▾
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise On the Grace of Christ, And On Original Sin
⎗←→⎘
▾
A Treatise on the grace of christ, and on original sin,
3. [III.]—Grace According to the Pelagians.
4.—Pelagius’ System of Faculties.
5. [IV.]—Pelagius’ Own Account of the Faculties, Quoted.
6. [V.]—Pelagius and Paul of Different Opinions.
7. [VI.]—Pelagius Posits God’s Aid Only for Our “Capacity.”
9. [VIII.]—The Law One Thing, Grace Another. The Utility of the Law.
10. [IX.]—What Purpose the Law Subserves.
11. [X.]—Pelagius’ Definition of How God Helps Us: “He Promises Us Future Glory.”
12. [XI.]—The Same Continued: “He Reveals Wisdom.”
13. [XII.]—Grace Causes Us to Do.
14. [XII.]—The Righteousness Which is of God, and the Righteousness Which is of the Law.
15. [XIV.]—He Who Has Been Taught by Grace Actually Comes to Christ.
16. [XV.]—We Need Divine Aid in the Use of Our Powers. Illustration from Sight.
17. [XVI.]—Does Pelagius Designedly Refrain from Openly Saying that All Good Action is from God?
18. [XVII.]—He Discovers the Reason of Pelagius’ Hesitation So to Say.
19. [XVIII.]—The Two Roots of Action, Love and Cupidity And Each Brings Forth Its Own Fruit.
20. [XIX.]—How a Man Makes a Good or a Bad Tree.
21. [XX.]—Love the Root of All Good Things Cupidity, of All Evil Ones.
22. [XXI.]—Love is a Good Will.
23. [XXII.]—Pelagius’ Double Dealing Concerning the Ground of the Conferrence of Grace.
24.—Pelagius Places Free Will at the Basis of All Turning to God for Grace.
25. [XXIV.]—God by His Wonderful Power Works in Our Hearts Good Dispositions of Our Will.
27. [XXVI.]—What True Grace Is, and Wherefore Given. Merits Do Not Precede Grace.
28. [XXVII.]—Pelagius Teaches that Satan May Be Resisted Without the Help of the Grace of God.
31. [XXX.]—Pelagius and Cœlestius Nowhere Really Acknowledge Grace.
35. [XXXII.]—Pelagius Believes that Infants Have No Sin to Be Remitted in Baptism.
36. [XXXIII.]—Cœlestius Openly Declares Infants to Have No Original Sin.
37. [XXXIV.]—Pelagius Nowhere Admits the Need of Divine Help for Will and Action.
38. [XXXV.]—A Definition of the Grace of Christ by Pelagius.
39. [XXXVI]—A Letter of Pelagius Unknown to Augustin.
40. [XXXVII]—The Help of Grace Placed by Pelagius in the Mere Revelation of Teaching.
41.—Restoration of Nature Understood by Pelagius as Forgiveness of Sins.
42. [XXXVIII.]—Grace Placed by Pelagius in the Remission of Sins and the Example of Christ.
44. [XL.]—Pelagius Once More Guards Himself Against the Necessity of Grace.
45. [XLI.]—To What Purpose Pelagius Thought Prayers Ought to Be Offered.
46. [XLII]—Pelagius Professes to Respect the Catholic Authors.
47. [XLIII.]—Ambrose Most Highly Praised by Pelagius.
48. [XLIV].—Ambrose is Not in Agreement with Pelagius.
49. [XLV.]—Ambrose Teaches with What Eye Christ Turned and Looked Upon Peter.
50.—Ambrose Teaches that All Men Need God’s Help.
51. [XLVI.]—Ambrose Teaches that It is God that Does for Man What Pelagius Attributes to Free Will.
52. [XLVII.]—If Pelagius Agrees with Ambrose, Augustin Has No Controversy with Him.
53. [XLVIII.]—In What Sense Some Men May Be Said to Live Without Sin in the Present Life.
54. [XLIX.]—Ambrose Teaches that No One is Sinless in This World.
55. [L.]—Ambrose Witnesses that Perfect Purity is Impossible to Human Nature.
1. [I.]—Caution Needed in Attending to Pelagius’ Deliverances on Infant Baptism.
3. [III.]—Part of the Proceedings of the Council of Carthage Against Cœlestius.
4.—Cœlestius Concedes Baptism for Infants, Without Affirming Original Sin.
5. [V.]—Cœlestius’ Book Which Was Produced in the Proceedings at Rome.
6. [VI.]—Cœlestius the Disciple is In This Work Bolder Than His Master.
7.—Pope Zosimus Kindly Excuses Him.
8. [VII.]—Cœlestius Condemned by Zosimus.
9. [VIII.]—Pelagius Deceived the Council in Palestine, But Was Unable to Deceive the Church at Rome.
10. [IX.]—The Judgment of Innocent Respecting the Proceedings in Palestine.
11. [X.]—How that Pelagius Deceived the Synod of Palestine.
12. [XI.]—A Portion of the Proceedings of the Synod of Palestine in the Cause of Pelagius.
13. [XII.]—Cœlestius the Bolder Heretic Pelagius the More Subtle.
15. [XIV.]—Pelagius by His Mendacity and Deception Stole His Acquittal from the Synod in Palestine.
16. [XV.]—Pelagius’ Fraudulent and Crafty Excuses.
17.—How Pelagius Deceived His Judges.
18. [XVII.]—The Condemnation of Pelagius.
19.—Pelagius’ Attempt to Deceive the Apostolic See He Inverts the Bearings of the Controversy.
20.—Pelagius Provides a Refuge for His Falsehood in Ambiguous Subterfuges.
21. [XIX.]—Pelagius Avoids the Question as to Why Baptism is Necessary for Infants.
22. [XX.]—Another Instance of Pelagius’ Ambiguity.
23. [XXI.]—What He Means by Our Birth to an “Uncertain” Life.
24.—Pelagius’ Long Residence at Rome.
25. [XXII.]—The Condemnation of Pelagius and Cœlestius.
27. [XXIII.]—On Questions Outside the Faith—What They Are, and Instances of the Same.
28. [XXIV.]—The Heresy of Pelagius and Cœlestius Aims at the Very Foundations of Our Faith.
30. [XXVI]—Pelagius and Cœlestius Deny that the Ancient Saints Were Saved by Christ.
31.—Christ’s Incarnation Was of Avail to the Fathers, Even Though It Had Not Yet Happened.
33. [XVIII.]—How Christ is Our Mediator.
34. [XXIX.]—No Man Ever Saved Save by Christ.
35. [XXX.]—Why the Circumcision of Infants Was Enjoined Under Pain of So Great a Punishment.
36. [XXXI]—The Platonists’ Opinion About the Existence of the Soul Previous to the Body Rejected.
37. [XXXII.]—In What Sense Christ is Called “Sin.”
38. [XXXIII.]—Original Sin Does Not Render Marriage Evil.
39. [XXXIV.]—Three Things Good and Laudable in Matrimony.
41. [XXXVI.]—Lust and Travail Come from Sin. Whence Our Members Became a Cause of Shame.
44. [XXXIX.]—Even the Children of the Regenerate Born in Sin. The Effect of Baptism.
45.—Man’s Deliverance Suited to the Character of His Captivity.
46.—Difficulty of Believing Original Sin. Man’s Vice is a Beast’s Nature.
47. [XLI.]—Sentences from Ambrose in Favour of Original Sin.
48.—Pelagius Rightly Condemned and Really Opposed by Ambrose.
25. [XXIV.]—God by His Wonderful Power Works in Our Hearts Good Dispositions of Our Will.
Now I want him to tell us whether that king of Assyria,62 The reading “Assyrius” is replaced in some editions by the more suitable word “Assuerus.” whose holy wife Esther “abhorred his bed,”63 This “exsecrabatur cubile” seems to refer to Esther’s words in her prayer, βδελυσσομαι κοίτην ἀπεριτμητων, “I abhor the couch of the uncircumcised” (Esth. iv., Septuagint). whilst sitting upon the throne of his kingdom, and clothed in all his glorious apparel, adorned all over with gold and precious stones, and dreadful in his majesty when he raised his face, which was inflamed with anger, in the midst of his splendour, and beheld her, with the glare of a wild bull in the fierceness of his indignation; and the queen was afraid, and her colour changed as she fainted, and she bowed herself upon the head of the maid that went before her; 64 Esth. v. 1.—I want him to tell us whether this king had yet “hastened to the Lord, and had desired to be directed by Him, and had subordinated his own will to His, and had, by cleaving fast to God, become one spirit with Him, simply by the force of his own free will.” Had he surrendered himself wholly to God, and entirely mortified his own will, and placed his heart in the hand of God? I suppose that anybody who should think this of the king, in the state he was then in, would be not foolish only, but even mad. And yet God converted him, and turned his indignation into gentleness. Who, however, can fail to see how much greater a task it is to change and turn wrath completely into gentleness, than to bend the heart to something, when it is not preoccupied with either affection, but is indifferently poised between the two? Let them therefore read and understand, observe and acknowledge, that it is not by law and teaching uttering their lessons from without, but by a secret, wonderful, and ineffable power operating within, that God works in men’s hearts not only revelations of the truth, but also good dispositions of the will.
CAPUT XXIV.
25. Sed vellem ut iste diceret, utrum rex ille Assyrius cujus Esther sancta mulier exsecrabatur cubile, quando considebat in throno regni sui, et omni stola illustrationis suae indutus erat, totus auro variatus lapidibusque pretiosis, et erat formidolosus valde, et elevata facie sua inflammata in claritate intuitus est eam, tanquam taurus in impetu indignationis suae; et timuit regina, et conversus est color ejus per dissolutionem, et inclinavit se super caput delicatae suae, quae praecedebat eam: vellem ergo diceret iste nobis, utrum rex ille ad Dominum jam cucurrerat, et ab eo se regi cupiverat, suamque voluntatem ex ejus voluntate suspenderat, et ei jugiter inhaerendo unus cum illo spiritus factus erat, nonnisi de arbitrii libertate; utrum se totum 0373 Deo tradiderat, omnemque suam mortificaverat voluntatem, et cor suum in manu Dei posuerat. Puto non desipere, sed insanire hominem, quisquis de illo rege, qualis tunc erat, haec senserit: et tamen convertit Deus et transtulit indignationem ejus in lenitatem (Esther V, sec. LXX). Quis autem non videat, multo majus esse, indignationem a contrario in lenitatem convertere atque transferre, quam cor neutra affectione praeoccupatum, sed inter utramque medium in aliquid declinare? Legant ergo et intelligant, intueantur atque fateantur, non lege atque doctrina insonante forinsecus, sed interna et occulta, mirabili ac ineffabili potestate operari Deum in cordibus hominum, non solum veras revelationes, sed bonas etiam voluntates.