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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.
46.—Difficulty of Believing Original Sin. Man’s Vice is a Beast’s Nature.
No one should feel surprise, and ask: “Why does God’s goodness create anything for the devil’s malignity to take possession of?” The truth is, God’s gift is bestowed on the seminal elements of His creature with the same bounty wherewith “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”253 Matt. v. 45. It is with so large a bounty that God has blessed the very seeds, and by blessing has constituted them. Nor has this blessing been eliminated out of our excellent nature by a fault which puts us under condemnation. Owing, indeed, to God’s justice, who punishes, this fatal flaw has so far prevailed, that men are born with the fault of original sin; but yet its influence has not extended so far as to stop the birth of men. Just so does it happen in persons of adult age: whatever sins they commit, do not eliminate his manhood from man; nay, God’s work continues still good, however evil be the deeds of the impious. For although “man being placed in honour abideth not; and being without understanding, is compared with the beasts, and is like them,”254 Ps. xlix. 12. yet the resemblance is not so absolute that he becomes a beast. There is a comparison, no doubt, between the two; but it is not by reason of nature, but through vice—not vice in the beast, but in nature. For so excellent is a man in comparison with a beast, that man’s vice is beast’s nature; still man’s nature is never on this account changed into beast’s nature. God, therefore, condemns man because of the fault wherewithal his nature is disgraced, and not because of his nature, which is not destroyed in consequence of its fault. Heaven forbid that we should think beasts are obnoxious to the sentence of condemnation! It is only proper that they should be free from our misery, inasmuch as they cannot partake of our blessedness. What, then, is there surprising or unjust in man’s being subjected to an impure spirit—not on account of nature, but on account of that impurity of his which he has contracted in the stain of his birth, and which proceeds, not from the divine work, but from the will of man;—since also the impure spirit itself is a good thing considered as spirit, but evil in that it is impure? For the one is of God, and is His work, while the other emanates from man’s own will. The stronger nature, therefore, that is, the angelic one, keeps the lower, or human, nature in subjection, by reason of the association of vice with the latter. Accordingly the Mediator, who was stronger than the angels, became weak for man’s sake. 255 2 Cor. viii. 9. So that the pride of the Destroyer is destroyed by the humility of the Redeemer; and he who makes his boast over the sons of men of his angelic strength, is vanquished by the Son of God in the human weakness which He assumed.
46. Nec quisquam miretur, et dicat, «Cur hoc creat bonitas Dei, quod possideat malignitas diaboli?» Hoc enim suae creaturae seminibus ex illa bonitate largitur, qua etiam facit solem suum oriri super bonos et malos, et pluit super justes et injustos (Matth. V, 45). Hac quippe bonitate etiam ipsa semina benedixit, vel benedicendo constituit: quam benedictionem naturae laudabili culpa damnabilis non ademit. Quae licet per Dei punientis justitiam valuerit, ut homines cum peccati originalis vitio nascerentur; non tamen valuit, ut homines non nascerentur. Sicut in ipsis aetate majoribus quaelibet vitia peccatorum non ex homine hominem tollunt; sed permanet Dei opus bonum, in quantiscumque malis operibus impiorum. Nam etsi homo in honore positus, et non intelligens, comparatur pecoribus, eisque similis fit (Psal. XLVIII, 13); non tamen usque adeo similis fit, ut pecus sit. Comparatur namque per vitium, non per naturam; non pecoris vitio, sed naturae. Tantae namque excellentiae est in comparatione pecoris homo, ut vitium hominis natura sit pecoris: nec tamen ideo natura hominis in naturam vertitur pecoris. Ac per hoc Deus hominem damnat propter vitium, quo natura dehonestatur; non propter naturam, quae vitio non aufertur. Bestias vero absit ut opinemur poenae damnationis obnoxias, quas justum est ut miseriae sint expertes, quae nec beatitudinis possunt esse participes. Quid ergo mirum est vel iniquum, ut immundo spiritui subdatur homo, non propter naturam, sed propter immunditiam suam, quam non ex opere divino, sed ex humana voluntate venientem in originis labe contraxit: cum et ipse spiritus immundus, bonum sit, quod spiritus; malum, quod immundus? Illud quippe est ex Dei opere, hoc ex propria voluntate. 0409 Natura itaque fortior, id est, angelica, inferiorem naturam, id est, humanam, vitii societate subditam tenet. Ideo Mediator angelis fortior, infirmus propter homines factus est: sic superbia captivatoris, Redemptoris humilitate destruitur; ut qui super filios hominis angelica fortitudine gloriatur, a Filio Dei suscepta humana infirmitate vincatur.