of the spear throwing off the button; or knows not the manner how, as he who has killed his antagonist in the stadium, for it was not for his death but for victory that he contended; or knows not the reason why it is done, as the physician gave a salutary antidote and killed, for it was not for this purpose that he gave it, but to save. The law at that time punished him who had killed involuntarily, as e.g. him who was subject involuntarily to gonorrhoea, but not equally with him who did so voluntarily. Although he also shall be punished as for a voluntary action, if one transfer the affection to the truth. For, in reality, he that cannot contain the generative word is to be punished; for this is an irrational passion of the soul approaching garrulity. "The faithful man chooses to conceal things in his spirit."[1] Things, then, that depend on choice are subjects for judgment. "For the Lord searcheth the hearts and reins."[2] "And he that looketh so as to lust"[3] is judged. Wherefore it is said, "Thou shalt not lust."[4] And "this people honoureth me with their lips," it is said, "but their heart is far from me."[5] For God has respect to the very thought, since Lot's wife, who had merely voluntarily turned towards worldly wickedness, He left a senseless mass, rendering her a pillar of salt, and fixed her so that she advanced no further, not as a stupid and useless image, but to season and salt him who has the power of spiritual perception.
CHAPTER XV.
ON THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF VOLUNATARY ACTIONS, AND THE SINS THENCE PROCEEDING.
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—sin, mistake, crime. It is sin, for example, to live luxuriously and licentiously; a misfortune, to wound
