Section CLVII

Concerning this most complete universality of the repaired order, the things which the Roman bishops hand down are entirely remarkable when, after describing the ruin of the human race, they declare both the origin and the means and necessity of restitution. To disclosing the origin of restitution pertain these things which Clement¹ writes in the most celebrated epistle to the Corinthians, which was once recited in many churches²:

Who can recount the bond of the charity of God³? Who is sufficient to express, as is fitting, the magnificence of his goodness? The height to which charity raises us is ineffable. Charity joins us fast to God. Charity⁴ covers a multitude of sins. Charity sustains all things; it bears all things⁵ with an equable mind. In charity there is nothing sordid, nothing proud… . Without charity nothing is acceptable to God. Ἐν ἀγάπῃ προσελάβετο ἡμᾶς ὁ δεσπότης· διὰ τὴν ἀγάπην, ἣν ἔσχεν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ ἔδωκεν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν, ἐν θελήματι Θεοῦ, καὶ τὴν σάρκα ὑπὲρ τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν, καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ὑπὲρ τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν. In charity⁶ the Lord assumed us; because of the charity which he had toward us, Christ our Lord, according to the will⁷ of God, delivered his blood for us, and his flesh for—

“—our flesh, and his soul⁸ for our souls.”

Therefore the love of the Father, by which he decreed the Incarnation, and the love of the Son, who assumed body and soul, provided for men and changed their fallen and lost condition into one raised up and repaired.

So great was the necessity of this change that a graver one seemed unable even to be understood by thought. For, as Innocent argues⁹ against the Pelagians:

What more bitter thing could they have fashioned against the Lord than, when they made the divine aids void, also to take away the reason for daily prayer? This is to say: What need have I of God? Deservedly does the hymn-writer say¹⁰ against these: “Behold the men who did not set God as their helper.” Denying, therefore, the aid of God, they say that man can suffice for himself and does not need divine grace. Deprived of this, he must necessarily¹¹ fall, entangled in the snares of the devil, while by freedom alone he strives to fulfill all the commandments of life. O perverse doctrine of most depraved minds! Finally recognize¹² that freedom itself so deceived the first man that, while he used its reins too indulgently, he fell by presumption into transgression, and could not be delivered from this unless the advent of Christ the Lord, by the providence of regeneration, had restored to him the state of pristine liberty. Let him hear David¹³ saying: “Our help is in the name of the Lord”; and¹⁴, “Be my helper; do not forsake me, nor despise me, O God my Savior.” He would have said these things in vain if that which he asked from the Lord in mournful speech were placed in his will alone.

With these things do not disagree those which he testifies concerning the destruction and reparation of the first parent—

saying¹⁵:

For he, having once been permitted free choice¹⁶, while he used his goods without sufficient counsel, fell and was submerged in the depths of transgression, and found nothing whereby he could thereafter rise. Deceived forever by his own liberty, he would have lain oppressed¹⁷ by this ruin, unless afterward the advent of Christ had raised him up by his grace¹⁸. Christ, through the purification of a new regeneration, cleansed every past vice by the laver of his baptism; and, strengthening his condition so that he might proceed more rightly and stably, he nevertheless did not deny his grace for the future. For although he had redeemed man from past sins, nevertheless, knowing that he could sin again, he reserved many things for his reparation, whereby he might correct him even after these things. He supplies daily remedies; unless, supported by and trusting in them, we strive, we shall in no way be able to conquer human errors. For it is necessary that, as we conquer with him assisting, so, with him again not assisting¹⁹, we be conquered.