Letters

⁹ But you will demur to this and say that I follow the teaching of the Manichæans and others who make war against the church's doctrine in the interest of their belief that there are two natures diverse from one another and that there is an evil nature which can in no way be changed. But it is not against me that you must make this imputation but against the apostle who knows well that God is one thing and man another, that the flesh is weak and the spirit strong. “The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would.” But from me you will never hear that any nature is essentially evil.

Let us learn then from him who tells us so in what sense the flesh is weak. Ask him why he has said: “the good that I would, I do not; the evil which I would not, that I do.” What necessity fetters his will? What compulsion commands him to do what he dislikes? And why must he do not what he wishes but what he dislikes and does not wish? He will answer you thus: “nay, but, O man, who are you that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why have you made me thus?

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?” Bring a yet graver charge against God and ask Him why, when Esau and Jacob were still in the womb, He said: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Accuse Him of injustice because, when Achan the son of Carmi stole part of the spoil of Jericho, He butchered so many thousands for the fault of one. Ask Him why for the sin of the sons of Eli the people were nearly annihilated and the ark captured. And why, when David sinned by numbering the people, so many thousands lost their lives. Or lastly make your own the favorite cavil of your associate Porphyry, and ask how God can be described as pitiful and of great mercy when from Adam to Moses and from Moses to the coming of Christ He has suffered all nations to die in ignorance of the Law and of His commandments. For Britain, that province so fertile in despots, the Scottish tribes, and all the barbarians round about as far as the ocean were alike without knowledge of Moses and the prophets.

Why should Christ's coming have been delayed to the last times? Why should He not have come before so vast a number had perished? Of this last question the blessed apostle in writing to the Romans most wisely disposes by admitting that he does not know and that only God does. Do you too, then, condescend to remain ignorant of that into which you inquire. Leave to God His power over what is His own; He does not need you to justify His actions. I am the hapless being against whom you ought to direct your insults, I who am for ever reading the words: “by grace you are saved,” and “blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Yet, to lay bare my own weakness, I know that I wish to do many things which I ought to do and yet cannot.

For while my spirit is strong and leads me to life my flesh is weak and draws me to death. And I have the warning of the Lord in my ears: “watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”