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Through the law comes knowledge of sin; from faith in Christ comes justification. 22. So, brethren, truly you must, with the help of a free decision, not to do evil and to do good, for this is what the law of God commands us, [set forth] in the Holy Books, both old and new; however, let us try to read and, with the help of the Lord, understand what the apostle said: For by the law no flesh will be justified before Him, for the knowledge of sin is through the law 126. See what he says: knowledge, not destruction. When a person has known sin, unless grace helps to protect himself from what he has known, then the law without any doubt produces wrath. The apostle says this elsewhere, in these very words: The law produces wrath. And the apostle says this because the wrath of God is great against the criminal, who through the law recognizes sin and yet commits it; after all, such a person is a transgressor of the law, as the apostle said in another place: For where there is no law, there is no crime 127. That is why he says in another place: To serve [God] in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter 128. Here he wants us to understand by the oldness of the letter the law, and by the newness of the spirit what if not grace? And so that people would not think that he accuses or rejects the law, the apostle immediately poses a question to himself and says: What shall we say? Is the law really sin? It won't happen! He further adds: But I did not know sin except through the law; This is what the above words mean: the knowledge of sin is through the law. And then he says: For I would not understand desire if the law did not say: Thou shalt not desire. So, having received a reason, sin through the commandment produced in me all the desire. After all, without the law, sin is dead. And I once lived without law; when the commandment came, sin came to life, and I died; and the commandment that was to life turned out to be death to me. For sin, taking a pretext from the commandment, deceived me and killed me with it. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. So, has good really become death for me? It won't happen! But sin, in order to appear as sin, through the good caused me death, so that because of the commandment the sin or the sinner becomes excessive 129. And in the Epistle to the Galatians he says: However, having learned that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ, we also believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law no flesh will be justified 130. De gratia et libero arbitrio (CPL 352). Translation based on the publication: Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Accurante J.-P. Migne. Paris, 1845. T. 44, Col. 881–912.