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SERENUS: God at man's creation implanted in him naturally complete
knowledge of the law, and if this had been kept by man, as at the
beginning, according to the Lord's purposes, there would not have been any
need for another law to be given, which He afterwards proclaimed in
writing: for it were superfluous for an external remedy to be offered,
where an internal one was still implanted and vigorous. But since this had
been, as we have said, utterly corrupted by freedom and the opportunity of
sinning, the severe restrictions of the law of Moses were added as the
executor and vindicator of this (earlier law) and to use the expressions of
Scripture, as its helper, that through fear of immediate punishment men
might be kept from altogether losing the good of natural knowledge,
according to the word of the prophet who says "He gave the law to help
them:" and it is also described by the Apostle as having been given as a
schoolmaster to little children, as it instructs and guards them to
prevent them from departing through sheer forgetfulness from the teaching
in which they had been instructed by the light of nature: for that the
complete knowledge of the law was implanted in man at his first creation,
is clearly proved from this; viz., that we know that before the law, aye,
and even before the flood, all holy men observed the commands of the law
without having the letter to read. For how could Abel, without the command
of the law, have known that he ought to offer to God a sacrifice of the
firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof, unless he had been
taught by the law which was naturally implanted in him? How could Noah have
distinguished what animals were clean and what were unclean, when the
commandment of the law had not yet made a distinction, unless he had been
taught by a natural knowledge? Whence did Enoch learn how to "walk with
God," having never acquired any light of the law from another? Where had
Shem and Japheth read "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father,"
so that they went backwards and covered the shame of their father? How
was Abraham taught to abstain from the spoils of the enemy which were
offered to him, that he might not receive any recompense for his toil, or
to pay to the priest Melchizedec the tithes which are ordered by the law of
Moses? How was it too that the same Abraham and Lot also humbly offered
to passers by and strangers offices of kindness and the washing of their
feet, while yet the Evangelic command had not shone forth? Whence did
Job obtain such earnestness of faith, such purity of chastity, such
knowledge of humility, gentleness, pity and kindness, as we now see shown
not even by those who know the gospels by heart? Which of the saints do we
read of as not having observed some commandment of the law before the
giving of the law? Which of them failed to keep this: "Hear, O Israel, the
Lord thy God is one Lord?" Which of them did not fulfil this: "Thou
shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything
which is in heaven or in the earth or under the earth?" Which of them did
not observe this: "Honour thy father and thy mother," or what follows in
the Decalogue: "Thou shalt do no murder; Thou shalt not commit adultery;
Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear false witness; Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour's wife," and many other things besides, in which
they anticipated the commands not only of the law but even of the gospel?
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