[4]. Man
To know man is as toilsome as to catch a cuttlefish, for” as the latter hides himself in his own blackness in order not to be caught, so does man, as soon as he sees one is after him, stir up such sudden and thick clouds of hypocrisy that no Lynceus, no Argus, can discover him. Not only that biting critic Momus complained of this, but the divine herald of the Gospel, Paul, understood it so well that in I Cor. 2: 11 he speaks on this wise: “For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him?” Though he says this only for the purpose of illustration, he really holds it as established that the human heart hides its purposes with such zeal and so many wiles that no one can have knowledge of them but itself; for unless this were his view, he could not logically draw the conclusion he is trying to prove in the passage. And Jeremiah says of this fleer from the light and this wiggler of ours, chap. 17:9, “The heart of man is wicked and unsearchable. Who i can know it? I, the Lord, who search the heart and try the reins.”
From this testimony it becomes manifest that man cannot be known by man. He has such recklessness in lying, such readiness in pretending and concealing, that when you think
[The spirit of censoriousness.]
you have caught him somewhere, you find he has long since slipped away elsewhere. If you say, “The prophet bears witness openly that the human heart is wicked” [cf. Jer. 17:9], he immediately crawls out with the explanation that “wicked” is put here for “inclined to wickedness,” and that it is not asserted of all men; looking the while to this, that, if he can convince you that some are strangers to all wickedness, he shall himself be counted among these, for the very reason that he so stoutly defends the glory and innocence of an honest heart.
Since, then, it is such an unattainable thing to penetrate into the recesses of the human heart, we shall doubtless have to give up the hope of a knowledge of it. So be it, then! May everyone learn to know himself—by another in no wise is one known—although the defenses of self-love are so strong that very few persons, if any at all, break through to a knowledge of their own selves.
Under no other teacher or guide than God alone, the builder of man, will it ever be granted to see the secrets of the human heart. For as He created man, so He knows all the headwaters of his cunning and the source whence they come. All of which Jeremiah signified by the words [17:9]: “Who ean know it?” doubtless not supposing that any one would venture to avouch that he had knowledge of it, except the God who fashioned it. Hence, at once, he adds: I, the Lord, who search the heart and try the reins.”
From the Lord God, therefore, the Creator of man, is the knowledge of man to be sought, no less than the knowledge of Himself, though for different reasons. The knowledge of God is denied to our understanding because of its feebleness and His glory and splendor, but the knowledge of man, because of his boldness and readiness in lying and dissembling, as has been said.
The Heavenly Builder formed man in His own image, and, having formed him, placed him in a garden abounding in all delights, nor only as a denizen of it, but as proprietor and lord; but on this condition, that he might eat of everything that grew there except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree’s fruit he was not to touch or taste, and if he did so he was to die an instant death, Gen. 2: 17. The
On True and False Religion TT Devil envied man this happy condition, and persuaded Adam’s spouse that it was from fear for His dominion that God had forbidden them that tree, the very name of which showed that as soon as they had eaten of its fruit they would become like gods, i. e., would know good and evil. The unhappy woman believed his high promises, plucked the fruit, ate, and then with faithful intent gave to her husband. He, being without knowledge or experience of snares and feminine indiscretion, obeyed (for what could he refuse to his wife?), and did what no husband would have declined to do to please his wife. But see how evils burst suddenly upon us from quarters whence they are least feared. Our first parent, having hoped through the knowledge of good and evil to become a god, learned nothing but his own disgrace and found everlasting death. For thus God spake unto him, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for any word of God [Mt. 24:35]. Therefore, as He had foretold that man should die, man died when he had plunged his teeth into the fatal fruit.
But it is necessary to consider what sort of death Adam died after he ate the fruit of the forbidden tree.
First, then, it is evident that he did not immediately die a natural death when he ate this food, for he lived many ages afterwards. Next, it is evident that in due time the fatal day came, for no other reason than that he had once transgressed the law: “Through sin came death,” Rom. 5:12. For he would have lived in happiness forever, if he had refrained from eating the unhappy apple. It is evident, in the third place, that Adam did besides die a death of some kind as soon as he put to his mouth his reckless hand laden with the fatal fruit. For the word of God says: “In the day that thou eatest, thou shalt surely die.” Death, therefore, ensued in the same moment in which he ate. But bodily death did not immediately ensue; it was, therefore, the death of the soul that instantly ensued. For the death of the body was born of sin, as has been said, whence also it followed the death of the soul. This is clearly put in Rom. 5: 12: “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The death, therefore, by which Adam so suddenly perished was
sin; and this death is as much more destructive than bodily death as the cause is greater than the effect. For the death that is sin is the parent of bodily death.
Now we must see what the death that is sin is, or what its character is.
We infer the character of everything we see from the inward urge by which it is impelled to the pursuit and acquisition of what it desires. Thus we call a man avaricious who for the sake of pelf ploughs the sea, though he fears its dangers. We must, therefore, take pains to observe just what it was that Adam showed his character by seeking. He was going to be equal with the gods, and if he succeeded he would know by the exercise of his own faculties what good and evil were. This, then, is the bait that he craved and by which he was taken: to be a God and himself to know what good was, what evil was. But whence could this craving have originated except from love of self? For we all wish things to be better for us than for others. Φιλαυτία; therefore, i. e., love of self, was the cause of Adam listening to the evil counsel of his wife. Man is, then, by nature a lover of self; not by the nature with which he had been made and endowed by God, but by that which he acquired, when, not content with the lot that God had given him, he desired in his heart to become skilled in good and evil, yea, to become equal with God. Since, therefore, man has become guilty of self-love, and has been convicted of that offense, it is manifest that the death that is sin, as far as its character is concerned, consists in man’s unceasingly loving himself, pleasing himself, trusting in himself, crediting everything to himself, thinking he sees what is straight and what is crooked, and believing that what he approves all ought to approve, even his Creator. For he was caught αὐτοφόρῳ; in the very act, of trying to make himself a God knowing good and evil, without the knowledge of his Creator. His viciousness, therefore, his inborn character, his defect of nature (and what is that but death?) cannot be denied.
But it is better to prove the matter by the testimony of the mouth of God than by arguments, even though these are
[nauta secet mare.]
founded upon the word of God. For this Proteus of ours, with whom we are dealing, evades, denies, lies, unless you convict him by witnesses. For he is shameless and reckless, puts on any shape [ef. II Cor. 11: 14], makes all sorts of promises and all sorts of threats, to prevent your dragging him out into the light. Therefore, God says, Gen. 6:3, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, because he is flesh.” God here gives man up as a degenerate, because he has become wholly flesh. And this He also testified to before, when He pushed him out of the nest as an intruder, and stationed a guard at the gates of Paradise to prevent him from returning, Gen. 3:24. But if man is wholly flesh, what, pray, does he meditate but the things of the flesh [ef. Rom. 8:5]? And if this is all he meditates, what other part does he play than that of an enemy of God? For the spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit; for these are contrary the one to the other” [Gal. 5:17]. See how plain it begins to be that man, in so far as he is man, and in so far as he thinks and acts in accordance with his own character, thinks and does nothing but - what is of the flesh, of the enemies of God, of the adversaries of the Spirit. In the same passage we read [Gen. 6:5f.]: “And God saw that the wiekedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, ete.” Here we have the plain statement that the entire imagination of man is not only inclined to evil, but firmly fixed and set upon it, and that not at intervals (as people suffering from insanity or fever have seasons of less violence), but all the time. Afterwards we have, 8:21, “The imagination or thought of man’s heart is evil from boyhood.” For this is the real sense of the Hebrew, and the Septuagint is not very different, “Since the mind of man is intent upon evil from his youth.” But our translation has: “The feelings and imagination of man’s heart are prone to evil,” a change in the sense certainly due to man’s ignorance. For few mortals reach such a measure of scorn for themselves as to attribute nothing good to themselves, and to confess openly the evil desires of their innermost hearts. Hence it is that we cannot be induced i. e., the Latin Vulgate.
to admit that our whole heart is evil. And, persistently denying this, we even go to the length, such is our boldness, of changing, or rather corrupting, the word of God to suit our view. This is what has been done here: where the real sense of the Hebrew is quite plainly “is evil,” some one has dared to say, “is prone to evil,” so that he may not himself fall under suspicion of being evil by nature. Yet this was done very incircumspectly. For how did it lighten the cause of human wickedness to modify the statement here, when just before it — was said that we are flesh and that all our imagination is intent upon evil continually? For since we are flesh we cannot help having always a taste for the things of the flesh; but all these are the very wickedness from which the worst fruits proceed, as Paul has taught, Gal. 5: 19-21. The mind of man and the heart of man are, therefore, evil from his early years, because he is flesh, because he is a lover of self, of glory, of pleasure, and greedy of wealth, however he tries to disguise or conceal it. “For we are all hypocrites,” Isa. 9:17, “and evil doers, and every mouth speaketh folly.” And the Preacher cannot cry out sufficiently how vain we are, saying, Eccles. 1: 2, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Now I turn to the testimony of the New Covenant.
In John 8:34, Christ says: “Everyone that committeth sin is the bond-servant of sin.” Adam sinned. Therefore he became the slave of sin.
Paul, writing to the Romans, puts it thus, Rom. 6: 16: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves as servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey?” Adam yielded himself to sin, for if he had not yielded himself, he never would have touched the forbidden fruit. “Therefore he became its servant and slave. For unless, resolved to make himself like God, skilled in the knowledge of good and evil, he had first yielded himself to the counsel of the Devil, he would have had such a repugnance to the apple that he would not have deigned to look at it. Our first parent, then—not to go on offering kindly excuses—willingly and gladly yielded himself to the servitude of sin. Now, by virtue of his condition, a slave neither can nor ought to listen to anyone but the master to whom he has bound
[See above, p. 76.]
himself. Man, therefore, meditates the sin which his master orders. But there is sin the moment man, disregarding the law of the Creator, has preferred to follow himself, rather than the standard of his Leader and Lord. He is the slave, I was saying, of him to whom he has gone over. But he has gone over to himself, abandoning the love of God through love of self. He is, therefore, his own slave: he loves himself more than God, more than anyone even. And this, at last, is to be dead, this is the death that is sin, this is the character of corrupted and fallen man.
In John 3: 6, Christ says: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It follows, therefore, that they that are born of the dead are themselves also dead. For as soon as Adam turned to himself, he degenerated and became flesh altogether. Being, therefore, flesh, he was also dead; for these are equivalent terms, to be flesh and to be dead, in the sense in which we are here speaking of death, as has been made plain above. Now, it cannot possibly be admitted that one who is dead can beget anything living. Therefore, Adam, being dead, cannot beget one who is free from death. For the dictum is immutable, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.”
In similar fashion Paul speaks, Rom. 7: 18: “For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” He is speaking here not of the flesh that we have in common with the eamel, for instance. Otherwise, what sense would there have been in saying that there is nothing good in our perishable flesh, a fact that even a blind man can see? No, he is speaking of the whole man, who, though he is compounded of soul and body, two things of diverse nature, is yet called flesh, because he meditates nothing but what is fleshly and death bringing. Paul makes this plain when he says a little before [Rom. 7:14]: “We know that the law is spiritual: but I am earnal, sold under sin.” Here, I say, is made plain what I am maintaining, namely, that Paul is speaking of the character of the sin and death to which we have been given over and sold by the defection of our first parent, as has been said.
I have, perhaps, pursued this theme farther than is necessary, but it will do no harm. The human heart is so vast that it is as hard to explore all its recesses and hiding places as to
measure the ocean [cf. Isa. 40: 12] or to cleanse the stable of Augeas. Hence it can easily hide its wickedness and retire into its depths. But He who is light [ef. Jn. 8: 12] cannot be deceived. From Him nothing can be hid, and He so completely discloses man to us that—if, at least, we believe His word —we can see clearly that man is by nature evil, however much he struggles and shuffles to conceal the fact. He from whose mouth we have heard this is true, and so it must be true. Man is, indeed, clever and bold in denying. If we put faith in him, he will never admit plainly that his nature is vile, but when a καρδιογνώστης [ heart-knowing,” Acts 1: 24], God drags him out into the light, he is ashamed to deny that which he is conscious of. Nor here let anyone say: “If everyone admitted that he is conscious of this, what you have said of the wretchedness of human wickedness would indeed be much to the point; but there are some who either do not accede to the words of God and confess themselves evil, or, even if in their hearts they recognize their wickedness, yet, in the hope or desire of concealing it and preserving their reputation, are unwilling to seem to have recognized it.” Right, indeed. Here we have coming up of its own accord the very thing I was after, namely, that for man to know himself it is almost as necessary to have God as his teacher as to have a knowledge of God, because man has so many deep caverns, in which he hopes to find such refuge that no one can find his hiding place, or even if he find it drag him out. We require God, therefore, as a sort of diver, and Him alone, in order really to explore man. And what I said above, that one ought not to expect to recognize God from His words unless faith be present (for if that be lacking, whatever you assert of Him will seem an idle tale), is also true in the study of man. For unless faith be present, so that a man believes that every word that proceedeth from God is true, he will be as far from knowing himself as is the distance between spirit and flesh. “For through the law is the knowledge of sin” [Rom. 3: 20]. But the law is spiritual, while we are carnal. Unless, therefore, the spirit enter into us, we shall remain carnal forever. For we are sold under sin [cf. Rom. 7:14].
[“The seventh labor of Hercules was the cleansing of the Augean]
[stables.]
Yet as long as we are carnal, we recognize not ourselves. For the flesh in no wise despises itself, but is in its own eyes ever great and fine, yea, even God. Faith, therefore, is just as necessary to a man for knowledge of himself as for a knowledge of God.
Now, your distinguished theologians and hypocrites of animal appetite, not knowing this, are satisfied—to quote but one of their views belonging to false religion—to grant that man’s heart is prone to evil, at the same time attributing to him unimpaired power of choice, so as to be able freely to stretch out his hand towards anything he chooses. This is nothing else than trying to weave a rope out of sand or to make an angel of Belial. For as sand because of its character and form cannot possibly be woven together, so Belial and man cannot be so changed that the one, the author of darkness, lies, treachery, and sin, becomes an angel of light [II Cor. 11: 14], and that the other stretches out his hand to any good thing, unless perhaps his greed and love of self, in the hope of receiving pleasure, pronounce something good, just as the author of our race stretched out his hand towards the apple in the hope of becoming God and knowing all things, a hope that could have had its origin in nothing except love of self. Since, therefore, man would measure all things by himself if God in His wisdom allowed him, theologists in vain attribute to him sound and unimpaired power of choice. But more on this question in the sequel,t if the Lord will grant it.
It will, perhaps, not be inconsistent with my purpose to introduce here, as a sort of imported embellishment, the opinion of a most learned and eloquent man—I mean Cicero—as given in the oration in defense of Archias, in which the passage showing that man does everything from a desire for glory agrees so completely with the divine teachings that the words seem to be due to the direct influence of God, rather than to be the unconstrained utterance of Cicero, the creature of glory. For how could he be revealing his true self in affirming here that we do everything from eagerness for glory, when at other times he wishes everything to seem done from patriotism and
[Cf. YI Cor. 6: 15. tSee below, Section [24]. Merit.]
love of virtue? These are his words: “For virtue desires no other reward for hardships and dangers than that of glory and praise; and if you take that away, gentlemen, what reason is there why in this span of our life, meagre and short as it is, we should employ ourselves in laborious undertakings? Surely, if the mind had no presentiment of a hereafter, if it bounded all its thoughts by the limits within which the period of life is confined, it would not break itself with such toil, nor torture itself with so many cares and anxieties, nor so often risk life itself in the struggle. There dwells in every man of worth an influence which rouses his soul day and night with the spur of glory and whispers to him that the remembrance of our names must not be suffered to disappear with our life, but be made to endure through all future ages, etc.” How Cicero here reveals the inner nature of man! He says there is a force dwelling in the souls even of the best that unceasingly spurs them on to the gaining of glory and summons to the task all their thoughts and plans and labors. But what he calls a “force” we who are the faithful know is nothing else than death and sin and the wretched condition of fallen man, in consequence of which he is forever a lover and devotee of self. And if among the faithful you find any who deny that man does everything for the sake of his own private glory and gain, you may consider it as settled that they are themselves not faithful, but carnal and servants of sin. For as long as we defend ourselves, it is certain that the light of the Spirit is lacking, which shows and discloses man to himself. Thus, even by a heathen writer are we taught that all our thoughts are directed towards ourselves. And let no one be influenced by the fact that Cicero declares the souls of all are possessed by an eager desire for glory; but, on the contrary, let us observe that some are not at all intent upon glory, but rather upon pelf or feasting or lust. For what Cicero said refers to the best, his thought being that it is characteristic of them to make of all right actions so many rungs, as it were, in the ladder of glory. The meaner, or rather viler, spirits, who measure all things by feasting and lust, are considered inferior to those eager for glory. I am speaking of that eagerness for glory which walks in honorable paths; for those
[Pro Archia poeta 28-29.]
who glory in bad things are sometimes cast out by the bad. But those that are set upon pelf lay their schemes partly with a view in this way to raise themselves on high, partly with a view to supplying the means of satisfying the demands of their gluttony and lust. It remains, however, fixed and unshaken that all the designs of every man are sin, in so far as he forms them as man; for he measures all things by himself, cares for himself alone, thinks of himself more honorably than of others. And although he may see himself surpassed in many things by many men, he yet finds something in which to accord himself the first place, lest he lack glory. Cesar sees himself surpassed by Cicero in eloquence and in skilfulness as a counsellor and pleader; but as far inferior as he is in this department, so far superior he finds himself in the nobler arts of eommand and warfare, for by these he has mounted to the very summit of power, whither all the torrent of Cicero’s eloquence cannot carry him. But in such cases, perhaps, one may easily say: “Everyone who in the judgment of all men has some special pre-eminence, gives himself first place. But take some poor Irus,t some pitiful man who can have absolutely no hope of glory or of any distinction, and teach him, who is so thoroughly without ambitions in this life that he would rather die than live, teach him this self-devotion. Then I will aecede to your view.” Listen, then. Confront Irus himself or the most miserable wretch with Croesus, Hercules, Ulysses. To Croesus he will say, “You are untaught to suffer perform the most marvelous feats, indeed, but you are a slave poverty, I am well trained to misfortune”; to Hercules, “You to passion, while I feel little or none”; to Ulysses, “You are indeed πολυμήτης; à man of many devices, but amid so many cunning devices it is impossible that fraud should not sometimes occur, whereas I enjoy a happy artlessness and live in a condition where fraud is of no use.” Thus he will always find some point in which to flatter his vanity. I say nothing now of the malignity with which most people meditate only things that are going to harm others, if only they suffer no loss themselves. We ourselves, all of us who either in early times or in
[Suetonius De vita Caesarum I. 55. 1The ragged beggar of Homer, Odys. xviii, 1-7.]
these times have written about divine things, in the very work which ought to be farthest removed from the selfish desire for glory have not kept ourselves free from it. For how few do not so fashion their speech that it may win the approval of all, so deck it out that it may attract all! This is not yet sin, but its natural result is to beget a fault, unless we are very careful. For there are some who in the warmth of Christian love wish all so well that they desire to have what they know to be pious and right shared with all. There are, on the other hand, some who look to this one thing only, how they may show themselves so eloquent, so wise, such practiced artists, that after the fashion of Gorgias they can speak admirably on any subject whatever, and handle all themes admirably. Indeed, I think there is no one who does not feel the spur of glory, even when he is doing his best to show that glory ought to be scorned. This is frequently met with in Plato, for whenever he makes Socrates talk philosophy he uses such involutions and such splendor of language that he is clearly seen to have been most bent upon glory just when he was representing Socrates as the greatest scorner of glory.
I have brought in these things from the heathen in order that, if possible, even those who are devoted to philosophy may receive eyes with which to see what man is. Nor let anyone fancy that pious men are insulted by this seeming to put them on a par with the heathen; for I doubt not that there were heathen who wrote with pure purpose. But that was not man’s doing, but God’s. For if you leave man to himself he measures all things by himself.
So much for what man is in his own nature. Hence, since even among the theologians you can easily find some who treat the word of God as a mere matter of business (for you see how they make their living by it), it cannot be denied that they are zealous for glory. Oh, that it were not true! It has now been quite sufficiently proved that man does everything from self-love, and, unless he undergoes a change, always will do so. Hence I have not improperly counted among those
[Gorgias, the famous Greek Sophist and rhetorician. In 427 B. C. he]
[came to Athens as ambassador from his home in Sicily. There he made]
[a great impression by reason of his oratorical skill.]
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