Chapter 77.—Xystus.

What Christian, again, is unaware of what he quotes the most blessed Xystus, bishop of Rome and martyr of Christ, as having said, “God has conferred upon men liberty of their own will, in order that by purity and sinlessness of life they may become like unto God?”202    This passage, which Pelagius had quoted as from Xystus the Roman bishop and martyr, Augustin subsequently ascertained to have had for its author Sextus, a Pythagorean philosopher. See the passage of the Retractations, ii. 42, at the head of this treatise. But the man who appeals to free will ought to listen and believe, and ask Him in whom he believes to give him His assistance not to sin. For when he speaks of “becoming like unto God,” it is indeed through God’s love that men are to be like unto God,—even the love which is “shed abroad in our hearts,” not by any ability of nature or the free will within us, but “by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”203    Rom. v. 5. Then, in respect of what the same martyr further says, “A pure mind is a holy temple for God, and a heart clean and without sin is His best altar,” who knows not that the clean heart must be brought to this perfection, whilst “the inward man is renewed day by day,”204    2 Cor. iv. 16. but yet not without the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord? Again, when he says, “A man of chastity and without sin has received power from God to be a son of God,” he of course meant it as an admonition that on a man’s becoming so chaste and sinless (without raising any question as to where and when this perfection was to be obtained by him,—although in fact it is quite an interesting question among godly men, who are notwithstanding agreed as to the possibility of such perfection on the one hand, and on the other hand its impossibility except through “the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus”);205    1 Tim. ii. 5.—nevertheless, as I began to say, Xystus designed his words to be an admonition that, on any man’s attaining such a high character, and thereby being rightly reckoned to be among the sons of God, the attainment must not be thought to have been the work of his own power. This indeed he, through grace, received from God, since he did not have it in a nature which had become corrupted and depraved,—even as we read in the Gospel, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God;”206    John i. 12. which they were not by nature, nor could at all become, unless by receiving Him they also received power through His grace. This is the power which is claimed for itself by the fortitude of that love which is only communicated to us by the Holy Ghost bestowed upon us.

77. Quis item christianus ignorat, quod beatissimum Xystum Romanae Ecclesiae episcopum et Domini martyrem dixisse commemorat , Quia libertatem arbitrii sui permisit hominibus Deus, ut pure et sine peccato viventes similes fiant Deo? Sed ad ipsum arbitrium pertinet vocantem audire et credere, et ab eo in quem credit non peccandi adjutorium postulare. Nam utique eum dicit, similes fiant Deo; per charitatem Dei futuri sunt similes Deo, quae diffusa est in cordibus nostris, non naturae possibilitate, nec libero arbitrio quod est in nobis, sed per Spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis. Et quod dicit idem martyr, Templum sanctum est Deo mens pura, et altare optimum est ei cor mundum et sine peccato; quis nescit ad istam perfectionem perducendum cor mundum, dum interior homo renovatur de die in diem; non tamen sine gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum? Item quod ait ipse, Vir castus et sine peccato potestatem accepit a Deo esse filius Dei; utique admonuit, ne cum quisque factus fuerit ita castus et sine peccato (quod ubi et quando in eo perficiatur nonnulla quaestio est, sed inter pios bene quaeritur, inter quos tamen constat fieri posse, et sine mediatore Dei et hominum homine Christo Jesu fieri non posse): tamen, ut dicere coeperam, prudenter Xystus admonuit, ne cum fuerit quisque talis factus, et per hoc recte inter filios Dei deputatus, putetur ipsius fuisse potestatis, quam per gratiam accepit a 0286 Deo, cum eam non haberet in natura jam vitiata atque depravata, sicut in Evangelio legitur, Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri (Joan. I, 12): quod utique non erant per naturam, nec omnino essent, nisi eum recipiendo accepissent per ejus gratiam hujusmodi potestatem. Haec est potestas, quam sibi vindicat fortitudo charitatis, quae non est in nobis, nisi per Spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis.