▾
Augustine of Hippo, On Nature and Grace
⎗←→⎘
▾
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 23 [XXI.]—Adam Delivered by the Mercy of Christ.
But observe how, by specious arguments, he continues to oppose the truth of Holy Scripture. The Lord Jesus, who is called Jesus because He saves His people from their sins,58 Matt. i. 21. in accordance with this His merciful character, says: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I am come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”59 Matt. ix. 12. Accordingly, His apostle also says: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”60 1 Tim. i. 15. This man, however, contrary to the “faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,” declares that “this sickness ought not to have been contracted by sins, lest the punishment of sin should amount to this, that more sins should be committed.” Now even for infants the help of the Great Physician is sought. This writer asks: “Why seek Him? They are whole for whom you seek the Physician. Not even was the first man condemned to die for any such reason, for he did not sin afterwards.” As if he had ever heard anything of his subsequent perfection in righteousness, except so far as the Church commends to our faith that even Adam was delivered by the mercy of the Lord Christ. “As to his posterity also,” says he, “not only are they not more infirm than he, but they actually fulfilled more commandments than he ever did, since he neglected to fulfil one,”—this posterity which he sees so born (as Adam certainly was not made), not only incapable of commandment, which they do not at all understand, but hardly capable of sucking the breast, when they are hungry! Yet even these would He have to be saved in the bosom of Mother Church by His grace who saves His people from their sins; but these men gainsay such grace, and, as if they had a deeper insight into the creature than ever He possesses who made the creature, they pronounce [these infants] sound with an assertion which is anything but sound itself.
CAPUT XXI.
23. Adam Christi misericordia liberatus. Attendite autem quomodo adhuc se urgeat verisimilibus rationibus contra Scripturae sanctae veritatem. Dominus Jesus dicit, qui propterea Jesus vocatur, quia ipse salvum facit populum suum a peccatis eorum: dicit ergo Dominus Jesus, Non est opus sanis medicus, sed aegrotantibus. Non veni vocare justos, sed peccatores (Matth. IX, 12, 13). Unde dicit et Apostolus, Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Jesus Christus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere (I Tim. I, 15). Et iste contra fidelem sermonem et omni acceptione dignum, dicit «non debuisse hanc aegritudinem contrahi peccatis, ne ad hoc esset ista poena peccati, ut committerentur 0258 plura peccata.» Quaeritur etiam parvulis tantus medicus opitulator: et iste dicit, «Quid quaeritis? Sani sunt propter quos medicum quaeritis. Nec ipse primus homo ideo morte damnatus est: nam postea non peccavit.» Quasi aliquid postea de perfectione justitiae ejus audierit, nisi quod commendat Ecclesia et ipsum Domini Christi misericordia liberatum. «Ejus quoque posteros» iste dicit, «non solum illo non esse infirmiores, sed etiam plura implevisse praecepta, cum ille unum implere neglexerit:» quos posteros videt ita nasci, quomodo certe ille factus non est, non solum praecepti incapaces, quod omnino non sentiunt, sed vix capaces papillae cum esuriunt; eos tamen in matris Ecclesiae gremio cum salvos gratia sua facere velit, qui salvum facit populum suum a peccatis eorum, contradicunt homines, et quasi creaturam, quae per illum condita est, melius illo inspicere noverint, voce non sana sanos esse pronuntiant.