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Augustine of Hippo, On Nature and Grace
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A Treatise on Nature and Grace, against Pelagius
Chapter 1 [I.]—The Occasion of Publishing This Work What God’s Righteousness is.
Chapter 3 [III.]—Nature Was Created Sound and Whole It Was Afterwards Corrupted by Sin.
Chapter 5 [V.]—It Was a Matter of Justice that All Should Be Condemned.
Chapter 6 [VI.]—The Pelagians Have Very Strong and Active Minds.
Chapter 8.—A Distinction Drawn by Pelagius Between the Possible and Actual.
Chapter 9 [VIII.]—Even They Who Were Not Able to Be Justified are Condemned.
Chapter 11 [X.]—Grace Subtly Acknowledged by Pelagius.
Chapter 13 [XII.]—The Scope and Purpose of the Law’s Threatenings “Perfect Wayfarers.”
Chapter 14 [XIII.]—Refutation of Pelagius.
Chapter 15 [XIV.]—Not Everything [of Doctrinal Truth] is Written in Scripture in So Many Words.
Chapter 16 [XV.]—Pelagius Corrupts a Passage of the Apostle James by Adding a Note of Interrogation.
Chapter 17 [XVI.]—Explanation of This Text Continued.
Chapter 18 [XVII.]—Who May Be Said to Be in the Flesh.
Chapter 19.—Sins of Ignorance To Whom Wisdom is Given by God on Their Requesting It.
Chapter 20 [XVIII.]—What Prayer Pelagius Would Admit to Be Necessary.
Chapter 21 [XIX.]—Pelagius Denies that Human Nature Has Been Depraved or Corrupted by Sin.
Chapter 22 [XX.]—How Our Nature Could Be Vitiated by Sin, Even Though It Be Not a Substance.
Chapter 23 [XXI.]—Adam Delivered by the Mercy of Christ.
Chapter 24 [XXII.]—Sin and the Penalty of Sin the Same.
Chapter 26 [XXIV.]—Christ Died of His Own Power and Choice.
Chapter 27.—Even Evils, Through God’s Mercy, are of Use.
Chapter 30 [XXVII.]—Sin is Removed by Sin.
Chapter 32 [XXVIII.]—God Forsakes Us to Some Extent that We May Not Grow Proud.
Chapter 33 [XXIX.]—Not Every Sin is Pride. How Pride is the Commencement of Every Sin.
Chapter 34 [XXX.]—A Man’s Sin is His Own, But He Needs Grace for His Cure.
Chapter 37 [XXXIII.]—Being Wholly Without Sin Does Not Put Man on an Equality with God.
Chapter 39.—Pelagius Glorifies God as Creator at the Expense of God as Saviour.
Chapter 41.—Whether Holy Men Have Died Without Sin.
Chapter 43 [XXXVII.]—Why Scripture Has Not Mentioned the Sins of All.
Chapter 44.—Pelagius Argues that Abel Was Sinless.
Chapter 46 [XXXIX.]—Shall We Follow Scripture, or Add to Its Declarations?
Chapter 47 [XL.]—For What Pelagius Thought that Christ is Necessary to Us.
Chapter 48 [XLI.]—How the Term “All” Is to Be Understood.
Chapter 50 [XLIII.]—God Commands No Impossibilities.
Chapter 52.—The Whole Discussion is About Grace.
Chapter 53 [XLV.]—Pelagius Distinguishes Between a Power and Its Use.
Chapter 54 [XLVI.]—There is No Incompatibility Between Necessity and Free Will.
Chapter 55 [XLVII.]—The Same Continued.
Chapter 56 [XLVIII.]—The Assistance of Grace in a Perfect Nature.
Chapter 58 [L.]—Even Pious and God-Fearing Men Resist Grace.
Chapter 59 [LI.]—In What Sense Pelagius Attributed to God’s Grace the Capacity of Not Sinning.
Chapter 60 [LII.]—Pelagius Admits “Contrary Flesh” In the Unbaptized.
Chapter 61 [LIII.]—Paul Asserts that the Flesh is Contrary Even in the Baptized.
Chapter 63 [LIV.]—Does God Create Contraries?
Chapter 64.—Pelagius’ Admission as Regards the Unbaptized, Fatal.
Chapter 65 [LV.]—“This Body of Death,” So Called from Its Defect, Not from Its Substance.
Chapter 66.—The Works, Not the Substance, of the “Flesh” Opposed to the “Spirit.”
Chapter 67 [LVII.]—Who May Be Said to Be Under the Law.
Chapter 68 [LVIII.]—Despite the Devil, Man May, by God’s Help, Be Perfected.
Chapter 69 [LIX.]—Pelagius Puts Nature in the Place of Grace.
Chapter 70 [LX.]—Whether Any Man is Without Sin in This Life.
Chapter 72 [LXI.]—Hilary. The Pure in Heart Blessed. The Doing and Perfecting of Righteousness.
Chapter 73.—He Meets Pelagius with Another Passage from Hilary.
Chapter 75.—Augustin Adduces in Reply Some Other Passages of Ambrose.
Chapter 76 [LXIV.]—John of Constantinople.
Chapter 79 [LXVI.]—A Certain Necessity of Sinning.
Chapter 80 [LXVII.]—Augustin Himself. Two Methods Whereby Sins, Like Diseases, are Guarded Against.
Chapter 81.—Augustin Quotes Himself on Free Will.
Chapter 82 [LXVIII.]—How to Exhort Men to Faith, Repentance, and Advancement.
Chapter 83 [LXIX.]—God Enjoins No Impossibility, Because All Things are Possible and Easy to Love.
Chapter 84 [LXX.]—The Degrees of Love are Also Degrees of Holiness.
Chapter 15 [XIV.]—Not Everything [of Doctrinal Truth] is Written in Scripture in So Many Words.
That, too, which is said to him, “that it is nowhere written in so many words, A man can be without sin,” he easily refutes thus: “That the question here is not in what precise words each doctrinal statement is made.” It is perhaps not without reason that, while in several passages of Scripture we may find it said that men are without excuse, it is nowhere found that any man is described as being without sin, except Him only, of whom it is plainly said, that “He knew no sin.”33 2 Cor. v. 21. Similarly, we read in the passage where the subject is concerning priests: “He was in all points tempted like as we are, only without sin,”34 Heb. iv. 15.—meaning, of course, in that flesh which bore the likeness of sinful flesh, although it was not sinful flesh; a likeness, indeed, which it would not have borne if it had not been in every other respect the same as sinful flesh. How, however, we are to understand this: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; neither can he sin, for his seed remaineth in him;”35 1 John iii. 9. while the Apostle John himself, as if he had not been born of God, or else were addressing men who had not been born of God, lays down this position: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,”36 1 John i. 8.—I have already explained, with such care as I was able, in those books which I wrote to Marcellinus on this very subject.37 See the De Peccat. Meritis et Remissione, ii. 8–10. It seems, moreover, to me to be an interpretation worthy of acceptance to regard the clause of the above quoted passage: “Neither can he sin,” as if it meant: He ought not to commit sin. For who could be so foolish as to say that sin ought to be committed, when, in fact, sin is sin, for no other reason than that it ought not to be committed?
CAPUT XIV.
15. Non omnia scripta sunt. Et illud quod ei a quibusdam dicitur, «nusquam esse scriptum his omnino verbis, posse esse hominem sine peccato,» facile refellit, «quia non est ibi quaestio, quibus verbis dicatur quaecumque sententia.» Non tamen fortasse sine causa, cum aliquoties in Scripturis inveniatur homines dictos esse sine querela, non invenitur qui sit dictus sine peccato, nisi unus solus de quo aperte dictum est, Eum qui non noverat peccatum (II Cor. V, 21). Et eo loco ubi de sacerdotibus agebatur, Etenim expertus est omnia, secundum similitudinem absque peccato (Hebr. IV, 15): in illa scilicet carne, quae habebat similitudinem carnis peccati, quamvis non esset caro peccati; quam tamen similitudinem non haberet, nisi caetera omnis esset caro 0254 peccati. Jam illud quomodo accipiendum sit, Omnis qui natus est ex Deo, non peccat, et non potest peccare, quia semen ejus in ipso manet (I Joan. III, 9); cum ipse apostolus Joannes, quasi non sit natus ex Deo, aut eis loqueretur qui nondum nati essent ex Deo, aperte posuerit, Si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus, nos ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est (Id. I, 8); in libris quos de hac re ad Marcellinum scripsi, sicut potui, explicare curavi (De Peccatorum Meritis, lib. 2, n. 8-10). Et illud quod dictum est, non potest peccare, pro eo dictum esse, ac si diceretur, Non debet peccare; non improbanda mihi videtur hujus assertio. Quis enim insanus dicat debere peccari; cum ideo sit peccatum, quia non debet fieri?