Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/Concerning Man's Perfection in Righteousness/Chapter 38
Chapter XVI.—(37.) The Sixth Passage.
He has also adduced this passage of Scripture, which is very commonly quoted against his party: “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”[1] And he makes a pretence of answering it by other passages,—how, “the Lord says concerning holy Job, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job? For there is none like him upon earth, a man who is blameless, true, a worshipper of God, and abstaining from every evil thing.’”[2] On this passage we have already made some remarks.[3] But he has not even attempted to show us how, on the one hand, Job was absolutely sinless upon earth,—if the words are to bear such a sense; and, on the other hand, how that can be true which he has admitted to be in the Scripture, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”[4]