{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050352.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050352.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050352.htm","text":"Chapter VII.\u2014(16.) The Sixteenth Breviate.\nXVI. After all these disputations, their author introduces himself in person as arguing with another, and represents himself as under examination, and as being addressed by his examiner: \u201cShow me the man who is without sin.\u201d He answers: \u201cI show you one who is able to be without sin.\u201d His examiner then says to him: \u201cAnd who is he?\u201d He answers: \u201cYou are the man.\u201d \u201cBut if,\u201d he adds, \u201cyou were to say, \u2018I, at any rate, cannot be without sin,\u2019 then you must answer me, \u2018Whose fault is that?\u2019 If you then were to say, \u2018My own fault,\u2019 you must be further asked, \u2018And how is it your fault, if you cannot be without sin?\u2019\u201d He again represents himself as under examination, and thus accosted: \u201cAre you yourself without sin, who say that a man can be without sin?\u201d And he answers: \u201cWhose fault is it that I am not without sin? But if,\u201d continues he, \u201che had said in reply, \u2018The fault is your own;\u2019 then the answer would be, \u2018How my fault, when I am unable to be without sin?\u2019\u201d Now our answer to all this running argument is, that no controversy ought to have been raised between them about such words as these; because he nowhere ventures to affirm that a man (either any one else, or himself) is without sin, but he merely said in reply that he can be,\u2014a position which we do not ourselves deny. Only the question arises, when can he, and through whom can he? If at the present time, then by no faithful soul which is enclosed within the body of this death must this prayer be offered, or such words as these be spoken, \u201cForgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,\u201d 1409 since in holy baptism all past debts have been already forgiven. But whoever tries to persuade us that such a prayer is not proper for faithful members of Christ, does in fact acknowledge nothing else than that he is not himself a Christian. If, again, it is through himself that a man is able to live without sin, then did Christ die in vain. But \u201cChrist is not dead in vain.\u201d No man, therefore, can be without sin, even if he wish it, unless he be assisted by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that this perfection may be attained, there is even now a training carried on in growing [Christians,] and there will be by all means a completion made, after the conflict with death is spent, and love, which is now cherished by the operation of faith and hope, shall be perfected in the fruition of sight and possession.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise Concer...","type":"page"}