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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.
28. [XXIV.]—The Heresy of Pelagius and Cœlestius Aims at the Very Foundations of Our Faith.
This is, however, in the matter of the two men by one of whom we are sold under sin,174 Rom. vii. 14. by the other redeemed from sins—by the one have been precipitated into death, by the other are liberated unto life; the former of whom has ruined us in himself, by doing his own will instead of His who created him; the latter has saved us in Himself, by not doing His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him:175 John iv. 34, v. 30. and it is in what concerns these two men that the Christian faith properly consists. For “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;”176 1 Tim. ii. 5. since “there is none other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved;”177 Acts iv. 12. and “in Him hath God defined unto all men their faith, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.”178 Acts xvii. 31. Now without this faith, that is to say, without a belief in the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; without faith, I say, in His resurrection by which God has given assurance to all men and which no man could of course truly believe were it not for His incarnation and death; without faith, therefore, in the incarnation and death and resurrection of Christ, the Christian verity unhesitatingly declares that the ancient saints could not possibly have been cleansed from sin so as to have become holy, and justified by the grace of God. And this is true both of the saints who are mentioned in Holy Scripture, and of those also who are not indeed mentioned therein, but must yet be supposed to have existed,—either before the deluge, or in the interval between that event and the giving of the law, or in the period of the law itself,—not merely among the children of Israel, as the prophets, but even outside that nation, as for instance Job. For it was by the self-same faith in the one Mediator that the hearts of these, too, were cleansed, and there also was “shed abroad in them the love of God by the Holy Ghost,”179 Rom. v. 5. “who bloweth where He listeth,”180 John iii. 8. not following men’s merits, but even producing these very merits Himself. For the grace of God will in no wise exist unless it be wholly free.
CAPUT XXIV.
28. Sed in causa duorum hominum, quorum per unum venumdati sumus sub peccato, per alterum redimimur a peccatis; per unum praecipitati sumus in mortem, per alterum liberamur ad vitam; quorum ille nos in se perdidit, faciendo voluntatem suam, non ejus a quo factus est; iste nos in se salvos fecit, non faciendo voluntatem suam, sed ejus a quo missus est (Joan. IV, 34, et V, 30): in horum ergo duorum hominum causa proprie fides christiana consistit. Unus est enim Deus, et unus mediator Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus (I Tim. II, 5). Quoniam non est aliud nomen sub coelo datum hominibus, in quo oporteat nos salvos fieri (Act. IV, 12): et in illo definivit Deus fidem omnibus, suscitans illum a mortuis (Id. XVII, 31). Itaque sine ista fide, hoc est, sine fide unius mediatoris Dei et hominum hominis Christi Jesu; sine fide, inquam, resurrectionis ejus, quam Deus omnibus definivit, quae utique sine incarnatione ejus ac morte non potest veraciter credi: sine fide ergo incarnationis et mortis et resurrectionis Christi, nec antiquos justos, ut justi essent, a peccatis potuisse mundari, et Dei gratia justificari, veritas 0399 christiana non debitat: sive in eis justis quos sancta Scriptura commemorat, sive in eis justis quos quidem illa non commemorat, sed tamen fuisse credendi sunt, vel ante diluvium, vel inde usque ad legem datam, vel ipsius legis tempore, non solum in filiis Israel, sicut fuerunt Prophetae, sed etiam extra eumdem populum, sicut fuit Job. Et ipsorum enim corda eadem mundabantur mediatoris fide, et diffundebatur in eis charitas per Spiritum sanctum (Rom. V, 5), qui ubi vult spirat (Joan. III, 8), non merita sequens, sed etiam ipsa merita faciens. Non enim Dei gratia gratia erit ullo modo, nisi gratuita fuerit omni modo.