if he has understood that, while we were still according to the time ungodly and weak, he first died for us. And how shall not he who knows that these things were first bestowed on him by that one repay to a good one the death which that one expended upon the evil? But the error of those is refuted who thought this passage was to be so interpreted that what he said, "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die," they maintain must be understood of the God of the law, whom they call just but not good; while they assert that Christ is the Son of the good Father. But what will they do, since we find many martyrs in the law as well? Let them read the books of the Maccabees, where with all steadfastness the blessed mother with her seven sons undertakes martyrdom, and they not only endure martyrdom patiently but even heap reproaches upon the tyrant; and let them see whether what they say is true, that "scarcely does anyone die for a righteous man." Let them see the three youths cast with all confidence into the furnace of burning fire for the freedom of their faith, and let them say that "scarcely does anyone die for a righteous man." Death for God, then, is the only death which is undertaken with all boldness; but every other death is scarcely borne with endurance, even if it be just and comes down by the law of the human condition.

It is hard to die for a righteous person, because a righteous person is not destined to die.… But perhaps one would die for a good person, so that no harm might come to him.

Then when he says, for scarce, he shows a difficulty on the part of those for whom Christ died, i.e., the ungodly, saying, for scarce . . . will one, that is, anyone, die for the release of a just man; rather, the just man perishes and no one lays it to heart (Isa 57:1). That is why I say that scarce . . . will one die, yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die, on account of his zeal for virtue. It is rare, because it is so great; for no man has greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Yet what Christ did is never done, namely, to die for the ungodly and the unjust. That is why there is reason to wonder why Christ did this. This passage can be interpreted in another way, so that a just man will be one trained in virtue, and a good man one who is innocent. And although according to this the just man would be more excellent than the good man, yet scarcely anyone dies for the just man. The reason is that an innocent person, who is understood as good, seems more worthy of pity on account of his lack of years or of some such thing. But the just person, because he is perfect, lacks any defect that would elicit pity. Therefore, should anyone die for an innocent person, it could be through pity; but to die for a just man requires zeal for virtue, which is found in fewer persons than the emotion of pity.

Moreover, we do not prejudge when the Lord is to be the judge; save that if He shall find the repentance of the sinners full and sound, He will then ratify what shall have been here determined by us. If, however, any one should delude us with the pretence of repentance, God, who is not mocked, and who looks into man's heart, will judge of those things which we have imperfectly looked into, and the Lord will amend the sentence of His servants; while yet, dearest brother, we ought to remember that it is written, "A brother that helpeth a brother shall be exalted; " and that the apostle also has said, "Let all of you severally have regard to yourselves, lest ye also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ; " also that, rebuking the haughty, and breaking down their arrogance, he says in his epistle, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall; " and in another place he says, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand." John also proves that Jesus Christ the Lord is our Advocate and Intercessor for our sins, saying, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Supporter: and He is the propitiation for our sins." And Paul also, the apostle, in his epistle, has written, "If, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

"But God commends his charity toward us: because if, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, much more therefore now, being justified in his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him." Since he had said above that "Christ, according to the time, died for the ungodly," he now wishes from this to show the magnitude of God's charity toward men: for if it was so great toward the ungodly and toward sinners that for their salvation he gave his only Son, how much more bountiful and more abundant will it be toward those who have been converted and amended and, as he himself says, redeemed by his own blood? I certainly do not think that this variety of words in Paul is idle — that he sometimes names them weak, sometimes ungodly, sometimes sinners, on whose behalf he says Christ died; and although he confesses himself unskilled in speech, nevertheless I do not judge that in these matters he varied his terms through lack of skill, but rather through profound knowledge. For by these three every kind of sin is gathered up. For either someone, being ignorant of God, sins in darkness, and is called ungodly; or, wishing to keep the commandment, he is overcome by the frailty of the flesh and is deceived by the enticements of the present life, and is called weak; or knowingly and willingly he despises the commandment, and hates the discipline of God, and casts his words behind him, and is named a sinner. And thus Paul, who professes himself, as we have said, unskilled in speech, has embraced in these three distinctions all those for whom Christ is proclaimed to have died. But if at times even those who are under the law, and who seem to worship God, are named ungodly in the divine Scriptures, this happens for the reason that, forsaking the God of their fathers, they worship the gods of the nations. But that Paul numbers himself among sinners — he who elsewhere says, "We by nature Jews, and not sinners from among the Gentiles" — this is the virtue of his humility. For he imitates him "who, though he had done no sin, was made sin for us"; and though he was God, dwelt among men. "God therefore commends his charity toward us." Here "commends" is understood either as "confirms," or as "makes lovable on account of benefits." (For the fact that "Christ, while we were yet sinners, died for us" gives us hope that much more will he save us, purged from sin and justified, from the wrath that hangs over sinners, through himself; and he who so loved strangers and enemies that he gave his Only-begotten to death for us, much more will he bestow eternal salvation upon those who have been made his own and reconciled to him. But in what manner Christ died for us, and in what manner, being the Lamb of God, he took away the sin of the world and bore our infirmities and grieved for us, has often been discussed by us in other places, where we adduced also those things which are reported in secular histories: that even among them certain men are said to have driven off plagues, or whirlwinds, and other things similar to these, by exposing themselves to death, and to have freed their country or their nation from the destruction of an impending disaster. How truly these things are written, or what reason they may have if they are true, is for God alone to know. Yet none of those men about whom such things are narrated is said — not even in a fictitious account — to have absolved the sins of the whole world, save Jesus alone, "who, when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself," and according to the will of the Father, having taken the form of a servant, offered himself as a victim for the whole world, delivering his own blood to the prince of this world, according to the wisdom of God, "which none of the princes of this world knew: for if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty" — nor would that blood which they had thirsted for have extinguished not so much their thirst as their strength, and destroyed their kingdom; nor would there have befallen them that which the Lord says in the Gospel: "Behold, now is the prince of this world judged"; and this: "Behold, I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven."

God becomes the object of love when he conveys how much he loves us. For when someone does something without obligation, one demonstrates love in a special way. And what would be less of an obligation than that a master who is without sin should die for his faithless servants, and that the Creator of the universe should be hanged for the sake of his own creatures? Note that when the apostle says that believers in Christ were once sinners he means that now they are no longer sinners, so that they may recall how they ought to behave.

Then when he says, but God commends, he responds to the foregoing question. First, he sets out his response; Second, he argues from this to what he intends, at much more; Third, he shows how this follows of necessity, at for if, when we were enemies. He says therefore first: it was asked why Christ died for the ungodly, and the response to this is that, through this, God commends his charity towards us, i.e., through this he shows that he loves us to the greatest degree, because if when as yet we were sinners . . . Christ died for us, and this according to the time, as was explained above. The very death of Christ shows God's love for us, because he gave his own son that he should die in making satisfaction for us: for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16). And so as the love of God the Father for us is shown by the fact that he gives his own Spirit to us, as was said above, so also it is shown by the fact that he gave his Son, as is said here. But by the fact that he says, commends, he indicates a certain immensity of the divine love, which is shown both by his own deed, because he gave his Son, and by our condition, because he was not moved to do this by our merits, since we were still sinners: God who is rich in mercy, on account of the exceedingly great love wherewith he has loved us, while we were still dead in sins, has raised us to life with Christ (Eph 2:4).

Paul says this, because if God allowed his Son to be killed for sinners' sake, what will he do for those who have been justified except save them from wrath, that is, preserve them unharmed from the deception of Satan so that they will be safe on the day of judgment, when revenge will begin to destroy the wicked. For since the goodness of God does not want anyone to perish, he has shown mercy on those who deserved death in order to increase the honor and glory of those who understand the grace of God.

And what he has said looks indeed like tautology, but it is not to any one who accurately attends to it. Consider then. He wishes to give them reasons for confidence respecting things to come. And first he gives them a sense of shame from the righteous man's decision, when he says, that he also "was fully persuaded that what God had promised He was able also to perform;" and next from the grace that was given; then from the tribulation, as sufficing to lead us into hopes; and again from the Spirit, whom we have received. Next from death, and from our former viciousness, he maketh this good. And it seems indeed, as I said, that what he had mentioned was one thing, but it is discovered to be two, three, and even many more. First, that "He died:" second, that it was "for the ungodly;" third, that He "reconciled, saved, justified" us, made us immortal, made us sons and heirs. It is not from His Death then only, he says, that we draw strong assertions, but from the gift which was given unto us through His Death. And indeed if He had died only for such creatures as we be, a proof of the greatest love would what He had done be! but when He is seen at once dying, and yielding us a gift, and that such a gift, and to such creatures, what was done casts into shade our highest conceptions, and leads the very dullest on to faith. For there is no one else that will save us, except He Who so loved us when we were sinners, as even to give Himself up for us. Do you see what a ground this topic affords for hope? For before this there were two difficulties in the way of our being saved; our being sinners, and our salvation requiring the Lord's Death, a thing which was quite incredible before it took place, and required exceeding love for it to take place. But now since this hath come about, the other requisites are easier. For we have become friends, and there is no further need of Death.

Therefore (as I had begun to say), when God had determined to send to men a teacher of righteousness, He commanded Him to be born again a second time in the flesh, and to be made in the likeness of man himself, to whom he was about to be a guide, and companion, and teacher. But since God is kind and merciful to His people, He sent Him to those very persons whom He hated, that He might not close the way of salvation against them for ever, but might give them a free opportunity of following God, that they might both gain the reward of life if they should follow Him (which many of them do, and have done), and that they might incur the penalty of death by their fault if they should reject their King. He ordered Him therefore to be born again among them, and of their seed, lest, if He should be born of another nation, they might be able to allege a just excuse from the law for their rejection of Him; and at the same time, that there might be no nation at all under heaven to which the hope of immortality should be denied.

"Much more therefore," he says, "being now justified in his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him." Above indeed he had said: "Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God"; and now he says: "Much more now, being justified in his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him." From which he shows that neither does our faith justify us without the blood of Christ, nor does the blood of Christ justify us without our faith; yet of the two, the blood of Christ justifies us much more than our faith does. And therefore it seems to me that, whereas above he had said simply, "being justified by faith," here he has added, "much more therefore now, being justified in his blood," so as to teach that, even if our faith saves us from the wrath to come, even if works of righteousness do so, nevertheless above all these the blood of Christ much more makes us safe from the wrath to come. But how the wrath of God ought to be understood has been said more fully by us in the exposition of the second psalm, and how that which is written can be fulfilled, namely that we be made safe by fleeing from the wrath to come — fleeing wrath in such a way that it does not overtake us, but pursuing righteousness, piety, faith, charity, patience, meekness, and the rest of the things like these. Wrath, then, is that to which each one is handed over according to the measure and desert of his sins; God nevertheless, according to what is written in the seventy-seventh psalm, not kindling all his wrath. For who could endure it if the Lord kindled all his wrath against sinners, since that is so terrible which is pronounced in the canticle of Moses, where he says: "For a fire is kindled in my fury, and it shall burn even to the lowest hell: it shall devour the earth and its produce, it shall set ablaze the foundations of the mountains"? Consider, therefore, that this fire which is kindled from the wrath or the fury of the Lord devours the earth and the lower hell, and consumes earthly works; it sets ablaze also not the heights of the mountains, but the foundations — that is, not lofty souls, nor heavenly minds, but those cast down to the ground and to the earth, or even sunk into the depth of the earth, as are the foundations of mountains. It was necessary, then, to discuss wrath also a little, so that it might be known more plainly from what evils the blood of Christ has rescued us.

If Christ loved sinners so much, how much more will he now preserve the righteous! We must be careful not to make him unclean by our sinning, as the apostle himself tells the Hebrews.

And if He died out of love and by His death justified us, how much more will He now save us from wrath, us whom He has already justified. He granted us the greater thing—justification: how will He not save us from wrath? And to those saved from wrath He will also grant blessings—according to His great love.

Then when he says, much more, therefore, he concludes what he had intended from the foregoing, saying: if Christ died for us while we were still sinners, much more being now justified by his blood, as was said above, whom God has proposed to be a propitiation through faith (Rom 3:25), through his blood, shall we be saved from wrath, i.e., from the vengeance of eternal condemnation, which men incur by their sins: brood of vipers, who showed you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matt 3:7).

The God who acts on behalf of his enemies will not be able to love his friends any less than that. Therefore if the death of the Savior benefited us while we were still ungodly, how much more will his life do for us who are justified, when he raises us from the dead?

There are many passages of this sort, which set forth with clarity and splendor the great, ineffable benevolence of God in freely pardoning our sins and granting us the means and the power of performing righteous acts for the glory of God and his Christ, in the hope of receiving eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

He was not returning love but freely offering it. For who had given him anything first, that it should be returned to him? "Not that we had loved him, but that he first loved us." He loved us even before we existed, and in addition he loved us when we resisted him. According to the witness of St Paul: "Even when we were still his enemies we were reconciled to God through the blood of his Son." If he had not loved his enemies, he could not have had any friends, just as he would have had no one to love if he had not loved those who were not.

[Lewis: once a man has seen he is at enmity with the absolute goodness behind the Moral Law, Christianity begins to answer the question of how reconciliation is possible]

They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God.

Now what was the sort of 'hole' man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of our 'hole'. This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance.

"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in his life. And not only so, but we also glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." What he says, "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God," plainly shows that there is no substance which, according to the definition of Marcion or Valentinus, is by nature hostile to God; for otherwise, if what is hostile belonged to nature and not to the will, it would surely admit of no reconciliation. But where someone is made a friend out of an enemy, it is certain that, so long as he does those works which God does not love, he is an enemy of God, and each one becomes an enemy so much the more grievous and more hateful as he has multiplied works deserving of enmity. There are therefore certain measures and degrees, distinguished by the quality or quantity of their sins, among those who are enemies to God. Whence also he who has sinned above all others is recorded by Paul as the last enemy to be destroyed. But conversely and in like order it is certain that those who have been reconciled through the death of his Son are held among his friends: and that one is a friend in such a way as Moses was called the friend of God; and that there are others also to whom the Savior says, "Now I will no longer call you servants, but friends." And I believe that there are yet others still more intimate as friends with God in the heavenly places — either those who always behold the face of God, or those who always stand in the sight of the Most High: so that, just as we said above that there is a certain last enemy, so there too, according to the merits of their virtues, some are reckoned the highest friends. Since, then, these things are so, I do not know whether he who still remains in those works which God hates, and on account of which there is enmity between God and men, can rightly be said to have been reconciled to God through the blood of Christ. For how has he been reconciled, who does the deeds of an enemy? Paul therefore rightly says of himself and of those like himself, that "when we were enemies, we were reconciled through the death of his Son." It is a great shame that, where such a reconciliation has been made, where the enmities between God and men were dissolved not by the word of a sinner but by the blood of an intercessor, we should turn back again to enmities, and do those things which he hates whom no one but the pouring out of sacred blood had reconciled to us. But Paul himself, writing more fully to the Ephesians, mentions the principle of reconciliation and of enmity, and the shedding of Christ's blood; and if we join these passages together, they can more easily open up the passage of the present chapter. He says, then, thus: "Wherefore be mindful, you who were once Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh, made by hand, that at that time you were without Christ, alienated from the way of life of Israel, and strangers to the promise of his covenants, having no hope, and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and, dissolving the middle wall of partition, the enmity in his flesh, abolishing the law of commandments in decrees, that he might create the two in himself, making peace in one new man, that he might reconcile both in one body to God, slaying the enmities in himself through the cross; and coming he preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near, since through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." But especially note in these words this: that Christ dissolved the middle wall of partition in his flesh, that is, the enmity; and that he reconciled both in one body to God through the cross; and that he slew the enmity on the cross. And in this it is not without reason that Paul there seems to have named the enmity a second time, and in the one place to have said that Christ dissolved the enmity in the flesh, but in the second that he slew it on the cross. For "to dissolve" seems to me to apply to those who still wage the struggle against sin and fight against it with all their strength; but "to slay" to those who now no longer admit sin at all, but have in every part mortified their members to sin — among whom was also he who said: "I have been crucified with Christ. But I live, now not I; rather Christ lives in me." In this way, therefore, Christ also slew the enmity in his flesh, when by undergoing death he gave men an example of resisting sin even unto death: and so at last, the enmity having been dissolved in his flesh, he reconciled men to God through his blood — those, at least, who keep the covenant of reconciliation inviolate by sinning no more. Therefore his death gave death to that enmity which was between us and God, and was the beginning of reconciliation. But his resurrection and life conferred salvation on believers, as the Apostle also says elsewhere concerning Christ: "For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives to God." He is said to have died to sin — not to his own, for neither did he commit sin — but he himself died to sin, that is, as one who by his own death brought death upon sin itself. And he is said to live to God, so that we too may live not to ourselves, nor to our own will, but to God, that so at last we may be able to be saved in his life, according to him who said: "But I live, now not I; rather Christ lives in me."

Sinners are enemies because they show contempt. We were enemies in our deeds but not by nature; we have been reconciled in peace, because by nature we have been united in peace. If we have been saved by Christ's death, how much more shall we glory in his life if we imitate it!

Once more, Paul calls the Lord Christ "the Son," who is both God and man. But it is clear, I think, even to the greatest heretics in which nature his suffering took place.

Although, it would seem, he says here the same thing, the inferences through comparison are different. Above he speaks of our sinfulness and then, adding that we have been justified, concludes through comparison: He who justified us sinners by His death will all the more save those who have been justified. But now, mentioning the death and life of Christ, he again reasons comparatively: when we were reconciled by the Blood and death of the Lord, how shall we not now be saved in His life? For He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him over to death for our reconciliation, will He not all the more now save us by His life?

Then when he says, for if, when we were enemies, he shows the necessity of his conclusion, which proceeds by arguing from the lesser to the greater. And one should observe here two comparisons of lesser to greater, one on our part and one on the part of Christ. On our part he compares enemies to those who are reconciled. For it seems a lesser thing that someone should treat enemies well who are already reconciled. On the part of Christ he compares death to life. For his life is more powerful than his death because, as is said the last chapter of 2 Corinthians: he died through weakness, namely the weakness of our flesh, but lives through the power of God (2 Cor 13:4). And this is why he says: with reason I concluded that much more, being enlivened, shall we be saved through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, and this by the death of his Son: much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved, and this by his life. Now one should note that a man is said to be an enemy of God in two ways. In one way, because he practices hostility towards God when he resists his commands: he has run against him with his neck raised up (Job 15:26). In another way, a man is said to be an enemy of God by the fact that God hates men, not indeed insofar as he made them, because in this regard it is said, you have loved all things, and you have hated nothing of the things you have made (Wis 11:25); but insofar as the enemy of man, i.e., the devil, has worked in man: i.e., as regards sin: similarly God hates the ungodly (Wis 14:9), and the Most High hates sinners (Sir 12:7). Once the cause of enmity, namely, sin, has been removed by Christ, reconciliation through him follows: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19); for our sin was removed through the death of his Son. In this regard it should be noted that Christ's death can be considered in three ways. First, precisely as a death; and so it is said: God did not make death (Wis 1:13) in human nature, but it was brought on by sin. Accordingly, Christ's death, precisely as death, was not so acceptable to God as to be reconciled through it, because God does not delight in the death of the living (Wis 1:13). In another way Christ's death can be considered with emphasis on the action of the killers, which greatly displeased God. Hence St. Peter says against them: you denied the holy and just one . . . and killed the author of life (Acts 3:14). From this aspect Christ's death could not be the cause of reconciliation but rather of indignation. It can be considered in a third way according as it proceeds from the will of Christ suffering, which was a will formed to the endurance of death, in obedience to the Father: he became obedient to the Father even unto death (Phil 2:8) and out of love for men: Christ loved us and gave himself up for us (Eph 5:2). From this aspect Christ's death was meritorious and satisfied for our sins; it was accepted by God as sufficient for reconciling all men, even those who killed Christ, some of whom were saved at his prayer: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).