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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 33 [XXIX.]—Not Every Sin is Pride. How Pride is the Commencement of Every Sin.
“But how,” asks he, “shall we separate pride itself from sin?” Now, why does he raise such a question, when it is manifest that even pride itself is a sin? “To sin,” says he, “is quite as much to be proud, as to be proud is to sin; for only ask what every sin is, and see whether you can find any sin without the designation of pride.” Then he thus pursues this opinion, and endeavours to prove it thus: “Every sin,” says he, “if I mistake not, is a contempt of God, and every contempt of God is pride. For what is so proud as to despise God? All sin, then, is also pride, even as Scripture says, Pride is the beginning of all sin.”87 Ecclus. x. 13. Let him seek diligently, and he will find in the law that the sin of pride is quite distinguished from all other sins. For many sins are committed through pride; but yet not all things which are wrongly done are done proudly,—at any rate, not by the ignorant, not by the infirm, and not, generally speaking, by the weeping and sorrowful. And indeed pride, although it be in itself a great sin, is of such sort in itself alone apart from others, that, as I have already remarked, it for the most part follows after and steals with more rapid foot, not so much upon sins as upon things which are actually well done. However, that which he has understood in another sense, is after all most truly said: “Pride is the commencement of all sin;” because it was this which overthrew the devil, from whom arose the origin of sin; and afterwards, when his malice and envy pursued man, who was yet standing in his uprightness, it subverted him in the same way in which he himself fell. For the serpent, in fact, only sought for the door of pride whereby to enter when he said, “Ye shall be as gods.”88 Gen. iii. 5. Truly then is it said, “Pride is the commencement of all sin;”89 Ecclus. x. 13. and, “The beginning of pride is when a man departeth from God.”90 Ecclus. x. 12.
CAPUT XXIX.
33. Non omne peccatum superbia est. Superbia quomodo omnis peccati initium. Quonam modo, inquit, superbiam ipsam a peccato separabimus? Quid enim hoc urget, cum manifestum sit etiam ipsam esse peccatum? Tam peccare, inquit, superbire est, quam superbire peccare. Nam quaere quid sit quodcumque peccatum, et vide si invenies aliquod sine superbiae appellatione peccatum. Hanc autem sententiam sic exsequitur, et sic probare conatur: Omne, inquit, peccatum, nisi fallor, Dei contemptus est: et omnis Dei contemptus superbia est. Quid enim tam superbum, quam Deum contemnere? Omne ergo peccatum et superbia est, etiam Scriptura dicente, «Initium omnis peccati superbia est.» Quaerat diligenter, et inveniet in lege multum discretum esse a caeteris peccatis peccatum superbiae. Multa enim peccata per superbiam committuntur, sed neque omnia superbe fiunt, quae perperam fiunt; certe a nescientibus, certe ab infirmis, certe plerumque a flentibus et gementibus. Et quidem superbia, cum magnum sit ipsa peccatum, ita sine aliis per se ipsa est, ut etiam plerumque, ut dixi, non in peccatis, sed in ipsis recte factis pede celeriore superveniat et obrepat. Sed ideo verissime dictum est, quod iste aliter intellexit, Initium omnis peccati superbia: quoniam diabolum, a quo exstitit origo peccati, ipsa dejecit, et subsequente invidentia hominem stantem, unde ipse cecidit, inde subvertit. Nam utique jactantiae januam, qua intraret, serpens ille quaesivit, quando ait, Eritis sicut dii (Gen. III, 5). Ideo dictum est, Initium omnis peccati superbia; et, Initium superbiae hominis apostatare a Deo (Eccli. X, 15, 14).