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Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise On the Grace of Christ, And On Original Sin
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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.
26. [XXIII.]—The Pelagians Maintain that Raising Questions About Original Sin Does Not Endanger the Faith.
Therefore, after the full discussion with which we have been able to rebut in writing this error of theirs, which is so inimical to the grace of God bestowed on small and great through our Lord Jesus Christ, it is now our duty to examine and explode that assertion of theirs, which in their desire to avoid the odious imputation of heresy they astutely advance, to the effect that “calling this subject into question produces no danger to the faith,”—in order that they may appear, forsooth, if they are convicted of having deviated from it, to have erred not criminally, but only, as it were, courteously.170 This is far from a clear translation of the terse original: Non criminaliter, sed quasi civiliter errasse videantur. This, accordingly, is the language which Cœlestius used in the ecclesiastical process at Carthage:171 See above, ch. 3 [IV.] “As touching the transmission of sin,” he said, “I have already said that I have heard many persons of acknowledged position in the catholic Church deny it, and on the other hand many affirm it; it may fairly, indeed, be deemed a matter for inquiry, but not a heresy. I have always maintained that infants require baptism, and ought to be baptized. What else does he want?” He said this, as if he wanted to intimate that only then could he be deemed chargeable with heresy, if he were to assert that they ought not to be baptized. As the case stood, however, inasmuch as he acknowledged that they ought to be baptized, he thought that he had not erred [criminally], and therefore ought not to be adjudged a heretic, even though he maintained the reason of their baptism to be other than the truth holds, or the faith claims as its own. On the same principle, in the book which he sent to Rome, he first explained his belief, so far as it suited his pleasure, from the Trinity of the One Godhead down to the kind of resurrection of the dead that is to be; on all which points, however, no one had ever questioned him, or been questioned by him. And when his discourse reached the question which was under consideration, he said: “If, indeed, any questions have arisen beyond the compass of the faith, on which there might be perhaps dissension on the part of a great many persons, in no case have I pretended to pronounce a decision on any dogma, as if I possessed a definitive authority in the matter myself; but whatever I have derived from the fountain of the prophets and the apostles, I have presented for approbation to the judgment of your apostolic office; so that if any error has crept in among us, human as we are, through our ignorance, it may be corrected by your sentence.”172 See above, ch. 6. You of course clearly see that in this action of his he used all this deprecatory preamble in order that, if he had been discovered to have erred at all, he might seem to have erred not on a matter of faith, but on questionable points outside the faith; wherein, however necessary it may be to correct the error, it is not corrected as a heresy; wherein also the person who undergoes the correction is declared indeed to be in error, but for all that is not adjudged a heretic.
CAPUT XXIII.
26. Quapropter post multa quae adversus istum errorem inimicum gratiae Dei, quam per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum pusillis magnisque largitur, scribendo disputare potuimus; nunc illud oportet excutere, quod, volentes haereseos astute invidiam declinare, asserunt, «istam praeter fidei periculum esse quaestionem:» ut videlicet si in ea fuerint exorbitasse convicti, non criminaliter, sed quasi civiliter errasse videantur. Sic enim Coelestius apud Carthaginem gestis ecclesiasticis est locutus: «Jam,» inquit, «de traduce peccati dixi, quia intra Catholicam constitutos plures audivi destruere, necnon et alios astruere; licet quaestionis res sit ista, non haeresis. Infantes semper dixi egere Baptismo, ac debere baptizari: quid quaerit aliud?» Ita hoc dixit, tanquam significare voluerit, tunc fuisse haeresim judicandam, si baptizari debere negaret infantes: nunc vero quoniam baptizandos fatetur, etiamsi causam Baptismatis eorum non eam dicat, quam veritas habet, sed quae ad fidem non pertinet; non se arbitratur errare , et ideo non esse haereticum judicandum. Item in libello quem Romae dedit, cum fidem suam a Trinitate unius deitatis usque ad resurrectionem qualis futura est mortuorum, de quibus eum nullus interrogaverat, et unde illi nulla quaestio movebatur, quantum dicere libuit, explicasset; ubi ad id quod agebatur ejus sermo pervenit: «Si quae vero,» inquit, «praeter fidem quaestiones natae sunt, de quibus esset inter plerosque contentio; non ego quasi auctor alicujus dogmatis definita hoc auctoritate statui, sed ea quae de Prophetarum et Apostolorum fonte suscepi, vestri Apostolatus offerimus probanda esse judicio; ut si forte ut hominibus quispiam ignorantiae error obrepsit , vestra sententia corrigatur .» Nempe perspicitis, id eum egisse hac praelocutione praemissa, ut si quid in illo apparuisset erroris, non in fide, sed in quaestionibus quae sunt praeter fidem, videretur errasse, ubi etsi corrigendus est error, non tamen tanquam haeresis corrigatur, et qui correctus fuerit , ita dicatur errare, ut non tamen haereticus judicetur.