Augustine, Sermones 164-170 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

Chapter XV. — 18. One must always make progress on the way to God. What then do I do? Forgetting the things that are behind, stretched out towards the things that are ahead, I follow according to my intention. I still follow: towards the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus. I still follow, I still make progress, I still walk, I am still on the way, I still stretch myself out, I have not yet arrived. Therefore if you too are walking, if you are stretching yourself out, if you are thinking of the things that are to come, forget the things that are past, do not look back at them, lest you remain there where you have looked back. Remember Lot's wife (Luke 17:32). As many then as are perfect, let us be of this mind. He had said, I am not perfect, and he says, As many as are perfect, let us be of this mind. I do not consider that I have laid hold of it. Not that I have already received it, or am already perfect: and he says, As many as are perfect, let us be of this mind. Perfect, and not perfect: perfect as travellers, not yet perfect as possessors. And so that you may know that he calls them perfect travellers: those who are already walking on the way are perfect travellers. So that you may know that he spoke of travellers, not of inhabitants, not of possessors, hear what follows: As many then as are perfect, let us be of this mind. And if in anything you are otherwise minded, lest perhaps it creep upon you that you are something. For whoever thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself (Gal. 6:3). And whoever thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know (1 Cor. 8:2). Therefore, And if in anything you are otherwise minded, as little children; this too God will reveal to you. Nevertheless, in that to which we have attained, in that let us walk. So that God may reveal to us also that in which we are otherwise minded, let us not remain in that to which we have attained, but let us walk in it. You see that we are travellers. You say, What is it to walk? I say briefly, To make progress; lest perhaps you do not understand, and walk more sluggishly. Make progress, my brothers, examine yourselves always without deceit, without flattery, without coaxing. For there is no one inside with you before whom you should blush, and boast of yourself. There is One there, but One Whom humility pleases; let Him test you. Test yourself too, you yourself. Let what you are always displease you, if you wish to arrive at what you are not yet. For where you have pleased yourself, there you have stayed. But if you say, It is enough; then you have perished. Always add, always walk, always make progress: do not stay on the way, do not go back, do not turn aside. He stays who does not make progress; he goes back who rolls back to the things from which he had already departed; he turns aside who apostatizes. Better goes a lame man on the way than a runner off the way. Turning to the Lord, etc.

Sermon CLXX. On the same words of the Apostle, Philippians, chapter 3, 6-16, According to the righteousness which is from the Law, I who was without complaint, etc., and on the words of Psalm 142, 1, 2, Hear me in Thy righteousness, etc., and finally on the reading of the Gospel of John, chapter 6, 39, It is the will of the Father that all that He has given Me should not perish, etc.

Chapter I. — 1. Righteousness from the Law to the Apostle a loss

seems. All the divine readings are so connected with one another as though there were a single reading, because all proceed from one mouth. Many are the mouths of those who bear the ministry of the word, but one is the mouth that fills the ministers. We have heard the apostolic reading, and perhaps what is written there troubles someone: As regards the righteousness which is from the law, I who was without complaint. What things were gains to me, these I have counted losses for Christ. Then he went on to say: Not only losses, but I have even reckoned them to be dung, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but the righteousness which is from the faith of Jesus Christ. How then did he reckon it dung and losses to have lived without complaint according to the righteousness which is from the law? For who gave the law? Did not He Himself send the law beforehand Who afterwards came with pardon to those guilty under the law? But we believe that He came with pardon to those whom the law held guilty. Yet did the law hold guilty those who lived without complaint according to the righteousness which is from the law? If therefore the Lord brought pardon and forgiveness of sins to those guilty under the law, did He not bring it to Paul the apostle, who says that he lived in the law without complaint? But let us hear him himself in another place: Not by works, he says, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5). And again: I who was formerly a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent; but I obtained mercy (1 Tim. 1:13), and the rest. Here he declared that he had lived in the law without complaint; here he confesses that he had been such a sinner, so that no sinner may on that account despair of himself, since Paul obtained pardon.

Chapter II. — 2. The saying of the Apostle is to be so understood that the error of the Manichees concerning the old law may be guarded against. For what purpose the law was given. Original sin. See, brethren, and consider the force of this saying: how the apostle Paul reckons as losses and dung that in which he says he lived without complaint. Here a fulfiller of the law, here guilty under the law, at one and the same time, before Baptism, before grace. But not without cause does he say they are losses: lest harmful thoughts creep in, that the apostle Paul said this because one gave the law and another the Gospel, as Manichaeus thinks with perverse mind, and the other heretics, who have said that the giver of the law which was given through Moses was one, and the bestower of the grace of the Gospel another; the former indeed an evil God, the latter a good God. Why do we wonder, brethren? In the obscurity of the law, as before closed doors, they suffered darkness, because they did not knock with piety. We find the same Paul at one point saying most plainly that the law is good (Rom. 7:12); yet he says that it was given for this reason, that sin might abound; and that sin abounded for this reason, that grace might superabound (ibid. 5:20). For men presumed upon their own strength, and by doing whatever they judged to be lawful for themselves, they sinned against the hidden law of God. Hence this manifest law was promulgated to those who did not at all seem to themselves to be guilty. The law was given to them, not such as would heal, but such as by which the sick

might be shown up. The law ran on ahead of the physician, so that the sick man, who thought himself healthy, might find himself sick: and it said: You shall not covet (Rom. 7:7). And because before the law was given there was as yet no transgression: For where there is no law, he says, neither is there transgression (Rom. 4:15): previously there was sinning without law; but once the law had been given, when sin was committed, it was greater sin, because it was sin with transgression. Man found himself conquered by his own desires, which by evil habit he had been nourishing against himself; he who had moreover been propagated from Adam with the bond and obligation of sin. Hence the Apostle says: We too were once by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). Hence it is that it says that not even an infant of one day is clean from sin (Job 14:4, according to the Seventy): not from what it has committed, but from what it has contracted.

Chapter III. — 3. No sin in Christ. Hear the Psalm speaking of inward things, and singing of the more secret things of our sins. For it is in the person of the human race that it is said to Christ: Against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil before Thee. He does not say this in the person of David alone, but in the person of Adam, from whom the human race comes. For hear what follows: Against Thee, he says, only have I sinned, and done evil before Thee; that Thou may be justified in Thy words. It is said to Christ: from what do we understand this? Hear what follows: And that Thou may conquer when judged (Ps. 50:6). God the Father was not judged, God the Holy Spirit was not judged: we find none judged but the Son alone, in this flesh which He deigned to take up from our lump: not by way of the concupiscence of man and woman: a virgin believed, a virgin conceived, a virgin gave birth, a virgin remained. And therefore it is said, And that Thou may conquer when judged. For He was judged, and He conquered; because He was judged without sin. To undergo judgement was a matter of patience, not of guilt. Many innocent people are judged, but [they are innocent] in the very cases which they plead. For as to the rest, they are not without sin; because just as before men there is sin of the deed, so before God there is sin of the thought. Your thought is your deed before the eyes of God. The Judge Himself is witness of the deed: conscience itself is the accuser of the deed. Therefore He was judged truly innocent, and therefore He conquered. For He alone conquered, not over the judge Pontius Pilate, nor over the raging Jews; but over the devil himself, who searches out all our sins with the diligence of envy.

Chapter IV. — 4. The world: sinners and lovers of the world. Christ alone innocent. Original sin. And what does the Lord Jesus say about the devil himself? Behold, the prince of this world comes. It has already often been said to Your Charity that sinners are called this world. And why are sinners called by the name of world? Because by love of the world they inhabit the world. For those who do not love the world do not dwell in what they do not love. Our manner of life, he says, is in the heavens (Phil. 3:20). If therefore he who loves God dwells in heaven with God, he who loves the world dwells in the world with the prince of the world. All the lovers of the world, therefore, are themselves the world: dwellers in the world, not by the flesh,

which all the just are; but in mind, which sinners alone are, whose prince is the devil. In the way that the inhabitants of a house are called a house: according to which manner of speaking we say that a marbled house is bad, and a smoke-blackened house is good. You find a smoky house, which good people inhabit, and you say, A good house. You find a marbled and panel-ceilinged house, which the wicked possess, and you say, A bad house: calling "house" not the walls and receptacles of bodies, but the inhabitants themselves. So Scripture has called the inhabitants of the world "world" by reason of the concupiscence of their love, not by reason of the dwelling of the body. Therefore, Behold, He says, the prince of the world comes, and in Me he finds nothing. In Him alone the devil found nothing. And as if it were said to Him, Why then do You die? there follows, But that all may know that I do the will of My Father, rise, let us go hence (John 14:30–31). He rises, and goes to the passion. Why? Because I do the will of My Father. On account of this singular innocence, therefore, the Psalm says, Against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil before Thee; that Thou may be justified in Thy words, and may prevail when judged: because he found nothing evil in Thee. But why did he find [something] in you, O human race? Because it follows and says, For I was conceived in iniquity, and in sins my mother conceived me (Ps. 50:6–7). David says this. Ask whence David was born; you will find [he was born] of a lawful wife, of no adultery. According to what propagation, then, does he say, I was conceived in iniquity; unless because there is in it something of the propagation of death, which everyone who is born from the union of man and woman draws along with him?

Chapter V. — 5. Conduct without complaint according to the law. Each one, therefore, since he has concupiscence, let him attend to the law that says, You shall not covet (Exod. 20:16): he finds in himself what the law forbids, and becomes guilty under the law. But finding in himself that to which he is subject, let him now begin to say, I delight in the law of God according to the inner man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members. He has recognized himself to be sick; let him implore the physician: Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? Let the physician answer, The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:22–25). The grace of God, not your merits. Why then did you say of yourself that you had lived in the law with righteousness without complaint? Pay attention: he said without complaint of men. For there is a certain righteousness which a man can fulfil, such that no one among men complains about a man. For it says, You should not covet what is another's. If you have not seized what is another's, there will be no complaint of men. So at times you covet, and do not seize. But the sentence of God is above you, because you covet: you are guilty under the law, but in the eyes of the lawgiver. You live without complaint: why then these losses? why this dung? This knot is somewhat tighter: but He who is wont to untie it will untie it. And may we merit this, not I alone by pious submission, but all of us by pious attention. Whatever the Jews did, on account of which men would not complain, and they had conduct in

the law without complaint, they attributed to themselves, and they assigned that very righteousness according to the law to their own strength: they could not fulfil it, but they did as much as they could; by attributing it to themselves, they did not fulfil even this piously.

Chapter VI. — 6. The righteousness of man is nothing unless it is from God. This, then, he calls fulfilling the law, that is, not to covet. Who that lives is able to do this? Let the Psalm help us which was just now sung, Hear me in Thy righteousness: that is, not in mine. If he were to say, Hear me in my righteousness, he would be calling it, as it were, a merit. He does indeed in some places call it his own righteousness too: but here he distinguishes better, because even when he calls it his own, he calls it given; just as we say, Give us this day our daily bread (Luke 11:3). How is it "our"; how is it "give"? Therefore, speaking more distinctly here, he says, Hear me in Thy righteousness. And there follows, And enter not into judgement with Thy servant. What is, Enter not into judgement with Thy servant? Do not stand with me in judgement, demanding of me all that Thou commanded, demanding all that Thou ordered. For Thou will find me guilty, if Thou enter into judgement with me. I have need, therefore, he says, of Thy mercy rather than of Thy most clear-sighted judgement. Why then, Enter not into judgement with Thy servant? He goes on and says, For in Thy sight no one living shall be justified. For I am a servant: why stand with me in judgement? I shall make use of the mercy of the Lord. Why? Because in Thy sight no one living shall be justified. What has he said? As long as one lives in this life, no one is justified, but [this is] in the sight of God. Not in vain did he add, in Thy sight: except that a man can be justified in the sight of men, so that this too may be fulfilled, According to the righteousness which is from the law, I who was without complaint, in the sight of men. Refer it to the sight of God: In Thy sight no one living shall be justified.

Chapter VII. — 7. The righteousness of this life, compared with the righteousness to come, is to be accounted as nothing. What then are we to do? Let us cry out, Enter not into judgement with Thy servant. Let us cry out, Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This, then, we have heard the Psalm say, this we have heard the Apostle say; because when there is that righteousness according to which the angels live, when there is that righteousness where there will be no concupiscence, then let each one measure himself by it, what he is now and what he will be then; and he will find, in comparison with that righteousness, that this one is loss and dung. But whoever thinks that he can now fulfil righteousness, when he has lived well and innocently according to the plausibility of human estimation, has stopped on the way: he does not desire anything better, because he thinks he has fulfilled it; and above all, by attributing it to himself, he will be proud. And better is a humble sinner than a proud righteous man. Therefore he says, And may I be found in Him not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, as the Jews supposed; but the righteousness which is from the faith of Christ Jesus.

Then he went on to say, If by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. There he believed that he would fulfil righteousness, that is, that he would have full righteousness. In comparison with that resurrection, the whole life that we lead is dung. Hear the Apostle saying it more openly still, If by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the just: not that I have already received, or am already perfect. And he joined on next, Brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold. How does he compare righteousness with righteousness, salvation with salvation, faith with sight, pilgrimage with the city?

Chapter VIII. — 8. Present righteousness is to be despised out of desire for perfect righteousness. Mark how he fulfils this: Brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold. But one thing. What one thing, except to live by faith, in hope of eternal salvation, where there will be full and perfect righteousness, in comparison with which the things that are to pass away are losses, and the things that are to be rejected are dung? What then? But one thing: forgetting the things that are behind, stretched out towards the things that are before, I follow according to my aim towards the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus. And to those who might presume on their own perfection, As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us be of this mind. A little before he had said that he was imperfect, but now that he was perfect. Why, unless because this itself is the perfection of man, to have found that he is not perfect? As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us be of this mind. And if perhaps you are otherwise minded in anything, God will reveal this also to you: that is, so that if you think yourselves justified by some progress of the soul, by reading the Scriptures and by finding out what true and perfect righteousness is, you may find yourselves guilty, and out of desire for the things to come may condemn the things present, may live by faith and hope and charity; and may understand that what you still believe, you do not yet see; what you still hope for, you do not yet hold; what you still desire, you do not yet fulfil. And if such is the charity of those on pilgrimage, what will be that of those who see? Therefore he who taught the righteousness of God, and did not establish his own, cried out from the Psalm, Hear me in Thy righteousness. And enter not into judgement with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no one living be justified.

Chapter IX. — 9. Perfect righteousness and happiness when God shall be seen. With respect to this life it is said to Moses, No one has seen the face of God and lived (Exod. 33:20). For one must not live in this life in order to see that face. One must die to the world, in order to live to God for ever. Then we shall not sin, not only in deeds, but not even in desires, when we see that face which overcomes all desires. For it is so sweet, my brethren, so beautiful, that once it is seen nothing else can delight. There will be an insatiable satiety, no weariness; we shall always hunger, we shall always be filled. Hear both these sayings from Scripture: They that drink me, says Wisdom, shall still thirst; and they that eat me shall still hunger (Ecclus. 24:29). But lest you think that there will be need and hunger there, hear the Lord: Whoever drinks of this water shall not thirst for ever (John 4:13). But you say: When will it be? Whenever it will be,

yet wait for the Lord, bear up for the Lord, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened (Ps. 26:14). Do as many things remain as have already been accomplished? Consider, from Adam up to the present day, how many ages have rolled by, and behold, now they are not. Few days remain, in a certain manner: for so must what remains be spoken of, in comparison with the ages gone by. Let us exhort one another; let Him exhort us Who came to us, Who ran the way, and said, Follow: Who ascended first into heaven, so that the Head might from on high come to the help of the other members labouring on earth; Who said from heaven, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me (Acts 9:4)? Therefore let no one despair: what has been promised will be rendered to us at the end; there that righteousness will be fulfilled.

Chapter X. — 10. Our Day, Christ. With all our desire we must strive towards heaven. You have heard that the Gospel too is in accord with these words. It is the will, He says, of the Father, that all that He has given Me should not perish, but have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day. Himself on the first day, us on the last day. The first day pertains to the Head of the Church. For our Day, the Lord Christ, does not set. The last day will be the end of the world. I do not want you to say: When will that be? For the human race it will be far off, for each individual among men it will be near; because each one's last day is the day of his death. And indeed, when you go out from here, you will be received according to your merits, and you will rise again to receive what you have done. Then God will crown not so much your merits as His own gifts. Whatever He has given you, if you have kept it, He will recognize. Now therefore, brothers, let our desire be for nothing but heaven; let it be for nothing but eternal life. Let no one be pleased with himself, as one who has lived justly here, and compare himself with those who live badly, after the manner of the Pharisee who justified himself (Luke 18:11), who had not heard the Apostle: Not that I have already received, or am already perfect. So he had not yet received that which he desired. He had received a pledge, so he said: Who has given us the Spirit as a pledge (2 Cor. 5:5). That of which it was the pledge, this he longed to attain: it is a certain participation, but there is a difference. In one way we participate now, in another we shall participate then. Now by faith, by hope, in the same Spirit: but then there will be sight, there will be the reality: yet the same Spirit, the same God, the same fullness. He Who calls out to the absent will display [it] to those who are present: He Who calls the pilgrims will nourish and sustain them in the homeland.

Chapter XI. — 11. Our Way, Christ. Christ has been made the Way for us, and do we despair of arriving? This Way cannot be ended, cannot be cut off, cannot be corrupted, nor be beset by rain, nor by floods, nor by robbers. Walk secure in Christ, walk; do not stumble, do not fall, do not look back, do not stay still on the way, do not withdraw from the way. Only beware of all these things, and you have arrived. When you have arrived, then indeed boast of this: not in yourself. For whoever praises himself does not praise God, but turns himself away from God: just as when someone wishes to withdraw from a fire, the fire remains hot, but he grows cold; just as when someone wishes to withdraw from the light, if he has withdrawn, the light remains bright in itself, but he is darkened. Let us not withdraw from the warmth of the Spirit, from the light of truth. Now we have heard the Voice, but then face to

face we shall see. Let no one be pleased with himself, let no one insult another. Let us all so wish to make progress that we do not envy those who are making progress, and do not insult those who are falling short: and there will be fulfilled in us with joy what was promised in the Gospel, And I will raise them up on the last day.