Annotation CCXVI

”When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished.” — John 19:30

To John Ferus, expounding this passage in the commentaries, Domingo de Soto imputes the error of the Germans — namely, that he taught that sin remains after justification, yet is not imputed.

—this [error], indeed, he [Soto] conjectures from these sayings of the author: “SO also our salvation is consummated — not by full right, but in hope. For the man has begun to be justified and healed; yet meanwhile, while he is justified and healed, [that] which remains of sin in the flesh is not imputed to him, on account of Christ — who, since he is without any sin, [and] now made one with the man, intercedes for him before the Father.” These [things] Ferus [says]; for whose defense Michael Medina refuted Soto with these words: “How far the author is from this calumny, we have long since shown. He assuredly calls ‘sin,’ in the Pauline manner, in the singular number, that natural lust of sinning which daily impels us to sin — which [lust] he [Soto] would complain is called ‘sin’ and ‘not the effect of sin’; [he would complain] of Paul, who first introduced that manner of speaking:¹ ‘But if I do that which I will not, [it is] now not I that do it, but the sin that dwells in me.’ Perhaps Paul did not know that the tinder of sinning and carnal concupiscence is to be called ‘not sin, but the effect of sin’! Now, [as to the fact] that he [Soto] confirms his suspicion of him because the author uses the word ‘impute’ — by the same reasoning he will make the Holy Spirit suspect to him, [the Spirit] who, through the mouth of David, pronounces [that man] ‘blessed,’² to whom the Lord imputed not sin; and, through Ezekiel,³ promises to [the man] doing penance and executing judgment and justice that [his] sins shall not be imputed. Nay, why should not Paul be suspect to him — from whom he [the author] took these words —⁴ since he says that until the Law sin was in the world, but was not imputed? Now let Soto infer that the permanence of sin is proved from Paul, from David, [and] from Ezekiel after justice is received — and we shall forthwith hold them [to be] heretics! And so it will always be lawful for catholic men to use a catholic phrase.” These [things] Medina [says]. See above, Annotation 109 of this book.