(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ST. AUGUSTINE

A TREATISE AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE PELAGIANS.[1]

[Translated by the Rev. Ernest Wallis, Ph.D., incumbent of Christ Church,
Coxley, Somerset; revised by Benjamin B. Warfield, D.D., Professor in the
Theological Seminary at Princeton, N.J.]


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.

CHAP. 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,[2] 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 4 [11.]--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.

CHAP. 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.[1] 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 "[2]--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."[3] 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."[3] 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."[4]
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 re ceived Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God"?[1]

CHAP. 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
cleservings); 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."[2]
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."[3] 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."[4]
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, " l he
words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life; but there are some
of you which believe not."[5] 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."[6] 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.

CHAP. 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."[7] And thus the good will which withdraws itself from sin
is faithful, because the just lives by faith.[8] 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.[9] 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.

CHAP. 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.[10] 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.[1]

CHAP. 9 [V.]--ANOTHER CALUMNY OF JULIAN,-- THAT " IT IS SAID THAT MARRIAGE
IS NOT APPOINTED BY COD."

   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,[2] 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,"[3] and now, wherefore it is written, "A woman is joined to a
man by the Lord."[4] 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."[5] The Apostle Paul
also applied this witness of the law when he admonished husbands that their
wives should be loved by them.[6] 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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),[7] 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?[8] [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.

CHAP. 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,"[1] and without any doubt those are under this curse
whom also the sacred Psalm notifies, "who trust in their own strength;"[2]
nor by the old covenant which gendereth to bondage,[3] 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,"[4] 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.[5] 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.

CHAP. 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,"[6] 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."[7] 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."[8] 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."[9] And in
another place: "Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound.
But where sin abounded grace did much more abound."[10] In still another
place: "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law,
but under grace."[11] 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."[12] 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."[13] 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.[14] 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."[15] 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.

CHAP. 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."[1] 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 [2] it, and therefore a transgressor of the law.

CHAP.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."[3] 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."[4] 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."[5] 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."[6]

CHAP. 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,"[1]
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."[2] 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.

CHAP. 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."[3] 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."[4] 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,"[3] 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 I the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."[5] 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;[6] 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?

CHAP. 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,"[7] 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."[8] 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?

CHAP. 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"?[9] 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."[1] 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."[2]
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."[3] 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."

CHAP. 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."[4] 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."

CHAP. 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."[5]  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."[6] 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.

CHAP. 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.[7] 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.

CHAP. 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?"[8] 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 I 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 be 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,"[1] although, beyond a doubt, nothing can be
hid from Him; and as it is said, "Him who had not known sin,"[2] which
means who had not done sin, for He had not known what He condemned.

CHAP. 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.[3]
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."[4] 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,[5] 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.

CHAP. 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,[6] "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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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
layer of regeneration, that the baptized say in their prayer, "Forgive us
our debts, as we also forgive our debtors;"[1] 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?[2] 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."[3]

CHAP. 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."[4] 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;"[5] or if he
had said, "Having no sin," where he says, "Having no crime."[6] 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.

CHAP. 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 Iris 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.

CHAP. 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 layer of regeneration,--this is false and
heretical.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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,[7] 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 perizw'mata, 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,[1] or, as others have better named them, wrestling aprons.[2]
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,[3] 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?[4] 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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 religions 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.

CHAP. 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,"[1] and, "The will is prepared by God."[2]

CHAP. 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.[3] 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?[4]
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"?[5] What is that  which I have already
mentioned[6] 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"?[7] 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"![1]
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.

CHAP. 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."[2] 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."[3] 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"?[4] 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."[5] 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?"[6]

CHAP. 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."[7] 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."[1] 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."[2] 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,[3] 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."[4]

CHAP. 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."[5] 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 thy
blood, ye shall have no life in you."[6] 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!

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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;[7] 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.


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.

CHAP. I.--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?[1] 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.

CHAP. 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,"' and saying to the latter, "If the Son shall make you free, ye
shall be free indeed."[2] 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,"[3] 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."[4] 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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,[1]--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."[2] 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,[3]
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.

CHAP. 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."[1]
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."[2] 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 n 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.

CHAP. 7.--HE SUGGESTS A DILEMMA TO COELESTIUS.

   What was that which the same pope replied o 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:[3] "For what your Fraternity[4] 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. [5] 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?

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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.

CHAP. 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."[1] 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."[2]  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."[3] 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;[4] 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[5] 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.

CHAP. 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 layer 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 layer 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.

CHAP. 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,"--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?

CHAP. 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?"[1] 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,"[2] who
"maketh one vessel to honour and another to dishonour"[3] 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.

CHAP. 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 I 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.

CHAP. 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,"[1] and, "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have
I hated;"[1] 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:"[2] 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 "(3) 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."(4) 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 i vessels of mercy. Nor would the kindness
which is bestowed on some freely appear, unless I 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?"(5) 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."(6) 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."(7) 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."(8) 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."(9) 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 night commend grace; "but if of grace, now s 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.

CHAP. 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 frown 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!

CHAP. 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.(1) 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.

CHAP. 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.(2) 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 "da" 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."(1) 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."(2) "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."

CHAP. 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,"(3) 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 saving, "Without me ye can do nothing,"(4) 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,"(2) 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.

CHAP. 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."(5) 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,"(6)
and, "Thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy
praise."(7) 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."(8) 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?

CHAP. 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"?(1) 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."(2) And it is He to whom is faithfully and truthfully
sung, "For Thou hast prevented him with the blessings of sweetness."(3) 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;"(2) to finish, it is said, "His mercy shall follow
me."(4)

CHAP. 22 [X.]--ACCORDING TO WHOSE PURPOSE THE ELECT ARE CALLED.

   Why, then, is it that, in what follows, where they mention what they
themselves think, they say they confess "That grace also assists the good
purpose of every one, but that yet it does not infuse the desire of virtue
into a reluctant heart"? Because they so say this as if man of himself,
without God's assistance, has a good purpose and a desire of virtue; and
this precedent merit is worthy of being assisted by the subsequent grace
of God. For they think, perchance, that the  apostle thus said, "For we
know that He worketh all things for good to them that love God, to them who
are called according to the purpose,"(5) so as to wish the purpose of man
to be understood, which purpose, as a good merit, the mercy of the God that
calleth might follow; being ignorant that it is said, "Who are called
according to the purpose," so that there may be understood the purpose of
God, not man, whereby those whom He foreknew and predestinated as conformed
to the image of His Son, He elected before the foundation of the world. For
not all the called are called according to purpose, since "many are called,
few are chosen."(6) They, therefore, are called according to the purpose,
who were elected before the foundation of the world. Of this purpose of
God, that also was said which I have already mentioned concerning the twins
Esau and Jacob, "That according to the election the purpose of God might
remain, not of works, but of Him that calleth; it was said, that the elder
shall serve the younger."(7) This purpose of God is also mentioned in that
place where, writing to Timothy, he says, "Labour with the gospel according
to the power of God, who saves us and calls us with this holy calling; not
according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace, which was
given to us in Christ Jesus before the eternal ages, but is now made
manifest by the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ."(8) This, then, is the
purpose of God, whereof it is said, "He worketh together all things for
good for those who are called according to the purpose." But subsequent
grace indeed assists man's good purpose, but the purpose would not itself
exist if grace did not precede. The desire of man, also, which is called
good, although in beginning to exist it is aided by grace, yet does not
begin without grace, but is inspired by Him of whom the apostle says, "But
thanks be to God, who has given the same desire for you in the heart of
Titus."(9) If God gives desire that every one may have it for others, who
else will give it that a man may have it for himself?

CHAP. 23.--NOTHING IS COMMANDED TO MAN WHICH IS NOT GIVEN BY GOD.

   Since these things are so, I see that nothing is commanded to man by
the Lord in the Holy Scriptures, for the sake of trying his free will,
which is not found either to begin by His goodness, or to be asked in order
to demonstrate the aid of grace; nor does man at all begin to be changed by
the beginning of faith from evil to good, unless the unbought and
gratuitous mercy of God effects this in him. Of which one recalling his
thought, as we read in the Psalms, says, "Shall God forget to be gracious?
or will He restrain His mercies in His anger? And I said, Now have I begun;
this change is of the right hand of the Most High."(10) When, therefore, he
had said," Now have I begun," he does not say, "This change is of my will,"
but "of the right hand of the Most High." So, therefore, let God's grace be
thought of, that from the beginning of his good changing, even to the end
of his completion, he who glorieth may glory in the Lord; because, as no
one can perfect good without the Lord, so no one can begin it without the
Lord. But let this be the end of this book, that the attention of the
reader may be refreshed and strengthened for what follows.


BOOK III.

AUGUSTIN GOES ON TO REFUTE OTHER MATTERS WHICH ARE CALUMNIOUSLY OBJECTED BY
THE PELAGIANS IN THE SAME LETTER SENT TO THESSALONICA; AND EXPOUNDS, IN
OPPOSITION TO THEIR HERESY, WHAT THOSE WHO ARE TRULY CATHOLIC SAY
CONCERNING THE UTILITY OF THE LAW; WHAT THEY TEACH OF THE EFFECT AND VIRTUE
OF BAPTISM; WHAT OF THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE TWO TESTAMENTS, THE OLD AND
THE NEW; WHAT CONCERNING THE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PERFECTION OF THE PROPHETS
AND APOSTLES; WHAT OF THE APPELLATION OF SIN IN CHRIST, WHEN HE IS SAID IN
THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH CONCERNING SIN TO HAVE CONDEMNED SIN, OR TO
HAVE BECOME SIN; AND FINALLY, WHAT THEY PROFESS CONCERNING THE FULFILMENT
OF THE COMMANDMENTS IN THE FUTURE LIFE.

CHAP. 1 [I.]--STATEMENT.

   There still follow things which they calumniously object to us; they do
not yet begin to work out those things which they themselves think. But
lest the prolixity of these writings should be an offence, I have divided
those matters which they object into two Books,--the former of which being
completed, which is the Second Book of this entire work, I am here
commencing the other, and joining it as the Third to the First and Second.

CHAP. 2 [II.]--THE MISREPRESENTATION OF THE PELAGIANS CONCERNING THE USE OF
THE OLD LAW.

   They declare "that we say that the law of the Old Testament was given
not for the end that it might justify the obedient, but rather that it
might become the cause of greater sin." Certainly, they do not understand
what we say concerning the law; because we say what the apostle says, whom
they do not understand. For who can say that they are not justified who are
obedient to the law, when, unless they were justified, they could not be
obedient? But we say, that by the law is effected that what God wills to be
done is heard, but that by grace is effected that the law is obeyed. "For
not the hearers of the law," says the apostle, "are just before God, but
the doers of the law shall be justified."(1) Therefore the law makes
hearers of righteousness, grace makes doers. "For what was impossible to
the law," says the same apostle, "in that it was weak through the flesh,
God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin
in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us
who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."(2) This
is what we say;--let them pray that they may one day understand it, and not
dispute so as never to understand it. For it is impossible that the law
should be fulfilled by the flesh,that is, by carnal presumption, in which
the proud, who are ignorant of the righteousness of God,--that is, which is
of God to man, that he may be righteous,-- and desirous of establishing
their own righteousness,--as if by their own will, unassisted from above,
the law could be fulfilled,--are not subjected to the righteousness of
God.(3) Therefore the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them who
walk not according to the flesh-that is, according to man, ignorant of the
righteousness of God and desirous of establishing his own--but walk
according to the Spirit. But who walks according to the Spirit, except
whosoever is led by the Spirit of God? "For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, these are the sons of God."(4) Therefore "the letter
killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive."(5) And the letter is not evil
because it killeth; but it convicts the wicked of transgression. "For the
law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was, then," says
he, "that which is good made death unto me? By no means; but sin, that it
might appear sin, worked death in me by that which is good, that it might
become above measure a sinner or a sin by the commandment."(6) This is what
is the meaning of "the letter killeth." "For the sting of death is sin, but
the strength of sin is the law;" (1)  because by the prohibition it
increases the desires of sin, and thence slays a man unless grace by coming
to his assistance makes him alive. (2)

CHAP. 3.--SCRIPTURAL CONFIRMATION OF THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE.

   This is what we say; this is that about which they object to us that we
say "that the law was so given as to be a cause of greater sin." They do
not hear the apostle saying, "For the law worketh wrath; for where no law
is, there is no transgression;"(3) and, "The law was added for the sake of
transgression until the seed should come to whom the promise was made;"(4)
and, "If there had been a law given which could have given life,
righteousness should altogether have been by the law; but the Scripture
hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ
might be given to them that believe."(5) Hence it is that the Old
Testament, from the Mount Sinai, where the law was given, gendereth to
bondage, which is Agar. "Now we," says he, "are not children of the
bondmaid but of the freewoman."(6) Therefore they are not children of the
freewoman who have accepted the law of the letter, whereby they can be
shown to be not only sinners, but moreover transgressors; but they who have
received the Spirit of grace, whereby the law itself, holy and just and
good, may be fulfilled. This is what we say: let them attend and not
contend; let them seek enlightenment and not bring false accusations.

CHAP. 4 [III.]--MISREPRESENTATION CONCERNING, THE EFFECT OF BAPTISM.

   "They assert," say they, "that baptism, moreover, does not make men
new--that is, does not give complete remission of sins; but they contend
that they are partly made children of God and partly remain children of the
world, that is, of the devil." They deceive; they lay traps; they shuffle;
we do not say this. For we say that all men who are children of the devil
are also children of the world; but not that all children of the world are
also children of the devil. Far be it from us to say that the holy fathers
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and others of this kind, were children of the
devil when they were begetting in marriage, and those believers who until
now and still hereafter continue to beget. And yet we cannot contradict the
Lord when He says, "The children of this world marry and give in
marriage."(7) Some, therefore, are children of this world, and yet are not
children of the devil. For although the devil is the author and source of
all sins, yet it is not every sin that makes children of the devil; for the
children of God also sin, since if they say they have no sins they deceive
themselves, and the truth is not in them.(8) But they sin in virtue of that
condition by which they are still children of this world; but by that grace
wherewith they are the children of God they certainly sin not, because
every one that is born of God sinneth not.(9) But unbelief makes children
of the devil; and unbelief is specially called sin, as if it were the only
one, if it is not expressed what is the nature of the sin. As when the
"apostle" is spoken of, if it be not expressed what apostle, none is
understood but Paul; because he is better known by his many epistles, and
he laboured more than they all. For which reason, in what the Lord said of
the Holy Spirit," He shall convict the world of sin,"(10) He meant unbelief
to be understood; for He said this when He was explaining, "Of sin because
they believed not on me," (11) and when He says, "If I had not come and
spoken to them, they should not have sin."(12) For He meant not that before
they had no sin, but He wished to indicate that very want of faith by which
they did not believe Him even when He was present to them and speaking to
them; since they belonged to him of whom the apostle says, "According to
the prince of the power of the air, who now worketh in the children of
unbelief."(13) Therefore they in whom there is not faith are the children
of the devil, because they have not in the inner man any reason why there
should be forgiven them whatever is committed either by human infirmity, or
by ignorance, or by any evil will whatever. But those are the children of
God who certainly, if they should "say that they have no sin, deceive
themselves,  and the truth is not in them, but immediately" (as it
continues) "when they confess their sins" (which the children of the devil
do not do, or do not do according to the faith which is peculiar to the
children of God), "He is faithful and just to forgive them their sins, and
to cleanse them from all unrighteousness."(8) And in order that what we say
may be more fully understood, let Jesus Himself be heard, who certainly was
speaking to the children of God when He said: "And if ye, being evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him." (14) For if
these were not the children of God, He would not say to them, "Your Father
which is in heaven." And yet He says that they are evil, and that they know
how to give good gifts to their children. Are they, then, evil in that they
are the children of God? Away with the thought! But they are thence evil
because they are still the children of this world, although now made
children of God by the pledge of the Holy Spirit.

CHAP. 5.--BAPTISM PUTS AWAY ALL SINS, BUT IT DOES NOT AT ONCE HEAL ALL
INFIRMITIES.

   Baptism, therefore, washes away indeed all sins--absolutely all sins,
whether of deeds or words or thoughts, whether original or added whether
such as are committed in ignorance or allowed in knowledge; but it does not
take away the weakness which the regenerate man resists when he fights the
good fight, but to which he consents when as man he is overtaken in any
fault; on account of the former, rejoicing with thanksgiving, but on
account of the latter, groaning in the utterance of prayers. On account of
the former, saying, "What shall I render to the Lord for all that He has
given me?(1) On account of the latter, saying, "Forgive us our debts."(2)
On account of the former, saying, "I will love Thee, O Lord, my
strength."(3) On account of the latter, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord;
for I am weak."(4) On account of the former, saying, "Mine eyes are ever
towards the Lord; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net."(5) On account
of the latter, saying, "Mine eye is troubled with wrath."(6) And there are
innumerable passages with which the divine writings are filled, which
alternately, either in exultation over God's benefits or in lamentation
over our own evils, are uttered by children of God by faith as long as they
are still children of this world in respect of the weakness of tiffs life;
whom, nevertheless, God distinguishes from the children of the devil, not
only by the layer of regeneration, but moreover by the righteousness of
that faith which worketh by love, because the just lives by faith. But this
weakness with which we contend, with alternating failure and progress, even
to the death of the body, and which is of great importance as to what it
can overcome in us, shall be consumed by another regeneration, of which the
Lord says, "In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne
of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones,"(7) etc. Certainly in
this passage He without doubt calls the last resurrection the regeneration,
which Paul the Apostle also calls both the adoption and the redemption,
where he says, "But even we ourselves, which have the first-fruits of the
Spirit, ourselves also groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption,
the redemption, of our body."(8) Have we not been regenerated, adopted, and
redeemed by the holy washing? And yet there remains a regeneration, an
adoption, a redemption, which we ought now patiently to be waiting for as
to come in the end, that we may then be in no degree any longer children of
this world. Whosoever, then, takes away from baptism that which we only
receive by its means, corrupts the faith; but whosoever attributes to it
now that which we shall receive by its means indeed, but yet hereafter,
cuts off hope. For if any one should ask of me whether we have been saved
by baptism, I shall not be able to deny it, since the apostle says, "He
saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost."(9)
But if he should ask whether by the same washing He has already absolutely
In every way saved us, I shall answer: It is not so. Because the same
apostle also says, "For we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not
hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for
that we see not, we with patience wait for it."(10) Therefore the salvation
of man is effected in baptism, because whatever sin he has derived from his
parents is remitted, or whatever, moreover, he himself has sinned on his
own account before baptism; but his salvation will hereafter be such that
he cannot sin at all.

CHAP. 6 [IV.]--THE CALUMNY CONCERNING THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE RIGHTEOUS
MEN OF OLD.

   Now if these things are so, out of these things are rebutted those
which they subsequently object to us. For what catholic would say that
which they charge us with saying, "that the Holy Spirit was not the
assister of virtue in the old testament," unless when we so understand "the
old testament" in the manner in which the apostle spoke of it as "gendering
from Mount Sinai into bondage"? But because in it was prefigured the new
testament, the men of God who at that time understood this according to the
ordering of the times, were indeed the stewards and bearers of the old
testament, but are shown to be the heirs of the new. Shall we deny that he
belongs to the new testament who says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God;
and renew a right spirit within me"? (11) or he who says, "He hath set my
feet upon a rock, and directed my goings; and he bath put a new song in my
mouth, even a hymn to our God"?(12) or that father of the faithful before
the old testament which is from Mount Sinai, of whom the apostle says,
"Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; yet even a man's testament,
when it is confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. To Abraham and
to his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many,
but as of one; and to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say," said he,
"that the testament confirmed by God, the law which was made four hundred
and thirty years after, does not weaken, so as to make the promise of none
effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but
God gave it to Abraham by promise."(1)

CHAP. 7.--THE NEW TESTAMENT IS MORE ANCIENT THAN THE OLD; BUT IT WAS
SUBSEQUENTLY REVEALED.

   Here, certainly, if we ask whether this testament, which, he says,
being confirmed by God was not weakened by the law, which was made four
hundred and thirty years after, is to be understood as the new or the old
one, who can hesitate to answer "the new, but hidden in the prophetic
shadows until the time should come wherein it should be revealed in
Christ"? For if we should say the old, what will that be which genders from
Mount Sinai to bondage? For there was made the law four hundred and thirty
years after, by which law he asserts that this testament of the promise of
Abraham could not be  weakened; and he will have this which was made by
Abraham to pertain rather to us, whom he will have to be children of the
freewoman, not of the bondwoman, heirs by the promise, not by the law, when
he says, "For if the inheritance be by the law, it is no more of promise:
but God gave it to Abraham by promise."(2) So that, because the law was
made four hundred and thirty years after, it might enter that the offence
might abound;(3) since by sin the pride of man presuming on his own
righteousness is convinced of transgression, and where sin abounded grace
much more abounded? by the faith of the now humble man failing in the law
and taking refuge in God's mercy. Therefore, when he had said, "For if the
inheritance be of the law, it is no longer of promise: but God gave it to
Abraham by promise,"(2) as if it might be said to him, "Why then was the
law made afterwards? " he added and said, "What then is the law?"(4) To
which interrogation he immediately replied, "It was added because of
transgression, until the seed should come to which the promise was
made."(4) This he says again, thus: "For if they who are of the law be
heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect: because
the law worketh wrath for where there is no law, there is no
transgression."(5) What he says in the former testimony: "For if the
inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to
Abraham by promise," this he says in the latter: "For if they who are of
the law be heirs, faith is made void; and the promise is made of none
effect;" sufficiently showing that to our faith (which certainly is of the
new testament) belongs what God gave to Abraham by promise. And what he
says in the former testimony, "What then is the law?" and answered, "It was
added for the sake of transgression," this he instantly added in the latter
testimony, "For the law worketh wrath: for where there is no law, there is
no transgression."

CHAP. 8.--ALL RIGHTEOUS MEN BEFORE AND AFTER ABRAHAM ARE CHILDREN OF THE
PROMISE AND OF GRACE.

   Whether, then, Abraham, or righteous men before him or after him, even
to Moses himself, by whom was given the testament gendering to bondage from
Mount Sinai, or the rest of the prophets after him, and the holy men of God
till John the Baptist, they are all children of the promise and of grace
according to Isaac the son of the freewoman,--not of the law, but of the
promise, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Far be it from us to
deny that righteous Noah and the righteous men of the earlier times, and
whoever from that time till the time of Abraham could be righteous, either
manifestly or hiddenly, belong to the Jerusalem which is above, who is our
mother, although they are found to be earlier in time than Sarah, who bore
the prophecy and figure of the free mother herself. How much more
evidently, then, after Abraham, to whom that promise was declared, that he
should be called the father of many nations, must all, whoever have pleased
God, be esteemed the children of the promise! For from Abraham, and the
righteous men who followed him, the generation is not found more true, but
the prophecy more plain.

CHAP. 9.--WHO ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE OLD COVENANT.

   But those belong to the old testament, "which gendereth from Mount
Sinai to bondage," which is Agar, who, when they have received a law which
is holy and just and good, think that the letter can suffice them for life;
and do not seek the divine mercy, so as they may become doers of the law,
but, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish
their own righteousness, are not subject to the righteousness of God. Of
this kind was that multitude which murmured against God in the wilderness,
and made an idol; and that multitude which even in the very land of promise
committed fornication after strange gods. But this multitude, even in the
old testament itself, was strongly rebuked. They, moreover, whoever they
were at that time who followed after those earthly promises alone which God
promises there, and who were ignorant of that which those promises signify
under the new testament, and who kept God's commandments with the desire of
gaining and with the fear of losing those promises,--certainly did not
observe them, but only seemed to themselves to observe. For there was no
faith in them that worked by love, but earthly cupidity and carnal fear.
But he who thus fulfils the commandments beyond a doubt fulfils them
unwillingly, and then does not do them in his heart; for he would rather
not do them at all, if in respect of those things which he desires and
fears he might be allowed to neglect them with impunity. And thus, in the
will itself within him, he is guilty; and it is here that God, who gives
the command, looks. Such were the children of the earthly Jerusalem,
concerning which the apostle says, "For she is in bondage with her
children,"(1) and belongs to the old testament "which gendereth to bondage
from Mount Sinai, which is Agar." Of that same kind were they who crucified
the Lord. and continued in the same unbelief. Thence there are still their
children in the great multitude of the Jews, although now the new testament
as it was prophesied is made plain and confirmed by the blood of Christ;
and the gospel is made known from the river where He was baptized and began
His teachings, even to the ends of the earth. And these Jews, according to
the prophecies which they read, are dispersed everywhere over all the
earth, that even from their writings may not be wanting a testimony to
Christian truth.

CHAP. 10.--THE OLD LAW ALSO GIVEN BY GOD.

   And it is for this reason that God made the old testament, because it
pleased God to veil the heavenly promises in earthly promises, as if
established in reward, until the fulness of time; and to give to a people
which longed for earthly blessings, and therefore had a hard heart, a law,
which, although spiritual, was yet written on tables of stone. Because,
with the exception of the sacraments of the old books, which were only
enjoined for the sake of their significance (although in them also, since
they are to be spiritually understood, the law is rightly called
spiritual), the other matters certainly which pertain to piety and to good
living must not be referred by any interpretation to some significancy,(2)
but are to be done absolutely as they are spoken. Assuredly no one will
doubt that that law of God was necessary not alone for that people at that
time, but also is now necessary for us for the right ordering of our life.
For if Christ took away from us that very heavy yoke of many observances,
so that we are not circumcised according to the flesh, we do not immolate
victims of the cattle, we do not rest even from necessary works on the
Sabbath, retaining the seventh in the revolution of the days, and other
things of this kind; but keep them as spiritually understood, and, the
symbolizing shadows being removed, are watchful in the light of those
things which are signified by them; shall we therefore say, that when it is
written that whoever finds another man's property of any kind that has been
lost, should return it to him who has lost it,(3) it does not pertain to
us? and many other like things whereby people learn to live piously and
uprightly? and especially the  Decalogue itself, which is contained in
those two tables of stone, apart from the carnal observance of the Sabbath,
which signifies spiritual sanctification and rest?  For who can say that
Christians ought not to be observant to serve the one God with religious
obedience, not to worship an idol, not to take the name of the Lord in
vain, to honour one's parents, not to commit adulteries, murders, thefts,
false witness, not to covet another man's wife, or anything at all that
belongs to another man? Who is so impious as to say that he does not keep
those precepts of the law because he is a Christian, and is established not
under the law, but under grace?

CHAP. 11.--DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE CHILDREN OF THE OLD AND OF THE NEW
TESTAMENTS.

   But there is plainly this great difference, that they who are
established under the law, whom the letter killeth, do these things either
with the desire of gaining, or with the fear of losing earthly happiness;
and that thus they do not truly do them, since fleshly desire, by which sin
is rather bartered or increased, is not healed by desire of another kind.
These pertain to the old testament, which genders to bondage; because
carnal fear and desire make them servants, gospel faith and hope and love
do not make them children. But they who are placed under grace, whom the
Spirit quickens, do these things of faith which worketh by love in the hope
of good things, not carnal but spiritual, not earthly but heavenly, not
temporal but eternal; especially believing on the Mediator, by whom they do
not doubt but that a Spirit of grace is ministered to them, so that they
may do these things well, and that they may be pardoned when they sin.
These pertain to the new testament, are the children of promise, and are
regenerated by God the Father and a free mother. Of this kind were all the
righteous men of old, and Moses himself, the minister of the old testament,
the heir of the new, --because of the faith whereby we live, of one and the
same they lived, believing the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of
Christ as future, which we believe as already accomplished,--even until
John the Baptist himself as it were a certain limit of the old
dispensation, who, signifying that the Mediator Himself would come, not
with any shadow of the future or allegorical intimation, or with any
prophetical announcement, but pointing Him out with his finger, said:
"Behold the Lamb of God; behold Him who taketh away the sin of the
world."(1) As if saying, Whom many righteous men have desired to see, on
whom, as about to come, they have believed from the beginning of the human
race itself, concerning whom the promises were spoken to Abraham, of whom
Moses wrote, of whom the law and the prophets are witnesses: "Behold the
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world." From this John and
afterwards, all those things concerning Christ began to become past or
present, which by all the righteous men of the previous time were believed,
hoped for, desired, as future. Therefore the faith is the same as well in
those who, although not yet in name, were in fact previously Christians, as
in those who not only are so but are also called so; and in both there is
the same grace by the Holy Spirit. Whence says the apostle: "We having the
same Spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, therefore
have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak."(2)

CHAP. 12.--THE OLD TESTAMENT IS PROPERLY ONE THING--THE OLD INSTRUMENT
ANOTHER.

   Therefore, by a custom of speech already prevailing, in one way the law
and all the prophets who prophesied until John are called the "Old
Testament;" although this is more definitely called the "Old Instrument"
rather than the "Old Testament;" but this name is used in another way by
the apostolical authority, whether expressly or impliedly. For the apostle
is express when he says, "Until this day, as long as Moses is read,
remaineth the same veil in the reading of the old testament; because it is
not revealed, because it is made of no effect in Christ."(3) For thus
certainly the old testament referred to the ministry of Moses. Moreover, he
says, "That we should serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the
oldness of the letter,"(4) signifying that same testament under the name of
the letter. In another place also, "Who also hath made us able ministers of
the new testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter
killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive."(5) And here, by the mention of the
new, he certainly meant the former to be understood as the old. But much
more evidently, although he did not say either old or new, he distinguished
the two testaments and the two sons of Abraham, the one of the bondwoman,
the other of the free, as I have above mentioned. For what can be more
express than his saying, "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, have
ye not heard the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one
by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which
things are in allegory; for these are the two testaments; the one in the
Mount Sinai, gendering to bondage, which is Agar. For Sinai is a mountain
in Arabia, which is associated with Jerusalem which now is, for it is in
bondage with her children. But Jerusalem that is above is free, which is
our mother?"(6) What is more clear, what more certain, what more remote
from all obscurity and ambiguity to the children of the promise? And a
little after, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of
promise."(7) Also a little after, "But we, brethren, are not children of
the bondwoman, but of the free,"(8) with the liberty with which Christ has
made us free. Let us, therefore, choose whether to call the righteous men
of old the children of the bondwoman or of the free. Be it far from us to
say, of the bondwoman; therefore if of the free, they pertain to the new
testament in the Holy Spirit, whom, as making alive, the apostle opposes to
the killing letter. For on what ground do they not belong to the grace of
the new testament, from whose words and looks we convict and rebut such
most frantic and ungrateful enemies of the same grace as these?

CHAP. 13.--WHY ONE OF THE COVENANTS IS CALLED OLD, THE OTHER NEW.

   But some one will say, "In what way is that called the old which was
given by Moses four hundred and thirty years after; and that called the new
which was given so many years before to Abraham?" Let him who on this
subject is disturbed, not litigiously but earnestly, first understand that
when from its earlier time one is called "old," and from its posterior time
the other "new," it is the revelation of them that is considered in their
names, not their institution. Because the old testament was revealed
through Moses, by whom the holy and just and good law was given, whereby
should be brought about not the doing away but the knowledge of sin,-- by
which the proud might be convicted who were desirous of establishing their
own righteousness, as if they had no need of divine help, and being made
guilty of the letter, might flee to the Spirit of grace, not to be
justified by their own righteousness, but by that of God--that is, by the
righteousness which was given to them of God. For as the same apostle says,
"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 by the
prophets."(1) Because the law, by the very fact that in it no man is
justified, affords a witness to the righteousness of God. For that in the
law no man is justified before God is manifest, because "the just by faith
lives."(2) Thus, therefore, although the law does not justify the wicked
when he is convicted of transgression, it sends to the God who justifieth,
and thus affords a testimony to the righteousness of God. Moreover, the
prophets offer testimony to God's righteousness by fore-announcing Christ,
"who is made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption: that, as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord."(3) But that law was kept hidden from the
beginning, when nature itself convicted wicked men, who did to others what
they would not have done to themselves. But the revelation of the new
testament in Christ was made when He was manifested in the flesh, wherein
appeared the righteousness of God -that is, the righteousness which is to
men from God. For hence he says, "But now the righteousness of God without
the law is manifested."(4) This is the reason why the former is called the
old testament, because it was revealed in the earlier time; and the latter
the new, because it was revealed in the later time. In a word, it is
because the old testament pertains to the old man, from which it is
necessary that a man should make a beginning; but the new to the new man,
by which a than ought to pass from his old state. Thus, in the former are
earthly promises, in the latter heavenly promises; because this pertained
to God's mercy, that no one should think that even earthly felicity of any
kind whatever could be conferred on anybody, save from the Lord, who is the
Creator of all things. But if God is worshipped for the sake of that
earthly happiness, the worship is that of a slave, belonging to the
children of the bondmaid; but if for the sake of God Himself, so that in
the life eternal God may be all things in all, it is a free service
belonging to the children of the freewoman, who is our mother eternal in
the heavens--who first seemed, as it were, barren, when she had not any
children manifest; but now we see what was prophesied concerning her:
"Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that
travailest not: for there are many children of the desolate more than of
her who has an husband,"(5) --that is, more than of that Jerusalem, who in
a certain manner is married in the bond of the law, and is in bondage with
her children. In the time, then, of the old testament, we say that the Holy
Spirit, in those who even then were the children of promise according to
Isaac, was not only an assistant, which these men think is sufficient for
their opinion, but also a bestower of virtue; and this they deny,
attributing it rather to their free will, in contradiction to those fathers
who knew how to cry unto God with truthful piety, "I will love Thee, O
Lord, my strength."(6)

CHAP. 14 [V.]--CALUMNY CONCERNING THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE PROPHETS AND
APOSTLES.

   They say, moreover, "that all the apostles or prophets are not defined
as entirely holy by us, but that we say that they were less wicked in
comparison with those that were worse; and that this is the righteousness
to which God affords His testimony, so that, as the prophet says that Sodom
was justified in comparison with the Jews, so also we say that the saints
exercised some goodness in comparison with criminal men." Be it far from us
to say such things; but either they are not able to understand, or they are
unwilling to observe, or, for the sake of misrepresentation, they pretend
that they do not know what we say. Let them hear, therefore, either
themselves, or rather those whom, as inexperienced and unlearned persons,
they are striving to deceive. Our faith--that is, the catholic faith--
distinguishes the righteous from the unrighteous not by the law of works,
but by that of faith, because the just by faith lives. By which distinction
it results that the man who leads his life without murder, without theft,
without false-witness, without coveting other men's goods, giving due
honour to his parents, chaste even to continence from all carnal
intercourse whatever, even conjugal, most liberal in alms-giving, most
patient of injuries; who not only does not deprive another of his goods,
but does not even ask again for what has been taken away from himself; or
who has even sold all his own property and appropriated it to the poor, and
possesses nothing which belongs to him as his own;--with such a character
as this, laudable as it seems to be, if he has not a true and catholic
faith in God, must yet depart from this life to condemnation. But another,
who has good works from a right faith which worketh by love, maintains his
continency in the honesty of wedlock, although he does not, like the other,
well refrain altogether, but pays and repays the debt of carnal connection,
and has intercourse not only for the sake of offspring, but also for the
sake of pleasure, although only with his wife, which the apostle allows to
those that are married as pardonable;--does not receive injuries with so
much patience, but is raised into anger with the desire of vengeance,
although, in order that he may say, "As we also forgive our debtors,"
forgives when he is asked;-- possesses personal property, giving thence
indeed some alms, but not as the former so liberally;--does not take away
what belongs to another, but, although by ecclesiastical, not by civil
judgment, yet contends for his own: certainly this man, who seems so
inferior in morals to the former, on account of the right faith which he
has in God, by which he lives, and according to which in all his wrong-
doings he accuses himself, and in all his good works praises God, giving to
himself the shame, to God the glory, and receiving from Him both
forgiveness of sins and love of right deeds,--shall be delivered for this
life, and depart to be received into the company of those who shall reign
with Christ. Wherefore, if not on account of faith? Which, although without
works it saves no man (for it is not a reprobate faith, since it worketh by
love), yet by it even sins are loosed, because the just by faith liveth;
but without it, even those things which seem good works are turned into
sins: "For everything which is not of faith is sin."(1) And it is brought
about, on account of this great difference, that although with no
possibility of doubt a persevering integrity of virginity is preferable to
conjugal chastity, yet a woman even twice married,  if she be a catholic,
is preferred to a professed virgin that is a heretic; nor is she in such
wise preferred because this one is better in God's kingdom, but because the
other is not there at all. Now the former, indeed, whom we have described
as being of better morals, if a true faith be his, surpasses the second
one, although both will be in heaven; yet if the faith be wanting to him,
he is so surpassed by him that he himself is not there at all.

CHAP. 15.--THE PERFECTION OF APOSTLES AND PROPHETS.

   Since, then, all righteous men, both the more ancient and the apostles,
lived from a right faith which is in Christ Jesus our Lord; and had with
their faith morals so holy, that although they might not be of such perfect
virtue in this life as that which should be after this life, yet whatever
of sin might creep in from human infirmity might be constantly done away by
the piety of their faith itself: it results from this that, in comparison
with the wicked whom God will condemn, it must be said that these were"
righteous," since by their pious faith they were so far removed into the
opposite of those wicked men that the apostle cries out, "What part hath he
that believeth with an infidel?"(2) But it is plain that the Pelagians,
these modern heretics, seem to themselves to be religious lovers and
praisers of the saints, since they do not dare to say that they were of an
imperfect virtue; although that elected vessel confesses this, who,
considering in what state he still was, and that the body which is
corrupted drags down the soul, says, "Not that I have already attained or
am yet perfect; brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended."(3) And
yet a little after, he who had denied himself to be perfect says, "Let us
therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded,"(4) in order that he
might show that, according to the measure of this life, there is a certain
perfection, and that to that perfection this also is to be attributed, even
although any one may know that he is not yet perfect. For what is more
perfect, or what was more excellent, than the holy priests among the
ancient people?  And yet God prescribed to them to offer sacrifice first of
all for their own sins. And what is more holy among the new people than the
apostles?  And yet the Lord prescribed to them to say in their prayer,
"Forgive us our debts." For all the pious, therefore, who lie under this
burden of a corruptible flesh, and groan in the infirmity of this life of
theirs, there is one hope: "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins."(5)

CHAP. 16 [VI.]--MISREPRESENTATION CONCERNING SIN IN CHRIST.

   They have not a righteous advocate, who are (even if that were the only
difference) distinguished absolutely and widely from the righteous. Be it
far from us to say, as they themselves slanderously affirm, that this just
Advocate "spoke falsely by the necessity of the flesh;" but we say that He,
in the likeness of sinful flesh, in respect of sin, condemned sin. And
they, perchance not understanding this, and being blinded by the desire of
misrepresentation, and ignorant of the number of ways in which the name of
sin is accustomed to be used in the Holy Scriptures, declare that we affirm
sin of Christ. Therefore we assert that Christ both had no sin,-- neither
in soul nor in the body; and that, by taking upon Him flesh in the likeness
of sinful flesh, in respect of sin He condemned sin. And this assertion,
somewhat obscurely made by the apostle, is explained in two ways,- -either
that the likenesses of things are accustomed to be called by the names of
those things to which they are like, so that the apostle may be understood
to have intended to call this likeness of sinful flesh by the name of
"sin;" or else that the sacrifices for sins were under the law called
"sins," all which things were figures of the flesh of Christ, which is the
true and only sacrifice for sins,--not only for those which are all washed
away in baptism, but also for those which afterwards creep in from the
weakness of this life, on account of which the universal Church daily cries
in prayer to God, "Forgive us our debts," and they are forgiven us by means
of that singular sacrifice for sins which the apostle, speaking according
to the law, did not hesitate to call "sin." Whence, moreover, is that much
plainer passage of his, which is not uncertain by any twofold ambiguity,
"We beseech you in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God. He made Him to
be sin for us, who had not known sin; that we might be the righteousness of
God in Him."(1) For the passage which I have above mentioned, "In respect
of sin, He condemned sin," because it was not said, "In respect of his
sin," may be understood by any one, as if He said that He condemned sin in
respect of the sin of the Jews; because in respect of their sin who
crucified Him, it happened that He shed His blood for the remission of
sins. But this passage, where God is said to have made Christ Himself
"sin," who had not known sin, does not seem to me to be more fittingly
understood than that Christ was made a sacrifice for sins, and on this
account was called "sin."

CHAP. 17 [VII.]--THEIR CALUMNY ABOUT THE FULFILMENT OF PRECEPTS IN THE LIFE
TO COME.

   But who can bear their objecting to us, "that we say that after the
resurrection such is to be our progress, that there men can begin to fulfil
the commands of God, which they would not here;" since we say that there
there will be no sin at all, no struggle with any desire of sin; as if they
themselves would dare to deny this? That wisdom also and the knowledge of
God, is then perfected in us, and that in the Lord there is such rejoicing
that it is a full and a true security, who will deny, unless he is so
averse from the truth that on this very account he cannot attain unto it?
But these things will not be in precepts, but in reward of those precepts
which should here be observed; the neglect of which precepts, indeed, does
not lead thither to the reward. But here the grace of God gives the desire
of keeping His commandments; and if anything in these commandments is less
perfectly observed, He forgives it on account of what we say in prayer, as
well "Thy will be done," as "Forgive us our debts." Here, then, it is
prescribed that we sin not; there, the reward is that we cannot sin. Here,
the precept is that we obey not the desires of sin; there, the reward that
we have no desires of sin. Here, the precept is," Understand, ye senseless
among the people; and ye fools, be at some time wise;"(2) there, the reward
is full wisdom and perfect knowledge. "For we see now through a glass in an
enigma," says the apostle, "but then face to face: now I know in part; but
then I shall know even as also I am known."(3) Here, the precept is, "Exult
unto the Lord, our helper,"(4) and, "Rejoice, ye righteous, in the
Lord;"(5) there, the reward is to rejoice with a perfect and unspeakable
joy. Lastly, in the precept it is written, "Blessed are they which hunger
and thirst after righteousness;" but in the reward, "Because they shall be
filled."(6) Whence, I ask, shall they be filled, except with what they
hunger and thirst after?  Who, then, is so abhorrent, not only from the
divine perception, but also from the human perception, as to say that in
man there can be such righteousness while he is hungering and thirsting for
it, as there will be when he shall be filled with it?  But when we are
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, if the faith of Christ is
watchful in us, what is it to be believed that we are hungering and
thirsting for, save Christ? "For He is made unto us wisdom from God, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that, as it is written,
He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."(7) And because we only
believe on Him not seeing Him, therefore we thirst and hunger after
righteousness. For as long as we are in the body, we wander from the Lord;
for we walk by faith, not by appearance. But when we shall see Him, and
attain certainly to the appearance, we shall rejoice with joy unspeakable;
and then we shall be filled with righteousness, since now we say to Him
with pious longing, "I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall be
manifested."(8)

CHAP. 18.--PERFECTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND FULL SECURITY WAS NOT EVEN IN
PAUL IN THIS LIFE.

   But how impudent I do not say, but how insane, is the pride which, not
yet being equal to the angels of God, thinks itself already able to have a
righteousness equal to the angels of God; and does not consider so great
and holy a man, who assuredly hungered and thirsted after that very
perfection of righteousness, when he was unwilling to be lifted up by the
greatness of his revelations; and yet that he might not be lifted up, he
was not left to his own choice and will, but received "the thorn in the
flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet him; on which account he besought
the Lord thrice that it might depart from him, and the Lord said unto him,
My grace is sufficient for thee, for strength is made perfect in
weakness."(1) What strength, save that to which it belongs not to be lifted
up? And who doubts that this belongs to righteousness? The angels of God,
then, are endowed with this perfection of righteousness, since they always
behold the face of the Father, and thus of the entire Trinity, because they
see through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. But nothing is more sublime than
that revelation, nor yet does any of the angels in that contemplation of
rejoicing ones find a messenger of Satan needful that he may be buffeted by
him, lest so great a magnitude of revelation should lift him up. The
apostle Paul certainly had not yet that perfection of virtue, nor yet was
he equal to the angels of God; but there was in Him the weakness of lifting
himself up, which also had to be checked by the angel of Satan, lest he
should be lifted up by (he magnitude of his revelations. Although, then,
the first lifting up cast down Satan,(2) yet that greatest Physician, who
well knew how to make use of even evil things, applied from the angel of
Satan, against the mischief of elation, a wholesome, although a painful,
medicament, just as an antidote used to be made even of serpents against
the poisons of serpents. What, then, is the meaning of "My grace is
sufficient for thee," except that you may not by giving way succumb to the
buffet of the messenger of Satan? And what is "Strength is made perfect in
weakness," except that in that place of weakness hitherto, there may be the
perfection of virtue, so that in the very presence of infirmity, lifting-up
may be repressed? Which infirmity assuredly shall be healed by future
immortality. For how is that  soundness to be called perfect where medicine
is still needful, even from the buffet of an angel of Satan?

CHAP. 19.--IN WHAT SENSE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF MAN IN THIS LIFE IS SAID TO
BE PERFECT.

   From this it results that the virtue which is now in the righteous man
is named perfect up to this point, that to its perfection belong both the
true knowledge and humble confession of even imperfection itself. For, in
respect to this infirmity, that little righteousness of man's is perfect
according to its measure, when it understands even what it lacks. And
therefore the apostle calls himself both perfect and imperfect,(3)--
imperfect, to wit, in the thought of how much is wanting to him for the
righteousness for the fulness of which he is still hungering and thirsting;
but perfect in that he does not blush to confess his own imperfection, and
goes forward in good that he may attain. As we can say that the wayfarer is
perfect whose approach is well forwarded, although his intention is not
carried out unless his arrival be actually effected. Therefore, when he had
said," According to the righteousness which is in the law, I am one who has
been without blame," he immediately added, "What things were gain to me,
those I counted but loss for Christ's sake. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things to be loss for the sake of the eminent knowledge of Christ Jesus our
Lord: for whose sake I have believed all things not only to be losses, but
I have thought them to be even as dung, that I might gain Christ and be
found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but
that which is by the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God in
faith."(4) See! the apostle does not, of course, say falsely, that
"according to the righteousness which is of the law he was without blame;"
and yet those things which were gain to him, he casts away for Christ's
sake, and thinks them losses, injuries, dung. And not only these things,
but all other things which he mentioned previously; not on account of any
kind of knowledge, but, as he himself says, "the eminent knowledge of
Christ Jesus our Lord," which, beyond a doubt, he had as yet in faith, but
not yet in sight. For then the knowledge of Christ will be eminent, when He
shall be so revealed that what is believed is seen. Whence, in another
place, he thus says, "For ye have died, and your life is hidden with Christ
in God. When Christ, your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with Him in glory."(5) Hence, also, the Lord Himself says, "He who loveth
me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest
myself to him."(6) Hence John the Evangelist says, "Beloved, now are we the
sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be: but we know,
that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He
is."(7) Then shall the knowledge of Christ be eminent. For now it is, as it
were, hidden away in faith; but it does not yet appear eminent in sight.

CHAP.20.--WHY THE RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS OF THE LAW IS VALUED SLIGHTLY BY
PAUL.

   Therefore the blessed Paul casts away those past attainments of his
righteousness, as "losses" and "dung," that "he may win Christ and be found
in Him, not having his own righteousness, which is of the law." Wherefore
his own, if it is of the law? For that law is the law of God. Who has
denied this, save Marcion and Manicheus, and such like pests? Since, then,
that is the law of God, he says it is" his own" righteousness "which is of
the law;" and this righteousness of his own he would not have, but cast it
forth as "dung." Why so, except because it is this which I have above
demonstrated,(1) that those are under the law who, being ignorant of the
righteousness of God, and going about to establish their own, are not
subject to the righteousness of God?(2) For they think that, by the
strength of their own will, they will fulfil the commands of the law; and
wrapped up in their pride, they are not converted to assisting grace. Thus
the letter killeth(3) them either openly, as being guilty to themselves, by
not doing what the law commands; or by thinking that they do it, although
they do it not with spiritual love, which is of God. Thus they remain
either plainly wicked or deceitfully righteous,--manifestly cut off in open
unrighteousness, or foolishly elated in fallacious righteousness. And by
this means--marvellous indeed, but yet true--the righteousness of the law
is not fulfilled by the righteousness which is in the law, or by the law,
but by that which is in the Spirit of grace. Because the righteousness of
the law is fulfilled in those, as it is written, who walk not according to
the flesh, but according to the Spirit. But, according to the righteousness
which is in the law, the apostle says that he was blameless in the flesh,
not in the Spirit; and he says that the righteousness which is of the law
was his, not God's. It must be understood, therefore, that the
righteousness of the law is not fulfilled according to the righteousness
which is in the law or of the law, that is, according to the righteousness
of man, but according to the righteousness which is in the Spirit of grace,
therefore according to the righteousness of God, that is, which man has
from God. Which may be thus more clearly and briefly stated: That the
righteousness of the law is not fulfilled when the law commands, and man as
it were of his own strength obeys; but when the Spirit aids, and man's free
will, but freed by the grace of God, performs. Therefore the righteousness
of the law is to command what is pleasing to God, to forbid what is
displeasing; but the righteousness in the law is to obey the letter, and
beyond it to seek for no assistance of God for holy living. For when he had
said, "Not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is by the faith of Christ," he added, "Which is from God." That, therefore,
is itself the righteousness of God, being ignorant of which the proud go
about to establish their own; for it is not called the righteousness of God
because by it God is righteous, but because man has it from God.

CHAP. 21.--THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NEVER PERFECTED IN THIS LIFE.

   Now, according to this righteousness of God, that is, which we have
from God, faith now worketh by love. But it worketh that, in what way man
can attain to Him on whom now, not seeing, he believes; and when he shall
see Him, then that which was in faith through a glass enigmatically, shall
at length be in sight face to face; and then shall be perfected even love
itself. Because it is said with excessive folly, that God is loved as much
before He is seen, as He will be loved when He is seen. Further, if in this
life, as no religious person doubts, the more we love God, so much the more
righteous we certainly are, who can doubt that pious and true righteousness
will then be perfected when the love of God shall be perfect? Then the law,
therefore, shall be fulfilled; so that nothing at all is wanting to it, of
which law, according to the apostle, the fulfilling is Love. And thus, when
he had said," Not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but
that which is by the faith of Jesus Christ, which is the righteousness from
God in faith," he then added, "That I may know Him, and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings."(4) All these things
were not yet full and perfect in the apostle; but, as if he were placed on
the way, he was running towards their fulness and perfection. For how had
he already perfectly known Christ, who says in another place, "Now I know
in part; but then I shall know even as I am known"?(5) And how had he
already perfectly known the power of His resurrection, to whom it remained
to know it yet more fully by experience at the time of the resurrection of
the flesh? And how had he perfectly known already the fellowship of His
suffering, if he had not yet experienced for him the suffering of death?
Finally, he adds and says, "If in any manner I may attain unto the
resurrection of the dead."(6) And then he says, "Not that I have already
received or am already perfected." What, then, does he confess that he has
not yet received, and in what is he not yet perfected, except that
righteousness which is of God, which he desired, not willing to have his
own righteousness, which is of the law? For hence he was speaking, and such
was the reason for his saying these things in resistance to the enemies of
the grace of God, for the bestowal of which Christ was crucified; and of
the race of whom are also these.

CHAP. 22.--NATURE OF HUMAN RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PERFECTION.

   For from the place in which he undertook to say these things, he thus
began, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
For we are the circumcision, who serve God in the Spirit,"--or, as some
codices have it, "who serve God the Spirit," or "the Spirit of God,"--"and
glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." (1) Here it is
manifest that he is speaking against the Jews, who, observing the law
carnally, and going about to establish their own righteousness, were slain
by the letter, and not made alive by the Spirit, and gloried in themselves
while the apostles and all the children of the promise were glorying in
Christ. Then he added, "Although I may have confidence in the flesh. If any
one else thinks that he has confidence in the flesh, I more."(2) And
enumerating all things which have glory according to the flesh, he ended at
that point where he says, "According to the righteousness which is in the
law, blameless." And when he had said that he regarded all these things as
altogether loss and disadvantage and dung that he might gain Christ, he
added the passage which I am treating, "And be found in Him, not having my
own righteousness, but that which is by the faith of Christ, which is from
God." He confessed that he had not yet received the perfection of this
righteousness, which will not be except in that excellent knowledge of
Christ, on account of which he said that all things were loss to him; and
he confessed, therefore, that he was not yet perfect. "But I follow on,"
said he, "if I may apprehend that in which I also am apprehended of Christ
Jesus."(3) "I may apprehend that in which I also am apprehended," is much
the same as, "I may know, even as I also am known." "Brethren," says he, "I
count not myself to have apprehended: but one thing, forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forward to those which are before, I
follow on according to the purpose for the reward of the supreme calling of
God in Christ Jesus."(4) The order of the words is, "But one thing I
follow." Of which one thing the Lord also is well understood to have
admonished Martha, where he says, "Martha, Martha,  thou art careful and
troubled about many things: but one thing is needful."(5) The apostle,
wishing to apprehend this as if set in the way, said that he followed on to
the reward of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. For who can delay
when he would apprehend that which he declares that he is following, that
he shall then have a righteousness equal to the righteousness of the holy
angels, none of whom, of course, does any messenger of Satan buffet lest he
should be lifted up with the greatness of his revelations? Then,
admonishing those who might think themselves already perfect with the
fulness of that righteousness, he says, "Let as many of us, therefore, as
are perfect, be thus minded."(6) As if he should say, If, according to the
capacity of mortal man for the little measure of this life, we are perfect,
let us understand that it also belongs to that perfection that we perceive
that we are not yet perfected in that angelical righteousness which we
shall have in the manifestation of Christ. "And if in anything," he said,
"ye be otherwise minded, God shall also reveal even this unto you."(6) How,
save to those that are walking and advancing in the way of the faith, until
that wandering be finished and they come to the actual vision? Whence
following on, he added, "Nevertheless, whereunto we have already attained,
let us walk therein."(6) Then he concludes that they should be bewared of,
concerning whom this passage treated at its beginning. "Brethren, be
imitators of me, and mark them which so walk as ye have our ex- ample. For
many walk, of whom I have spoken  often, and now tell you even weeping,
whose end is destruction,"(7) and the rest. These are the very ones of
whom, in the beginning, he had said, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil
workers," and what follows. Therefore all are enemies of the cross of
Christ who, going about to establish their own righteousness, which is of
the law,--that is, where only the letter commands, and the Spirit does not
fulfil,--are not subject to the law of God. For if they who are of the law
be heirs, faith is made an empty thing. "If righteousness is by the law,
then Christ has died in vain: then is the offence of the cross done away."
And thus those are enemies of the cross of Christ who say that
righteousness is by the law, to which it belongs to command, not to assist.
But the grace of God through Jesus Christ the Lord in the Holy Spirit
helpeth our infirmity.

CHAP. 23.--THERE IS NO TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS WITHOUT THE FAITH OF THE GRACE OF
CHRIST.

   Wherefore he who lives according to the righteousness which is in the
law, without the faith of the grace of Christ, as the apostle declares that
he lived blameless, must be accounted to have no true righteousness; not
because the law is not true and holy, but because to wish to obey the
letter which commands, without the Spirit of God which quickens, as if of
the strength of free will, is not true righteousness. But the righteousness
according to which the righteous man lives by faith, since man has it from
God by the Spirit of grace, is true righteousness. And although this is not
undeservedly said to be perfect in some righteous men, according to the
capacity of this life, yet it is but little to that great righteousness
which the equality of the angels receives. And he who had not yet possessed
this, on the one hand, in respect of that which was already in him, said
that he was perfect; and in respect of that which was still wanting to him,
said that he was imperfect. But manifestly that lower degree of
righteousness makes merit, that higher kind becomes reward. Whence he who
does not strive after the former does not attain unto the latter.
Wherefore, after the resurrection of man, to deny that there will be a
fulness of righteousness, and to think that the righteousness in the body
of that life will be such as it can be in the body of this death, is
singular folly. But it is most true that men do not there begin to fulfil
those commands of God which here they have been unwilling to obey. For
there will be the fulness of the most perfect righteousness, yet not of men
striving after what is commanded, and making gradual endeavours after that
fulness; but in the twinkling of an eye, even as shall be that resurrection
of the dead itself, because that greatness of perfect righteousness will be
given as a reward to those who here have obeyed the commandments, and will
not itself be commanded to them as a thing to be accomplished. But I should
in such wise say they have done the commandments, that we might remember
that to these very commandments belongs the prayer in which the holy
children of promise daily say with truth, "Thy will be done,"(1) and
"Forgive us our debts."(2)

CHAP. 24 [VIII.]--THERE ARE THREE PRINCIPAL HEADS IN THE PELAGIAN HERESY.

   When, then, the Pelagians are pressed with these and such like
testimonies and words of truth, not to deny original sin; not to say that
the grace of God whereby we are justified is not given freely, but
according to our merits; nor to say that in mortal man, however holy and
well doing, there is so great righteousness that even after the washing of
regeneration, until he finishes this life of his, forgiveness of sins is
not necessary to him,- -therefore when they are pressed not to make these
three assertions, and by their means alienate men who believe them from the
grace of the Saviour, and persuade the lifted-up unto pride to go headlong
unto the judgment of the devil: they introduce the clouds of other
questions in which their impiety--in the sight of men more simple  minded,
whether that they are more slow or less instructed in the sacred writings--
may be concealed. These are the misty questions of the praise of the
creature, of the praise of marriage, of the praise of the law, of the
praise of free will, of the praise of the saints; as if any one of our
people were in the habit of disparaging those things, and not rather of
announcing all things with due praises to the honour of the Creator and
Saviour. But even the creature does not desire in such wise to be praised
as to be unwilling to be healed. And the more marriage is to be praised,
the less is to be attributed to it the shameful concupiscence of the flesh,
which is not of the Father, but of the world; and which assuredly marriage
found and did not make in men; because, moreover, it is actually in very
many without marriage, and if nobody had sinned marriage itself might be
without it. And the law, holy and just and good, is neither grace itself,
nor is anything rightly done by it without grace; because the law is not
given that it may give life, but it was added because of transgression,
that it might conclude all persons convicted under sin, and that the
promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.(3)
And the free will taken captive does not avail, except for sin; but for
righteousness, unless divinely set free and aided, it does not avail. And
thus, also, all the saints, whether from that ancient Abel to John the
Baptist, or from the apostles themselves up to this time, and henceforth
even to the end of the world, are to be praised in the Lord, not in
themselves. Because the voice, even of those earlier ones, is, "In the Lord
shall my soul be praised."(4) And the voice of the later ones is, "By the
grace of God I am what I am."(5) And to all belongs, "That he that glorieth
may glory in the Lord." And it is the common confession of all, "If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."(6)

CHAP. 25 [IX.]--HE SHOWS THAT THE OPINION OF THE CATHOLICS IS THE MEAN
BETWEEN THAT OF THE MANICHEANS AND PELAGIANS, AND REFUTES BOTH.

   But since, in these five particulars which I have set forth, in which
they seek lurking-places, and from which they weave misrepresentations,
they are forsaken and convicted by the divine writings, they have thought
to deter those whom they could by the hateful name of Manicheans, lest in
opposition to their most perverse teachings their ears should be conformed
to the truth; because doubtless the Manicheans blasphemously condemn the
three former of those five dogmas, saying that neither the human creature,
nor marriage, nor the law was ordained by the supreme and true God. But
they do not receive what the truth says, that sin took its origin from free
will, and that all evil, whether of angel or man, comes from it; because
they prefer to believe, in their turning aside from God, that the nature of
evil was always evil, and co-eternal with God. They, moreover, attack the
holy patriarchs and prophets with as many execrations as they can. This is
the way in which the modern heretics think, that by objecting the name of
Manicheans, they evade the force of truth. But they do not evade it;
because it follows them up, and overturns at once Manicheans and Pelagians.
For in that when a man is born there is something good, so far as he is a
man, he condemns the Manichean, and praises the Creator; but in so far as
he derives original sin, he condemns the Pelagian, and holds a Saviour
necessary. For even because that nature is said to be healable, it repels
both teachings; because it would not, on the one hand, have need of
medicine if it were sound, which is opposed to the Pelagian, nor could it
be healed at all if the evil in it were eternal and immutable, which is
opposed to the Manichean. Moreover, in that to marriage, which we praise as
ordained of God, we do not say that the concupiscence of the flesh is to be
attributed, this is both contrary to the Pelagians,  who make this
concupiscence itself a matter of praise, and contrary to the Manicheans,
who attribute it to a foreign and evil nature, when it really is an evil
accidental to our nature, not to be separated by the disjunction from God,
but to be healed by the mercy of God. Moreover, in that we say that the
law, holy and just and good, was given not for the justification of the
wicked, but for the conviction of the proud, for the sake of
transgressions,--this is, on the one hand, opposed to the Manicheans, in
that according to the apostle the law is praised; and on the other opposed
to the Pelagians, in that, in accordance with the apostle, no one is
justified by the law; and therefore, for the sake of making alive those
whom the letter has killed,  that is, whom the law, enjoining good, makes
guilty by transgressions, the Spirit of grace freely  brings aid. Also in
that we say that the will is free in evil, but for doing good it must be
made free by God's grace, this is opposed to the Pelagians; but in that we
say it originated from that which previously was not evil, this is opposed
to the Manicheans. Again, that we honour the holy patriarchs and prophets
with praises due to them in God, is in opposition to the Manicheans; but
that we say that even to them, however righteous and pleasing to God they
might have been, the propitiation of the Lord was necessary, this is in
opposition to the Pelagians. The catholic faith, therefore, finds them
both, as it does also Other heretics, in opposition to it, and convicts
both by the authority of the divine testimonies and by the light of truth.

CHAP. 26 [X.]--THE PELAGIANS STILL STRIVE AFTER A HIDING-PLACE, BY
INTRODUCING THE NEEDLESS QUESTION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL.

   The Pelagians, indeed, add to the clouds which envelop their lurking-
places the unnecessary question concerning the origin of the soul, for the
purpose of erecting a hiding-place by disturbing manifest things by the
obscurity of other matters. For they say "that we guard the continuous
propagation of souls with the continuous propagation of sin." And where and
when they have read this, either in the addresses  or in the writings of
those who maintain the catholic faith against this, I do not know; because,
although I find something written by catholics on the subject, yet the
defence of the truth had not yet been undertaken against those men, neither
was there any anxiety to answer them. But this I say, that according to the
Holy Scriptures original sin is so manifest, and that this is put away in
infants by the layer of regeneration is confirmed by such antiquity and
authority of the catholic faith, notorious by such a clear concurrent
testimony of the Church, that what is argued by the inquiry or affirmation
of anybody concerning the origin of the soul, if it is contrary to this,
cannot be true. Wherefore, whoever builds up, either concerning the soul or
any other obscure matter, any edifice whence he may destroy this, which is
true, best founded, I and best known, whether he is a son or an enemy of
the Church, must either be corrected or avoid ed. But let this be the end
of this Book, that the things which follow may have another beginning.


BOOK IV.

AFTER HAVING SET ASIDE IN THE FORMER BOOKS THE CALUMNIES HURLED AGAINST THE
CATHOLICS, AUGUSTIN HERE PROCEEDS TO OPEN UP THE SNARES WHICH LIE HIDDEN IN
THE REMAINING PART OF THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE PELAGIANS, IN THE FIVE
HEADS OF THEIR DOCTRINE--IN THE PRAISE, TO WIT, OF THE CREATURE, THE PRAISE
OF MARRIAGE, THE PRAISE OF THE LAW, THE PRAISE OF FREE WILL, AND THE PRAISE
OF THE SAINTS; IN CONNECTION WITH WHICH HEADS THE PELAGIANS MALIGNANTLY
BOAST THAT THEY ARE AT ISSUE NOT MORE WITH THE MANICHEANS THAN WITH THE
CATHOLICS. HENCE THESE FIVE POINTS MAY BRING US BACK TO THIS, THAT THEY PUT
FORWARD THEIR THREEFOLD ERROR--NAMELY, THE TWO FIRST, THE DENIAL OF
ORIGINAL SIN; THE TWO FOLLOWING, THE ASSERTION THAT GRACE IS GIVEN
ACCORDING TO MERITS; THE FIFTH, THEIR STATEMENT THAT THE SAINTS HAD NOT
SINNED IN THIS LIFE. AUGUSTIN SHOWS THAT BOTH HERESIES, THAT OF THE
MANICHEANS AND THAT OF THE PELAGIANS, ARE OPPOSED AND EQUALLY ODIOUS TO THE
CATHOLIC FAITH, WHEREBY WE PROFESS, FIRST, THAT THE NATURE CREATED BY A
GOOD GOD WAS GOOD, BUT THAT, NEVERTHELESS, IT IS IN NEED OF A SAVIOUR
BECAUSE OF ORIGINAL SIN, WHICH PASSED INTO ALL MEN FROM THE TRANSGRESSION
OF THE FIRST MAN: THEN SECONDLY, THAT MARRIAGE IS GOOD, TRULY INSTITUTED BY
GOD, BUT THAT THAT CONCUPISCENCE IS EVIL WHICH WAS ASSOCIATED WITH MARRIAGE
BY SIN: ALSO THIRDLY THAT THE LAW OF GOD IS GOOD, BUT IN SUCH WISE AS ONLY
TO MANIFEST SIN, NOT TO TAKE IT AWAY: THAT FOURTHLY FREE WILL IS ASSUREDLY
INHERENT IN THE NATURE OF MAN, BUT THAT NOW, HOWEVER, IT IS SO ENSLAVED
THAT IT DOES NOT AVAIL TO THE DOING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, UNLESS WHEN IT SHALL
HAVE BEEN MADE FREE BY GRACE: BUT THAT FIFTHLY THE SAINTS, WHETHER OF THE
OLD OR NEW TESTAMENT, WERE INDEED ENDUED WITH A RIGHTEOUSNESS, WHICH WAS
TRUE BUT NOT PERFECT, NOR SO FULL THAT THEY SHOULD BE FREE FROM ALL SIN. IN
CONCLUSION, HE BRINGS FORWARD THE TESTIMONIES OF CYPRIAN AND AMBROSE ON
BEHALF OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH, SOME CONCERNING ORIGINAL SIN, OTHERS ABOUT
THE ASSISTANCE OF GRACE, AND THE LAST CONCERNING THE IMPERFECTION OF
PRESENT RIGHTEOUSNESS.

CHAP. 1 [I.]--THE SUBTERFUGES OF THE PELAGIANS ARE FIVE.

   AFTER the matters which I have considered, and to which I have
answered, they repeat the same things as those contained in the letter
which I have refuted, but in a different manner. For before, they put them
forward as objecting to us things which we think as it were falsely; but
afterwards, as explaining what they themselves think, they have presented
the same things from the opposite side, adding two certain points which
they had not mentioned--that is, "that they say that baptism is necessary
for all ages," and "that by Adam death passed upon us, not sins," which
things must also themselves be considered in their own place. Hence,
because in the former Book which I have just finished I said that they
alleged hindrances of five matters in which lurk their dogmas hostile to
God's grace and to the catholic faith,--the praise, to wit, of the
creature, the praise of marriage, the praise of the law, the praise of free
will, the praise of the saints,--I think it is more convenient to make a
general discrimination of all that they maintain, the contrary of which
they object to us, and to show which of those things pertain to any of
those five, that so my answer may be by that very distinction clearer and
briefer.

CHAP. 2 [II.] -- THE PRAISE OF THE CREATURE.

   They accomplish the praise of the creature, inasmuch as it pertains to
the human race of which the question now is, in these statements: "That God
is the Maker of all those that are born, and that the sons of men are God's
work; and that all sin descends not from nature, but from the will." With
this praise of the creature they connect, "that they say that baptism is
necessary for every age, so that," namely, "the creature itself may be
adopted among the children of God; not because it derives anything from its
parents which must be purified in the layer of regeneration." To this
praise they add also, "that they say that Christ the Lord was sprinkled
with no stain of sin as far as pertains to His infancy;" because they
assert that His flesh was most pure from all contagion of sin, not by His
own excellence and singular grace, but by His fellowship with the nature
which is shared by all infants. It also belongs to this that they introduce
the question "of the origin of the soul," thus endeavouring to make all the
souls of infants equal to the soul of Christ, maintaining that they
likewise are sprinkled with no stain of sin. On this account, also, they
say, "that nothing of evil passed from Adam upon the rest of humanity
except death, which," they say, "is not always an evil, since to the
martyrs, for instance, it is for the sake of rewards; and it is not the
dissolution of the bodies, which in every kind of then shall be raised up,
that can make death to be called either good or evil, but the diversity of
merits which arises from human liberty." These things they write in this
letter concerning the praise of the creature.

   They praise marriage truly according to the Scriptures, "because the
Lord saith in the gospel, He who made men from the beginning made them male
and female, and said, Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth."
Although  this is not written in that passage of the gospel,  yet it is
written in the law. They add, moreover," What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder."(1) And these we acknowledge to be
gospel words.

   In the praise of the law they say, "that the old law was, according to
the apostle, holy and just and good; that on those who keep its
commandments, and live righteously by faith, such as the prophets and
patriarchs, and all the saints, life eternal could be conferred."

   In the praise of free will they say, "that free will has not perished,
since the Lord says by the prophets, 'If ye be willing and will hear me, ye
shall eat the good things of the land: if ye are unwilling, and will not
hear, the sword shall devour you.'(2) And thus, also, it is that grace
assists the good purpose of any person, but yet does not infuse a desire of
virtue into the reluctant heart, because there is no acceptance of persons
with God."

   In the praise of the saints they conceal themselves, saying "that
baptism perfectly renews men, inasmuch as the apostle is a witness who
testifies that, by the washing of water, the Church is made out of the
heathen holy and spotless;(3) that the Holy Spirit also assisted pious
souls in ancient times, even as the prophet says  to God, 'Thy good Spirit
shall lead me into the right way;'(4) that all the prophets, moreover, and
apostles or saints, as well of the New as of the Old Testament, to whom God
gives witness, were righteous, not in comparison with the wicked, but by
the rule of virtue; and that in future time there is a reward as well of
good works as of evil. But that no one can then perform the commandment
which here he may have contemned, because the apostle said, 'We must be
manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive
the things belonging to the body, according to what he has done, whether
good or evil.'"(5)

   In all these points, whatever they say of the praise of the creature
and of marriage, they endeavour to bring us hack to this,--that there is no
original sin; whatever of the praise of law and of free will, to this, that
grace does not assist without merit, and that thus grace is no more grace;
whatever of the praise of the saints, to this, that mortal life in the
saints appears not to have sin, and that it is not necessary for them to
pray God for the remitting of their debts.

CHAP. 3 [III.] -- THE CATHOLICS PRAISE NATURE, MARRIAGE, LAW, FREE WILL,
AND THE SAINTS, IN SUCH WISE AS TO CONDEMN AS WELL PELAGIANS AS MANICHEANS.

   Let every one who, with a catholic mind, shudders at these impious and
damnable doctrines, in this tripartite division, shun the lurkingplaces and
snares of this fivefold error, and be so careful between one and another as
in such wise to decline from the Manicheans as not to incline to the
Pelagians; and again, so to separate himself from the Pelagians as not to
associate himself with the Manicheans; or, if he should already be taken
hold of in one or the other bondage, that he should not so pluck himself
out of the hands of either as to rush into those of the other. Because they
seem to be contrary to one another; since the Manicheans manifest
themselves by vituperating these five points, and the Pelagians conceal
themselves by praising them. Wherefore he condemns and shuns both, whoever
he may be, who according to the rule of the catholic faith so glorifies the
Creator in men, that are born of the good creature of flesh and soul (for
this the Manichean will not have), as that he yet confesses that on account
of the corruption which has passed over into them by the sin of the first
man, even infants need a Saviour (for this the Pelagian will not have). He
who so distinguishes the evil of shameful concupiscence from the blessing
of marriage, as neither, like the Manicheans, to reproach the source of our
birth, nor, like the Pelagians, to praise the source of our disorder. He
who so maintains the law to have been given holy and just and good through
Moses by a holy and just and good God (which Manicheus, in opposition to
the apostle, denies), as to say that it both shows forth sin and yet does
not take it away, and commands righteousness which yet it does not give
(which, again, in opposition to the apostle, Pelagius denies). He who so
asserts free will as to say that the evil of both angel and man began, not
from I know not what nature always evil, which is no nature, but from the
will itself, which overturns Manichean heresy, and nevertheless that even
thus the captive will cannot breathe into a wholesome liberty save by God's
grace, which overturns the Pelagian heresy. He who so praises in God the
holy men of God, not only after Christ manifested in the flesh and
subsequently, but even those of the former times, whom the Manicheans dare
to blaspheme, as yet to believe their own confessions concerning
themselves, more than the lies of the Pelagians. For the word of the saints
is, "If we should say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us."(1)

CHAP. 4 [IV.] -- PELAGIANS AND MANICHEANS ON THE PRAISE OF THE CREATURE.

   These things being so, what advantage is it to new heretics, enemies of
the cross of Christ and opposers of divine grace, that they seem sound from
the error of the Manicheans, if they are dying by another pestilence of
their own? What advantage is it to them, that in the praise of the creature
they say "that the good God is the maker of those that are born, by whom
all things were made, and that the children of men are His work," whom the
Manicheans say are the work of the prince of darkness; when between them
both, or among them both, God's creation, which is in infants, is
perishing? For both of them refuse to have it delivered by Christ's flesh
and blood,--the one, because they destroy that very flesh and blood, as if
He did not take upon Him these at all in man or of man; and the other,
because they assert that there is no evil in infants from which they should
be delivered by the sacrament of this flesh and blood. Between them lies
the human creature in infants, with a good origination, with a corrupted
propagation, confessing for its goods a most excellent Creator, seeking for
its evils a most merciful Redeemer, having the Manicheans as disparagers of
its benefits, having the Pelagians as deniers of its evils, and both as
persecutors. And although in infancy there is no power to speak, yet with
its silent look and its hidden weakness it addresses the impious vanity of
both, saying to the one, "Believe that I am created by Him who creates good
things;" and saying to the other, "Suffer me to be healed by Him who
created me." The Manicheans say, "There is nothing of this infant save the
good soul to be delivered; the rest," which belongs not to the good God,
but to tile prince of darkness, "is to be rejected."' The Pelagians say,
"Certainly there is nothing of this infant to be delivered, because we have
shown the whole to be safe." Both lie; but now the accuser of the flesh
alone is more bearable than the praiser, who is convicted of cruelty
against the whole. But neither does tile Manichean help the human soul by
blaspheming God, the Author of the entire man; nor does the Pelagian permit
the divine grace to come to the help of human infancy by denying original
sin. Therefore it is by the catholic faith that God has mercy, seeing that
by condemning both mischievous doctrines it comes to the help of the infant
for salvation. It says to the Manicheans, "Hear the apostle crying, 'Know
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you ?'(2) anti
believe that the good God is the Creator of bodies, because the temple of
the Holy Ghost cannot be the work of the prince of darkness." It says to
the Pelagians, "The infant that you look upon 'was conceived in iniquity,
and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.'(3) Why, as if in defending
it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by
mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is
of one day upon the earth.(4) Allow the wretched creatures to receive
remission of sins, through Him who alone neither as small nor great could
have any sin."

CHAP. 5. -- WHAT IS THE SPECIAL ADVANTAGE IN THE PELAGIAN OPINIONS?

   What advantage, then, is it to them that they say "that all sin
descends not from nature, but from the will," and resist by the truth of
this judgment the Manicheans, who say that evil nature is the cause of sin;
when by being unwilling to admit original sin although itself also descends
from the will of the first man, they make infants to depart in guilt from
the body? What advantage is it to them "that they confess  that baptism is
necessary for all ages," while the Manicheans say that it is superfluous
for every age, while they say that in infants it is false so far as it
pertains to the forgiveness of sins? What advantage is it to them that they
maintain "the flesh of Christ" (which the Manicheans contend was either no
flesh at all, or a feigned flesh) to have been not only the true flesh, but
also "that the soul itself was stained by no spot of sin," when other
infants are by them so put on the same level with His infancy, with not
unequal purity, as that both that flesh does not appear to keep its own
holiness in comparison with these, and these obtain no salvation from that?

CHAP. 6. -- NOT DEATH ALONE, BUT SIN ALSO HAS PASSED INTO US BY MEANS OF
ADAM.

   In that particular, indeed, wherein they say "that death passed to us
by Adam, not sins," they have not the Manicheans as their adversaries:
since they, too, deny that original sin from the first man, at first of
pure and upright body and spirit, and afterwards depraved by free will,
subsequently passed and passes as sin into all with death; but they say
that the flesh was evil from the beginning, and was created by an evil
spirit and along with an evil spirit; but that a good soul--a portion, to
wit, of God--for the deserts of its defilement by food and drink, in which
it was before bound up, came into man, and thus by means of copulation was
bound in the chain of the flesh. And thus the Manicheans agree with the
Pelagians that it was not the guilt of the first man that passed into the
human race--neither by the flesh, which they say was never good; nor by the
soul, which they assert comes into the flesh of man with the merits of its
own defilements with which it was polluted before the flesh. But how do the
Pelagians say "that only death passed upon us by Adam's means"? For if we
die because he died, but he died because be sinned, they say that the
punishment passed without the guilt, and that innocent infants are punished
with an unjust penalty by deriving death without the deserts of death.
This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God
and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death--that is,
the penalty of sin--without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man,
in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our
behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him
might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good
was due so to Him nothing bad was clue. Therefore, commending His love to
them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer
for them an undeserved death. This special prerogative of the Mediator the
Pelagians endeavour to make void, so that this should no longer be special
in the Lord, if Adam in such wise suffered a death due to him on account of
his guilt, as that infants, drawing from him no guilt, should suffer
undeserved death. For although very much good is conferred on the good by
means of death, whence some have filly argued even "of the benefit of
death;" yet from this what can be declared except the mercy of God, since
the punishment of sin is converted into beneficent uses?

CHAP. 7. -- WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "IN WHOM ALL HAVE SINNED"?

   But these speak thus who wish to wrest men from the apostle's words
into their own thought. For where the apostle says, "By one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, anti so passed upon all men,"(1) they
will have it there understood not that "sin" passed over, but "death."
What, then, is the meaning of what follows, "Whereto all have sinned"? For
either the apostle says that in that "one man" all have sinned of whom he
had said, "By one man sin entered into the world," or else in that "sin,"
or certainly in "death." For it need not disturb us that he said not "in
which" [using the feminine form of the pronoun],  but "in whom" [using the
masculine] all have sinned; since "death" in the Greek language is of the
masculine gender. Let them, then, choose which they will,--for either in
that "man" all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all
were in him; or m that "sin" all have sinned, because that was the doing of
all in general which all those who were born would have to derive; or it
remains for them to say that in that "death" all sinned. But in what way
this can be understood, I do not clearly see. For all die in the sin; they
do not sin in the death; for when sin precedes, death follows --not when
death precedes, sin follows. Because sin is the sting of death--that is,
the sting by whose stroke death occurs, not the sting with which death
strikes? Just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death,
because by that cup death is caused, not because the cup is caused by the
death, or is given by death. But if "sin" cannot be understood by those
words of the apostle as being that "wherein all have sinned," because in
Greek, from which the Epistle is translated, "sin" is expressed in the
feminine gender, it remains that all men are understood to have sinned in
that first "man," because all men were in him when he sinned; and from him
sin is derived by birth, and is not remitted save by being born again. For
thus also the sainted Hilary understood what is written, "wherein all have
sinned;" for he says, "wherein," that is, in Adam, "all have sinned."(1)
Then he adds, "It is manifest that all have sinned in Adam, as it were in
the mass; for he himself was corrupted by sin, and all whom he begot were
born under sin." When he wrote this, Hilary, without any ambiguity,
indicated how we should understand the words, "wherein all have sinned."

CHAP. 8. --  DEATH PASSED UPON ALL BY SIN.

   But on account of what does the same apostle say, that we are
reconciled to God by Christ, except on account of what we had become
enemies? And what is this but sin? Whence also the prophet says, "Your sins
separate between you and God."(2) On account of this separation, therefore,
tile Mediator was sent, that He might take away tile sin of the world, by
which we were separated as enemies, and that we, being reconciled, might be
made from energies children. About this, certainly, tile apostle was
speaking; hence it happened that he interposed what he says, "That sin
entered by one man." For these are his former words. He says, "But God
commendeth His love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Much more, then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be
saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by tile death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved in His life. And not only so, but glorying also in God
through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom also we have now received
reconciliation." Then he subjoins, "Therefore, as by one man sin entered
into this world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men, for in him
all have sinned."(3) Why do the Pelagians evade this matter? If
reconciliation through Christ is necessary to all men, on all men has
passed sin by which we have become enemies, in order that we should have
need of reconciliation. This reconciliation is in the layer of regeneration
and in the flesh and blood of Christ, without which not even infants can
have life in themselves. For as there was one man for death on account of
sin, so there is one man for life on account of righteousness; because "as
in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive;"(4) and "as by
the sin of one upon all men to condemnation, so also by the righteousness
of one upon all men unto justification of life."(5) Who is there that has
turned a deaf ear to these apostolical words with such hardiness of wicked
impiety, as, having heard them, to contend that death passed upon us
through Adam without sin, unless, indeed, they are opposers of the grace of
God and enemies of the cross of Christ?--whose end is destruction if they
continue in this obstinacy. But let it suffice to have said thus much for
the sake of that serpentine subtlety of theirs, by which they wish to
corrupt simple minds, and to turn them away from the simplicity of the
faith, as if by the praise of the creature.

CHAP. 9 [V.] -- OF THE PRAISE OF MARRIAGE.

   But further, concerning the praise of marriage,(6) what advantage is it
to them that, in opposition to the Manicheans, who assign marriage not to
the true and good God, but to the prince of darkness, these men resist the
words of true piety, and say, "That the Lord speaks in the gospel, saying,
Who from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Increase anti
multiply and replenish the earth. What therefore God hath joined together,
let not man put asunder"?(7) What does this profit them, by means of the
truth to seduce to a falsehood? For they say this in order that infants may
be thought to be born free from all fault, and thus that there is no need
of their being reconciled to God through Christ, since they have no
original sin, on account of which reconciliation is necessary to all by
means of one who came into the world without sin, just as tile enmities of
all were caused by means of one through whom sin entered into the world.
And this is believed by catholics for the sake of the salvation of tile
nature of men, without detracting from the praise of marriage; because the
praise of marriage is a righteous intercourse of the sexes, not a wicked
defence of vices. And thus, when, by their praise of marriage, these
persons wish to draw over men from the Manicheans to themselves, they
desire merely to change their disease, not to heal it.

CHAP. 10.--OF THE PRAISE OF THE LAW.

   Once more, in the praise of the law, what advantage is it to them that,
in opposition to the Manicheans, they say the truth when they wish to bring
men from that view to this which they hold falsely against the catholics?
For they say, "We confess that even the old law, according to the apostle,
is holy and just and good, and that this could confer eternal life on those
that kept its commandments, and lived righteously by faith, like the
prophets and patriarchs, and all the saints." By which words, very craftily
expressed, they praise the law in opposition to grace; for certainly that
law, although just and holy and good, could not confer eternal life on all
those men of God, but the faith which is in Christ. For this faith worketh
by love, not according to the letter which killeth, but according to the
Spirit which maketh alive, to which grace of God the law, as it were a
schoolmaster, leads by deterring from transgression, that so that might be
conferred upon man which it could not itself confer. For to those words of
theirs in which they say "that the law was able to confer eternal life on
the prophets and patriarchs, and all saints who kept its commandments," the
apostle replies, "If righteousness be by the law, then has Christ died in
vain."(1) "If the inheritance be by the law, then is it no more of
promise."(2) "If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void,
and the promise is made of none effect."(3) "But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, is evident: for, The just by faith
liveth."(4) "But the law is not of faith: but The man that doeth them shall
live in them." Which testimony, quoted by the apostle from the law, is
understood in respect of temporal life, in respect of the fear of losing
which, men were in the habit of doing the works of the law, not of faith;
because the transgressors of the law were commanded by the same law to be
put to death by the people. Or, if it must be understood more highly, that
"He who doeth these things shall live in them" was written in reference to
eternal life; the power of the law is so expressed that the weakness of man
in himself, itself failing to do what the law commands, might seek help
from the grace of God rather of faith, seeing that by His mercy even faith
itself is bestowed. Because faith is thus possessed, according as God has
given to every one the measure of faith.(6) For if men have it not of
themselves, but men receive the Spirit of power and of love and of
continence, whence that very same teacher of the Gentiles says, "For we
have not received the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of
continence,"(7)--assuredly also the Spirit of faith is received, of which
he says, "Having also the same Spirit of faith."(8) Truly, then, says the
law, "He who doeth these things shall live in them." But in order to do
these things, and live in them, there is necessary not law which ordains
this, but faith which obtains this. Which faith, however, that it may
deserve to receive these things, is itself given freely.

CHAP. II. -- THE PELAGIANS UNDERSTAND THAT THE LAW ITSELF IS GOD'S GRACE.

   But those enemies of grace never endeavour to lay more secret snares
for more vehement opposition to that same grace than when they praise the
law, which, without doubt, is worthy to be praised? Because, by their
different modes of speaking, and by variety of words in all their
arguments, they wish the law to be understood as "grace"--that, to wit, we
may have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, whereby we may know those
things which have to be done,--not the inspiration of love, that, when
known, we may do them with a holy love, which is properly grace. For the
knowledge of the law without love puffeth up, does not edify, according to
the same apostle, who most openly says, "Knowledge puffeth up, but love
edifieth."(10) Which saying is like to that in which it is said, "The
letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive."(11) For "Knowledge puffeth up,"
corresponds to "The letter kiIleth:" and, "Love edifieth," to "The spirit
maketh alive;" because "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit who is given unto us."(12) Therefore the knowledge of the law
makes a proud transgressor; but, by the gift of charity, he delights to be
a doer of the law. We do not then make void the law through faith, but we
establish the law,(13) which by terrifying leads to faith. Thus certainly
the law worketh wrath, that the mercy of God may bestow grace on the
sinner, frightened and turned to the fulfilment of the righteousness of the
law through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is that wisdom of God of which it is
written, "She carries law and mercy on her tongue,"(14)--law whereby she
frightens, mercy by which she may help, --law by His servant, mercy by
Himself,--the law, as it were, in the staff which Elisha(15) sent to raise
up the son of the widow, and it failed to raise him up, "For if a law had
been given which could have given life, righteousness would altogether have
been by the law,"(16) but mercy, as it were, in Elisha himself, who,
wearing the figure of Christ, by giving life to the dead was joined in the
signification of the great sacrament, as it were, of the New Testament.

CHAP. 12 [VI.] -- OF THE PRAISE OF FREE WILL.

   Moreover, that, in opposition to the Manicheans, they praise free will,
making use of the prophetic testimony, "If ye shall be willing and will
hear me, ye shall eat what is good in the land; but if ye shall be
unwilling and will not hear me, the sword shall consume you:"(17) what
advantage is this to them, when, indeed, it is not so much against the
Manicheans that they are maintaining, as against the catholics that they
are extolling, free will? For they wish what is said, "If ye be willing and
will hear me," to be so understood, as if in the preceding will itself were
the merit of the grace that follows; and thus grace were no more grace,
seeing that it is not free when it is rendered as a debt. But if they
should so understand what is written, "If ye be willing," as to confess
that He prepares even that good will itself of whom it is written, "The
will is prepared by the Lord,"(1) they would use this testimony as
catholics, and not only would overcome the ancient heresy of the
Manicheans, but would not found the new one of the Pelagians.

CHAP. 13. -- GOD'S PURPOSES ARE EFFECTS OF GRACE.

   What does it profit them, that in the praise of that same free will
"they say that grace assists the good purpose of every one"?(2) This would
be received without scruple as being said in a catholic spirit, if they did
not attribute merit to the good purpose, to which merit now a wage is paid
of debt, not according to grace, but would understand and confess that even
that very good purpose, which the grace which follows assists could not
have been in the man if grace had not preceded it. For how is there a good
purpose in a man without the mercy of God first, since it is that very good
will which is prepared by the Lord?(1) But when they had said this, "that
grace also assists every one's good purpose," and presently added, "yet
does not infuse the love of virtue into a resisting heart," it might be
fitly understood, if it were not said by those whose meaning is known. For,
for the resisting heart a hearing for the divine call is first procured by
the grace of God itself, and then in that heart, now no more resisting, the
desire of virtue is kindled. Nevertheless, in all things which any one does
according to God, His mercy precedes him. And this they will not have,
because they choose to be not catholics, but Pelagians. For it much
delights a proud impiety, that even that which a man is forced to confess
to be given by the Lord should seem to be not bestowed on himself, but
repaid; so that, to wit, the children of perdition, not of the promise, may
be thought themselves to have made themselves good, and God to have repaid
to those who are now good, having been made so by themselves, the reward
due for that their work.

CHAP. 14. -- THE TESTIMONIES OF SCRIPTURE IN FAVOUR OF GRACE.

   For that very pride has so stopped the ears of their heart that they do
not hear, "For what hast thou that thou hast not received?"(3) They do not
hear, "Without me ye can do nothing;"(4) they do not hear, "Love is of
God;"(5) they do not hear, "God hath dealt the measure of faith;"(6) they
do not hear, "The Spirit breatheth where it will,"(7) and, "They who are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God;"(8) they do not hear,
"No one can come unto me, unless it were given him of my Father;"(9) they
do not hear what Esdras writes, "Blessed is the Lord of our fathers, who
hath put into the heart of the king to glorify His house which is in
Jerusalem;"(10) they do not hear what the Lord says by Jeremiah, "And I
will put my fear into their heart, that they depart not from me; and I will
visit them to make them good;"(11) and specially that word by Ezekiel the
prophet, where God fully shows that He is induced by no good deservings of
men to make them good, that is, obedient to His commands, but rather that
He repays to them good for evil, by doing this for His own sake, and not
for theirs. For He says, "These things saith the Lord God: I do not this
for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine own holy name's sake, which
has been profaned among the nations, whither ye have gone in there; and I
will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and
which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know
that I am the Lord, saith Adonai the Lord, when I shall be sanctified among
you before their eyes. And I will take you from among the nations, and
gather you together out of all lands, and will bring you into your own
land. And I will sprinkle upon you clean water, and ye shall be cleansed
from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you. And I will give unto you
a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you: and the stony heart
shall be taken away out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of
flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and will cause you to walk in
my righteousness, and to observe my judgments, and do them."(12) And after
a few words, by the same prophet He says, "Not for your sakes do I do this,
saith the Lord God; it shall be known unto you: be ye confounded and blush
for your ways, O house of Israel. These things saith the Lord God: In the
day in which I shall cleanse you from all your iniquities, and shall ordain
cities, and the wilderness shall be built, and the desolated land shall be
tilled, whereas it was desolated before the eyes of every passer by. And
they shall say, This land that was desolated has become as a garden of
pleasure; and the wasted and desolated and ruined cities have settled down
fortified. And whatever nations have been left round about you shall know
that I the Lord have built the ruined places, I have planted the desolated
places: I the Lord have spoken, and have done it. Thus saith the Lord: I
will yet for this inquire of the house of Israel, that I may do it for
them; I will multiply them men like sheep, as holy sheep, as the sheep of
Jerusalem in the days of her feast; so shall be those desolated cities full
of men as sheep: and they shall know that I am the Lord."(1)

CHAP. 15.--FROM SUCH SCRIPTURES GRACE IS PROVED TO BE GRATUITOUS AND
EFFECTUAL

   What remained to the carrion skin whence it might be puffed up, and
could disdain when it glories to glory in the Lord?(2) What remained to it,
when whatsoever it shall have said that it has done in such a way that
after that preceding merit of man had originated from man, God should
subsequently do that of which the man is deserving,--it shall be answered,
it shall be exclaimed against, it shall be contradicted, "I do it; but for
my own holy name's sake; not for your sakes, do I do it, saith the Lord
God"?(3) Nothing so overturns the Pelagians when they say that the grace of
God is given in respect of our merits. Which, indeed, Pelagius himself
condemned,(4) and if not by correcting it, yet by being afraid of the
Eastern judges. Nothing so overturns tile presumption of men who say, "We
do it, that we may deserve those things with which God may do it." It is
not Pelagius that answers you, but the Lord Himself, "I do it and not for
your sakes, but for my own holy name's sake."(3) For what good can ye do
out of a heart which is not good? But that you may have a good heart, He
says, "I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new Spirit within
you." Can you say, We will first walk in His righteousness, and will
observe His judgment, and will do so that we may be worthy, such as He
should give His grace to? But what good would ye evil men do, and how
should you do those good things, unless you were yourselves good? But who
causes that men should be good save Him who said, "And I will visit them to
make them good"? and who said "I will put my Spirit within you, and will
cause you to walk in my righteousness, and to observe my judgments, and do
them"? Are ye thus not yet, awake? Do ye not yet hear, "I will cause you to
walk, I will make you to observe," lastly, "I, win make you to do"? What l
are you still l puffing yourselves up? We indeed walk, it is true; we
observe; we do; but He makes us to walk, to observe, to do. This is the
grace of God making us good; this is His mercy preventing us. What do waste
and desolated and dug-up places deserve, which yet shall be built and
tilled and fortified? Are these things for the merits of their wasteness,
their desolation, their uprooting? Far from it. For such things as these
are evil deservings, while those gifts are good. Therefore good things are
given for evil ones--gratuitous, therefore; not of debt, and therefore
grace. "I," saith the Lord: "I, the Lord." Does not such a word as that
restrain you, O human pride, when you say, I do such things as to deserve
from the Lord to be built and planted? Do you not hear, "I do it not on
your account; I the Lord have built up the destroyed cities, and I have
planted the desolated lands; I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it,
yet not for your sakes, but for my own holy name's sake"? Who multiplies
men sheep, as holy sheep, as the sheep of Jerusalem? Who causes those
desolated cities to be full of men as sheep, save He who goes on, and says,
"And they shall know that I am the Lord"? But with what men as sheep does
He fill the cities as He promised? those which He finds, or those which He
makes? Let us interrogate the Psalm; lo, it answers; let us hear: "O come,
let us worship and fall down before Him: and let us weep before the Lord
who made us; because He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture,
and the sheep of His hand."(5) He therefore makes the sheep, with which He
may fill the desolated cities. What wonder, when, indeed, to that single
sheep, that is, the Church whose members are all the human sheep, it is
said, "Because I am the Lord who make thee"? What do you pretend to me of
free will, which will not be free to do righteousness, unless you should be
a sheep? He then who makes men His sheep, He frees the wills of men for the
obedience of piety.

CHAP. 16.--WHY GOD MAKES OF SOME SHEEP, OTHERS NOT.

   But wherefore does God make these men sheep, and those not, since with
Him there is no acceptance of persons? This is the very question which the
blessed apostle thus answers to those who propose it with more curiosity
than propriety, "O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Does the
thing formed say to him that formed it, Wherefore hast thou made me thus?"
(6) This is the very question which belongs to that depth desiring to look
into which the same apostle was in a certain measure terrified, and
exclaimed, "Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of
God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For
who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? Or who
has first given to Him, that it should be recompensed to Him again? Because
of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory for
ages of ages."(7) Let them not, then, dare to pry into that unsearchable
question who defend merit before grace, and therefore even against grace,
and wish first to give unto God, that it may be given to them again,--
first, of course, to give something of free will, that grace may be given
them again as a reward; and let them wisely understand or faithfully
believe that even what they think that they have first given, they have
received from Him, from whom are all things, by whom are all things, in
whom are all things. But why this man should receive, and that should not
receive, when neither of them deserves to receive, and whichever of them
receives, receives undeservingly,--let them measure their own strength, and
not search into things too strong for them. Let it suffice them to know
that there is no un- righteousness with God. For when the apostle could
find no merits for which Jacob should take precedence of his twin-brother
with God, he said, "What, then, shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with
God? Away with the thought! For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will show compassion on whom I will show
compassion. Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy."(1) Let, therefore, His free
compassion be grateful to us, even although this profound question be still
unsolved; which, nevertheless, is so far solved as the same apostle solves
it, saying, "But if God, willing to show His wrath, and to demonstrate His
power, endured in much patience the vessels of wrath which are fitted to
destruction; and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the
vessels of mercy, which He has prepared for glory."(2) Certainly wrath is
not repaid unless it is due, lest there be unrighteousness with God; but
mercy, even when it is bestowed, and not due, is not unrighteousness with
God. And hence, let the vessels of mercy understand how freely mercy is
afforded to them, because to the vessels of wrath with whom they have
common cause and measure of perdition, is repaid wrath, righteous and due.
This is now enough in opposition to those who, by freedom of will, desire
to destroy the liberality of grace.

CHAP. 17 [VII.]--OF THE PRAISE OF THE SAINTS.

   In that, indeed, in the praise of the saints, they will not drive us
with the zeal of that publican(3) to hunger and thirst after righteousness,
but with the vanity of the Pharisees, as it were, to overflow with
sufficiency and fulness; what does it profit them that--in opposition to
the Manicheans, who do away with baptism--they say "that men are perfectly
renewed by baptism," and apply the apostle's testimony for this,--"who
testifies that, by the washing of water, the Church is made holy and
spotless from the Gentiles,"(4)--when, with a proud and perverse meaning,
they put forth their arguments in opposition to the prayers of the Church
itself. For they say this in order that the Church may be believed after
holy baptism--in which is accomplished the forgiveness of all sins--to have
no further sin; when, in opposition to them, from the rising of the sun
even to its setting, in all its members it cries to God, "Forgive us our
debts."(5) But if they are interrogated regarding themselves in this
matter, they find not what to answer. For if they should say that they have
no sin, John answers them, that they deceive themselves, and the truth is
not in them.(6) But if they confess their sins, since they wish themselves
to be members of Christ's body, how will that body, that is, the Church, be
even in this time perfectly, as they think, without spot or wrinkle, if its
members without falsehood confess themselves to have sins? Wherefore in
baptism all sins are forgiven, and, by that very washing of water in the
word, the Church is set forth in Christ without spot or wrinkle;(7) and
unless it were baptized, it would fruitlessly say, "Forgive us our debts,"
until it be brought to glory, when there is in it absolutely no spot or
wrinkle.(8)

CHAP. 18.--THE OPINION OF THE SAINTS THEMSELVES ABOUT THEMSELVES.

   It is to be confessed that "the Holy Spirit, even in the old times,"
not only "aided good dispositions," which even they allow, but that it even
made them good, which they will not have. "That all, also, of the prophets
and apostles or saints, both evangelical and ancient, to whom God gives His
witness, were righteous, not in comparison with the wicked, but by the rule
of virtue," is not doubtful. And this is opposed to the Manicheans, who
blaspheme the patriarchs and prophets; but what is opposed to the Pelagians
is, that all of these, when interrogated concerning themselves while they
lived in the body, with one most accordant voice would answer, "If we
should say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us."(6) "But in the future time," it is not to be denied "that there
will be a reward as well of good works as of evil, and that no one will be
commanded to do the commandments there which here he has contemned," but
that a sufficiency of perfect righteousness where sin cannot be, a
righteousness which is here hungered and thirsted after by the saints, is
here hoped for in precept, is there received as a reward, on the entreaty
of alms and prayers; so that what here may have been wanting in fulfilment
of the commandments may become unpunished for the forgiveness of sin.(1)

CHAP. 19.--THE CRAFT  OF THE PELAGIANS.

   And if these things be so, let the Pelagians cease by their most
insidious praises of these five things--that is, the praise of the
creature, the praise of marriage, the praise of the law, the praise of free
will, the praise of the saints--from feigning that they desire to pluck
men, as it were, from the little snares of the Manicheans, in order that
they may entangle them in their own nets--that is, that they may deny
original sin; may begrudge to infants the aid of Christ the physician; may
say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, and thus that
grace is no more grace; and may say that the saints in this life had not
sin, and thus make the prayer of none effect which He gave to the saints
who had no sin, and by which all sin is pardoned to the saints that pray
unto Him. To these three evil doctrines, they by their deceitful praise of
these five good things seduce careless and unlearned men. Concerning all
which things, I think I have sufficiently censured their most cruel and
wicked and proud vanity.

CHAP. 20 [VIII.]--THE TESTIMONIES OF THE ANCIENTS AGAINST THE PELAGIANS.

   But since they say "that their enemies have taken up our words for
hatred of the truth," and complained that "throughout nearly the whole of
the West a dogma not less foolish than impious is taken up, and from simple
bishops sitting in their places without a Synodal congregation a
subscription is extorted to confirm this dogma,"--although the Church of
Christ, both Western and Eastern shuddered at the profane novelties of
their words--I think it belongs to my care not only to avail myself of the
sacred canonical Scriptures as witnesses against them, which I have already
sufficiently done, but, moreover, to bring forward some proofs from the
writings of the holy men who before us have treated upon those Scriptures
with the most widespread reputation and great glory. Not that I would put
the authority of any controversialist on a level with the canonical books,
as if there were nothing which is better or more truly thought by one
catholic than by another who likewise is a catholic; but that those may be
admonished who think that these men say anything as it used to be said,
before their empty talk on these subjects, by catholic teachers following
the divine oracles, and may know that the true and anciently established
catholic faith is by us defended against the receding presumption and
mischief of the Pelagian heretics.

CHAP. 21.--PELAGIUS, IN IMITATION OF CYPRIAN, WROTE A BOOK OF TESTIMONIES.

   Even that heresiarch of these men, Pelagius himself, mentions with the
honour that is certainly due to him, the most blessed Cyprian, most
glorious with even the crown of martyrdom, not only in the African and the
Western, but also in the Eastern Churches, well known by the report of
fame, and by the diffusion far and wide of his writings,--when, writing a
book of testimonies,(2) he asserts that he is imitating him, saying that
"he was doing to Romanus what Cypria had done to Quirinus." Let us, then,
see what Cyprian thought concerning original sin, which entered by one man
into the world. In the epistle on "Works and Alms"(3) he thus speaks "When
the Lord at His advent had cured these wounds which Adam had introduced,
and had healed the old poisons of the serpent, He gave a law to the sound
man, and bade him sin no more, lest a worse thing should happen to him if
he sinned. We had been limited and shut up into a narrow space by the
commandment of innocence; nor would the infirmity and weakness of human
frailty have any resource unless the divine mercy coming once more in aid
should open some way of securing salvation by pointing out works of justice
and mercy, so that by alms-giving we may wash away whatever foulness we
subsequently contract." By this testimony this witness refutes two
falsehoods of theirs,--the one, wherein they say that the human race draws
no sin from Adam which needs cure and healing through Christ; the other, in
which they say that the saints have no sin after baptism. Again, in the
same epistle(4) he says, "Let each one place before his eyes the devil with
his servants,--that is, with the people of perdition and death,--as
springing forth into the midst and provoking the people of Christ,--Himself
being present and judging,--with the trial of comparison in these words:
'I, on behalf of those whom thou seest with me, neither received buffets,
nor bore scourgings, nor endured the cross, nor shed my blood, nor redeemed
my family at the price of my suffering and blood; but neither do I promise
them a celestial kingdom, nor do I recall them to Paradise, having again
restored to them immortality.'" Let the Pelagians answer and say when we
could have been in the immortality of Paradise, and how we could have been
expelled thence so as to be recalled thither by the grace of Christ. And,
although they may be unable to find what they can answer in this case on
behalf of their own perversity, let them observe in what manner Cyprian
understood what the apostle says, "In whom all have sinned." And let not
the Pelagian heretics, freed from the  old Manichean heretics, dare to
suggest any calumny against a catholic, lest they should be convicted of
doing so wicked a wrong even to the ancient martyr Cyprian.

CHAP. 22.--FURTHER REFERENCES TO CYPRIAN.

   For he says also this in the epistle whose title is inscribed, "On the
Mortality:"(1) "The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, is beginning to be at
hand; the reward of life, and the rejoicing of eternal salvation and
perpetual gladness, and the possession formerly lost of Paradise, are now
coming with the passing away of the world." This again, in the same
epistle, he says: "Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own
home, which snatches us hence and sets us free from the snares of the
world, and restores us to Paradise and the kingdom." Moreover, he says m
the epistle concerning Patience: "Let the judgment of God be pondered,
which, even in the beginning of the world and of the human race, Adam,
forgetful of the commandment and a transgressor of the law that had been
given, received. Then we shall know how patient in this life we ought to
be, who are born in such a state that we labour here with afflictions and
contests. Because, says He, 'thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife,
and hast eaten of the tree of which alone I had charged thee that thou
shouldest not eat, cursed shall be the ground in all thy works: in sorrow
and in groaning shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and
thistles shall it give forth to thee, and thou shall eat the food of the
field. In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread, till thou return
unto the ground from which thou wast taken: for earth thou art, and unto
earth shalt thou go.' We are all tied and bound with the chain of this
sentence until, death being destroyed, we depart from this world."(2) And,
moreover, in the same epistle he says: "For, since in that first
transgression of the commandment strength of body departed with
immortality, and weakness came on with death, and strength cannot be
received unless when immortality also has been received, it behoves us in
this bodily frailty and weakness always to struggle and fight; and this
struggle and encounter  cannot be sustained but by the strength of
patience."(3)

CHAP. 23.--FURTHER REFERENCES TO CYPRIAN.

   And in the epistle which he wrote with sixty-six of his joint-bishops
to Bishop Fidus, when he was consulted by him in respect of the law of
circumcision, whether an infant might be baptized before the eighth day,
this matter is treated in such a way as if by a divine forethought the
catholic Church would already confute the Pelagian heretics who would
appear so long afterwards. For he who had consulted had no doubt on the
subject whether children on birth inherited original sin, which they might
wash away by being born again. For be it far from the Christian faith to
have at any time doubted on this matter. But he was in doubt whether the
washing of regeneration, by which he made no question but that original sin
was put away, ought to be given before the eighth day. To which
consultation the most blessed Cyprian in reply said: "But as regards the
case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptized within the second
or third day after their birth, and that the law of the ancient
circumcision should be regarded, so that you think that one who is born
should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day, we all thought
very differently in our council. For to the course which you thought was to
be taken no one agreed, but we all rather judged that the grace of a
merciful God was not to be denied to any one born of men; for, as the Lord
says in His gospel, 'the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but
to save them.'(4) As far as we can, we must strive that, if possible, no
soul be lost."(5) And a little afterwards he says: "Nor ought any of us to
shudder at what God hath condescended to make. For although the infant is
still fresh from its birth, yet it is not such that any one should shudder
at kissing it in giving grace and in making peace, since in the kiss of an
infant every one of us ought for his very religion's sake to consider the
still recent hands of God themselves, which in some sort we are kissing in
the man just formed and newly born, when we are embracing that which God
has made."(6) A little after, also, he says: "But if anything could hinder
men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those
who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest
sinners, and to those who have before sinned much against God, when they
have subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted, and nobody is
hindered from baptism and from grace; how much rather ought we to shrink
from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except
that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the
contagion of the ancient death at his earliest birth; who approaches more
easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins, in
that to him are remitted not his own sins, but the sins of another!"(1)

CHAP. 24.--THE DILEMMA PROPOSED TO THE PELAGIANS.

   What will be said to such things as these, by those who are not only
the forsakers, but also the persecutors of God's grace? What will they say
to such things as these? On what ground is the "possession of Paradise"
restored to us? How are we restored to Paradise if we have never been
there? Or how have we been there, except because we were there in Adam? And
how do we belong to that "judgment" which was spoken against the
transgressor, if we do not inherit injury from the transgressor? Finally,
he thinks that infants are to be baptized, even before the eighth day; lest
"by the contagion of the ancient death, contracted in the first birth," the
souls of the infants should perish. How do they perish if they who are born
even of believing men are not held by the devil until they are born again
in Christ, and plucked out from the power of darkness, and transferred into
His kingdom? And who says that the souls of those who are born will perish
unless they are born again? No other than he who so praises the Creator and
the creature, the workman and the work, as to restrain and correct the
horror of human feeling with which men refuse to kiss infants fresh from
the womb, by interposing the veneration of the Creator Himself, saying that
in the kiss of infants of that age the recent hands of God were to be
considered! Did he, then, in confessing original sin, condemn either nature
or marriage? Did he, because he applied to the infant born guilty from
Adam, the cleansing of regeneration, therefore deny God as the Creator of
those that were born? Because, in his dread that souls of any age whatever
should perish, he, with his council of colleagues, decided that even before
the eighth clay they were to be delivered by the sacrament of baptism, did
he therefore accuse marriage, when, indeed, in the case of an infant,--
whether born of marriage or of adultery, yet because it was born a man,--he
declared that the recent hands of God were worthy even of the kiss of
peace? If, then, the holy bishop and most glorious martyr Cyprian could
think that original sin in infants must be healed by the medicine of
Christ, without denying the praise of the creature, without denying the
praise of marriage, why does a novel pestilence, although it does not dare
to call such an one as him a Manichean, think that another person's fault
is to be objected against catholics who maintain these things, in order to
conceal its own? So the most lauded commentator on the divine declarations,
before even the slightest taint of the Manichean plague had touched our
lands, without any reproach of the divine work and of marriage, confesses
original sin,--not saying that Christ was stained with any spot of sin, nor
yet comparing with Him the flesh of sin in others that were born, to whom
by means of the likeness of sinful flesh He might afford the aid of
cleansing; neither is he deterred by the obscure question of the origin of
souls, from confessing that those who are made free by the grace of Christ
return into Paradise, Does he say that the condition of death passed upon
men from Adam without the contagion of sin? For it is not on account of
avoiding the death of the body, but on account of the sin which entered by
one man into the world,(2) that he says that help is to be afforded by
baptism to infants, however fresh they may be from the womb.

CHAP. 25 [IX.]--CYPRIAN'S TESTIMONIES CONCERNING GOD'S GRACE.

   But now it plainly appears in what way Cyprian proclaims the grace of
God against such as these, when he is arguing about the Lord's Prayer. For
he says: "We say, 'May Thy name be made holy,'(3) not that we wish for God
that He may be made holy by our prayers, but that we beseech of Him that
His name may be made holy in us. But by whom is God made holy, since He
Himself makes holy? But, because He says, 'Be ye holy, because I also am
holy,' we ask and entreat this, that we who were made holy in baptism may
continue in that which we have begun to be."(4) And in another place in the
same epistle he says: "We add also, and say, 'Thy will be done in heaven,
and in earth,' not in order that God may do what He wills, but that we may
be able to do what God wills. For who resists God that He may not do  what
He wills? But, since we are hindered by the devil from obeying God with our
thought and deed in all things, we pray and ask that God's will may be done
in us. And that it may be done in us, we have need of God's will, that is,
of His help and protection; since no one is strong in his own strength, but
he is safe by the indulgence and mercy of God."(5) In another place also:
"Moreover, we ask that the will of God may be done both in heaven and in
earth, each of which things pertains to the fulfilment of our safety and
salvation. For since we possess the body from the earth, and the spirit
from heaven, we are ourselves earth and heaven; and in both, that is, both
in body and in spirit, we pray that God's will be done. For between the
flesh and the spirit there is a struggle, and there is a daily strife as
they disagree one with the other; so that we cannot do the very things that
we would, in that the spirit seeks heavenly and divine things, while the
flesh lusts after earthly and temporal things. And, therefore, we ask that,
by the help and assistance of God, agreement may be made between these two
natures; so that while the will of God is done both in the spirit and in
the flesh, the soul which is newborn by Him may be preserved. And this the
Apostle Paul openly and manifestly declares by his words. 'The flesh,' says
he, 'lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for
these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things
that ye would.'"(1) And a little after he says: "And it may be thus
understood, most beloved brethren, that since the Lord commands and teaches
us even to love our enemies, and to pray even for those who persecute us,
we should ask even for those who are still earth, and have not yet begun to
be heavenly, that even in respect of these God's will may be done, which
Christ accomplished in preserving and renewing humanity."(2) And again, in
another place he says: "But we ask that this bread should be given to us
daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the
food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of some more heinous sin,-
-by being prevented, as those abstaining and not communicating, from
partaking of the heavenly bread,--be separated from Christ's body."(3) And
a little afterwards, in the same treatise he says: "But when we ask that we
may not come into temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and
weakness, while we so ask as that no one should insolently vaunt himself;
that none should proudly and arrogantly assume anything to himself; that
none should take to himself the glory either of confession or of suffering
as his own, when the Lord Himself teaching humility said, 'Watch and pray,
that ye come not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is weak;'(4) so that while a humble and submissive confession comes
first, and all is attributed to God, whatever is sought for suppliantly,
with fear and honour of God, may be granted by His own loving-kindness."(5)
Moreover, in his treatise addressed to Quirinus, in respect to which work
Pelagius wishes himself to appear as his imitator, he says in the Third
Book "that we must boast in nothing, since nothing is our own."(6) And
subjoining the divine testimonies to this proposition, he added among
others that apostolic word with which especially the mouths of such as
these must be closed: "For what hast thou, which thou hast not received?
But if thou hast received it, why boastest thou as if thou hadst not
received it?" Also in the epistle concerning Patience he says: "For we have
this virtue in common with God. From Him patience begins; from Him its
glory and its dignity take their rise. The origin and greatness of patience
proceed from God as its Author."(7)

CHAP. 26.--FURTHER APPEALS TO CYPRIAN'S TEACHING.

   Does that holy and so memorable instructor of the Churches in the word
of truth, deny that there is free will in men, because he attributes to God
the whole of your righteous living? Does he reproach God's law, because he
intimates that man is not justified by it, seeing that he declares that
what that law commands must be obtained from the Lord God by prayers? Does
he assert fate under the name of grace, by saying that we must boast in
nothing, since nothing is our own? Does he, like these, believe that the
Holy Spirit is in such wise the aider of virtue, as if that very virtue
which it assists springs from ourselves, when, asserting that nothing is
our own, he mentions in this respect that the apostle said, "For what hast
thou that thou hast not received?" and says that the most excellent virtue,
that is, patience, does not begin from us, and afterwards receive aid by
the Spirit of God, but from Him Himself takes its source, from Him takes
its origin? Finally, he confesses that neither good purpose, nor desire of
virtue, nor good dispositions, begin to be in men without God's grace, when
he says that "we must boast in nothing, since nothing is our own." What is
so established in free will as what the law says, that we must not worship
an idol, must not commit adultery, must do no murder? Nay, these crimes,
and such like, are of such a kind that, if any one should commit them, he
is removed from the communion of the body of Christ. And yet, if the
blessed Cyprian thought that our own will was sufficient for not committing
these crimes, he would not in such wise understand what we say in the
Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread," as that he should assert
that we ask "that we may not by the interposition of some heinous sin--by
being prevented as abstaining, and not communicating, from partaking of the
heavenly bread--be separated from Christ's body." Let these new heretics
answer of a surety what good merit precedes, in men who are enemies of the
name of Christ? For not only have they no good merit, but they have,
moreover, the very worst merit. And yet, Cyprian even thus understands what
we say in the prayer, "Thy will be done in heaven, and in earth:" that we
pray also for those very persons who in this respect are calmed earth. We
pray, therefore, not only for the unwilling, but also for the objecting and
resisting. What, then, do we ask, but that from unwilling they may be made
willing; from objecting, consenting; from resisting, loving? And by whom,
but by Him of whom it is written, "The will is prepared by God"? (1) Let
them, then, who disdain, if they do not do any evil and if they do any
good, to glory, not in themselves, but in the Lord, learn to be catholics.

CHAP. 27 [X.] -- CYPRIAN'S TESTIMONIES CONCERNING THE IMPERFECTION OF OUR
OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

   Let us, then, see that third point, which in these men is not less
shocking to every member of Christ and to His whole body,--that they
contend that there are in this life, or that there have been, righteous men
having absolutely no sin.(2) In which presumption they most manifestly
contradict the Lord's Prayer, wherein, with truthful heart and with daily
words, all the members of Christ cry aloud, "Forgive us our debts." Let us
see, then, what Cyprian, most glorious in the Lord, thought of this,--what
he not only said for the instruction of the Churches, not, of course, of
the Manicheans, but of the catholics, but also committed to letters and to
memory. In the epistle on "Works and Alms," he says: "Let us then
acknowledge, beloved brethren, the wholesome gift of the divine mercy, and
let us who cannot be without some wound of conscience heal our wounds by
the spiritual remedies for the cleansing and purging of our sins. Nor let
any one so flatter himself with the notion of a pure and immaculate heart,
as, in dependence on his own innocence, to think that the medicine needs
not to be applied to his wounds; since it is written, 'Who shall boast that
he hath a clean heart, or who shall boast that he is pure from sins?'(3)
And again, in his epistle, John lays it down and says, 'If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'(4) But if
no one can be without sin, and whoever should say that he is without fault
is either proud or foolish, how needful, how kind is the divine mercy,
which, knowing that there are still found some wounds in those that have
been healed, I has given even after their healing wholesome remedies for
the curing and healing of their wounds anew!"(5) Again, in the same
treatise he says: "And since there cannot fail daily to be sins committed
in the sight of God, there failed not daily sacrifices wherewith the sins
might be cleansed away."(6) Also, in the treatise on the Mortality, he
says: "Our warfare is with avarice, with immodesty, with anger, with
ambition; our trying and toilsome wrestling with carnal vices, with the
enticements of the world. The mind of man besieged, and on every hand
invested with the onsets of the devil, scarcely meets the repeated attacks,
scarcely resists them.  If avarice is prostrated, lust springs up. If lust
is overcome, ambition takes its place. If ambition is despised, anger
exasperates, pride puffs up, wine-bibbing entices; envy breaks concord:
jealousy cuts friendship; you are constrained to curse, which the divine
law forbids; you are compelled to swear, which is not lawful. So many
persecutions the soul suffers daily, with so many risks is the heart
wearied; and yet it delights to abide here long among the devil's weapons,
although it should rather be our craving and wish to hasten to Christ by
the aid of a quicker death."(7) Again, in the same treatise he says: "The
blessed Apostle Paul in his epistle lays it down, saying, 'To me to live is
Christ, and to die is gain;' (8) counting it the greatest gain no longer to
be held by the snares of this world, no longer to be liable to the sins and
vices of the flesh." (9) Moreover, on the Lord's Prayer, explaining what it
is we ask when we say, "Hallowed be thy name," he says, among other
matters: "For we have need of daily sanctification, that we, who daily fall
away, may wash out our sins by continual sanctification." (10) Again, in
the same treatise, when he would explain our saying, "Forgive us our
debts," he says: "And how necessarily, how providently and salutarily, are
we admonished that we are sinners, since we are compelled to entreat for
our sins; and while pardon is asked for from God, the soul recalls its own
consciousness of guilt. Lest any one should flatter himself as being
innocent, and by exalting himself should more deeply perish, he is
instructed and taught that he sins daily, in that he is bidden to entreat
daily for his sins. Thus, moreover, John also in his epistle warns us, and
says: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins.'"(11) Rightly, also, he proposed in his letter to
Quirinus his own most absolute judgment on this subject, to which he
subjoined the divine testimonies, "That no one is without filth and without
sin." (1) There also he set down those testimonies by which original sin is
confirmed, which these men endeavour to twist into I know not what new and
evil meanings, whether what the holy Job says, "No one is pure from filth
not one even if his life be of one day upon the earth,"(2) or what is read
in the Psalm, "Behold, I was conceived in iniquity; and in sins hath my
mother nourished me in the womb." (3) To which testimonies, on account of
those also who are already holy in mature age, since even they are not
without filth and sin, he added also that word of the most blessed John,
which he often mentions in many other places besides, "If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves;"(4) and other passages of the same
sentiment, which are asserted by all catholics, by way of opposing those
"who deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them."

CHAP. 28.--CYPRIAN'S ORTHODOXY UNDOUBTED.

   Let the Pelagians say, if they dare, that this man of God was perverted
by the error of the Manicheans, in so praising the saints as yet to confess
that no one in this life had attained to such a perfection of righteousness
as to have no sin at all, confirming his judgment by the clear truth and
divine authority of the canonical testimonies. For does he deny that in
baptism all sins are forgiven, because he confesses that there remain
frailty and infirmity, whence he says that we sin after baptism and even to
the end of this life, having unceasing conflict with the vices of the
flesh? Or did he not remember what the apostle said about the Church
without spot, that he prescribed that no one ought so to flatter himself in
respect of a pure and spotless heart as to trust in his own innocence, and
think that no medicine needed to be applied to his wounds? I think that
these new heretics may concede to this catholic man that he knew "that the
Holy Spirit even in the old times aided good dispositions;" nay, even, what
they themselves will not allow, that they could not have possessed good
dispositions except through the Holy Spirit. I think that Cyprian knew that
all the prophets and apostles or saints of any kind soever who pleased the
Lord at any time were righteous--"not in comparison with the wicked," as
they falsely assert that we say, "but by the rule of virtue," as they boast
that they say; although Cyprian says, nevertheless, no one can be without
sin, and whoever should assert that he is blameless is either proud or a
fool. Nor is it with reference to anything else that he understands the
Scripture, "Who shall boast that he has a pure heart? or who shall boast
that he is pure from sins?"(5) I think that Cyprian would not have needed
to be taught by such as these, what he very well knew, "that, in the time
to come, there would be a reward of good works and a punishment of evil
works, but that no one could then perform the commands which here he might
have despised;" and yet he does not understand and assert the Apostle Paul,
who was assuredly not a contemner of the divine commands, to have said, "To
me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,"(6) on any other account, except
that he reckoned it the greatest gain after this life no longer to be held
in worldly entanglements, no longer to be obnoxious to the sins and vices
of the flesh. Therefore the most blessed Cyprian felt, and in the truth of
the divine Scriptures saw, that even the life of the apostles themselves,
however good, holy, and righteous, suffered some involvements of worldly
entanglements, was obnoxious to some sins and vices of the flesh; and that
they desired death that they might be free from those evils, and that they
might attain to that perfect righteousness which would not suffer such
things, and which would no more have to be achieved in the way of command
merely, but to be received in the way of reward. For not even when that
shall have come for which we pray when we say, "Thy kingdom come," will
there be in that kingdom of God no righteousness; since the apostle says,
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost." (7) Certainly these three things are commanded
among other divine precepts. Here righteousness is prescribed to us when it
is said, "Do righteousness;"(8) peace is prescribed when it is said, "Have
peace among yourselves;"(9) joy is prescribed when it is said, "Rejoice in
the Lord always."(10) Let, then, the Pelagians deny that these things shall
be in the kingdom of God, where we shall live without end; or let them be
so mad, if it appears good, as to contend that righteousness, peace, and
joy, will be such there as they are here to the righteous. But if they both
shall be, and yet shall not be the same, assuredly here, in respect of the
commandment of them, the doing is to be cared for,--there the perfection is
to be hoped for in the way of reward; when, not being withheld by any
earthly entanglements, and being liable to no sins and vices of the flesh
(on account of which the apostle, as Cyprian received this testimony, said
that to die would be to him gain), we may perfectly love God, the
contemplation of whom will be face to face; we may also perfectly love our
neighbour, since, when the thoughts of the heart are made manifest, no
suspicion of any evil can disturb any one concerning any one.

CHAP. 29 [XI.]--THE TESTIMONIES OF AMBROSE  AGAINST THE PELAGIANS AND FIRST
OF CONCERNING ORIGINAL SIN.

   But now also to the most glorious martyr! Cyprian, let me add, for the
sake of more amply confuting these men, the most blessed Ambrose; because
even Pelagius praised him so much as to say that in his writings could be
found nothing to be blamed even by his enemies.(1) Since, then, the
Pelagians say that there is no original sin with which infants are born,
and object to the catholics the guilt of the Manichean heresy, who
withstand them on behalf of the most ancient faith of the Church, let this
catholic man of God, Ambrose, praised even by Pelagius himself in the truth
of the faith, answer them concerning this matter. When he was expounding
the prophet Isaiah, he says: "Christ was, therefore, without spot, because
He was not stained even in the usual condition itself of birth." (2) And in
another place in the same work, speaking of the Apostle Peter, he says: "He
offered himself, which he thought before to be sin, asking for himself that
not only his feet but his head also should be washed, because he had
directly understood that by the washing of the feet, for those who fell in
the first man, the filth of the obnoxious succession was abolished."(2)
Also in the same work he says: "It was preserved, therefore, that of a man
and woman, that is, by that mingling of bodies, no one could be seen to be
free from sin; but He who is free from sin is free also from this kind of
conception." Also writing against the Novatians he says: "All of us men are
born under sin. And our very origin is in corruption, as you have it read
in the words of David, (3) 'For lo, I was conceived in iniquities; and in
sins hath my mother brought the forth.'" (4) Also in the apology of the
prophet David, he says: "Before we are born we are spotted with contagion,
and before the use of light we receive the mischief of that origin. We are
conceived in iniquity." (5) Also speaking of the Lord, he says: "It was
certainly fitting that He who was not to have the sin of a bodily fall,
should feel no natural contagion of generation. Rightly, therefore, David
with weeping deplored in himself these defilements of nature, and the fact
that the stain had begun in man before his life."(6) Again, in the Ark of
Noah he says: "Therefore by one Lord Jesus the coming salvation is declared
to the nations; for He only could be righteous, although every generation
should go astray, nor for any other reason than that, being born of a
virgin, He was not at all bound by the ordinance of a guilty generation.
'Behold,' he says, 'I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins has my
mother brought me forth;'(7) he who was esteemed righteous beyond others so
speaks. Whom, then, should I now call righteous unless Him who is free from
those chains, whom the bonds of our common nature do not hold fast?"(8)
Behold, this holy man, most approved, even by the witness of Pelagius, in
the catholic faith, condemned the Pelagians who deny original sin with such
evidence as this; and yet he does not with the Manicheans deny either God
to be the Creator of those who are born, or condemn marriage, which God
ordained and blessed.

CHAP. 30.--THE TESTIMONIES OF AMBROSE CONCERNING GOD'S GRACE.

   The Pelagians say that merit begins from man by free will, to which God
repays the subsequent aid of grace. Let the venerable Ambrose here also
refute them, when he says, in his exposition of the prophet Isaiah, "that
human care without divine help is powerless for healing, and needs a divine
helper." Also, in the treatise which is inscribed, "On the Avoidance of the
World,"(9) he says: "Our discourse is frequent on the avoidance of this
world; and I wish that our disposition were as cautious and careful as our
discourse is easy. But what is worse, the enticement of earthly lusts
frequently creeps in, and the flowing forth of vanities takes hold of the
mind, so that the very thing that you desire to avoid you think upon, and
turn over in your mind; and this it is difficult for a man to beware of,
but to get rid of it is impossible. Finally, that that is rather a matter
to be wished than to be accomplished the prophet testifies when he says,
'Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to avarice.'(10) For our
heart and our thoughts are not in our power, seeing that they are suddenly
forced forth and confuse the mind and the soul and draw them in other
directions from those which you have proposed for them;--they recall to
things of time, they suggest worldly things, they obtrude voluptuous
thoughts, they inweave seducing thoughts, and, in the very season in which
we are proposing to lift up our mind, vain thoughts are intruded upon us,
and we are cast down for the most part to things of earth; and who is so
happy as always to rise upwards in his heart? And how can this be done
without the divine help? Absolutely in no manner. Finally, of old Scripture
says the same thing, 'Blessed is the man whose help is of Thee, O Lord; in
his heart is going up.'"(11) What can be said more openly and more
sufficiently? But lest the Pelagians perchance should answer that, in that
very point in which divine help is asked for, man's merit precedes, saying
that that very thing is merit, that by his prayer he is desiring that
divine grace should come to his assistance, let them give heed to what the
same holy man says in his exposition of Isaiah He says: "And to pray God is
a spiritual grace; for no man says that Jesus is the Lord, except in the
Holy Spirit."(1) Whence also, expounding the Gospel according to Luke,(3)
he says: "You see certainly that everywhere the power of the Lord
cooperates with human desires, so that no man can build without the Lord,
no man can undertake anything without the Lord." Because such a man as
Ambrose says this, and commends God's grace, as it is fitting for a son of
promise to do, with grateful piety, does he therefore destroy free will? Or
does he mean grace to be understood as the Pelagians in their different
discourses will have to appear nothing but law--so that, for instance, God
may be believed to help us not to do what we may know, but to know what we
may do? If they think that such a man of God as this is of this mind, let
them hear what he has said about the law itself. In the book "On the
Avoidance of the World," he says: "The law could stop the mouth of all men;
it could not convert their mind."(3) In another place also, in the same
treatise, he says: "The law condemns the deed; it does not take away its
wickedness."(4) Let them see that this faith fill and catholic man agrees
with the apostle who says, "Now we know that what things soever the law
says, it says to those who are under the law: that every month may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Because by the law
no flesh shall be justified in His sight."(5) For from that apostolic
opinion Ambrose took and wrote these things.

CHAP. 31. -- THE TESTIMONIES OF AMBROSE ON THE IMPERFECTION OF PRESENT
RIGHTEOUSNESS.

   But now, since the Pelagians say that there either are or have been
righteous men in tills life who have lived without any sin, to such an
extent that the future life which is to be hoped for as a reward cannot be
more advanced or  more perfect, let Ambrose here also answer them and
refute them. For, expounding Isaiah the Prophet in reference to what is
written, "I have begotten and brought up children, and they have despised
me,"(6) he undertook to dispute concerning the generations which are of
God, and in that argument he quoted the testimony of John when he says, "He
that is born of God sinneth not."(7) And, treating the same  very difficult
question, he says: "Since in this world there is none who is free from sin;
since John himself says, 'If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a
liar.'(8) But if they that are born of God sin not,' and if these words
refer to those of them who are in the world, it is necessary that we should
regard them as those numberless people who have obtained God's grace by the
regeneration of the layer. But yet, when the prophet says, 'All things are
waiting upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them meat in season. That Thou
givest them they gather for themselves; when Thou openest Thine hand, all
things shall be filled with goodness. But when Thou turnest away Thy face,
they shall be troubled: Thou shall take away their breath, and they shall
fail, and shall be turned into their dust. Thou shall send forth Thy
Spirit, and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the
earth,'(9) such things as these cannot seem to have been said of any time
whatever but of that future time, in which there shall be a new earth and a
new heaven. Therefore they shall be disturbed that they may take their
beginning. 'And when Thou openest Thy hand all things shall be filled with
goodness,' which is not easily characteristic of this age. For concerning
this age what does Scripture say? 'There is none that doeth good, no, not
one.'(10) If, therefore, there are different generations,--and here the
very entrance into this life is the receiver of sins to such an extent that
even he who begot should be despised; while another generation does not
receive sins;--let us consider whether by any means there may not be a
regeneration for us after the course of this life,--of which regeneration
it is said, 'In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the
throne of His glory.'(11) For as that is called the regeneration of washing
whereby we are renewed from the filth of sins washed away, so that seems to
be called a regeneration by which we are purified from every stain of
bodily materiality, and are regenerated in the pure sense of the soul to
life eternal; so that every quality of regeneration may be purer than of
that washing, so that no suspicion of sins can fall either on a man's
doings, or even on his very thoughts themselves." Moreover, in another
place in the same work he says: "We see it to be impossible that any person
created in a body can be absolutely spotless, since even Paul says I that
he is imperfect. For thus he has it: 'Not that I have already received, or
am already perfect;'(12) and yet after a little he says, 'As many of us,
therefore, as are perfect.'(13) Unless, perchance, there is one perfection
in this world, another after this is completed, of which he says to the
Corinthians, 'When that which is perfect is come;'(14) and elsewhere, 'Till
we all come into the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of
God, into the perfect man to the measure of the age of the fulness of
Christ.'(1) As, then, the apostle says that many are placed in this world
who are perfect along with him, but who, if you have regard to true
perfection, could not be perfect, since he says, 'We see now through a
mirror, enigmatically; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then
I shall know even as also I am known:'(2) so also there both are those who
are 'spotless' in this world, and will be those who are 'spotless' in the
kingdom of God, although certainly, if you consider it accurately, no
person can be spotless, because no person is without sin." Also in the same
he says: "We see that, while we live in this life, we ought to purify
ourselves and to seek God; and to begin from the purification of our soul,
and as it were to establish the foundations of virtue, so that we may
deserve to attain the perfection of our purgation after this life." And
again, in the same he says: "But laden and groaning, who does not say, 'O
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?'(3) So with the same teacher we give all varieties of
interpretation. For if he is unhappy who recognises himself as involved in
the evils of the body, certainly everybody is unhappy; for I should not
call that man happy who, being confused with any darkness of his mind, does
not know his own condition. That, moreover, has not absurdly come to be
understood; for if a man who knows himself is unhappy, assuredly all are
wretched, because every one either recognises his weakness by wisdom, or by
folly is ignorant of it." Moreover, in the treatise "On the Benefit of
Death," he says: (4) "Let death work in us, in order that that may work
life also, a good life after death,--that is, a good life after victory, a
good life after the contest is finished; so that now no longer the law of
the flesh may know how to resist the law of the mind, that no longer we may
have any contention with the body of death." Again, in the same treatise he
says: "Therefore, because the righteous have this reward, that they see the
face of God, and that light which lightens every man, let us henceforth put
on the desire of this kind of reward, that our soul may draw near to God,
our prayer may draw near to Him, our desire may cleave,  to Him, that we be
not separated from Him. And placed here as we are, let us by meditating, by
reading, by seeking, be united with God. Let us know Him as we can. For we
know Him in part here; because here all things are imperfect, there all are
perfect; here we are infants, there we shall be strong men. 'We see,' says
he, 'now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face.' Then, His
face being revealed, we shall be allowed to look upon the glory of God,
which now our souls, involved in the compacted dregs of this body, and
shadowed by some stains and filth of this flesh, cannot clearly see. 'For
who,' He says, 'shall see my face and live?' and rightly. For if our eyes
cannot bear the rays of the sun,--and if any one should gaze too long on
the region of the sun he is said to be blinded,--if a creature cannot look
upon a creature without deceit and offence, how can he without his own
peril look upon the glittering face of the eternal Creator, covered as he
is with the clothing of this body? For who is justified in God's sight,
when even the infant of one day cannot be pure from sin, and no one can
boast of his integrity and pureness of heart?"

CHAP. 32 [XII.] -- THE PELAGIAN'S HERESY AROSE LONG AFTER AMBROSE.

   It would be too long if I were to seek to mention everything which the
holy Ambrose said and wrote against this heresy of the Pelagians, which was
to arise so long afterwards; not indeed with a view to answer them, but
with a view to declare the catholic faith, and to build up men in it.
Moreover, I neither could nor ought to mention all those things which
Cyprian, most glorious in the Lord, wrote in his letters, whereby it is
shown how this which we hold is the true and truly Christian and catholic
faith, as it was delivered of old by the Holy Scriptures, and so retained
and kept by our fathers and even to this time, in which these heretics have
attempted to destroy it, and as it will hereafter by God's good will be
retained and kept. For that these things and things of this kind were thus
delivered to Cyprian, and by Cyprian, is testified by the testimonies
produced from his letters; and that thus they were maintained up to our
times is shown by these things which Ambrose wrote about these matters
before these heretics had begun to rage, and catholic ears had shuddered at
their profane novelties which are everywhere; and that thus, moreover, they
shall be maintained hereafter, was declared with sufficient vigour partly
by the condemnation of such opinions as these, partly by their correction.
For whatever they may dare to mutter against the sound faith of Cyprian and
Ambrose, I do not think that they will break out into such a madness as to
dare to call those noted and memorable men of God, Manicheans.

CHAP. 33. -- OPPOSITION OF THE MANICHEAN AND CATHOLIC DOGMAS.

   What is it, then, which in their raging blindness of mind they are now
spreading about,(5) "that almost throughout the entire West a dogma not
less foolish than impious is taken up;" when by the mercy of God and by His
merciful governance of His Church, the catholic faith has been so watchful
that the dogma, "not less foolish than wicked," as of the Manicheans, so
also of these heretics, should not be taken up? So holy and learned
catholic men, such as are attested to be so by the report of the whole
Church, praise both God's creation, and marriage as ordained by Him, and
the law given by Him by means of the holy Moses, and the free will
implanted into man's nature, and the holy patriarchs and prophets, with due
and fitting proclamation; all which five things the Manicheans condemn,
partly by denying, and partly also by abominating. Whence it appears that
these catholic doctors were far removed from the notions of the Manicheans,
and yet they assert original sin; they assert God's grace above free will,
as antecedent to all merit, so as truly to afford a gratuitous divine
assistance; they assert that the saints lived righteously in this flesh, in
such wise that the help of prayer was necessary to them, by which their
daily sins might be forgiven; and that a perfected righteousness which
could not have sin would be in another life the reward of those who should
live righteously here.

CHAP. 34. -- THE CALLING TOGETHER OF A SYNOD NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY TO THE
CONDEMNATION OF HERESIES.

   What is it, then, that they say, that "subscription was extorted from
simple bishops sitting in their places without any Synodal congregation"?
Was subscription extorted against such heretics as these from the most
blessed and excellent men in the faith, Cyprian and Ambrose, before such
heretics as these were in existence?-- seeing that they overthrow their
impious dogmas with such clearness that we can scarcely find anything more
manifest to say against them. Or, indeed, was there any need of the
congregation of a Synod to condemn this open pest, as if no heresy could at
any time be condemned except by a Synodal congregation?--when, on the
contrary, very few heresies can be found for the sake of condemning which
any such necessity has arisen; and those have been many and incomparably
more which have deserved to be accused and condemned in the place where
they arose, and thence could be known and avoided over the rest of the
lands. But the pride of such as these, which lifts itself up so much
against God as not to be willing to glory in Him but rather in free will,
is understood as grasping also at this glory, that a Synod of the East and
West should be gathered together on their account. In fact, they endeavour,
forsooth, to disturb the catholic world, because, the Lord being against
them, they are unable to pervert it; when rather they ought to have been
trodden out wherever those wolves might have appeared, by watchfulness and
pastoral diligence, after a competent and sufficient judgment made
concerning them; whether with a view of their being healed and changed, or
with a view of their being shunned by the safety and soundness of others,
by the help of the Shepherd of the sheep, who seeks the lost sheep also
among the little ones, who makes the sheep holy and righteous freely; who
both providently instructs them, although sanctified and justified, yet in
their frailty and infirmity to pray for a daily remission for their daily
sins, without which no one lives in this world, even although he may live
well; and mercifully listens to their prayers.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/V, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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