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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 36 [XXXII.]—Pride Even in Such Things as are Done Aright Must Be Avoided. Free Will is Not Taken Away When Grace is Preached.
So will He bestow on us whatever pleases Him, that if there be anything displeasing to Him in us, it will also be displeasing to us. “He will,” as the Scripture has said, “turn aside our paths from His own way,”96 See Ps. xliv. 18. and will make that which is His own to be our way; because it is by Himself that the favour is bestowed on such as believe in Him and hope in Him that we will do it. For there is a way of righteousness of which they are ignorant “who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,”97 Rom. x. 2. and who, wishing to frame a righteousness of their own, “have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.”98 Rom. x. 3. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;”99 Rom. x. 4. and He has said, “I am the way.”100 John xiv. 6. Yet God’s voice has alarmed those who have already begun to walk in this way, lest they should be lifted up, as if it were by their own energies that they were walking therein. For the same persons to whom the apostle, on account of this danger, says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure,”101 Phil. ii. 12. are likewise for the self-same reason admonished in the psalm: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling. Accept correction, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the righteous way, when His wrath shall be suddenly kindled upon you.”102 Ps. ii. 11, 12. He does not say, “Lest at any time the Lord be angry and refuse to show you the righteous way,” or, “refuse to lead you into the way of righteousness;” but even after you are walking therein, he was able so to terrify as to say, “Lest ye perish from the righteous way.” Now, whence could this arise if not from pride, which (as I have so often said, and must repeat again and again) has to be guarded against even in things which are rightly done, that is, in the very way of righteousness, lest a man, by regarding as his own that which is really God’s, lose what is God’s and be reduced merely to what is his own? Let us then carry out the concluding injunction of this same psalm, “Blessed are all they that trust in Him,”103 Ps. ii. 12. so that He may Himself indeed effect and Himself show His own way in us, to whom it is said, “Show us Thy mercy, O Lord;”104 Ps. lxxxv. 7. and Himself bestow on us the pathway of safety that we may walk therein, to whom the prayer is offered, “And grant us Thy salvation;”105 Ps. lxxxv. 7. and Himself lead us in the self-same way, to whom again it is said, “Guide me, O Lord, in Thy way, and in Thy truth will I walk;”106 Ps. lxxxvi. 11. Himself, too, conduct us to those promises whither His way leads, to whom it is said, “Even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me;”107 Ps. cxxxix. 10. Himself pasture therein those who sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of whom it is said, “He shall make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.”108 Luke xii. 37. Now we do not, when we make mention of these things, take away freedom of will, but we preach the grace of God. For to whom are those gracious gifts of use, but to the man who uses, but humbly uses, his own will, and makes no boast of the power and energy thereof, as if it alone were sufficient for perfecting him in righteousness?
CAPUT XXXII.
36. Superbia etiam in recte factis cavenda. Liberum arbitrium non tollitur cum gratia praedicatur. Ita enim quod ei placet dabit nobis, si quod ei displicet in nobis, displiceat et nobis. Avertet, sicut scriptum est, semitas nostras a via sua (Psal. XLIII, 19), et nostram faciet esse quae sua est; quoniam ab ipso praebetur credentibus in eum, et sperantibus in eum ut ipse faciat. Ipsa est enim via justa, quam ignorantes qui zelum Dei habent, sed non secundum scientiam; et suam volentes constituere justitiam, justitiae Dei non sunt subjecti. Finis enim legis Christus, ad justitiam omni credenti (Rom. X, 2-4), qui dixit, Ego sum via (Joan. XIV, 6). In qua jam ambulantes tamen terruit vox divina, ne quasi de propriis in ea viribus extollantur. Nam quibus propter hoc ait Apostolus, Cum timore et tremore vestram ipsorum operamini salutem; Deus enim est qui operatur in vobis et velle et operari, pro bona voluntate (Philipp. II, 12, 13): eis propter hoc ipsum dicit etiam Psalmus, Servite Domino in timore, et exsultate ei cum tremore; apprehendite disciplinam, ne quando irascatur Dominus, et pereatis de via justa, cum exarserit in brevi ira ejus super vos. Non ait, ne quando irascatur Dominus, et non vobis ostendat viam justam, 0265 aut, non vos introducat in viam justam: sed jam illic ambulantes sic terrere potuit ut diceret, ne pereatis de via justa. Unde, nisi quia superbia, quod toties dixi, et saepe dicendum est, etiam in ipsis recte factis cavenda est, id est, in ipsa via justa; ne homo dum quod Dei est deputat suum, amittat quod Dei est, et redeat ad suum? Ideo, quo psalmus iste concluditur, faciamus: Beati omnes qui confidunt in eo (Psal. II, 11-13): utique ut ipse faciat, ipse ostendat viam suam, cui dicitur, Ostende nobis, Domine, misericordiam tuam: et ipse det salutem, ut ambulare possimus, cui dicitur, Et salutare tuum da nobis (Psal. LXXXIV, 8): ipse in eadem via deducat, cui dicitur, Deduc me, Domine, in via tua, et ambulabo in veritate tua (Psal. LXXXV, 11): ipse ad illa, quo via ducit, promissa perducat, cui dicitur, Etenim illuc manus tua deducet me, et perducet me dextera tua (Psal. CXXXVIII, 10): ipse ibi pascat recumbentes cum Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, de quo dictum est, Faciet eos recumbere, et transibit, et ministrabit eis (Luc XII, 37). Non enim, cum ista commemoramus, arbitrium voluntatis tollimus, sed Dei gratiam praedicamus. Cui enim prosunt ista nisi volenti, sed humiliter volenti, non se de voluntatis viribus, tanquam ad perfectionem justitiae sola sufficiat, extollenti?