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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 72 [LXI.]—Hilary. The Pure in Heart Blessed. The Doing and Perfecting of Righteousness.
He quotes the following words from the blessed Hilary: “It is only when we shall be perfect in spirit and changed in our immortal state, which blessedness has been appointed only for the pure in heart,185 See Matt. v. 8. that we shall see that which is immortal in God.”186 Hilary in loco. Now I am really not aware what is here said contrary to our own statement, or in what respect this passage is of any use to our opponent, unless it be that it testifies to the possibility of a man’s being “pure in heart.” But who denies such possibility? Only it must be by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and not merely by our freedom of will. He goes on to quote also this passage: “This Job had so effectually read these Scriptures, that he kept himself from every wicked work, because he worshipped God purely with a mind unmixed with offences: now such worship of God is the proper work of righteousness.”187 Hilary’s Fragments. It is what Job had done which the writer here spoke of, not what he had brought to perfection in this world,—much less what he had done or perfected without the grace of that Saviour whom he had actually foretold.188 Job xix. 25. For that man, indeed, abstains from every wicked work, who does not allow the sin which he has within him to have dominion over him; and who, whenever an unworthy thought stole over him, suffered it not to come to a head in actual deed. It is, however, one thing not to have sin, and another to refuse obedience to its desires. It is one thing to fulfil the command, “Thou shalt not covet;”189 Ex. xx. 17. and another thing, by an endeavour at any rate after abstinence, to do that which is also written, “Thou shalt not go after thy lusts.”190 Ecclus. xviii. 30. And yet one is quite aware that he can do nothing of all this without the Saviour’s grace. It is to work righteousness, therefore, to fight in an internal struggle with the internal evil of concupiscence in the true worship of God; whilst to perfect it means to have no adversary at all. Now he who has to fight is still in danger, and is sometimes shaken, even if he is not overthrown; whereas he who has no enemy at all rejoices in perfect peace. He, moreover, is in the highest truth said to be without sin in whom no sin has an indwelling,—not he who, abstaining from evil deeds, uses such language as “Now it is no longer I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me.”191 Rom. vii. 20.
CAPUT LXII.
72. Facere et perficere justitiam. Beatus vero Hilarius, cujus verba haec posuit, «Non enim nisi spiritu perfecti et immortalitate mutati, quod solis mundis corde dispositum est, hoc quod in Deo est immortale cernemus» (Hilarius in illud Matth. V, Beati mundo corde); quid dixerit contra id quod dicimus, vel quid istum adjuvet, nescio, nisi quia posse esse hominem mundo corde testatus est. Quod quis negat? sed gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum, non sola arbitrii libertate. Item quod eum dixisse commemorat, «Quas Job litteras legerat, ut abstineret se ab omni re maligna; quia Deum sola mente vitiis non admixta venerabatur, Deum autem colere justitiae proprium officium est:» quid fecisset Job dixit, non quid in hoc saeculo perfecisset, aut sine gratia Salvatoris, quem etiam prophetavit, vel fecisset vel perfecisset. Abstinet enim se ab omni re mala, etiam qui habet peccatum, quod in se regnare non sinit, cui subrepit improbanda cogitatio, quam pervenire ad finem operis non permittit. Sed aliud est non habere peccatum, aliud non obedire desideriis ejus. Aliud est implere quod praeceptum est, Non concupisces (Exod. XX, 16); et aliud est per quemdam abstinentiae conatum saltem id agere quod item scriptum est, Post concupiscentias tuas non eas (Eccli. XVIII, 30): nihil horum tamen scire se recte posse sine gratia Salvatoris. Facere est ergo justitiam, in vero Dei cultu cum interno concupiscentiae malo interna conflictatione pugnare: perficere autem, omnino adversarium non habere. Nam qui pugnat, et adhuc periclitatur, et aliquando percutitur, etiam si non sternitur: qui autem non habet adversarium, plena pace laetatur. Et ipse esse sine peccato verissime dicitur, in quo nullum habitat peccatum; non qui per abstinentiam mali operis dicit, Jam non ego operor illud, sed id quod in me habitat peccatum (Rom. VII, 20).