Writings of Augustine. A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians.
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Augustin and the Pelagian Controversy.
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians.
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
Extract from Augustin's "Retractations," Book II. Chap. 61,
On the Following Treatise, "contra duas epistolas pelagianorum."
Then follow four books which I wrote to Boniface, bishop of the Roman
Church, in opposition to two letters of the Pelagians, because when
they came into his hands he had sent them to me, finding in them a
calumnious mention of my name. This work commences on this wise: "I
had indeed known you by the praise of your renowned fame."
A Treatise against two Letters of the Pelagians, [2526]
by Aurelius Augustin, Bishop of Hippo;
In Four Books,
written to boniface, bishop of the roman church, in opposition to two
letters of the pelagians, a.d. 420, or a little later
.
Book I.
Augustin replies to a letter sent by Julian, as it was said, to Rome;
and first of all vindicates the catholic doctrine from his calumnies;
then discovers and confutes the heretical sense of the Pelagians
hidden in that profession of faith which the author of the letter
opposed to the catholics.
Chapter 1.--Introduction: Address to Boniface.
I Had indeed known you by the praise of your renowned fame; and by
very numerous and veracious messengers I had learned how full you were
of the grace of God, most blessed and venerable Pope Boniface! But
after my brother Alypius saw you even in bodily presence; and, having
been received by you with all kindness and sincerity, held, at the
bidding of affection, conversations with you; and living with you,
and, although only for a short time, united with you in earnest
affection, poured out to your mind both himself and me; and brought
you back to me in his mind:--the more assured was your friendship, the
greater became in me the conviction of your holiness. For you, who
mind not high things, however loftily you are placed, did not disdain
to be a friend of the lowly and to return the love bestowed upon you.
For what else is friendship which has its name from no other source
than love, [2527] and is nowhere faithful but in Christ, in whom alone
it can be eternal and happy? Whence, also, having received a greater
assurance by means of that brother, through whom I have learned to
know you more familiarly, I have ventured to write something to your
blessedness concerning those things which at this juncture are
claiming by a later stimulus the episcopal care, as far as we are
able, to vigilance on behalf of the Lord's flock.
Footnotes
[2527] The Latin words being amicitia (friendship) and amor (love).
Chapter 2.--Why Heretical Writings Must Be Answered.
For the new heretics, enemies of the grace of God which is given by
Jesus Christ our Lord to small and great, although they are already
shown more openly to need to be avoided by a manifest disapprobation,
still do not cease by their writings to try the hearts of the less
cautious and less learned. And these must certainly be answered, lest
they should confirm themselves or their friends in that wicked error;
even if we were not afraid that they might deceive some one of the
catholics by their plausible discourse. But since they do not cease to
growl at the entrances to the Lord's fold, and from every side to tear
open approaches with a view to tear in pieces the sheep redeemed at
such a price; and since the pastoral watch-tower is common to all of
us who discharge the office of the episcopate (although you are
prominent therein on a loftier height), I do what I can in respect of
my small portion of the charge, as the Lord condescends by the aid of
your prayers to grant me power, to oppose to their pestilent and
crafty writings, healing and defensive writings, so that the madness
with which they are raging may either itself be cured, or may be
prevented from hurting others.
Chapter 3.--Why He Addresses His Book to Boniface.
But these words which I am answering to their two letters,--the one,
to wit, which Julian is said to have sent to Rome, that by its means,
as I believe, he might find or make as many allies as he could; and
the other, which eighteen so-called bishops, sharers in his error,
dared to write to Thessalonica, not to any and every body, but to the
bishop of that place itself, with a view of tempting him by their
craftiness and bringing him over, if it could be done, to their
views;--these words which, as I said, I am writing in answer to those
two letters of theirs in respect of that argument, I have determined
to address especially to your sanctity, not so much for your learning
as for your examination and, if perchance anything should displease
you, for your correction. For my brother intimated to me that you
yourself condescended to give those letters to him, which could not
come into your hands except by the most watchful diligence of my
brethren, your sons. And I thank your most sincere kindness to me that
you have been unwilling that those letters of the enemies of God's
grace should be hidden from me, seeing that in them you have found my
name calumniously as well as openly expressed. But I hope from my Lord
God that not without the reward which is in heaven do those tear me
with their scurrilous teeth to whom I oppose myself on behalf of the
little ones, that they may not be left for destruction to the
deceitful flatterer Pelagius, but may be presented for deliverance to
the truthful Saviour Christ.
Chapter 4 [II.]--The Calumny of Julian,--That the Catholics Teach that
Free Will is Taken Away by Adam's Sin.
Let us now, therefore, reply to Julian's letter. "Those Manicheans
say," says he, "with whom now we do not communicate,--that is, the
whole of them with whom we differ,--that by the sin of the first man,
that is, of Adam, free will perished: and that no one has now the
power of living well, but that all are constrained into sin by the
necessity of their flesh." He calls the catholics Manicheans, after
the manner of that Jovinian who a few years ago, as a new heretic,
destroyed the virginity of the blessed Mary, and placed the marriage
of the faithful on the same level with her sacred virginity. And he
did not object this to the catholics on any other ground than that he
wished them to seem to be either accusers or condemners of marriage.
Chapter 5.--Free Choice Did Not Perish With Adam 's Sin. What Freedom
Did Perish.
But in defending free will they hasten to confide rather in it for
doing righteousness than in God's aid, and to glory every one in
himself, and not in the Lord. [2528] But who of us will say that by
the sin of the first man free will perished from the human race?
Through sin freedom indeed perished, but it was that freedom which was
in Paradise, to have a full righteousness with immortality; and it is
on this account that human nature needs divine grace, since the Lord
says, "If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed"
[2529] --free of course to live well and righteously. For free will in
the sinner up to this extent did not perish,--that by it all sin,
especially they who sin with delight and with love of sin; what they
are pleased to do gives them pleasure. Whence also the apostle says,
"When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness."
[2530] Behold, they are shown to have been by no means able to serve
sin except by another freedom. They are not, then, free from
righteousness except by the choice of the will, but they do not become
free from sin save by the grace of the Saviour. For which reason the
admirable Teacher also distinguished these very words: "For when ye
were the servants," says he, "of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
What fruit had ye, then, in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?
for the end of those things is death. But now being freed from sin and
become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end
eternal life." [2531] He called them "free" from righteousness, not
"freed;" but from sin not "free," lest they should attribute this to
themselves, but most watchfully he preferred to say "freed," referring
this to that declaration of the Lord, "If the Son shall make you free,
then shall ye be free indeed." [2532] Since, then, the sons of men do
not live well unless they are made the sons of God, why is it that
this writer wishes to give the power of good living to free will, when
this power is not given save by God's grace through Jesus Christ our
Lord, as the gospel says: "And as many as received Him, to them gave
He power to become the sons of God"? [2533]
Footnotes
[2528] 1 Cor. i. 31.
[2529] John viii. 36.
[2530] Rom. vi. 20.
[2531] Rom. vi. 20.
[2532] John viii. 36 ff.
[2533] John i. 12.
Chapter 6 [III.]--Grace is Not Given According to Merits.
But lest perchance they say that they are aided to this,--that they
may "have power to become the sons of God," but that they may deserve
to receive this power they have first "received Him" by free will with
no assistance of grace (because this is the purpose of their endeavour
to destroy grace, that they may contend that it is given according to
our deservings); lest perchance, then, they so divide that evangelical
statement as to refer merit to that portion of it wherein it is said,
"But as many as received Him," and then say that in that which
follows, "He gave them power to become the sons of God," grace is not
given freely, but is repaid to this merit; if it is asked of them what
is the meaning of "received Him," will they say anything else than
"believed on Him"? And in order, therefore, that they may know that
this also pertains to grace, let them read what the apostle says: "And
that ye be in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which indeed is
to them a cause of perdition, but of your salvation, and that of God;
for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe
on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." [2534] Certainly he said
that both were given. Let them read what he said also: "Peace be to
the brethren, and love, with faith from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ." [2535] Let them also read what the Lord Himself says:
"No man can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me shall draw
him." [2536] Where, lest any one should suppose that anything else is
said in the words "come to me" than "believe in me," a little after,
when He was speaking of His body and blood, and many were offended at
His discourse, He says, "The words which I have spoken unto you are
spirit and life; but there are some of you which believe not." [2537]
Then the Evangelist added, "For Jesus knew from the beginning who they
were that believed, and who should betray Him. And He said, Therefore
I said unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given him
of my Father." [2538] He repeated, to wit, the saying in which He had
said, "No man can come unto me, except the Father who hath sent me
shall draw him." And He declared that He said this for the sake of
believers and unbelievers, explaining what He had said, "except the
Father who hath sent me shall draw him," by repeating the very same
thing in other words in that which He said, "except it were given him
of my Father." Because he is drawn to Christ to whom it is given to
believe on Christ. Therefore the power is given that they who believe
on Him should become the sons of God, since this very thing is given,
that they believe on Him. And unless this power be given from God, out
of free will there can be none; because it will not be free for good
if the deliverer have not made it free; but in evil he has a free will
in whom a deceiver, either secret or manifest, has grafted the love of
wickedness, or he himself has persuaded himself of it.
Footnotes
[2534] Phil. i. 28, 29.
[2535] Eph. vi. 23.
[2536] John vi. 44.
[2537] John vi. 64.
[2538] John vi. 64 ff.
Chapter 7.--He Concludes that He Does Not Deprive the Wicked of Free
Will.
It is not, therefore, true, as some affirm that we say, and as that
correspondent of yours ventures moreover to write, that "all are
forced into sin," as if they were unwilling, "by the necessity of
their flesh;" but if they are already of the age to use the choice of
their own mind, they are both retained in sin by their own will, and
by their own will are hurried along from sin to sin. For even he who
persuades and deceives does not act in them, except that they may
commit sin by their will, either by ignorance of the truth or by
delight in iniquity, or by both evils,--as well of blindness as of
weakness. But this will, which is free in evil things because it takes
pleasure in evil, is not free in good things, for the reason that it
has not been made free. Nor can a man will any good thing unless he is
aided by Him who cannot will evil,--that is, by the grace of God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. For "everything which is not of faith
is sin." [2539] And thus the good will which withdraws itself from sin
is faithful, because the just lives by faith. [2540] And it pertains
to faith to believe on Christ. And no man can believe on Christ--that
is, come to Him--unless it be given to him. [2541] No man, therefore,
can have a righteous will, unless, with no foregoing merits, he has
received the true, that is, the gratuitous grace from above.
Footnotes
[2539] Rom. xiv. 23.
[2540] Hab. ii. 4.
[2541] Rom. i. 17.
Chapter 8 [IV.]--The Pelagians Demolish Free Will.
These proud and haughty people will not have this; and yet they do not
maintain free will by purifying it, but demolish it by exaggerating
it. For they are angry with us who say these things, for no other
reason than that they disdain to glory in the Lord. Yet Pelagius
feared the episcopal judgment of Palestine; and when it was objected
to him that he said that the grace of God is given according to our
merits, he denied that he said so, and condemned those who said this
with an anathema. [2542] And yet nothing else is found to be defended
in the books which he afterwards wrote, thinking that he had made a
fraud upon the men who were his judges, by lying or by hiding his
meaning, I know not how, in ambiguous words. [2543]
Footnotes
[2542] On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 30.
[2543] On the Grace of Christ, 3, 34.
Chapter 9 [V.]--Another Calumny of Julian,--That "It is Said that
Marriage is Not Appointed by God."
But now let us see what follows. "They say also," he says, "that those
marriages which are now celebrated were not appointed by God, and this
is to be read in Augustin's book, [2544] against which I replied in
four books. And the words of this Augustin our enemies have taken up
by way of hostility to the truth." To these most calumnious words I
see that a brief answer must be made, because he repeats them
afterwards when he wishes to insinuate what such men as they would
say, as if against my words. On that point, with God's assistance, I
must contend with him as far as the matter shall seem to demand. Now,
therefore, I reply that marriage was ordained by God both then, when
it was said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh,"
[2545] and now, wherefore it is written, "A woman is joined to a man
by the Lord." [2546] For nothing else is even now done than that a man
cleave to his wife, and they become two in one flesh. Because
concerning that very marriage which is now contracted, the Lord was
consulted by the Jews whether it was lawful for any cause to put away
a wife. And to the testimony of the law on the occasion mentioned, He
added, "What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder." [2547] The Apostle Paul also applied this witness of the law
when he admonished husbands that their wives should be loved by them.
[2548] Away, then, with the notion that in my book that man should
read anything opposed to these divine testimonies! But either by not
understanding, or rather by calumniating, he seeks to twist what he
reads into another meaning. But I wrote my book, against which he
mentions that he replied in four books, after the condemnation of
Pelagius and Coelestius. And this, I have thought, must be said,
because that man avers that my words had been taken up by his enemies
in hostility to the truth, lest any one should think that these new
heretics were condemned as enemies of the grace of Christ on account
of this book of mine. But in that book is found the defence rather
than the censure of marriage.
Footnotes
[2544] On Marriage and Concupiscence, Book i.
[2545] Gen. ii. 24.
[2546] Prov. xix. 24.
[2547] Matt. xix. 3, 6.
[2548] Eph. v. 25.
Chapter 10--The Third Calumny,--The Assertion that Conjugal
Intercourse is Condemned.
"They say also," says he, "that sexual impulse and the intercourse of
married people were devised by the devil, and that therefore those who
are born innocent are guilty, and that it is the work of the devil,
not of God, that they are born of this diabolical intercourse. And
this, without any ambiguity, is Manicheism." Nay, as I say that
marriage was appointed by God for the sake of the ordinance of the
begetting of children, so I say that the propagation of children to be
begotten could not have taken place without sexual impulse, and
without intercourse of husband and wife, even in Paradise, if children
were begotten there. But whether such impulse and intercourse would
have existed, as is now the case with shameful lust, if no one had
sinned, here is the question concerning which I shall argue hereafter,
if God will.
Chapter 11 [VI.]--The Purpose of the Pelagians in Praising the
Innocence of Conjugal Intercourse.
Yet what it is they wish, what they purpose, to what result they are
striving to bring the matter, the words that are added by that writer
declare, when he asserts that I say, "that therefore they who are born
innocent are guilty, and that it is the work of the devil, not of God,
that they are born of this diabolical intercourse." Since, therefore,
I neither say that this intercourse of husband and wife is diabolical,
especially in the case of believers, which is effected for the sake of
generating children who are afterwards to be regenerated; nor that any
men are made by the devil, but, in so far as they are men, by God; and
nevertheless that even of believing husband and wife are born guilty
persons (as if a wild olive were produced from an olive), [2549] on
account of original sin, and on this account they are under the devil
unless they are born again in Christ, because the devil is the author
of the fault, not of the nature: what, on the other hand, are they
labouring to bring about who say that infants inherit no original sin,
and therefore are not under the devil, except that that grace of God
in infants may be made of no effect, by which He has plucked us out,
as the apostle says, from the power of darkness, and has translated us
into the kingdom of the Son of His love? [2550] [VII.] When, indeed,
they deny that infants are in the power of darkness even before the
help of the Lord the deliverer, they are in such wise praising in them
the Creator's work as to destroy the mercy of the Redeemer. And
because I confess this both in grown-up people and in infants, he says
that this is without any ambiguity Manicheism, although it is the most
ancient catholic dogma by which the new heretical dogma of these men
is overturned.
Footnotes
[2549] On Marriage and Concupiscence, i. 37.
[2550] 1 Cor. i. 13.
Chapter 12.--The Fourth Calumny,--That the Saints of the Old Testament
are Said to Be Not Free from Sins.
"They say," says he, "that the saints in the Old Testament were not
without sins,--that is that they were not free from crimes even by
amendment, but they were seized by death in their guilt." Nay, I say
that either before the law, or in the time of the Old Testament, they
were freed from sins,--not by their own power, because "cursed is
every one that hath put his hope in man," [2551] and without any doubt
those are under this curse whom also the sacred Psalm notifies, "who
trust in their own strength;" [2552] nor by the old covenant which
gendereth to bondage, [2553] although it was divinely given by the
grace of a sure dispensation; nor by that law itself, holy and just
and good as it was, where it is written, "Thou shalt not covet,"
[2554] since it was not given as being able to give life, but it was
added for the sake of transgression until the seed should come to whom
the promise was made; but I say that they were freed by the blood of
the Redeemer Himself, who is the one Mediator of God and man, the man
Christ Jesus. [2555] But those enemies of the grace of God, which is
given to small and great through Jesus Christ our Lord, say that the
men of God of old were of a perfect righteousness, lest they should be
supposed to have needed the incarnation, the passion, and resurrection
of Christ, by belief in whom they were saved.
Footnotes
[2551] Jer. xvii. 5.
[2552] Ps. xlix. 6.
[2553] Gal. iv. 24.
[2554] Ex. xx. 7.
[2555] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
Chapter 13 [VIII.]--The Fifth Calumny,--That It is Said that Paul and
the Rest of the Apostles Were Polluted by Lust.
He says, "They say that even the Apostle Paul, even all the apostles,
were always polluted by immoderate lust." What man, however profane he
may be, would dare to say this? But doubtless this man thus
misrepresents because they contend that what the apostle said, "I know
that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will
is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not,"
[2556] and other such things, he said not of himself, but that he
introduced the person of somebody else, I know not who, who was
suffering these things. Wherefore that passage in his epistle must be
carefully considered and investigated, that their error may not lurk
in any obscurity of his. Although, therefore, the apostle is here
arguing broadly, and with great and lasting conflict maintaining grace
against those who were boasting in the law, yet we do come upon a few
matters which pertain to the matter in hand. On which subject he says:
"Because by the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.
For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets, even the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ
unto all them that believe. For there is no difference. For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." [2557] And
again: "Where is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No;
but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified
by faith without the works of the law." [2558] And again: "For the
promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or
to his seed through the law, but by the righteousness of faith. For if
they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the
promise made of none effect. Because the law worketh wrath, for where
no law is, there is no transgression." [2559] And in another place:
"Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound. But where
sin abounded grace did much more abound." [2560] In still another
place: "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under
law, but under grace." [2561] And again in another place: "Know ye
not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law), that the law
hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth? For the woman which is
under a husband is joined to her husband by the law so long as he
liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is freed from the law of her
husband." [2562] And a little after: "Therefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should
belong to another, who has risen from the dead that we should bring
forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh the passions of
sins which are by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit
unto death, but now we are delivered from the law of death in which we
were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the
oldness of the letter." [2563] With these and such like testimonies
that teacher of the Gentiles showed with sufficient evidence that the
law could not take away sin, but rather increased it, and that grace
takes it away; since the law knew how to command, to which command
weakness gives way, while grace knows to assist, whereby love is
infused. [2564] And lest any one, on account of these testimonies,
should reproach the law, and contend that it is evil, the apostle,
seeing what might occur to those who ill understand it, himself
proposed to himself the same question. "What shall we say, then?" said
he. "Is the law sin? Far from it. But I did not know sin except by the
law." [2565] He had already said before, "For by the law is the
knowledge of sin." It is not, therefore, the taking away, but the
knowledge of sin.
Footnotes
[2556] Rom. vii. 18.
[2557] Rom. iii. 20.
[2558] Rom. iii. 27.
[2559] Rom. iv. 13, etc.
[2560] Rom. v. 20.
[2561] Rom. vi. 14.
[2562] Rom. vii. 1, 2.
[2563] Rom. vii. 4 ff.
[2564] On the Spirit and the Letter, 6.
[2565] Rom. vii. 7.
Chapter 14.--That the Apostle is Speaking in His Own Person and that
of Others Who Are Under Grace, Not Still Under Law.
And from this point he now begins--and, it was on account of this that
I undertook the consideration of these things--to introduce his own
person, and to speak as if about himself; where the Pelagians will not
have it that the apostle himself is to be understood, but say that he
has transfigured another person into himself,--that is, a man placed
still under the law, not yet freed by grace. And here, indeed, they
ought at least to concede that "in the law no one is justified," as
the same apostle says elsewhere; but that the law avails for the
knowledge of sin, and for the transgression of the law itself, so that
sin, being known and increased, grace may be sought for through faith.
But they do not fear that those things should be understood concerning
the apostle which he might also say concerning his past, but they fear
those things which follow. For here he says: "I had not known lust if
the law had not said, Thou shall not covet. But the occasion being
taken, sin wrought in me by the commandment all manner of lust. For
without the law sin was dead. But I was alive without the law once,
but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died, and the
commandment which was for life was found for me to be death. For sin,
taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and
good. Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? By no means.
But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death to me by that which is
good, that the sinner or the sin might become by the commandment
excessive." All these things, as I have said, the apostle can seem to
have commemorated from his past life: so that from what he says, "For
I was alive without the law once," he may have wished his first age
from infancy to be understood, before the years of reason; but in that
he added, "But when the commandment came, sin revived, but I died," he
would fain show himself able to receive the commandment, but not to do
it, and therefore a transgressor of the law.
Chapter 15 [IX.]--He Sins in Will Who is Only Deterred from Sinning by
Fear.
Nor let us be disturbed by what he wrote to the Philippians: "Touching
the righteousness which is in the law, one who is without blame." For
he could be within in evil affections a transgressor of the law, and
yet fulfil the open works of the law, either by the fear of men or of
God Himself; but by terror of punishment, not by love and delight in
righteousness. For it is one thing to do good with the will of doing
good, and another thing to be so inclined by the will to do evil, that
one would actually do it if it could be allowed without punishment.
For thus assuredly he is sinning within in his will itself, who
abstains from sin not by will but by fear. And knowing himself to have
been such in these his internal affections, before the grace of God
which is through Jesus Christ our Lord, the apostle elsewhere
confesses this very plainly. For writing to the Ephesians, he says:
"And you, though ye were dead in your trespasses and sins, wherein
sometime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to
the prince of the power of the air, of that spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience, in whom also we all at one time had our
conversation in the lusts of our flesh, doing the will of our flesh
and our affections, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others also: but God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love
wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins, quickened us
together with Christ, by whose grace we are saved." Again to Titus he
says: "For we ourselves also were sometime foolish and unbelieving,
erring, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and
envy, hateful, and holding one another in hatred." Such was Saul when
he says that he was, touching the righteousness which is in the law,
without reproach. For that he had not pressed on in the law, and
changed his character so as to be without reproach after this hateful
life, he plainly shows in what follows, when he says that he was not
changed from these evils except by the grace of the Saviour. For
adding also this very thing, here as well as to the Ephesians, he
says: "But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour shone forth,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His
mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and of the renewal
of the Holy Spirit, whom He shed on us most abundantly, through Jesus
Christ our Saviour, that being justified by His grace we should be
made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."
Chapter 16.--How Sin Died, and How It Revived.
And what he says in that passage of the Epistle to the Romans, "Sin,
that it might appear sin, wrought death to me by that which is good,"
[2566] agrees with the former passages where he said, "But I had not
known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust unless the law had
said, Thou shalt not covet." [2567] And previously, "By the law is the
knowledge of sin," for he said this also here, "that it might appear
sin;" that we might not understand what he had said, "For without law
sin was dead," except in the sense as if it were not, "it lies hidden,
it does not appear, it is completely ignored, as if it were buried in
I know not what darkness of ignorance." And in that he says, "And I
was alive once without the law," what does he say except, I seemed to
myself to live? And with respect to what he added, "But when the
commandment came, sin revived," what else is it but sin shone forth,
became apparent? Nor yet does he say lived, but revived. For it had
lived formerly in Paradise, where it sufficiently appeared, admitted
in opposition to the command given; but when it is inherited by
children coming into the world, it lies concealed, as if it were dead,
until its evil, resisting righteousness, is felt by its prohibition,
when one thing is commanded and approved, another thing delights and
rules: then, in some measure sin revives in the knowledge of the man
that is born, although it had lived already for some time in the
knowledge of the man as at first made.
Footnotes
[2566] Rom. vii. 13.
[2567] Rom. vii. 7.
Chapter 17 [X.]--"The Law is Spiritual, But I Am Carnal," To Be
Understood of Paul.
But it is not so clear how what follows can be understood concerning
Paul. "For we know," says he, "that the law is spiritual, but I am
carnal." [2568] He does not say, "I was," but, "I am." Was, then, the
apostle, when he wrote this, carnal? or does he say this with respect
to his body? For he was still in the body of this death, not yet made
what he speaks of elsewhere: "It is sown a natural body, it shall be
raised a spiritual body." [2569] For then, of the whole of himself,
that is, of both parts of which he consists, he shall be a spiritual
man, when even the body shall be spiritual. For it is not absurd that
in that life even the flesh should be spiritual, if in this life in
those who still mind earthly things even the spirit itself may be
carnal. Thus, then, he said, "But I am carnal," because the apostle
had not yet a spiritual body, as he might say, "But I am mortal,"
which assuredly he could not be understood to have said except in
respect of his body, which had not yet been clothed with immortality.
Moreover, in reference to what he added, "sold under sin," [2570] lest
any one think that he was not yet redeemed by the blood of Christ,
this also may be understood in respect of that which he says: "And we
ourselves, having the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the
redemption of our body." [2571] For if in this respect he says that he
was sold under sin, that as yet his body has not been redeemed from
corruption; or that he was sold once in the first transgression of the
commandment so as to have a corruptible body which drags down the
soul; [2572] what hinders the apostle here from being understood to
say about himself that which he says in such wise that it may be
understood also of himself, even if in his person he wishes not
himself alone, but all, to be received who had known themselves as
struggling, without consent, in spiritual delight with the affection
of the flesh?
Footnotes
[2568] Rom. vii. 14.
[2569] 1 Cor. xv. 44. [The Latin word for "natural" is animale, i.e.,
"animated," "living," derived from the word anima, "soul," or
"animated and animating principle." Compare the note on ch. 36 of On
the Soul and its Origin, above.--W.]
[2570] Rom. vii. 14.
[2571] Rom. viii. 23.
[2572] Wisd. ix. 15.
Chapter 18.--How the Apostle Said that He Did the Evil that He Would
Not.
Or by chance do we fear what follows, "For that which I do I know not,
for what I will I do not, but what I hate that I do," [2573] lest
perhaps from these words some one should suspect that the apostle is
consenting to the evil works of the concupiscence of the flesh? But we
must consider what he adds: "But if I do that which I will not, I
consent to the law that it is good." For he says that he rather
consents to the law than to the concupiscence of the flesh. For this
he calls by the name of sin. Therefore he said that he acted and
laboured not with the desire of consenting and fulfilling, but from
the impulse of lusting itself. Hence, then, he says, "I consent to the
law that it is good." I consent because I do not will what it does not
will. Afterwards he says, "Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but
sin which dwelleth in me." [2574] What does he mean by "now then,"
but, now at length, under the grace which has delivered the delight of
my will from the consent of lust? For, "it is not I that do it,"
cannot be better understood than that he does not consent to set forth
his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. For if he
lusts and consents and acts, how can he be said not to do the thing
himself, even although he may grieve that he does it, and deeply groan
at being overcome?
Footnotes
[2573] Rom. vii. 15.
[2574] Rom. vii. 17.
Chapter 19.--What It is to Accomplish What is Good.
And now does not what follows most plainly show whence he spoke? "For
I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing"?
[2575] For if he had not explained what he said by the addition of
"that is, in my flesh," it might, perchance, be otherwise understood,
when he said, "in me." And therefore he repeats and urges the same
thing in another form: "For to will is present with me, but to perform
that which is good is not." [2576] For this is to perform that which
is good, that a man should not even lust. For the good is incomplete
when one lusts, even although a man does not consent to the evil of
lust. "For the good that I would," says he, "I do not; but the evil
that I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." [2577] This he
repeated impressively, and as it were to stir up the most slothful
from slumber: "I find then that the law," said he, "is for me wishing
to do good, since evil is present with me." [2578] The law, then, is
for one who would do good, but evil is present from lust, though he
does not consent to this who says, "It is no longer I that do it."
Footnotes
[2575] Rom. vii. 18.
[2576] Rom. vii. 18.
[2577] Rom. vii. 20.
[2578] Rom. vii. 21.
Chapter 20.--In Me, that Is, in My Flesh.
And he declares both more plainly in what follows: "For I delight in
the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my
members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." [2579] But in
that he said, "bringing me into captivity," he can feel emotion
without consenting to it. Whence, because of those three things, two,
to wit, of which we have already argued, in that he says, "But I am
carnal," and "Sold under sin," and this third, "Bringing me into
captivity in the law of sin, which is in my members," the apostle
seems to be describing a man who is still living under the law, and is
not yet under grace. But as I have expounded the former two sayings in
respect of the still corruptible flesh, so also this latter may be
understood as if he had said, "bringing me into captivity," in the
flesh, not in the mind; in emotion, not in consent; and therefore
"bringing me into captivity," because even in the flesh there is not
an alien nature, but our own. As, therefore, he himself expounded what
he had said, "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no
good thing," so also now out of the exposition of that we ought to
learn the meaning of this passage, as if he had said, "Bringing me
into captivity," that is, "my flesh," "to the law of sin, which is in
my members."
Footnotes
[2579] Rom. vii. 21, 22.
Chapter 21.--No Condemnation in Christ Jesus.
Then he adds the reason why he said all these things: "O wretched man
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace
of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!" And thence he concludes:
"Therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the
flesh the law of sin." [2580] To wit, with the flesh, the law of sin,
by lusting; but with the mind, the law of God, by not consenting to
that lust. "For there is now no condemnation to those who are in
Christ Jesus." [2581] For he is not condemned who does not consent to
the evil of the lust of the flesh. "For the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has made thee free from the law of sin and death," so
that, to wit, the lust of the flesh may not appropriate to itself thy
consent. And what follows more and more demonstrates the same meaning.
But moderation must be used.
Footnotes
[2580] Rom. vii. 24, 25.
[2581] Rom. viii. 1.
Chapter 22.--Why the Passage Referred to Must Be Understood of a Man
Established Under Grace.
And it had once appeared to me also that the apostle was in this
argument of his describing a man under the law. [2582] But afterwards
I was constrained to give up the idea by those words where he says,
"Now, then, it is no more I that do it." For to this belongs what he
says subsequently also: "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus." And because I do not see how a man
under the law should say, "I delight in the law of God after the
inward man;" since this very delight in good, by which, moreover, he
does not consent to evil, not from fear of penalty, but from love of
righteousness (for this is meant by "delighting"), can only be
attributed to grace.
Footnotes
[2582] See Augustin's Exposition of Certain Propositions in the
Epistle to the Romans, 44, 45; also his Commentary on Galatians, v.
17; also his letter to Simplicianus, book i. 7, 9.
Chapter 23 [XI.]--What It is to Be Delivered from the Body of This
Death.
For when he says also, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?" [2583] who can deny that when the apostle said this he was
still in the body of this death? And certainly the wicked are not
delivered from this, to whom the same bodies are returned for eternal
torment. Therefore, to be delivered from the body of this death is to
be healed of all the weakness of fleshly lust, and to receive the
body, not for penalty, but for glory. With this passage also those
words are sufficiently in harmony: "Ourselves also, which have the
first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, the redemption, of our body." For surely we
groan with that groaning wherein we say, "O wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" That also where he
says, "For what I do, I know not;" what else is it than: "I will not,
I do not approve, I do not consent, I do not do"? Otherwise it is
contrary to what he said above, "By the law is the knowledge of sin,"
and, "I had not known sin but by the law," and, "Sin, that it might
appear sin, worked death in me by that which is good." For how did he
know sin, of which he was ignorant, by the law? How does sin which is
not known appear? Therefore it is said, "I know not," for "I do not,"
because I myself commit it with no consent of mine; in the same way in
which the Lord will say to the wicked, "I know you not," [2584]
although, beyond a doubt, nothing can be hid from Him; and as it is
said, "Him who had not known sin," [2585] which means who had not done
sin, for He had not known what He condemned.
Footnotes
[2583] Rom. vii. 24.
[2584] Matt. vii. 23.
[2585] 2 Cor. v. 21.
Chapter 24.--He Concludes that the Apostle Spoke in His Own Person,
and that of Those Who are Under Grace.
On the careful consideration of these things, and things of the same
kind in the context of that apostolical Scripture, the apostle is
rightly understood to have signified not, indeed, himself alone in his
own person, but others also established under grace, and with him not
yet established in that perfect peace in which death shall be
swallowed up in victory. [2586] And concerning this he afterwards
says, "But if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but
the spirit is life because of righteousness. If, then, the Spirit of
Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised
up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His
Spirit that dwelleth in you." [2587] Therefore, after our mortal
bodies have been quickened, not only will there be no consent to
sinning, but even the lust of the flesh itself, to which there is no
consent, will not remain. And not to have this resistance to the
spirit in the mortal flesh, was possible only to that man who came not
by the flesh to men. And that the apostles, because they were men, and
carried about in the mortality of this life a body which is corrupted
and weighs down the soul, [2588] were, therefore, "always polluted
with excessive lust," as that man injuriously affirms, be it far from
me to say. But I do say that although they were free from consent to
depraved lusts, they nevertheless groaned concerning the concupiscence
of the flesh, which they bridled by restraint with such humility and
piety, that they desired rather not to have it than to subdue it.
Footnotes
[2586] 1 Cor. xv. 54.
[2587] Rom. viii. 10, 11.
[2588] Wisd. ix. 15.
Chapter 25 [XII.]--The Sixth Calumny,--That Augustin Asserts that Even
Christ Was Not Free from Sins.
In like manner as to what he added, that I say, [2589] "that Christ
even was not free from sins, but that, from the necessity of the
flesh, He spoke falsely, and was stained with other faults," he should
see from whom he heard these things, or in whose letters he read them;
for that, indeed, he perchance did not understand them, and turned
them by the deceitfulness of malice into calumnious meanings.
Footnotes
[2589] See Book iii. 16, below.
Chapter 26 [XIII.]--The Seventh Calumny,--That Augustin Asserts that
in Baptism All Sins are Not Remitted.
"They also say," says he, "that baptism does not give complete
remission of sins, nor take away crimes, but that it shaves them off,
so that the roots of all sins are retained in the evil flesh." Who but
an unbeliever can affirm this against the Pelagians? I say, therefore,
that baptism gives remission of all sins, and takes away guilt, and
does not shave them off; and "that the roots of all sins are" not
"retained in the evil flesh, as if of shaved hair on the head, whence
the sins may grow to be cut down again." For it was I that found out
that similitude, too, for them to use for the purposes of their
calumny, as if I thought and said this.
Chapter 27.--In What Sense Lust is Called Sin in the Regenerate.
But concerning that concupiscence of the flesh of which they speak, I
believe that they are deceived, or that they deceive; for with this
even he that is baptized must struggle with a pious mind, however
carefully he presses forward, and is led by the Spirit of God. But
although this is called sin, it is certainly so called not because it
is sin, but because it is made by sin, as a writing is said to be some
one's "hand" because the hand has written it. But they are sins which
are unlawfully done, spoken, thought, according to the lust of the
flesh, or to ignorance--things which, once done, keep their doers
guilty if they are not forgiven. And this very concupiscence of the
flesh is in such wise put away in baptism, that although it is
inherited by all that are born, it in no respect hurts those that are
born anew. And yet from these, if they carnally beget children, it is
again derived; and again it will be hurtful to those that are born,
unless by the same form it is remitted to them as born again, and
remains in them in no way hindering the future life, because its
guilt, derived by generation, has been put away by regeneration; and
thus it is now no more sin, but is called so, whether because it
became what it is by sin, or because it is stirred by the delight of
sinning, although by the conquest of the delight of righteousness
consent is not given to it. Nor is it on account of this, the guilt of
which has already been taken away in the laver of regeneration, that
the baptized say in their prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we also
forgive our debtors;" [2590] but on account of sins which are
committed, whether in consentings to it, when what is right is
overcome by that which pleases, or when by ignorance evil is accepted
as if it were good. And they are committed, whether by acting, or by
speaking, or--and this is the easiest and the quickest--by thinking.
From all which things what believer ever will boast that he has his
heart pure? or who will boast that he is pure from sin? [2591]
Certainly that which follows in the prayer is said on account of
concupiscence: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil." "For every one," as it is written, "is tempted when he is drawn
away of his own concupiscence, and enticed; then, when concupiscence
hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." [2592]
Footnotes
[2590] Matt. vi. 12.
[2591] Prov. xx. 9.
[2592] Jas. i. 14.
Chapter 28 [XIV.]--Many Without Crime, None Without Sin.
All these products of concupiscence, and the old guilt of
concupiscence itself, are put away by the washing of baptism. And
whatever that concupiscence now brings forth, if they are not those
products which are called not only sins, but even crimes, are purified
by that method of daily prayer when we say, "Forgive us our debts, as
we forgive," and by the sincerity of alms-giving. For no one is so
foolish as to say that that precept of our Lord does not refer to
baptized people: "Forgive and it shall be forgiven you, give and it
shall be given you." [2593] But none could rightly be ordained a
minister in the Church if the apostle had said, "If any is without
sin," where he says, "If any is without crime;" [2594] or if he had
said, "Having no sin," where he says, "Having no crime." [2595]
Because many baptized believers are without crime, but I should say
that no one in this life is without sin,--however much the Pelagians
are inflated, and burst asunder in madness against me because I say
this: not because there remains anything of sin which is not remitted
in baptism; but because by us who remain in the weakness of this life
such sins do not cease daily to be committed, as are daily remitted to
those who pray in faith and work in mercy. This is the soundness of
the catholic faith, which the Holy Spirit everywhere sows,--not the
vanity and presumption of spirit of heretical pravity.
Footnotes
[2593] Luke vi. 37, 38.
[2594] Tit. i. 6.
[2595] 1 Tim. iii. 10.
Chapter 29 [XV.]--Julian Opposes the Faith of His Friends to the
Opinions of Catholic Believers. First of All, of Free Will.
Now therefore let us see, for the rest, in what way--after thinking
that he might calumniously object against me what I believe, and feign
what I do not believe--he himself professes his own faith or that of
the Pelagians. "In opposition to these things," he says, "we daily
argue, and we are unwilling to yield our consent to transgressors,
because we say that free will is in all by nature, and could not
perish by the sin of Adam; which assertion is confirmed by the
authority of all Scriptures." If in any degree it is necessary to say
this, you should not say it against the grace of God,--you should not
give your consent to transgressors, but you should correct your
opinion. But about this, as much as I could, and as far as it seemed
to be sufficient, I have argued above.
Chapter 30.--Secondly, of Marriage.
"We say," says he, "that that marriage which is now celebrated
throughout the earth was ordained by God, and that married people are
not guilty, but that fornicators and adulterers are to be condemned."
This is true and catholic doctrine; but what you want to gather from
this, to wit, that from the intercourse of male and female those who
are born derive no sin to be put away by the laver of
regeneration,--this is false and heretical.
Chapter 31.--Thirdly, of Conjugal Intercourse.
"We say," says he, "that the sexual impulse--that is, that the
virility itself, without which there can be no intercourse--is
ordained by God." To this I reply that the sexual impulse, and, to
make use of his word, virility, without which there can be no
intercourse, was so appointed by God that there was in it nothing to
be ashamed of. For it was not fit that His creature should blush at
the work of his Creator; but by a just punishment the disobedience of
the members was the retribution to the disobedience of the first man,
for which disobedience they blushed when they covered with fig-leaves
those shameful parts which previously were not shameful.
Chapter 32 [XVI.]--The Aprons Which Adam and Eve Wore.
For they did not use for themselves tunics to cover their whole bodies
after their sin, but aprons, [2596] which some of the less careful of
our translators have translated as "coverings." And this indeed is
true; but "covering" is a general name, by which may be understood
every kind of clothing and veil. And ambiguity ought to be avoided, so
that, as the Greek called them perizomata, by which only the shameful
parts of the body are covered, so also the Latin should either use the
Greek word itself, because now custom has come to use it instead of
the Latin, or, as some do, use the word aprons, [2597] or, as others
have better named them, wrestling aprons. [2598] Because this name is
taken from that ancient Roman custom whereby the youth covered their
shameful parts when they were exercised naked in the field; whence
even at this day they are called campestrati, [2599] since they cover
those members with the girdle. Although, if those members by which sin
was committed were to be covered after the sin, men ought not indeed
to have been clothed in tunics, but to have covered their hand and
mouth, because they sinned by taking and eating. What, then, is the
meaning, when the prohibited food was taken, and the transgression of
the precept had been committed, of the look turned towards those
members? What unknown novelty is felt there, and compels itself to be
noticed? And this is signified by the opening of the eyes. For their
eyes were not closed, either when Adam gave names to the cattle and
birds, or when Eve saw the trees to be beautiful and good; but they
were made open--that is, attentive--to consider; as it is written of
Agar, the handmaid of Sarah, that she opened her eyes and saw a well,
[2600] although she certainly had not had them closed before. As,
therefore, they were so suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, which
they were daily in the habit of looking upon and were not confused,
that they could now no longer bear those members naked, but
immediately took care to cover them; did not they--he in the open, she
in the hidden impulse--perceive those members to be disobedient to the
choice of their will, which certainly they ought to have ruled like
the rest by their voluntary command? And this they deservedly
suffered, because they themselves also were not obedient to their
Lord. Therefore they blushed that they in such wise had not manifested
service to their Creator, that they should deserve to lose dominion
over those members by which children were to be procreated.
Footnotes
[2596] Gen. iii. 7.
[2597] Succinctoria.
[2598] Campestria, which, as Augustin explains, is derived from
"campester," and that from "campus." See On the City of God, xiv. 17.
[2599] i.e. "campestre-clad."
[2600] Gen. xxi. 19.
Chapter 33.--The Shame of Nakedness.
This kind of shame--this necessity of blushing--is certainly born with
every man, and in some measure is commanded by the very laws of
nature; so that, in this matter, even virtuous married people are
ashamed. Nor can any one go to such an extreme of evil and disgrace,
as, because he knows God to be the author of nature and the ordainer
of marriage, to have intercourse even with his wife in any one's
sight, or not to blush at those impulses and seek secrecy, where he
can shun the sight not only of strangers, but even of all his own
relatives. Therefore let human nature be permitted to acknowledge the
evil that happens to it by its own fault, lest it should be compelled
either not to blush at its own impulses, which is most shameless, or
else to blush at the work of its Creator, which is most ungrateful. Of
this evil, nevertheless, virtuous marriage makes good use for the sake
of the benefit of the begetting of children. But to consent to lust
for the sake of carnal pleasure alone is sin, although it may be
conceded to married people with permission.
Chapter 34 [XVII.]--Whether There Could Be Sensual Appetite in
Paradise Before the Fall.
But, while maintaining, ye Pelagians, the honourableness and
fruitfulness of marriage, determine, if nobody had sinned, what you
would wish to consider the life of those people in Paradise, and
choose one of these four things. For beyond a doubt, either as often
as ever they pleased they would have had intercourse; or they would
bridle lust when intercourse was not necessary; or lust would arise at
the summons of will, just at the time when chaste prudence would have
perceived beforehand that intercourse was necessary; or, with no lust
existing at all, as every other member served for its own work, so for
its own work the organs of generation also would obey the commands of
those that willed, without any difficulty. Of these four suppositions,
choose which you please; but I think you will reject the two former,
in which lust is either obeyed or resisted. For the first one would
not be in accordance with so great a virtue, and the second not in
harmony with so great a happiness. For be the idea far from us, that
the glory of so great a blessedness as that should either be most
basely enslaved by always following a preceding lust, or, by resisting
it, should not enjoy the most abounding peace. Away, I say, with the
thought that that mind should either be gratified by consenting to
satisfy the concupiscence of the flesh, arising not opportunely for
the sake of procreation, but with unregulated excitement, or that that
quiet should find it necessary to restrain it by refusing.
Chapter 35.--Desire in Paradise Was Either None at All, or It Was
Obedient to the Impulse of the Will.
But whichever you choose of the two other alternatives, there is no
necessity for striving against you with any disputation. For even if
you should refuse to elect the fourth, in which there is the highest
tranquillity of all the obedient members without any lust, since
already the urgency of your arguments has made you hostile to it; that
will doubtless please you which I have put in the third place, that
that carnal concupiscence, whose impulse attains to the final pleasure
which much delights you, should never arise in Paradise except at the
bidding of the will when it would be necessary for procreation. If it
is agreeable to you to arrange this in Paradise, and if, by means of
such a concupiscence of the flesh which should neither anticipate, nor
impede, nor exceed the bidding of the will, it appears to you that
children could have been begotten, I have no objection. For, as far as
I am concerned in this matter, it is enough for me that such a
concupiscence of the flesh is not now among men, as you concede there
might have been in that place of happiness. For what it now is, the
sense of all men certainly confesses, although with modesty; because
it both solicits with excessive and importunate uneasiness the chaste,
even when they are unwilling and are checking it by moderation, and
frequently withdraws itself from the willing and inflicts itself on
the unwilling; so that, by its disobedience, it testifies that it is
nothing else than the punishment of that first disobedience. Whence,
reasonably, both then the first men when they covered their nakedness,
and now whoever considers himself to be a man, every no less modest
than immodest person is confounded at it--far be it from us to say by
the work of God, but--by the penalty of the first and ancient sin.
You, however, not for the sake of religious reasoning, but for excited
contention,--not on behalf of human modesty, but for your own madness,
that even the concupiscence of the flesh itself should not be thought
to be currupted, and original sin to be derived from it,--are
endeavouring by your argument to recall it absolutely, such as it now
is, into Paradise; and to contend that that concupiscence could have
been there which would either always be followed by a disgraceful
consent, or would sometimes be restrained by a pitiable refusal. I,
however, do not greatly care what it delights you to think of it.
Still, whatever of men is born by its means, if he is not born again,
without doubt he is damned; and he must be under the dominion of the
devil, if he is not delivered thence by Christ.
Chapter 36 [XVIII.]--Julian's Fourth Objection, that Man is God's
Work, and is Not Constrained to Evil or Good by His Power.
"We maintain," says he, "that men are the work of God, and that no one
is forced unwillingly by His power either into evil or good, but that
man does either good or ill of his own will; but that in a good work
he is always assisted by God's grace, while in evil he is incited by
the suggestions of the devil." To this I answer, that men, in so far
as they are men, are the work of God; but in so far as they are
sinners, they are under the devil, unless they are plucked from thence
by Him who became the Mediator between God and man, for no other
reason than because He could not be a sinner from men. And that no one
is forced by God's power unwillingly either into evil or good, but
that when God forsakes a man, he deservedly goes to evil, and that
when God assists, without deserving he is converted to good. For a man
is not good if he is unwilling, but by the grace of God he is even
assisted to the point of being willing; because it is not vainly
written, "For it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do
for His good pleasure," [2601] and, "The will is prepared by God."
[2602]
Footnotes
[2601] Phil. ii. 13.
[2602] Prov. viii. 35.
Chapter 37 [XIX.]--The Beginning of a Good Will is the Gift of Grace.
But you think that a man is so aided by the grace of God in a good
work, that in stirring up his will to that very good work you believe
that grace does nothing; for this your own words sufficiently declare.
For why have you not said that a man is incited by God's grace to a
good work, as you have said that he is incited to evil by the
suggestions of the devil, but have said that in a good work he is
always aided by God's grace?--as if by his own will, and without any
grace of God, he undertook a good work, and were then divinely
assisted in the work itself, for the sake, that is to say, of the
merits of his good will; so that grace is rendered as due,--not given
as not due,--and thus grace is made no more grace. [2603] But this is
what, in the Palestinian judgment, Pelagius with a deceitful heart
condemned,--that the grace of God, namely, is given according to our
merits. Tell me, I beseech you, what good, Paul, while he was as yet
Saul, willed, and not rather great evils, when breathing out slaughter
he went, in horrible darkness of mind and madness, to lay waste the
Christians? [2604] For what merits of a good will did God convert him
by a marvellous and sudden calling from those evils to good things?
What shall I say, when he himself cries, "Not by works of
righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved
us"? [2605] What is that which I have already mentioned [2606] as
having been said by the Lord, "No one can come to me,"--which is
understood as "believe on me,"--unless it were given him of my
Father"? [2607] Whether is this given to him who is already willing to
believe, for the sake of the merits of a good will? or rather is the
will itself, as in the case of Saul, stirred up from above, that he
may believe, even although he is so averse from the faith as even to
persecute the believers? For how has the Lord commanded us to pray for
those who persecute us? Do we pray thus that the grace of God may be
recompensed them for the sake of their good will, and not rather that
the evil will itself may be changed into a good one? Just as we
believe that at that time the saints whom he was persecuting did not
pray for Saul in vain, that his will might be converted to the faith
which he was destroying. And indeed that his conversion was effected
from above, appeared even by a manifest miracle. But how many enemies
of Christ are at the present day suddenly drawn by God's secret grace
to Christ! And if I had not set down this word from the gospel, what
things would that man have said in this behalf concerning me, since
even now he is stirring, not against me, but against Him who cries,
"No man can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him"!
[2608] For He does not say, "except He lead him," so that we can thus
in any way understand that his will precedes. For who is "drawn," if
he was already willing? And yet no man comes unless he is willing.
Therefore he is drawn in wondrous ways to will, by Him who knows how
to work within the very hearts of men. Not that men who are unwilling
should believe, which cannot be, but that they should be made willing
from being unwilling.
Footnotes
[2603] Rom. xi. 6.
[2604] Acts ix. 1.
[2605] Tit. iii. 5.
[2606] See above, ch. 6.
[2607] John vi. 66.
[2608] John vi. 44.
Chapter 38 [XX.]--The Power of God's Grace is Proved.
That this is true we do not surmise by human conjecture, but we
discern by the most evident authority of the divine Scriptures. It is
read in the books of the Chronicles: "Also in Judah, the hand of God
was made to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and
of the princes in the word of the Lord." [2609] Also by Ezekiel the
prophet the Lord says, "I will give them another heart, and a new
spirit will I give them; and I will take away their stony heart out of
their flesh, and I will give them an heart of flesh, that they may
walk in my commandments and observe my judgments and do them." [2610]
And what is that which Esther the queen prays when she says, "Give me
eloquent speech in my mouth, and enlighten my words in the sight of
the lion, and turn his heart to hatred of him that fighteth against
us"? [2611] How does she say such things as these in her prayer to
God, if God does not work His will in men's hearts? But perchance the
woman was foolish in praying thus. Let us see, then, whether the
desire of the petitioner was vainly sent on in advance, and whether
the result did not follow as of one who heard. Lo, she goes in to the
king. We need not say much. And because she did not approach him in
her own order, under the compulsion of her great necessity, "he looked
upon her," as it is written, "like a bull in the impulse of his
indignation. And the queen feared, and her colour was changed through
faintness, and she bowed herself upon the head of her maid, who went
before her. And God changed him, and converted his indignation into
mildness." [2612] Now what need is there to relate what follows, where
the divine Scripture testifies that God fulfilled what she had asked
for by working in the heart of the king nothing other than the will by
which he commanded, and it was done as the queen had asked of him? And
now God had heard her that it should be done, who changed the heart of
the king by a most secret and efficacious power before he had heard
the address of the woman beseeching him, and moulded it from
indignation to mildness,--that is, from the will to hurt, to the will
to favour,--according to that word of the apostle, "God worketh in you
to will also." Did the men of God who wrote these things--nay, did the
Spirit of God Himself, under whose guidance such things were written
by them--assail the free will of man? Away with the notion! But He has
commended both the most righteous judgment and the most merciful aid
of the Omnipotent in all cases. For it is enough for man to know that
there is no unrighteousness with God. But how He dispenses those
benefits, making some deservedly vessels of wrath, others graciously
vessels of mercy,--who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been
His counsellor? If, then, we attain to the honour of grace, let us not
be ungrateful by attributing to ourselves what we have received. "For
what have we which we have not received?" [2613]
Footnotes
[2609] 2 Chron. xxx. 12.
[2610] Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27.
[2611] Esther xiv. 13.
[2612] Esther xv. 5 ff.
[2613] 1 Cor. iv. 7.
Chapter 39 [XXI.]--Julian's Fifth Objection Concerning the Saints of
the Old Testament.
"We say," says he, "that the saints of the Old Testament, their
righteousness being perfected here, passed to eternal life,--that is,
that by the love of virtue they departed from all sins; because those
whom we read of as having committed any sin, we nevertheless know to
have amended themselves." Of whatever virtue you may declare that the
ancient righteous men were possessed, nothing saved them but the
belief in the Mediator who shed His blood for the remission of their
sins. For their own word is, "I believed, and therefore I spoke."
[2614] Whence the Apostle Paul also says, "And we having the same
Spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore
have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." [2615] What is
"the same Spirit," but that Spirit whom these righteous men also had
who said such things? The Apostle Peter also says, "Why do ye wish to
put a yoke upon the heathen, which neither we nor our fathers have
been able to bear? But, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
believe that we shall be saved, even as they." [2616] You who are
enemies to this grace do not wish this, that the ancients should be
believed to have been saved by the same grace of Jesus Christ; but you
distribute the times according to Pelagius, [2617] in whose books this
is read, and you say that before the law men were saved by nature,
then by the law, lastly by Christ, as if to men of the two former
times, that is to say, before the law and under the law, the blood of
Christ had not been necessary; making void what is said: "For there is
one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
[2618]
Footnotes
[2614] Ps. cxvi. 10.
[2615] 2 Cor. iv. 13.
[2616] Acts xv. 10, 11.
[2617] See above, On Original Sin, 30.
[2618] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
Chapter 40 [XXII.]--The Sixth Objection, Concerning the Necessity of
Grace for All, and Concerning the Baptism of Infants.
They say, "We confess that the grace of Christ is necessary to all,
both to grown-up people and to infants; and we anathematize those who
say that a child born of two baptized people ought not to be
baptized." I know in what sense you say such things as these--not
according to the Apostle Paul, but according to the heretic
Pelagius;--to wit, that baptism is necessary for infants, not for the
sake of the remission of sins, but only for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven; for you give them outside the kingdom of heaven a place of
salvation and life eternal, even if they have not been baptized. Nor
do you regard what is written, "Whosoever believeth and is baptized
shall be saved; but he who believeth not shall be condemned." [2619]
For which reason, in the Church of the Saviour, infants believe by
means of other people, even as they have derived those sins which are
remitted them in baptism from other people. Nor do you think thus,
that they cannot have life who have been without the body and blood of
Christ, although He said Himself, "Unless ye eat my flesh and drink my
blood, ye shall have no life in you." [2620] Or if you are forced by
the words of the gospel to confess that infants departing from the
body cannot have either life or salvation unless they have been
baptized, ask why those who are not baptized are compelled to undergo
the judgment of the second death, by the judgment of Him who condemns
nobody undeservingly, and you will find what you do not
want,--original sin!
Footnotes
[2619] Mark xvi. 16.
[2620] John vi. 34.
Chapter 41 [XXIII.]--The Seventh Objection, of the Effect of Baptism.
"We condemn," says he, "those who affirm that baptism does not do away
all sins, because we know that full cleansing is conferred by these
mysteries." We also say this; but you do not say that infants are also
by those same mysteries freed from the bonds of their first birth and
of their hateful descent. On which account it behoves you, like other
heretics also, to be separated from the Church of Christ, which holds
this of old time.
Chapter 42 [XXIV.]--He Rebuts the Conclusion of Julian's Letter.
But now the manner in which he concludes the letter by saying, "Let no
one therefore seduce you, nor let the wicked deny that they think
these things. But if they speak the truth, either let a hearing be
given, or let those very bishops who now disagree with me condemn what
I have above said that they hold with the Manicheans, as we condemn
those things which they declare concerning us, and a full agreement
shall be made; but if they will not, know ye that they are Manicheans,
and abstain from their company;"--this is rather to be despised than
rebuked. For which of us hesitates to pronounce an anathema against
the Manicheans, who say that from the good God neither proceed men,
nor was ordained marriage, nor was given the law, which was ministered
to the Hebrew people by Moses! But against the Pelagians also, not
without reason, we pronounce an anathema, for that they are so hostile
to God's grace, which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord, as to say
that it is given not freely, but according to our merits, and thus
grace is no more grace; [2621] and place so much in free will by which
man is plunged into the abyss, as to say that by making good use of it
man deserves grace,--although no man can make good use of it except by
grace, which is not repaid according to debt, but is given freely by
God's mercy. And they so contend that infants are already saved, that
they dare deny that they are to be saved by the Saviour. And holding
and disseminating these execrable dogmas, they still over and above
constantly demand a hearing, when, as condemned, they ought to repent.
Footnotes
[2621] Rom. xi. 6.
Footnotes
[2526] [When Augustin's friend Alypius brought to Africa the extracts
from Julian's reply to Augustin's first book On Marriage and
Concupiscence, which were sent by Count Valerius, and which occasioned
the writing of his second book on the same subject (see above, pp. 259
and 281), he also brought two letters sent by Pope Boniface; the one
ascribed to Julian, and the other to eighteen bishops including
Julian, which attacked the catholic faith, and Augustin personally. It
was in answer to these that this treatise was written.--W.]
.
Book II.
He undertakes to examine the second letter of the Pelagians, filled,
like the first, with calumnies against the Catholics--a letter that
was sent by them to Thessalonica in the name of eighteen bishops; and,
first of all, he shows, by the comparison of the heretical writings
with one another, that the Catholics are by no means falling into the
errors of the Manicheans in detesting the dogmas of the Pelagians. He
repels the calumny of prevarication incurred by the Roman clergy in
the latter condemnation of Pelagius and Coelestius by Zosimus, showing
that the Pelagian dogmas were never approved at Rome, although for
some time, by the clemency of Zosimus, Coelestius was mercifully dealt
with, with a view to leading him to the correction of his errors. He
shows that, under the name of grace, Catholics neither assert a
doctrine of fate, nor attribute respect of persons to God; although
they truly say that God's grace is not given according to human
merits, and that the first desire of good is inspired by God; so that
a man does not at all make a beginning of a change from bad to good,
unless the unbought and gratuitous mercy of God effects that beginning
in him.
Chapter 1.--Introduction; The Pelagians Impeach Catholics as
Manicheans.
Let me now consider a second letter, not of Julian's alone, but common
to him with several bishops, which they sent to Thessalonica; and let
me answer it, with God's help, as I best can. And lest this work of
mine become longer than the necessity of the subject itself requires,
what need is there to refute those things which do not contain the
insidious poison of their doctrine, but seem only to plead for the
acquiescence of the Eastern bishops for their assistance, or, on
behalf of the catholic faith, against the profanity, as they say, of
the Manicheans; with no other view except, a horrible heresy being
presented to them, whose adversaries they profess themselves to be, to
lie hid as the enemies of grace in praise of nature? For who at any
time has stirred any question of these matters against them? or what
catholic is displeased because they condemn those whom the apostle
foretold as departing from the faith, having their conscience seared,
forbidding to marry, abstaining from meats that they think unclean,
not thinking that all things were created by God? [2622] Who at any
time constrained them to deny that every creature of God is good, and
there is no substance which the supreme God has not made, except God
Himself, who was not made by any? It is not such things as these,
which it is plain are catholic truths, that are rebuked and condemned
in them; because not alone the catholic faith holds in detestation the
Manichean impiety as exceedingly foolish and mischievous, but also all
heretics who are not Manicheans. Whence even these Pelagians do well
to utter an anathema against the Manicheans, and to speak against
their errors. But they do two evil things, for which they themselves
must also be anathematized--one, that they impeach catholics under the
name of Manicheans, the other, that they themselves also are
introducing the heresy of a new error. For they are not therefore
sound in the faith because they are not labouring under the disease of
the Manicheans. The kind of pestilence is not always one and the
same--as in the bodies, so also in the minds. As, therefore, the
physician of the body would not have pronounced a man free from peril
of death whom he might have declared free from dropsy, if he had seen
him to be sick of some other mortal disease; so truth is not
acknowledged in their case because they are not Manicheans, if they
are raving in some other kind of perversity. Wherefore what we
anathematize with them is one thing, what we anathematize in them is
another. For we hold in abhorrence with them what is rightly offensive
to them also; just as, nevertheless, we hold in abhorrence in them
that for which they themselves are rightly offensive.
Footnotes
[2622] 1 Tim. iv. ff.
Chapter 2 [II.]--The Heresies of the Manicheans and Pelagians are
Mutually Opposed, and are Alike Reprobated by the Catholic Church.
The Manicheans say that the good God is not the Creator of all
natures; the Pelagians that God is not the Purifier, the Saviour, the
Deliverer of all ages among men. The catholic Church condemns both; as
well maintaining God's creation against the Manicheans, that no nature
may be denied to be framed by Him, as maintaining against the
Pelagians that in all ages human nature must be sought after as
ruined. The Manicheans rebuke the concupiscence of the flesh, not as
if it were an accidental vice, but as if it were a nature bad from
eternity; the Pelagians approve it as if it were no vice, but even a
natural good. The catholic faith condemns both, saying to the
Manicheans, "It is not nature, but it is vice;" saying to the
Pelagians, "It is not of the Father, but it is of the world;" in order
that both may allow it as an evil sickness to be cured--the former by
ceasing to believe it, as it were, incurable, the latter by ceasing to
proclaim it as laudable. The Manicheans deny that to a good man the
beginning of evil came from free will; the Pelagians say that even a
bad man has free will sufficiently to perform the good commandment.
The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the former, "God made man
upright," [2623] and saying to the latter, "If the Son shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed." [2624] The Manicheans say that the
soul, as a particle of God, has sin by the commixture of an evil
nature; the Pelagians say that the soul is upright, not indeed a
particle, but a creature of God, and has not even in this corruptible
life any sin. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the
Manicheans, "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the
tree evil and its fruit evil," [2625] which would not be said to man
who cannot make his own nature, unless because sin is not nature, but
vice; and saying to the Pelagians, "If we say that we have no sin we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." [2626] In these
diseases, opposed as they are to one another, the Manicheans and the
Pelagians are at issue, with dissimilar will but with similar vanity,
separated by different opinions, but close together by a perverse
mind.
Footnotes
[2623] Eccles. vii. 30.
[2624] John viii. 36.
[2625] Matt. xii. 33.
[2626] 1 John i. 8.
Chapter 3.--How Far the Manicheans and Pelagians are Joined in Error;
How Far They are Separated.
Still, indeed, they alike oppose the grace of Christ, they alike make
His baptism of no account, they alike dishonour His flesh; but,
moreover, they do these things in different ways and for different
reasons. For the Manicheans assert that divine assistance is given to
the merits of a good nature, but the Pelagians, to the merits of a
good will. The former say, God owes this to the labours of His
members; the latter say, God owes this to the virtues of His servants.
In both cases, therefore, the reward is not imputed according to
grace, but according to debt. The Manicheans contend, with a profane
heart, that the washing of regeneration--that is, the water itself--is
superfluous, and is of no advantage. But the Pelagians assert that
what is said in holy baptism for the putting away of sins is of no
avail to infants, as they have no sin; and thus in the baptism of
infants, as far as pertains to the remission of sins, the Manicheans
destroy the visible element, but the Pelagians destroy even the
invisible sacrament. The Manicheans dishonour Christ's flesh by
blaspheming the birth from the Virgin; but the Pelagians by making the
flesh of those to be redeemed equal to the flesh of the Redeemer.
Since Christ was born, not of course in sinful flesh, but in the
likeness of sinful flesh, while the flesh of the rest of mankind is
born sinful. The Manicheans, therefore, who absolutely abominate all
flesh, take away the manifest truth from the flesh of Christ; but the
Pelagians, who maintain that no flesh is born sinful, take away from
Christ's flesh its special and proper dignity.
Chapter 4.--The Two Contrary Errors.
Let the Pelagians, then, cease to object to the catholics that which
they are not, but let them rather hasten to amend what they themselves
are; and let them not wish to be considered deserving of approval
because they are opposed to the hateful error of the Manicheans, but
let them acknowledge themselves to be deservedly hateful because they
do not put away their own error. For two errors may be opposed to one
another, although both are to be reprobated because both are alike
opposed to the truth. For if the Pelagians are to be loved because
they hate the Manicheans, the Manicheans should also be loved because
they hate the Pelagians. But be it far from our catholic mother to
choose some to love on the ground that they hate others, when by the
warning and help of the Lord she ought to avoid both, and should
desire to heal both.
Chapter 5 [III.]--The Calumny of the Pelagians Against the Clergy of
the Roman Church.
Moreover, they accuse the Roman clergy, writing, "That, driven by the
fear of a command, they have not blushed to be guilty of the crime of
prevarication; so that, contrary to their previous judgment, wherein
by their proceedings they had assented to the catholic dogma, they
subsequently pronounced that the nature of men is evil." Nay, but the
Pelagians had conceived, with a false hope, that the new and execrable
dogma of Pelagius or Coelestius could be made acceptable to the
catholic intelligences of certain Romans, when those crafty
spirits--however perverted by a wicked error, yet not contemptible,
since they appeared rather to be deserving of considerate correction
than of easy condemnation--were treated with somewhat more of lenity
than the stricter discipline of the Church required. For while so many
and such important ecclesiastical documents were passing and repassing
between the Apostolical See and the African bishops, [2627]
--and,moreover, when the proceedings in this matter in that see were
completed, with Coelestius present and making answer,--what sort of a
letter, what decree, is found of Pope Zosimus, of venerable memory,
wherein he prescribed that it must be believed that man is born
without any taint of original sin? Absolutely he never said
this--never wrote it at all. But since Coelestius had written this in
his pamphlet, among those matters, merely, on which he confessed that
he was still in doubt and desired to be instructed, the desire of
amendment in a man of so acute an intellect, who, if he could be put
right, would assuredly be of advantage to many, and not the falsehood
of the doctrine, was approved. And therefore his pamphlet was called
catholic, because this also is the part of a catholic disposition,--if
by chance in any matters a man thinks differently from what the truth
demands, not with the greatest accuracy to define those matters, but,
if detected and demonstrated, to reject them. For it was not to
heretics, but to catholics, that the apostle was speaking when he
said, "Let us, therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded; and
if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto
you." [2628] This was thought to have been the case in him when he
replied that he consented to the letters of Pope Innocent of blessed
memory, in which all doubt about this matter was removed. And in order
that this might be made fuller and more manifest in him, matters were
delayed until letters should come from Africa, in which province his
craftiness had in some sort become more evidently known. And
afterwards these letters came to Rome containing this, that it was not
sufficient for men of more sluggish and anxious minds that he
confessed his general consent to the letters of Bishop Innocent, but
that he ought openly to anathematize the mischievous statements which
he had made in his pamphlet; lest if he did not do so, many people of
better intelligence should rather believe that in his pamphlet those
poisons of the faith had been approved by the catholic see, because it
had been affirmed by that see that that pamphlet was catholic, than
that they had been amended because of his answer that he consented to
the letters of Pope Innocent. Then, therefore, when his presence was
demanded, in order that by certain and clear answers either the craft
of the man or his correction might plainly appear and remain doubtful
to no one, he withdrew himself and refused the examination. Neither
would the delay which had already been made for the advantage of
others have taken place, if it could not be of advantage to the
pertinacity and madness of those who were excessively perverse. But
if, which be far from the case, it had so been judged in the Roman
Church concerning Coelestius or Pelagius, that those dogmas of theirs,
which in themselves and with themselves Pope Innocent had condemned,
should be pronounced worthy of approval and maintenance, the mark of
prevarication would rather have to be branded on the Roman clergy for
this. But now, when the first letters of the most blessed Pope
Innocent, in reply to the letters of the African bishops, [2629] would
have equally condemned this error which these men are endeavouring to
commend to us; and his successor, the holy Pope Zosimus, would never
have said, never have written, that this dogma which these men think
concerning infants is to be held; nay, would even have bound
Coelestius by a repeated sentence, when he endeavoured to clear
himself, to a consent to the above-mentioned letters of the Apostolic
See;--assuredly, whatever in the meanwhile was done more leniently
concerning Coelestius, provided the stability of the most ancient and
robust faith were maintained, was the most merciful persuasion of
correction, not the most pernicious approval of wickedness; and that
afterwards, by the same priesthood, Coelestius and Pelagius were
condemned by repeated authority, was the proof of a severity, for a
little while intermitted, at length of necessity to be carried out,
not a denial of a previously-known truth or a new acknowledgment of
truth.
Footnotes
[2627] See On Original Sin, 9, 5, 8.
[2628] Phil. iii. 15.
[2629] See Augustin's Letters, 181, 182, 183.
Chapter 6 [IV.]--What Was Done in the Case of Coelestius and Zosimus.
But what need is there for us to delay longer in speaking of this
matter, when there are extant here and there proceedings and writings
drawn up, where all those things just as they were transacted may be
either learnt or recalled? For who does not see in what degree
Coelestius was bound by the interrogations of your holy predecessor
and by the answers of Coelestius, whereby he professed that he
consented to the letters of Pope Innocent, and fastened by a most
wholesome chain, so as not to dare any further to maintain that the
original sin of infants is not put away in baptism? Because these are
the words of the venerable Bishop Innocent concerning this matter to
the Carthaginian Council: "For once," he said, "he bore free will;
but, using his advantage inconsiderately, and falling into the depths
of apostasy, he was overwhelmed, and found no way whereby he could
rise from thence; and, deceived for ever by his liberty, he would have
lain under the oppression of this ruin, if the advent of Christ had
not subsequently for his grace delivered him, and, by the purification
of a new regeneration, purged all past sin by the washing of His
baptism." [2630] What could be more clear or more manifest than that
judgment of the Apostolical See? To this Coelestius professed that he
assented, when it was said to him by your holy predecessor, "Do you
condemn all those things that are bandied about under your name?" and
he himself replied, "I condemn them in accordance with the judgment of
your predecessor Innocent, of blessed memory." But among other things
which had been uttered under his name, the deacon Paulinus had
objected to Coelestius that he said "that the sin of Adam was
prejudicial to himself alone, and not to the human race, and that
infants newly born were in the same condition in which Adam was before
his sin." [2631] Accordingly, if he would condemn the views objected
to by Paulinus with a truthful heart and tongue, according to the
judgment of the blessed Pope Innocent, what could remain to him
afterwards whence he could contend that there was no sin in infants
resulting from the past transgression of the first man, which would be
purged in holy baptism by the purification of the new regeneration?
But he showed that he had answered deceitfully by the final event,
when he withdrew himself from the examination, lest he should be
compelled, according to the African rescripts, absolutely to mention
and anathematize the very words themselves concerning this question
which he wrote in his tractate.
Footnotes
[2630] Augustin's Letters, 181, 7.
[2631] See On Original Sin, 3.
Chapter 7.--He Suggests a Dilemma to Coelestius.
What was that which the same pope replied to the bishops of Numidia
concerning this very cause, because he had received letters from both
Councils, as well from the Council of Carthage as from the Council of
Mileve--does he not speak most plainly concerning infants? For these
are his words: [2632] "For what your Fraternity [2633] asserts that
they preach, that infants can be endowed with the rewards of eternal
life even without the grace of baptism, is excessively silly; for
unless they shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His
blood, they shall not have life in themselves. [2634] And they who
maintain this as being theirs without regeneration, appear to me to
wish to destroy baptism itself, since they proclaim that these have
that which we believe is not to be conferred on them without baptism."
What does the ungrateful man say to this, when the Apostolic See had
already spared him on his profession, as if he were corrected by its
most benignant lenity? What does he say to this? Will infants after
the end of their life, even if while they live they are not baptized
in Christ, be in eternal life, or will they not? If he should say,
"They will," how then did he answer that he had condemned what had
been uttered under his name "according to the judgment of Innocent, of
blessed memory"? Lo, Pope Innocent, of blessed memory, says that
infants have not life without Christ's baptism, and without partaking
of Christ's body and blood. If he should say, "They will not," how
then, if they do not receive eternal life, are they certainly by
consequence condemned in eternal death if they derive no original sin?
Footnotes
[2632] See Augustin's Letters, 182, 5.
[2633] An address like "your Honour," "your Love," etc.
[2634] John vi. 54.
Chapter 8.--The Catholic Faith Concerning Infants.
What do they say to these things who dare also to write their
mischievous impieties, and dare to send them to the Eastern bishops?
Coelestius is held to have given consent to the letters of the
venerable Innocent; the letters themselves of the prelate mentioned
are read, and he writes that infants who are not baptized cannot have
life. And who will deny that, as a consequence, they have death, if
they have not life? Whence, then, in infants, is so wretched a penalty
as that, if there is no original fault? How, then, are the Roman
clergy charged with prevarication by those forsakers of the faith and
opponents of grace under Bishop Zosimus, as if they had had any other
view in the subsequent condemnation of Coelestius and Pelagius than
that which they had in a former one under Innocent? Because,
certainly, since by the letters of the venerable Innocent concerning
the abode of infants in eternal death unless they were baptized in
Christ, the antiquity of the catholic faith shone forth, assuredly he
would rather be a prevaricator from the Roman Church who should
deviate from that judgment; and since with God's blessing this did not
happen, but that judgment itself was constantly maintained in the
repeated condemnation of Coelestius and Pelagius, let them understand
that they themselves are in the position wherein they accuse others of
being, and let them hereafter be healed of their prevarication from
the faith. Because the catholic faith does not say that the nature of
man is bad in as far as he was made man at first by the Creator; nor
now is what God creates in that nature when He makes men from men, his
evil; but what he derives from that sin of the first man.
Chapter 9 [V.]--He Replies to the Calumnies of the Pelagians.
And now we must look to those things which they objected to us in
their letters, and briefly mentioned. And to these this is my answer.
We do not say that by the sin of Adam free will perished out of the
nature of men; but that it avails for sinning in men subjected to the
devil; while it is not of avail for good and pious living, unless the
will itself of man should be made free by God's grace, and assisted to
every good movement of action, of speech, of thought. We say that no
one but the Lord God is the maker of those who are born, and that
marriage was ordained not by the devil, but by God Himself; yet that
all are born under sin on account of the fault of propagation, and
that, therefore, all are under the devil until they are born again in
Christ. Nor are we maintaining fate under the name of grace, because
we say that the grace of God is preceded by no merits of man. If,
however, it is agreeable to any to call the will of the Almighty God
by the name of fate, while we indeed shun profane novelties of words,
we have no use for contending about words.
Chapter 10.--Why the Pelagians Falsely Accuse Catholics of Maintaining
Fate Under the Name of Grace.
But, as I was somewhat more attentively considering for what reason
they should think it well to object this to us, that we assert fate
under the name of grace, I first of all looked into those words of
theirs which follow. For thus they have thought that this was to be
objected to us: "Under the name," say they, "of grace, they so assert
fate as to say that unless God inspired unwilling and resisting man
with the desire of good, and that good imperfect, he would neither be
able to decline from evil nor to lay hold of good." Then a little
after, where they mention what they maintain, I gave heed to what was
said by them about this matter. "We confess," say they, that baptism
is necessary for all ages, and that grace, moreover, assists the good
purpose of everybody; but yet that it does not infuse the love of
virtue into a reluctant one, because there is no acceptance of persons
with God." [2635] From these words of theirs, I perceived that for
this reason they either think, or wish it to be thought, that we
assert fate under the name of grace, because we say that God's grace
is not given in respect of our merits, but according to His own most
merciful will, in that He said, "I will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." [2636]
Where, by way of consequence, it is added, "Therefore it is not of him
that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy."
[2637] Here any one might be equally foolish in thinking or saying
that the apostle is an assertor of fate. But here these people
sufficiently lay themselves open; for when they malign us by saying
that we maintain fate under the name of grace, because we say that
God's grace is not given on account of our merits, beyond a doubt they
confess that they themselves say that it is given on account of our
merits; thus their blindness could not conceal and dissimulate that
they believe and think thus, although, when this view was objected to
him, Pelagius, in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, with crafty
fear condemned it. For it was objected to him from the words of his
own disciple Coelestius, indeed, that he himself also was in the habit
of saying that God's grace is given on account of our merits. And he
in abhorrence, or in pretended abhorrence, of this, did not delay,
with his lips at least, to anathematize it; [2638] but, as his later
writings indicate, and the assertion of those followers of his makes
evident, he kept it in his deceitful heart, until afterwards his
boldness might put forth in letters [2639] what the cunning of a
denier had then hidden for fear. And still the Pelagian bishops do not
dread, and at least are not ashamed, to send their letters to the
catholic Eastern bishops, in which they charge us with being assertors
of fate because we do not say that even grace is given according to
our merits; although Pelagius, fearing the Eastern bishops, did not
dare to say this, and so was compelled to condemn it.
Footnotes
[2635] Rom. ii. 11; Col. iii. 25.
[2636] Ex. xxxiii. 19; Rom. ix. 15.
[2637] Rom. ix. 16.
[2638] See On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 30.
[2639] See On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 34.
Chapter 11 [VI.]--The Accusation of Fate is Thrown Back Upon the
Adversaries.
But is it true, O children of pride, enemies of God's grace, new
Pelagian heretics, that whoever says that all man's good deservings
are preceded by God's grace, and that God's grace is not given to
merits, lest it should not be grace if it is not given freely but be
repaid as due to those who deserve it, seems to you to assert fate? Do
not you yourselves also say, whatever be your purpose, that baptism is
necessary for all ages? Have you not written in this very letter of
yours that opinion concerning baptism, and that concerning grace, side
by side? Why did not baptism, which is given to infants, by that very
juxtaposition admonish you what you ought to think concerning grace?
For these are your words: "We confess that baptism is necessary for
all ages, and that grace, moreover, assists the good purpose of
everybody; but yet that it does not infuse the love of virtue into a
reluctant one, because there is no acceptance of persons with God." In
all these words of yours, I for the meanwhile say nothing of what you
have said concerning grace. But give a reason concerning baptism, why
you should say that it is necessary for all ages; say why it is
necessary for infants. Assuredly because it confers some good upon
them; and that same something is neither small nor moderate, but of
great account. For although you deny that they contract the original
sin which is remitted in baptism, yet you do not deny that in that
laver of regeneration they are adopted from the sons of men unto the
sons of God; nay, you even preach this. Tell us, then, how the
infants, whoever they are, that are baptized in Christ and have
departed from the body, received so lofty a gift as this, and with
what preceding merits. If you should say that they have deserved this
by the piety of their parents, it will be replied to you, Why is this
benefit sometimes denied to the children of pious people and given to
the children of the wicked? For sometimes the offspring born from
religious people, in tender age, and thus fresh from the womb, is
forestalled by death before it can be washed in the laver of
regeneration, and the infant born of Christ's foes is baptized in
Christ by the mercy of Christians,--the baptized mother bewails her
own little one not baptized, and the chaste virgin gathers in to be
baptized a foreign offspring, exposed by an unchaste mother. Here,
certainly, the merits of parents are wanting, and even by your own
confession the merits of the infants themselves are wanting also. For
we know that you do not believe this of the human soul, that it has
lived somewhere before it inhabited this earthly body, and has done
something either of good or of evil for which it might deserve such
difference in the flesh. What cause, then, has procured baptism for
this infant, and has denied it to that? Do they have fate because they
do not have merit? or is there in these things acceptance of persons
with God? For you have said both,--first fate, afterwards acceptance
of persons,--that, since both must be refuted, there may remain the
merit which you wish to introduce against grace. Answer, then,
concerning the merits of infants, why some should depart from their
bodies baptized, others not baptized, and by the merits of their
parents neither possess nor fail of so excellent a gift that they
should become sons of God from sons of men, by no deserving of their
parents, by no deservings of their own. You are silent, forsooth, and
you find yourselves rather in the same position which you object to
us. For if when there is no merit you say that consequently there is
fate, and on this account wish the merit of man to be understood in
the grace of God, lest you should be compelled to confess fate; see,
you rather assert a fate in the baptism of infants, since you avow
that in them there is no merit. But if, in the case of infants to be
baptized, you deny that any merit at all precedes, and yet do not
concede that there is a fate, why do you cry out,--when we say that
the grace of God is therefore given freely, lest it should not be
grace, and is not repaid as if it were due to preceding merits,--that
we are assertors of fate?--not perceiving that in the justification of
the wicked, as there are no merits because it is God's grace, so that
it is not fate because it is God's grace, and so that it is not
acceptance of persons because it is God's grace.
Chapter 12.--What is Meant Under the Name of Fate.
Because they who affirm fate contend that not only actions and events,
but, moreover, our very wills themselves depend on the position of the
stars at the time in which one is conceived or born; which positions
they call "constellations." But the grace of God stands above not only
all stars and all heavens, but, moreover, all angels. In a word, the
assertors of fate attribute both men's good and evil doings and
fortunes to fate; but God in the ill fortunes of men follows up their
merits with due retribution, while good fortunes He bestows by
undeserved grace with a merciful will; doing both the one and the
other not according to a temporal conjunction of stars, but according
to the eternal and high counsel of His severity and goodness. We see,
then, that neither belongs to fate. Here, if you answer that this very
benevolence of God, by which He follows not merits, but bestows
undeserved benefits with gratuitous bounty, should rather be called
"fate," when the apostle calls this "grace," saying, "By grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, but it is the gift of
God; not of works, lest perchance any one should be lifted up," [2640]
--do you not consider, do you not perceive that it is not by us that
fate is asserted under the name of grace, but it is rather by you that
divine grace is called by the name of fate?
Footnotes
[2640] Eph. ii. 8.
Chapter 13 [VII.]--He Repels the Calumny Concerning the Acceptance of
Persons.
And, moreover, we rightly call it "acceptance of persons" where he who
judges, neglecting the merit of the cause concerning which he is
judging, favours the one against the other, because he finds something
in his person which is worthy of honour or of pity. But if any one
have two debtors, and he choose to remit the debt to the one, to
require it of the other, he gives to whom he will and defrauds nobody;
nor is this to be called "acceptance of persons," since there is no
injustice. The acceptance of persons may seem otherwise to those who
are of small understanding, where the lord of the vineyard gave to
those labourers who had done work therein for one hour as much as to
those who had borne the burden and heat of the day, making them equal
in wages in the labour of whom there had been such a difference. But
what did he reply to those who murmured against the goodman of the
house concerning this, as it were, acceptance of persons? "Friend,"
said he, "I do thee no wrong. Hast not thou agreed with me for a
denarius? Take what thine is, and go; but I choose to give to this
last as to thee. Is it not lawful to me to do what I will? Is thine
eye evil because I am good?" [2641] Here, forsooth, is the entire
justice: "I choose this. To thee," he says, "I have repaid; on him I
have bestowed; nor have I taken anything away from thee to bestow it
on him; nor have I either diminished or denied what I owed to you."
"May I not do what I will? Is thine eye evil because I am good?" As,
therefore, here there is no acceptance of persons, because one is
honoured freely in such wise as that another is not defrauded of what
is due to him: so also when, according to the purpose of God, one is
called, another is not called, a gratuitous benefit is bestowed on the
one that is called, of which benefit the calling itself is the
beginning,--an evil is repaid to him that is not called, because all
are guilty, from the fact that by one man sin entered into the world.
And in that parable of the labourers, indeed, where they received one
denarius who laboured for one hour, as well as those who laboured
twelve times as long,--though assuredly these latter, according to
human reasonings, however vain, ought in proportion to the amount of
their labour to have received twelve denarii,--both were put on an
equality in respect of benefit, not some delivered and others
condemned; because even those who laboured more had it from the
goodman of the house himself, both that they were so called as to
come, and that they were so fed as to have no want. But where it is
said, "Therefore, on whom He will He has mercy, and whom He will He
hardeneth," [2642] who "maketh one vessel to honour and another to
dishonour" [2643] it is given indeed without deserving, and freely,
because he is of the same mass to whom it is not given; but evil is
deservedly and of debt repaid, since in the mass of perdition evil is
not repaid to the evil unjustly. And to him to whom it is repaid it is
evil, because it is his punishment; while to Him by whom it is repaid
it is good, because it is His right to do it. Nor is there any
acceptance of persons in the case of two debtors equally guilty, if to
the one is remitted and from the other is claimed that which is
equally owed by both.
Footnotes
[2641] Matt. xx. 9 ff.
[2642] Rom. ix. 18.
[2643] Rom. ix. 21.
Chapter 14.--He Illustrates His Argument by an Example.
But that what I am saying may be made clear by the exhibition of an
example, let us suppose certain twins, born of a certain harlot, and
exposed that they might be taken up by others. One of them has expired
without baptism; the other is baptized. What can we say was in this
case the "fate" or the "fortune," which are here absolutely nothing?
What "acceptance of persons," when with God there is none, even if
there could be any such thing in these cases, seeing that they
certainly had nothing for which the one could be preferred to the
other, and no merits of their own,--whether good, for which the one
might deserve to be baptized; or evil, for which the other might
deserve to die without baptism? Were there any merits in their
parents, when the father was a fornicator, the mother a harlot? But of
whatever kind those merits were, there were certainly not any that
were different in those who died in such different conditions, but all
were common to both. If, then, neither fate, since no stars made them
to differ; nor fortune, since no fortuitous accidents produce these
things; nor the diversity of persons nor of merits have done this;
what remains, so far as it refers to the baptized child, save the
grace of God, which is given freely to vessels made unto honour; but,
as it refers to the unbaptized child, the wrath of God, which is
repaid to the vessels made for dishonour in respect of the deservings
of the lump itself? But in that one which is baptized we constrain you
to confess the grace of God, and convince you that no merit of its own
preceded; but as to that one which died without baptism, why that
sacrament should have been wanting to it, which even you confess to be
needful for all ages, and what in that manner may have been punished
in him, it is for you to see who will not have it that there is any
original sin.
Chapter 15.--The Apostle Meets the Question by Leaving It Unsolved.
Since in the case of those two twins we have without a doubt one and
the same case, the difficulty of the question why the one died in one
way, and the other in another, is solved by the apostle as it were by
not solving it; for, when he had proposed something of the same kind
about two twins, seeing that it was said (not of works, since they had
not as yet done anything either of good or of evil, but of Him that
calleth), "The older shall serve the younger," [2644] and, "Jacob have
I loved, and Esau have I hated;" [2645] and he had prolonged the
horror of this deep thing even to the point of saying, "Therefore hath
He mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth:" [2646] he
perceived at once what the trouble was, and opposed to himself the
words of a gainsayer which he was to check by apostolical authority.
For he says, "You say, then, unto me, "Why doth He yet find fault? For
who has resisted His will?" And to him who says this he answered, "O
man, who art thou that repliest against God? Doth the thing formed say
to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter
power of the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and
another unto dishonour?" [2647] Then, following on, he opened up this
great and hidden secret as far as he judged it fit that it should be
disclosed to men, saying, "But if God, willing to show His wrath and
to demonstrate His power, endured in much patience the vessels of
wrath fitted for destruction, even that He might make known the riches
of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory."
[2648] This is not only the assistance, but, moreover, the proof of
God's grace--the assistance, namely, in the vessels of mercy, but the
proof in the vessels of wrath; for in these He shows His anger and
makes known His power, because His goodness is so mighty that He even
uses the evil well; and in those He makes known the riches of His
glory on the vessels of mercy, because what the justice of a punisher
requires from the vessels of wrath, the grace of the Deliverer remits
to the vessels of mercy. Nor would the kindness which is bestowed on
some freely appear, unless to other equally guilty and from the same
mass God showed what was really due to both, and condemned them with a
righteous judgment. "For who maketh thee to differ?" [2649] says the
same apostle to a man as it were boasting concerning himself and his
own benefits. "For who maketh thee to differ" from the vessels of
wrath; of course, from the mass of perdition which has sent all by one
into damnation? "Who maketh thee to differ?" And as if he had
answered, "My faith maketh me to differ,--my purpose, my merit,"--he
says, "For what hast thou which thou hast not received? But if thou
hast received it, why dost thou boast as if thou receivedst it
not?"--that is, as if that by which thou art made to differ were of
thine own. Therefore He maketh thee to differ who bestows that whence
thou art made to differ, by removing the penalty that is due, by
conferring the grace which is not due. He maketh to differ, who, when
the darkness was upon the face of the abyss, said, "Let there be
light; and there was light, and divided"--that is, made to
differ--"between the light and the darkness." [2650] For when there
was only darkness, He did not find what He should make to differ; but
by making the light, He made to differ; so that it may be said to the
justified wicked, "For ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light
in the Lord." [2651] And thus he who glories must glory not in
himself, but in the Lord. He makes to differ who--of those who are not
yet born, and who have not yet done any good or evil, that His
purpose, according to the election, might stand not of works, but of
Himself that calleth--said, The older shall serve the younger, and
commending that very purpose afterwards by the mouth of the prophet,
said, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." [2652] Because he
said "the election," and in this God does not find made by another
what He may choose, but Himself makes what He may find; just as it is
written of the remnant of Israel: "There is made a remnant by the
election of grace; but if by grace, then it is no more of works,
otherwise grace is no more grace." [2653] On which account you are
certainly foolish who, when the Truth declares, "Not of works, but of
Him that calleth, it was said," say that Jacob was loved on account of
future works which God foreknew that he would do, and thus contradict
the apostle when he says, "Not of works;" as if he could not have
said, "Not of present, but of future works." But he says, "Not of
works," that He might commend grace; "but if of grace, now is it no
more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace." For grace, not due,
but free, precedes, that by it good works may be done; but if good
works should precede, grace should be repaid, as it were, to works,
and thus grace should be no more grace.
Footnotes
[2644] Rom. ix. 11.
[2645] Rom. ix. 11.
[2646] Rom. ix. 18.
[2647] Rom. ix. 19.
[2648] Rom. ix. 22, 23.
[2649] 1 Cor. iv. 7.
[2650] Gen. i. 2.
[2651] Eph. v. 8.
[2652] Mal. i. 2.
[2653] Rom. xi. 5.
Chapter 16.--The Pelagians are Refuted by the Case of the Twin Infants
Dying, the One After, and the Other Without, the Grace of Baptism.
But that every lurking-place of your darkness may be taken away from
you, I have proposed to you the case of such twins as were not
assisted by the merits of their parents, and both died in the very
beginning of infancy, the one baptized, the other without baptism;
lest you should say that God foreknew their future works, as you say
of Jacob and Esau, in opposition to the apostle. For how did He
foreknow that those things should be, which, in those infants who were
to die in infancy, He rather foreknew as not to be, since His
foreknowledge cannot be deceived? Or what does it profit those who are
taken away from this life that wickedness may not change their
understanding, nor deceit beguile their soul, if even the sin which
has not been done, said, or thought, is thus punished as if it had
been committed? Because, if it is most absurd, silly, and senseless,
that certain men should have to be condemned for those sins, the guilt
of which they could neither derive from their parents, as you say, nor
could incur themselves, either by committing them, or even by
conceiving of them, there comes back to you that unbaptized twin
brother of the baptized one, and silently asks you for what reason he
was made to differ from his brother in respect of happiness,--why he
was punished with that infelicity, so that, while his brother was
adopted into a child of God, he himself should not receive that
sacrament which, as you confess, is necessary for every age, if, even
as there is not a fortune or a fate, or an acceptance of persons with
God, so there is no gift of grace without merits, and no original sin.
To this dumb child you absolutely submit your tongue and voice; to
this witness who says nothing,--you have nothing at all to say!
Chapter 17 [VIII.]--Even the Desire of an Imperfect Good is a Gift of
Grace, Otherwise Grace Would Be Given According to Merits.
Let us now see, as we can, the nature of this thing which they will
have to precede in man, in order that he may be regarded as worthy of
the assistance of grace, and to the merit of which in him grace is not
given as if unearned, but is rendered as due; and thus grace is no
more grace. Let us see, however, what this is. "Under the name," say
they, "of grace, they so assert fate as to say that unless God should
have inspired the desire for good, and that, imperfect good, into
unwilling and resisting man, he would neither be able to decline from
evil nor to grasp after good." I have already shown what empty things
they speak about fate and grace. Now the question which I ought to
consider is this, whether God inspires the desire of good into
unwilling and resisting man, that he may be no longer unwilling, no
longer resisting, but consenting to the good and willing the good. For
those men will have it that the desire of good in man begins from man
himself; that the merit of this beginning is, moreover, attended with
the grace of completion--if, at least, they will allow so much as even
this. For Pelagius says that what is good is "more easily" fulfilled
if grace assists. [2654] By which addition--that is, by adding "more
easily"--he certainly signifies that he is of the opinion that, even
if the aid of grace should be wanting, yet good might be accomplished,
although with greater difficulty, by free will. But let me prescribe
to my present opponents what they should think in this matter, without
speaking of the author of this heresy himself. Let us allow them, with
their free will, to be free even from Pelagius himself, and rather
give heed to their words which they have written in this letter to
which I am replying.
Footnotes
[2654] See above, On the Grace of Christ, ch. 8.
Chapter 18.--The Desire of Good is God's Gift.
For they have thought that it was to be objected to us that we say
"that God inspires into unwilling and resisting man the desire," not
of any very great good, but "even of imperfect good." Possibly, then,
they themselves are keeping open, in some sense at least, a place for
grace, as thinking that man may have the desire of good without grace,
but only of imperfect good; while of perfect, he could not easily have
the desire with grace, but except with it they could not have it at
all. Truly, even in this way, too, they are saying that God's grace is
given according to our merits, which Pelagius, in the ecclesiastical
meeting in the East, condemned, in the fear of being condemned. For if
without God's grace the desire of good begins with ourselves, merit
itself will have begun--to which, as if of debt, comes the assistance
of grace; and thus God's grace will not be bestowed freely, but will
be given according to our merit. But that he might furnish a reply to
the future Pelagius, the Lord does not say, "Without me it is with
difficulty that you can do anything," but He says, "Without me ye can
do nothing." [2655] And, that He might also furnish an answer to these
future heretics, in that very same evangelical saying He does not say,
"Without me you can perfect nothing," but "do" nothing. For if He had
said "perfect," they might say that God's aid is necessary not for
beginning good, which is of ourselves, but for perfecting it. But let
them hear also the apostle. For when the Lord says, "Without me ye can
do nothing," in this one word He comprehends both the beginning and
the ending. The apostle, indeed, as if he were an expounder of the
Lord's saying, distinguished both very clearly when he says, "Because
He who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it even to the day
of Christ Jesus." [2656] But in the Holy Scriptures, in the writings
of the same apostle, we find more about that of which we are speaking.
For we are now speaking of the desire of good, and if they will have
this to begin of ourselves and to be perfected by God, let them see
what they can answer to the apostle when he says, "Not that we are
sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is
of God." [2657] "To think anything," he says,--he certainly means, "to
think anything good;" but is it less to think than to desire. Because
we think all that we desire, but we do not desire all that we think;
because sometimes also we think what we do not desire. Since, then, it
is a smaller thing to think than to desire,--for a man may think good
which he does not yet desire, and by advancing may afterwards desire
what before without desire he thought of,--how are we not sufficient
as of ourselves to that which is less, that is, to the thinking of
something good, but our sufficiency is of God; while to that which is
greater,--that is, to the desire of some good thing--without the
divine help, we are sufficient of free will? For what the apostle says
here is not, "Not that we are sufficient as of ourselves to think that
which is perfect;" but he says, "to think anything," to which
"nothing" is the contrary. And this is the meaning of what the Lord
says, "Without me ye can do nothing."
Footnotes
[2655] John xv. 5.
[2656] Phil. i. 6.
[2657] 2 Cor. iii. 5.
Chapter 19 [IX.]--He Interprets the Scriptures Which the Pelagians
Make Ill Use of.
But assuredly, as to what is written, "The preparation of the heart is
man's part, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord," [2658]
they are misled by an imperfect understanding, so as to think that to
prepare the heart--that is, to begin good--pertains to man without the
aid of God's grace. Be it far from the children of promise thus to
understand it! As if, when they heard the Lord saying, "Without me ye
can do nothing," [2659] they would convict Him by saying, "Behold
without Thee we can prepare the heart;" or when they heard from Paul
the apostle, "Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of
ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God," [2660] as if they would
also convict him, saying, "Behold, we are sufficient of ourselves to
prepare our heart, and thus also to think some good thing; for who can
without good thought prepare his heart for good?" Be it far from any
thus to understand the passage, except the proud maintainers of free
will and forsakers of the catholic faith! Therefore, since it is
written, "It is man's part to prepare the heart, and the answer of the
tongue is from the Lord," it is that man prepares his heart, not,
however, without the aid of God, who so touches the heart that man
prepares the heart. But in the answer of the tongue--that is, in that
which the divine tongue answers to the prepared heart--man has no
part; but the whole is from the Lord God.
Footnotes
[2658] Prov. xvi. 1.
[2659] John xv. 5.
[2660] 2 Cor. iii. 5.
Chapter 20.--God's Agency is Needful Even in Man's Doings.
For as it is said, "It is man's part to prepare his heart, and the
answer of the tongue is from the Lord;" so also is it said, "Open thy
mouth, and I will fill it." [2661] For although, save by His
assistance without whom we can do nothing, we cannot open our mouth,
yet we open it by His aid and by our own agency, while the Lord fills
it without our agency. For what is to prepare the heart and to open
the mouth, but to prepare the will? And yet in the same scriptures is
read, "The will is prepared by the Lord," [2662] and, "Thou shalt open
my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise." [2663] So God
admonishes us to prepare our will in what we read," It is man's part
to prepare his heart;" and yet, that man may do this, God helps him,
because the will is prepared by the Lord. And," Open thy mouth." This
He so says by way of command, as that nobody can do this unless it is
done by His aid, to whom it is said, "Thou shalt open my lips." Are
any of these men so foolish as to contend that the mouth is one thing,
the lips another; and to say with marvellous triviality that man opens
his own mouth, and God opens man's lips? And yet God restrains them
from even that absurdity where He says to Moses His servant, "I will
open thy mouth, and I will instruct thee what thou oughtest to speak."
[2664] In that clause, therefore, where He says, "Open thy mouth and I
will fill it," it seems, as it were, that one of them pertains to man,
the other to God. But in this, where it is said, "I will open thy
mouth and will instruct thee," both belong to God. Why is this, except
that in one of these cases He co-operates with man as the agent, in
the other He does it alone?
Footnotes
[2661] Ps. lxxxi. 10.
[2662] Prov. viii.
[2663] Ps. li. 15.
[2664] Ex. iv. 12.
Chapter 21.--Man Does No Good Thing Which God Does Not Cause Him to
Do.
Wherefore God does many good things in man which man does not do; but
man does none which God does not cause man to do. Accordingly, there
would be no desire of good in man from the Lord if it were not a good;
but if it is a good, we have it not save from Him who is supremely and
incommunicably good. For what is the desire for good but love, of
which John the apostle speaks without any ambiguity, and says, "Love
is of God"? [2665] Nor is its beginning of ourselves, and its
perfection of God; but if love is of God, we have the whole of it from
God. May God by all means turn away this folly of making ourselves
first in His gifts, Himself last,--because "His mercy shall prevent
me." [2666] And it is He to whom is faithfully and truthfully sung,
"For Thou hast prevented him with the blessings of sweetness." [2667]
And what is here more fitly understood than that very desire of good
of which we are speaking? For good begins then to be longed for when
it has begun to grow sweet. But when good is done by the fear of
penalty, not by the love of righteousness, good is not yet well done.
Nor is that done in the heart which seems to be done in the act when a
man would rather not do it if he could evade it with impunity.
Therefore the "blessing of sweetness" is God's grace, by which is
caused in us that what He prescribes to us delights us, and we desire
it,--that is, we love it; in which if God does not precede us, not
only is it not perfected, but it is not even begun, from us. For, if
without Him we are able to do nothing actually, we are able neither to
begin nor to perfect,--because to begin, it is said "His mercy shall
prevent me;" [2668] to finish, it is said, "His mercy shall follow
me." [2669]
Footnotes
[2665] 1 John iv. 7.
[2666] Ps. lix. 10.
[2667] Ps. xxi. 3.
[2668] Ps. lix. 10.
[2669] Ps. xxiii. 6.
Chapter 22 [X.]--According to Who