{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020339.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020339.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020339.htm","text":"What is voluntary is either what is by desire, or what is by choice, or what is of intention. Closely allied to each other are these things\u2014sin, mistake, crime. It is sin, for example, to live luxuriously and licentiously; a misfortune, to wound one\u2019s friend in ignorance, taking him for an enemy; and crime, to violate graves or p. 362 commit sacrilege. Sinning arises from being unable to determine what ought to be done, or being unable to do it; as doubtless one falls into a ditch either through not knowing, or through inability to leap across through feebleness of body. But application to the training of ourselves, and subjection to the commandments, is in our own power; with which if we will have nothing to do, by abandoning ourselves wholly to lust, we shall sin, nay rather, wrong our own soul. For the noted Laius says in the tragedy:\u2014\n \u201cNone of these things of which you admonish me have escaped me;\nBut notwithstanding that I am in my senses, Nature compels me;\u201d\ni.e., his abandoning himself to passion. Medea, too, herself cries on the stage:\u2014\n \u201cAnd I am aware what evils I am to perpetrate,\nBut passion is stronger than my resolutions.\u201d 2294\nFurther, not even Ajax is silent; but, when about to kill himself, cries:\u2014\n \u201cNo pain gnaws the soul of a free man like dishonour.\nThus do I suffer; and the deep stain of calamity\nEver stirs me from the depths, agitated\nBy the bitter stings of rage.\u201d 2295\nAnger made these the subjects of tragedy, and lust made ten thousand others\u2014Ph\u00e6dra, Anthia, Eriphyle,\u2014\n \u201cWho took the precious gold for her dear husband.\u201d\nFor another play represents Thrasonides of the comic drama as saying:\u2014\n \u201cA worthless wench made me her slave.\u201d\nMistake is a sin contrary to calculation; and voluntary sin is crime (\u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1); and crime is voluntary wickedness. Sin, then, is on my part voluntary. Wherefore says the apostle, \u201cSin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.\u201d 2296 Addressing those who have believed, he says, \u201cFor by His stripes we were healed.\u201d 2297 Mistake is the involuntary action of another towards me, while a crime (\u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1) alone is voluntary, whether my act or another\u2019s. These differences of sins are alluded to by the Psalmist, when he calls those blessed whose iniquities (\u1f00\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u03c2) God hath blotted out, and whose sins (\u1f01\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2) He hath covered. Others He does not impute, and the rest He forgives. For it is written, \u201cBlessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, and in whose mouth there is no fraud.\u201d 2298 This blessedness came on those who had been chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For \u201clove hides the multitude of sins.\u201d 2299 And they are blotted out by Him \u201cwho desireth the repentance rather than the death of a sinner.\u201d 2300 And those are not reckoned that are not the effect of choice; \u201cfor he who has lusted has already committed adultery,\u201d 2301 it is said. And the illuminating Word forgives sins: \u201cAnd in that time, saith the Lord, they shall seek for the iniquity of Israel, and it shall not exist; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.\u201d 2302 \u201cFor who is like Me? and who shall stand before My face? 2303 You see the one God declared good, rendering according to desert, and forgiving sins. John, too, manifestly teaches the differences of sins, in his larger Epistle, in these words: \u201cIf any man see his brother sin a sin that is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life: for these that sin not unto death,\u201d he says. For \u201cthere is a sin unto death: I do not say that one is to pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin not unto death.\u201d 2304\nDavid, too, and Moses before David, show the knowledge of the three precepts in the following words: \u201cBlessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly;\u201d as the fishes go down to the depths in darkness; for those which have not scales, which Moses prohibits touching, feed at the bottom of the sea. \u201cNor standeth in the way of sinners,\u201d as those who, while appearing to fear the Lord, commit sin, like the sow, for when hungry it cries, and when full knows not its owner. \u201cNor sitteth in the chair of pestilences,\u201d as birds ready for prey. And Moses enjoined not to eat the sow, nor the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the raven, nor any fish without scales. So far Barnabas. 2305 And I heard one skilled in such matters say that \u201cthe counsel of the ungodly\u201d was the heathen, and \u201cthe way of sinners\u201d the Jewish persuasion, and explain \u201cthe chair of pestilence\u201d of heresies. And another said, with more propriety, that the first blessing was assigned to those who had not followed wicked sentiments which revolt from God; the second to those who do not remain in the wide and broad road, whether they be those who have been brought up in the law, or Gentiles who have repented. And \u201cthe chair of pestilences\u201d will be the theatres and tribunals, or rather the compliance with wicked and deadly powers, and complicity with their deeds. \u201cBut his delight is in the law of the Lord.\u201d 2306 Peter in his Preaching p. 363 called the Lord, Law and Logos. The legislator seems to teach differently the interpretation of the three forms of sin\u2014understanding by the mute fishes sins of word, for there are times in which silence is better than speech, for silence has a safe recompense; sins of deed, by the rapacious and carnivorous birds. The sow delights in dirt and dung; and we ought not to have \u201ca conscience\u201d that is \u201cdefiled.\u201d 2307\nJustly, therefore, the prophet says, \u201cThe ungodly are not so: but as the chaff which the wind driveth away from the face of the earth. Wherefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment\u201d 2308 (being already condemned, for \u201che that believeth not is condemned already\u201d 2309 ), \u201cnor sinners in the counsel of the righteous,\u201d inasmuch as they are already condemned, so as not to be united to those that have lived without stumbling. \u201cFor the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; and the way of the ungodly shall perish.\u201d 2310\nAgain, the Lord clearly shows sins and transgressions to be in our own power, by prescribing modes of cure corresponding to the maladies; showing His wish that we should be corrected by the shepherds, in Ezekiel; blaming, I am of opinion, some of them for not keeping the commandments. \u201cThat which was enfeebled ye have not strengthened,\u201d and so forth, down to, \u201cand there was none to search out or turn away.\u201d 2311\nFor \u201cgreat is the joy before the Father when one sinner is saved,\u201d 2312 saith the Lord. So Abraham was much to be praised, because \u201che walked as the Lord spake to him.\u201d Drawing from this instance, one of the wise men among the Greeks uttered the maxim, \u201cFollow God.\u201d 2313 \u201cThe godly,\u201d says Esaias, \u201cframed wise counsels.\u201d 2314 Now counsel is seeking for the right way of acting in present circumstances, and good counsel is wisdom in our counsels. And what? Does not God, after the pardon bestowed on Cain, suitably not long after introduce Enoch, who had repented? 2315 showing that it is the nature of repentance to produce pardon; but pardon does not consist in remission, but in remedy. An instance of the same is the making of the calf by the people before Aaron. Thence one of the wise men among the Greeks uttered the maxim, \u201cPardon is better than punishment;\u201d as also, \u201cBecome surety, and mischief is at hand,\u201d is derived from the utterance of Solomon which says, \u201cMy son, if thou become surety for thy friend, thou wilt give thine hand to thy enemy; for a man\u2019s own lips are a strong snare to him, and he is taken in the words of his own mouth.\u201d 2316 And the saying, \u201cKnow thyself,\u201d has been taken rather more mystically from this, \u201cThou hast seen thy brother, thou hast seen thy God.\u201d 2317 Thus also, \u201cThou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself;\u201d for it is said, \u201cOn these commandments the law and the prophets hang and are suspended.\u201d 2318 With these also agree the following: \u201cThese things have I spoken to you, that My joy might be fulfilled: and this is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.\u201d 2319 \u201cFor the Lord is merciful and pitiful; and gracious 2320 is the Lord to all.\u201d 2321 \u201cKnow thyself\u201d is more clearly and often expressed by Moses, when he enjoins, \u201cTake heed to thyself.\u201d 2322 \u201cBy alms then, and acts of faith, sins are purged.\u201d 2323 \u201cAnd by the fear of the Lord each one departs from evil.\u201d 2324 \u201cAnd the fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom.\u201d 2325\nThese lines, which are not found in the Ajax of Sophocles, have been amended by various hands. Instead of \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c3\u03b1, we have ventured to read \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2\u2014\u03ba\u03b7\u03bb\u1f76\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2 being a Sophoclean phrase, and \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1 being unsuitable.\n362:2296 362:2297 362:2298 362:2299 362:2300 362:2301 362:2302 362:2303 362:2304 362:2305\nPs. i. 1 (quoted from Barnabas, with some additions and omissions). [See vol. i. p. 143, this series.]\n362:2306 363:2307 363:2308 363:2309 363:2310 363:2311 363:2312\nThese words are not in Scripture, but the substance of them is contained in Luke 15:7, 10.\n363:2313\nOne of the precepts of the seven wise men.\n363:2314\nIsa. xxxii. 8, Sept.\n363:2315\nPhilo explains Enoch\u2019s translation allegorically, as denoting reformation or repentance.\n363:2316 363:2317\nQuoted as if in Scripture, but not found there. The allusion may be, as is conjectured, to what God said to Moses respecting him and Aaron, to whom he was to be as God; or to Jacob saying to Esau, \u201cI have seen thy face as it were the face of God.\u201d\n363:2318\nLuke x. 27, etc.\n363:2319\nJohn 15:11, 12.\n363:2320\n\u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 instread of \u03c7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 which is in the text.\n363:2321\nPs. cviii. 8, cxi. 4.\n363:2322\nEx. x. 28, xxxiv. 12; Deut. iv. 9.\n363:2323\nProb. Ecclus. iii. 29.\n363:2324 363:2325","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Chapter XV.\u2014On the Different Kinds of Voluntary Actions, and the Sins Thence Proceeding.","type":"page"}