Romans 7:20

Is the sinner compelled to sin by a power outside himself? Not at all. For it was by his own fault that these evil things began, for whoever binds himself to sin voluntarily is ruled by its law. Sin persuades him first, and when it …

For there is a certain weakness of this kind in those who receive the beginnings of conversion: that although one may wish to do at once everything that is good, the effect does not immediately follow the will. For a man, deliberating within himself, resolves (for example) not to grow angry, and he settles this in his will; but because by long use and lasting habit the vice of wrath has held dominion in him, it resists even his will and purpose, and, taking the path customary to it, the force of rage bursts out. The vice of lust acts in like manner. By an equal disease of habit a lie too creeps in, fear frightens him off; and in each of these that man who is now receiving the beginnings of conversion fittingly says that "to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I find not. For the good that I will, this I do not; but the evil that I hate, that I do." But if the will holds the judgment of what is good, while the habit of carnal vices — which has been called the law of the flesh or the law of the members — resists and creeps in, then from the fact that I bear the will of the good, though I do evils, yet because I do them unwillingly, "I consent unto the law of God, that it is good." For I hate evils, and I desire to do the goods which the law commands. But if against my will I do evils, overcome by the habit of vices and by the practice of sinning, "it is no more I" — that is, the inner man — "who do the good I will; but sin that dwelleth in me." For he has named the habit of sinning "sin." "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man." And in these words, as we have often noted above, we seem not to be fully unfolded in the expression, but to be hindered either by the abundance of the conjunctions or by their peculiarities. […]

Do you see, how he acquits the essence of the soul, as well as the essence of the flesh, from accusation, and removes it entirely to sinful actions? For if the soul willeth not the evil, it is cleared: and if he does not work it himself, the body too is set free, and the whole may be charged upon the evil moral choice. For willing is indeed natural, and is from God: but willing on this wise is our own, and from our own mind.

Even if the heretics who are opposed to the Creator suppose that in the next sentence Paul was speaking against him when he says, "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwells no good thing," yet let them read what precedes and follows this. For before it he says, "But sin which dwells in me," which explains why it was appropriate for him to say, "in my flesh dwells no good thing." In what follows he continues, "But if I do that which I do not wish to do, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells in me," which being at war with the law of God and "of my mind," he says, "makes me captive by the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death." And again (for he does not become in the least weary of being helpful) he does not hesitate to add, "For the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death," since by his Son "God condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." In addition to this he makes the point still clearer by saying emphatically, "The body is dead because of sin," indicating that if it is not the temple, it is still the tomb of the soul. For when it is dedicated to God, he adds, "the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, who shall also make alive your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you."

When he says, "it is no longer I who do it," he removes the blame from the body. Who then does evil? Sin, which, according to John Chrysostom, is a vicious and sin-loving will. And this will is not a creation of God, but our …