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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 64.—Pelagius’ Admission as Regards the Unbaptized, Fatal.
Now, as touching these two good substances which the good God created, how, against the reasoning of this man, in the case of unbaptized persons, can they be contrary the one to the other? Will he be sorry to have said this too, which he admitted out of some regard to the Christians’ faith? For when he asked, “How, in the case of any person who is already baptized, can it be that his flesh is contrary to him?” he intimated, of course, that in the case of unbaptized persons it is possible for the flesh to be contrary. For why insert the clause, “who is already baptized,” when without such an addition he might have put his question thus: “How in the case of any person can the flesh be contrary?” and when, in order to prove this, he might have subjoined that argument of his, that as both body and spirit are good (made as they are by the good Creator), they therefore cannot be contrary to each other? Now, suppose unbaptized persons (in whom, at any rate, he confesses that the flesh is contrary) were to ply him with his own arguments, and say to him, Who made man’s spirit? he must answer, God. Suppose they asked him again, Who created the flesh? and he answers, The same God, I believe. Suppose their third question to be, Is the God good who created both? and his reply to be, Nobody doubts it. Suppose once more they put to him his yet remaining inquiry, Are not both good, since the good Creator made them? and he confesses it. Then surely they will cut his throat with his own sword, when they force home his conclusion on him, and say: Since therefore the spirit of man is good, and his flesh good, as made by the good Creator, how can it be that the two being good should be contrary to one another? Here, perhaps, he will reply: I beg your pardon, I ought not to have said that the flesh cannot be contrary to the spirit in any baptized person, as if I meant to imply that it is contrary in the unbaptized; but I ought to have made my statement general, to the effect that the flesh in no man’s case is contrary. Now see into what a corner he drives himself. See what a man will say, who is unwilling to cry out with the apostle, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”159 Rom. vii. 24, 25. “But why,” he asks, “should I so exclaim, who am already baptized in Christ? It is for them to cry out thus who have not yet received so great a benefit, whose words the apostle in a figure transferred to himself,—if indeed even they say so much.” Well, this defence of nature does not permit even these to utter this exclamation! For in the baptized, there is no nature; and in the unbaptized, nature is not! Or if even in the one class it is allowed to be corrupted, so that it is not without reason that men exclaim, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” to the other, too, help is brought in what follows: “The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord;” then let it at last be granted that human nature stands in need of Christ for its Physician.
CAPUT LV.
65. Corpus mortis de vitio, non de substantia dictum. Quaero autem, ubi natura istam perdiderit libertatem, quam sibi dari exoptat, cum dicit, quis me liberabit? non enim et ille substantiam carnis accusat, cum dicit liberari se cupere de corpore mortis hujus, cum etiam corporis, sicut animae, natura Deo bono auctori tribuenda sit: sed utique de vitiis corporis dicit. Nam de corpore mors corporis separat: sed contracta ex illo vitia cohaerent, quibus justa poena debetur, quam etiam in inferno ille dives invenit (Luc. XVI, 22-26). Hinc se non poterat utique liberare qui dicit, Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? Ubicumque autem istam perdiderit libertatem, certe inseparabilis est possibilitas illa naturae, habet posse per naturale subsidium, habet velle per liberum arbitrium; cur quaerit Baptismatis sacramentum? An propter commissa praeterita, ut ea tantum ignoscantur, quae fieri infecta non possunt? Dimitte hominem, clamet quod clamabat. Non enim tantum desiderat, ut per indulgentiam sit de praeteritis impunitus, sed etiam ut sit de caetero ad non peccandum fortis et validus. Condelectatur enim legi Dei secundum interiorem hominem, videt autem aliam legem in membris suis repugnantem legi mentis suae: videt esse, non recolit fuisse; praesentibus urgetur, non praeterita reminiscitur. Nec tantum repugnantem videt, verum etiam captivantem se in lege peccati, quae est in membris ejus, non quae fuit. Hinc est quod clamat: Infelix homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? Sinatur orare, sinatur adjutorium medici potentissimi flagitare. Quid contradicitur? Quid obstrepitur? quid miser misericordiam Christi petere prohibetur, et hoc a Christianis? Nam et illi cum Christo ambulabant, qui caecum lumen clamando petere prohibebant: sed etiam inter tumultum contradicentium audit ille clamantem (Marc. X, 46-52): unde huic responsum 0280 est, Gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.