XVI. 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: “Show me the man who is without sin.” He answers: “I show you one who is able to be without sin.” His examiner then says to him: “And who is he?” He answers: “You are the man.” “But if,” he adds, “you were to say, ‘I, at any rate, cannot be without sin,’ then you must answer me, ‘Whose fault is that?’ If you then were to say, ‘My own fault,’ you must be further asked, ‘And how is it your fault, if you cannot be without sin?’” He again represents himself as under examination, and thus accosted: “Are you yourself without sin, who say that a man can be without sin?” And he answers: “Whose fault is it that I am not without sin? But if,” continues he, “he had said in reply, ‘The fault is your own;’ then the answer would be, ‘How my fault, when I am unable to be without sin?’” 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,—a 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, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,”¹⁴⁰⁹

1409 Matt. vi. 12.

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