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117. And now regarding love, which the apostle says
is greater than the other two--that is, faith and
hope--for the more richly it dwells in a man, the
better the man in whom it dwells. For when we ask
whether someone is a good man, we are not asking what
he believes, or hopes, but what he loves. Now, beyond
all doubt, he who loves aright believes and hopes
rightly. Likewise, he who does not love believes in
vain, even if what he believes is true; he hopes in
vain, even if what he hopes for is generally agreed
to pertain to true happiness, unless he believes and
hopes for this: that he may through prayer obtain the
gift of love. For, although it is true that he cannot
hope without love, it may be that there is something
without which, if he does not love it, he cannot
realize the object of his hopes. An example of this
would be if a man hopes for life eternal--and who is
there who does not love that?--and yet does not love
righteousness, without which no one comes to it.
Now this is the true faith of Christ which the
apostle commends: faith that works through love. And
what it yet lacks in love it asks that it may
receive, it seeks that it may find, and knocks that
it may be opened unto it.(246) For faith achieves
what the law commands [fides namque impetrat quod lex
imperat]. And, without the gift of God--that is,
without the Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed
abroad in our hearts--the law may bid but it cannot
aid [jubere lex poterit, non juvare]. Moreover, it
can make of man a transgressor, who cannot then
excuse himself by pleading ignorance. For appetite
reigns where the love of God does not.(247)
118. When, in the deepest shadows of ignorance, he
lives according to the flesh with no restraint of
reason--this is the primal state of man.(248)
Afterward, when "through the law the knowledge of
sin"(249) has come to man, and the Holy Spirit has
not yet come to his aid--so that even if he wishes to
live according to the law, he is vanquished--man sins
knowingly and is brought under the spell and made the
slave of sin, "for by whatever a man is vanquished,
of this master he is the slave"(250) . The effect of
the knowledge of the law is that sin works in man the
whole round of concupiscence, which adds to the guilt
of the first transgression. And thus it is that what
was written is fulfilled: "The law entered in, that
the offense might abound."(251) This is the second
state of man.(252)
But if God regards a man with solicitude so that
he then believes in God's help in fulfilling His
commands, and if a man begins to be led by the Spirit
of God, then the mightier power of love struggles
against the power of the flesh.(253) And although
there is still in man a power that fights against
him--his infirmity being not yet fully healed--yet he
[the righteous man] lives by faith and lives
righteously in so far as he does not yield to evil
desires, conquering them by his love of
righteousness. This is the third stage of the man of
good hope.
A final peace is in store for him who continues to go
forward in this course toward perfection through
steadfast piety. This will be perfected beyond this
life in the repose of the spirit, and, at the last,
in the resurrection of the body.
Of these four different stages of man, the first
is before the law, the second is under the law, the
third is under grace, and the fourth is in full and
perfect peace. Thus, also, the history of God's
people has been ordered by successive temporal
epochs, as it pleased God, who "ordered all things in
measure and number and weight."(254) The first period
was before the law; the second under the law, which
was given through Moses; the next, under grace which
was revealed through the first Advent of the
Mediator."(255) This grace was not previously absent
from those to whom it was to be imparted, although,
in conformity to the temporal dispensations, it was
veiled and hidden. For none of the righteous men of
antiquity could find salvation apart from the faith
of Christ. And, unless Christ had also been known to
them, he could not have been prophesied to
us--sometimes openly and sometimes obscurely--through
their ministry.
119. Now, in whichever of these four "ages"--if
one can call them that--the grace of regeneration
finds a man, then and there all his past sins are
forgiven him and the guilt he contracted in being
born is removed by his being reborn. And so true is
it that "the Spirit breatheth where he willeth"(256)
that some men have never known the second "age" of
slavery under the law, but begin to have divine aid
directly under the new commandment.
120. Yet, before a man can receive the
commandment, he must, of course, live according to
the flesh. But, once he has been imbued with the
sacrament of rebirth, no harm will come to him even
if he then immediately depart this life--"Wherefore
on this account Christ died and rose again, that he
might be the Lord of both the living and the
dead."'(257) Nor will the kingdom of death have
dominion over him for whom He, who was "free among
the dead,"(258) died. |