Chapter 4.—Three Leading Points of the Pelagian Doctrine.

Read with a little more attention its exposition in the treatise of the blessed martyr Cyprian, which he wrote concerning this matter, the title of which is, On the Lord’s Prayer; and see how many years ago, and what sort of an antidote was prepared against those poisons which the Pelagians were one day to use. For there are three points, as you know, which the catholic Church chiefly maintains against them. One of these is, that the grace of God is not given according to our merits; because even every one of the merits of the righteous is God’s gift, and is conferred by God’s grace. The second is, that no one lives in this corruptible body, however righteous he may be, without sins of some kind. The third is, that man is born obnoxious to the first man’s sin, and bound by the chain of condemnation, unless the guilt which is contracted by generation be loosed by regeneration. Of these three points, that which I have placed last is the only one that is not treated of in the above-named book of the glorious martyr; but of the two others the discourse there is of such perspicuity, that the above-named heretics, modern enemies of the grace of Christ, are found to have been convicted long before they were born. Among these merits of the saints, then, which are no merits unless they are the gifts of God, he says that perseverance also is God’s gift, in these words: “We say, ‘Hallowed be Thy name;’ not that we ask for God that He may be hallowed by our prayers, but that we beseech of Him that His name may be hallowed in us. But by whom is God sanctified, since He Himself sanctifies? Well, because He says, Be ye holy because I also am holy, we ask and entreat that we, who were sanctified in baptism, may persevere in that which we have begun to be.”9    Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer; see The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. v. p. 450. And a little after, still arguing about that self-same matter, and teaching that we entreat perseverance from the Lord, which we could in no wise rightly and truly do unless it were His gift, he says: “We pray that this sanctification may abide in us; and because our Lord and Judge warns the man that was healed and quickened by Him to sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto him, we make this supplication in our constant prayers; we ask this, day and night, that the sanctification and quickening which is received from the grace of God may be preserved by His protection.”10    Cyprian, On the Lord’s Prayer, as above. That teacher, therefore, understands that we are asking from Him for perseverance in sanctification, that is, that we should persevere in sanctification, when we who are sanctified say, “Hallowed be Thy name.” For what else is it to ask for what we have already received, than that it be given to us also not to cease from its possession? As, therefore, the saint, when he asks God that he may be holy, is certainly asking that he may continue to be holy, so certainly the chaste person also, when he asks that he may be chaste, the continent that he may be continent, the righteous that he may be righteous, the pious that he may be pious, and the like,—which things, against the Pelagians, we maintain to be God’s gifts,—are asking, without doubt, that they may persevere in those good things which they have acknowledged that they have received. And if they receive this, assuredly they also receive perseverance itself, the great gift of God, whereby His other gifts are preserved.

4. Legite aliquanto intentius ejus expositionem in beati Cypriani martyris libro, quem de hac re condidit, cujus est titulus, De Dominica Oratione: et videte ante quot annos, contra ea quae futura erant Pelagianorum venena, quale sit antidotum praeparatum. Nam tria sunt, ut scitis, quae maxime adversus eos catholica defendit Ecclesia: quorum est unum, gratiam Dei non secundum merita nostra dari; quoniam Dei dona sunt, et Dei gratia conferuntur etiam merita universa justorum: alterum est, in quantacumque justitia, sine qualibuscumque peccatis in hoc corruptibili corpore neminem vivere: tertium est, obnoxium nasci hominem peccato primi hominis, et vinculo damnationis obstrictum, nisi reatus, qui generatione contrahitur, regeneratione solvatur. Horum trium hoc, quod loco ultimo posui, solum non tractatur in supradicto gloriosi martyris libro: de duobus vero caeteris tanta illic perspicuitate disseritur, ut supradicti haeretici, novi inimici gratiae Christi, longe ante reperiantur convicti esse quam nati. In his ergo meritis sanctorum, quae nulla nisi Dei dona sunt, etiam perseverantiam donum Dei esse sic loquitur. Dicimus, inquit, Sanctificetur nomen tuum: non quod optemus Deo, ut sanctificetur orationibus nostris; sed quod petamus ab eo, ut nomen ejus sanctificetur in nobis. Caeterum a quo Deus sanctificatur, qui ipse sanctificat? Sed quia ipse dixit, «Sancti estote, quoniam et ego sanctus sum» (Levit. XIX, 2); id petimus et rogamus, 0997 ut qui in Baptismo sanctificati sumus, in eo quod esse coepimus perseveremus. Et paulo post de hac ipsa re adhuc disputans, et docens nos perseverantiam petere a Domino; quod nullo modo recte ac veraciter faceret, nisi ejus donum et hoc esset: Haec, inquit, sanctificatio ut in nobis permaneat oramus: et quia Dominus et judex noster sanato a se et vivificato comminatur non delinquere, ne quid ei deterius fiat (Joan. V, 14): hanc continuis orationibus precem facimus, hoc diebus et noctibus postulamus, ut sanctificatio et vivificatio quae de Dei gratia sumitur, ipsius protectione servetur. In sanctificatione igitur perseverantiam, hoc est, ut in sanctificatione perseveremus, nos ab eo petere iste doctor intelligit, cum sanctificati dicimus, Sanctificetur nomen tuum. Quid est enim aliud petere quod accepimus, nisi ut id quoque nobis praestetur , ne habere desinamus? Sicut ergo sanctus, cum Deum rogat ut sanctus sit, id utique rogat ut sanctus esse permaneat: ita utique et castus, cum rogat ut castus sit; continens, ut continens sit; justus, ut justus; pius, ut pius; et caetera, quae contra Pelagianos dona Dei esse defendimus: hoc sine dubio petunt, ut in eis perseverent bonis, quae se accepisse noverunt. Quod si accipiunt, profecto et ipsam perseverantiam magnum Dei donum, quo caetera dona ejus conservantur, accipiunt.