Chapter 31 [XXVIII.]—Who is the Man that Can Say, “It is No More I that Do It”?

A man, however, is much deceived if, while consenting to the lust of his flesh, and then both resolving in his mind to do its desires and setting about it, he supposes that he has still a right to say, “It is not I that do it,” even if he hates and loathes himself for assenting to evil desires. The two things are simultaneous in his case: he hates the thing himself because he knows that it is evil; and yet he does it, because he is bent on doing it. Now if, in addition to all this, he proceeds to do what the Scripture forbids him, when it says, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,”112    Rom. vi. 13. and completes with a bodily act what he was bent on doing in his mind; and says, “It is not I that do the thing, but sin that dwelleth in me,”113    Rom. vii. 17. because he feels displeased with himself for resolving on and accomplishing the deed,—he so greatly errs as not to know his own self. For, whereas he is altogether himself, his mind determining and his body executing his own purpose, he yet supposes that he is himself no longer!

CAPUT XXVIII.

31. Quis dicere possit, jam non ego operor illud.---Multum autem fallitur homo, qui consentiens concupiscentiae carnis suae, et quod illa desiderat decernens facere et statuens, putat sibi adhuc esse dicendum, Non ego operor illud: etiamsi oderit quia consentit. Simul enim est utrumque, et ipse odit, quia malum esse novit; et ipse facit, quia facere statuit. Jam vero si et illud addat, quod Scriptura prohibet, dicens, Neque exhibueritis membra vestra arma iniquitatis peccato (Rom. VI, 12, 13), ut quod facere statuit in corde, etiam corpore compleat; et ideo dicat, Non ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me peccatum, quia cum id decernit et facit, displicet sibi; tantum errat, ut nec se ipsum agnoscat; quando cum ex toto ipse sit, et corde statuente et corpore implente, adhuc se ipsum esse non putat.