Chapter VIII.—Man, Endued with Liberty, Superior to the Angels, Overcomes Even the Angel Which Lured Him to His Fall, When Repentant and Resuming Obedience to God.

For it was not merely that he might live the natural life that God had produced man, but488    Ut non, “as if he were not,” etc. that he should live virtuously, that is, in relation to God and to His law. Accordingly, God gave him to live when he was formed into a living soul; but He charged him to live virtuously when he was required to obey a law. So also God shows that man was not constituted for death, by now wishing that he should be restored to life, preferring the sinner’s repentance to his death.489    Ezek. xviii. 23. As, therefore, God designed for man a condition of life, so man brought on himself a state of death; and this, too, neither through infirmity nor through ignorance, so that no blame can be imputed to the Creator. No doubt it was an angel who was the seducer; but then the victim of that seduction was free, and master of himself; and as being the image and likeness of God, was stronger than any angel; and as being, too, the afflatus of the Divine Being, was nobler than that material spirit of which angels were made. Who maketh, says he, His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.490    Ps. civ. 4. He would not have made all things subject to man, if he had been too weak for the dominion, and inferior to the angels, to whom He assigned no such subjects; nor would He have put the burden of law upon him, if he had been incapable of sustaining so great a weight; nor, again, would He have threatened with the penalty of death a creature whom He knew to be guiltless on the score of his helplessness:  in short, if He had made him infirm, it would not have been by liberty and independence of will, but rather by the withholding from him these endowments. And thus it comes to pass, that even now also, the same human being, the same substance of his soul, the same condition as Adam’s, is made conqueror over the same devil by the self-same liberty and power of his will, when it moves in obedience to the laws of God.491    [On capp. viii. and ix. See Kaye’s references in notes p. 178 et seqq.]

CAPUT VIII.

Neque enim ad vivendum solummodo produxerat hominem, ut non ad recte vivendum, in respectu scilicet Dei legisque ejus. Igitur vivere quidem illi ipse praestiterat, facto in animam vivam; recte vero vivere demandarat, admonito in legis obsequium. Ita non in mortem institutum hominem probat, qui nunc cupit in vitam restitutum, malens peccatoris poenitentiam, quam mortem (Ezech., XVIII, 23). Igitur, sicut Deus homini vitae statum induxit, ita homo sibi mortis statum adtraxit: et hoc non per infirmitatem, sicuti nec per ignorantiam, ne quid auctori imputaretur. 0294B Nam etsi angelus qui seduxit, sed liber et suae potestatis qui seductus est; sed imago et similitudo Dei, fortior angelo; sed adflatus Dei generosior spiritu materiali, quo angeli constituerunt. Qui facit, inquit (Ps. CIII, 5), spiritus angelos (Hebr., I, 7), et adparitores flammam ignis. Quia nec universitatem homini subjecisset infirmo dominandi, et non potiori angelis; quibus nihil tale subjecit; sic nec legis pondus imposuisset, si gravis lex invalido sustinendi; nec quem excusabilem sciret nomine imbecillitatis, eum definitione mortis convenisset; postremo, non libertate, nec potestate arbitrii fecisset infirmum, sed potius defectione earum. Atque adeo eumdem hominem, eamdem substantiam animae, eumdem Adae statum, eadem arbitrii libertas et 0294C potestas, victorem efficit hodie de eodem diabolo, cum secundum obsequium legum ejus administratur.