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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 83 [LXIX.]—God Enjoins No Impossibility, Because All Things are Possible and Easy to Love.
But “the precepts of the law are very good,” if we use them lawfully.223 See 1 Tim. i. 8. Indeed, by the very fact (of which we have the firmest conviction) “that the just and good God could not possibly have enjoined impossibilities,” we are admonished both what to do in easy paths and what to ask for when they are difficult. Now all things are easy for love to effect, to which (and which alone) “Christ’s burden is light,”224 Matt. xi. 30.—or rather, it is itself alone the burden which is light. Accordingly it is said, “And His commandments are not grievous;”225 1 John v. 3. so that whoever finds them grievous must regard the inspired statement about their “not being grievous” as having been capable of only this meaning, that there may be a state of heart to which they are not burdensome, and he must pray for that disposition which he at present wants, so as to be able to fulfil all that is commanded him. And this is the purport of what is said to Israel in Deuteronomy, if understood in a godly, sacred, and spiritual sense, since the apostle, after quoting the passage, “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart”226 Deut. xxx. 14, quoted Rom. x. 8. (and, as the verse also has it, in thine hands,227 According to the Septuagint, which adds after ἐν τῇ καρδία σου the words καὶ ἐν ταῖς χερσί σου. This was probably Pelagius’ reading. Compare Quæstion. in Deuteron. Book v. 54. for in man’s heart are his spiritual hands), adds in explanation, “This is the word of faith which we preach.”228 Rom. x. 8. No man, therefore, who “returns to the Lord his God,” as he is there commanded, “with all his heart and with all his soul,”229 Deut. xxx. 2. will find God’s commandment “grievous.” How, indeed, can it be grievous, when it is the precept of love? Either, therefore, a man has not love, and then it is grievous; or he has love, and then it is not grievous. But he possesses love if he does what is there enjoined on Israel, by returning to the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his soul. “A new commandment,” says He, “do I give unto you, that ye love one another;”230 John xiii. 34. and “He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law;”231 Rom. xiii. 8. and again, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”232 Rom. xiii. 10. In accordance with these sayings is that passage, “Had they trodden good paths, they would have found, indeed, the ways of righteousness easy.”233 Prov. ii. 20. How then is it written, “Because of the words of Thy lips, I have kept the paths of difficulty,”234 Ps. xvii. 4. except it be that both statements are true: These paths are paths of difficulty to fear; but to love they are easy?
CAPUT LXIX.
83. Nihil impossibile Deus praecipit, quia omnia facilia charitati. Valde autem bona sunt praecepta, si legitime his utamur (I Tim. I, 8). Eo quippe ipso quo firmissime creditur, Deum justum 0289et bonum impossibilia non potuisse praecipere; hinc admonemur, et in facilibus quid agamus, et in difficilibus quid petamus. Omnia quippe fiunt facilia charitati: cui uni Christi sarcina levis est (Matth. XI, 30), aut ea una est sarcina ipsa quae levis est. Secundum hoc dictum est, Et praecepta ejus gravia non sunt (I Joan. V, 3): ut cui gravia sunt, consideret non potuisse divinitus dici, gravia non sunt, nisi quia potest esse cordis affectus cui gravia non sunt, et petat quo destituitur, ut impleat quod jubetur. Et quod dicitur ad Israel in Deuteronomio, si pie, si sancte, si spiritualiter intelligatur, hoc idem significat: quia utique cum hoc testimonium commemorasset Apostolus, Prope te est verbum in ore tuo, et in corde tuo (quod hic habet, in manibus tuis ; in corde enim sunt spirituales manus); hoc est, inquit, verbum fidei quod praedicamus (Deut. XXX, 14; Rom. X, 8). Conversus ergo quisque, sicut ibi praecipitur, ad Dominum Deum suum ex toto corde suo, et ex tota anima sua, mandatum Dei non habebit grave. Quomodo est enim grave, cum sit dilectionis mandatum? Aut enim quisque non diligit, et ideo grave est: aut diligit, et grave esse non potest. Diligit autem, si quod illic admonetur Israel, conversus fuerit ad Dominum Deum suum ex 0290 toto corde suo, et ex tota anima sua. Mandatum, inquit, novum do vobis, ut vos invicem diligatis (Joan. XIII, 34): et, Qui diligit proximum, legem implevit: et, Plenitudo legis, charitas (Rom. XIII, 8 et 10). Secundum hoc et illud dictum est, Si ambularent semitas bonas, invenis, sent utique semitas justitiae leves (Prov. II, 20, sec. LXX). Quomodo ergo dicitur, Propter verba labiorum tuorum ego custodivi vias duras (Psal. XVI, 4); nisi quia utrumque verum est? Durae sunt timori, leves amori.