were to die immediately after baptism, he would have nothing at all left to hold him liable to punishment." 9 In a word, while there are many baptized who will not be saved, there are none saved who have not been baptized; it is the grace of God that saves, but baptism is a channel of grace without which none receive it.'° The saddest corollary that flowed from this doctrine was that by which Augustin was forced to assert that all those who died unbaptized, including infants, are finally lost and depart into eter- nal punishment. He did not shrink from the inference, although he assigned the place of lightest punishment in hell to those who were guilty of no sin but original sin, but who had departed this life without having washed this away in the '' laver of regeneration." This is the dark side of his soteriology; but it should be remembered that it was not his theology of grace, but the universal and traditional belief in the necessity of baptism for remission of sins, which he inherited in common with all of his time, that forced it upon him. The theology of grace was destined in * On Rebuke and Grace, 39. Compare 14.
* On the Gift of Perseverance, 29; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ii. 9 sq. 3 On Rebuke and Grace, i.
4 Oil the Predestination of the Saints, tj, 18; if the gospel is not preached at any given place, it is proof that God has no elect there.
5 On the Merits and Forgiz>eness of Sins, etc., ii. 37. * On Rebuke and Grace, 23. 7 Do., 20.
* On the Soul and its Origin, \. w, ii. 17. 9 On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, tXz.,\\. tfi.
*° On Augustin's teaching as to baptism, see Rev. James Field Spalding's The Teaching and Influence of A ugustin, pp. 39 sq.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Ixxi the hands of his successors, who have rejoiced to confess that they were taught by him, to remove this stumbUng-block also from Christian teaching; and if not to Augustin, it is to Augustin's theology that the Christian world owes its liberation from so terrible and incredible a tenet. Along with the doctrine of infant damnation, another stumbling-block also, not so much of Augus- tinian, but of Church theology, has gone. It was not because of his theology of grace, or of his doctrine of predestination, that Augustin taught that comparatively few of the human race are saved. It was, again, because he believed that baptism and incorporation into the visible Church were necessary for salvation. And it is only because of Augustin's theology of grace, which places man in the hands of an all-merciful Saviour and not in the grasp of a human institution, that men can see that in the salvation of all who die in infancy, the invisible Church of God embraces the vast majority of the human race, — saved not by the washing of water administered by the Church, but by the blood of Christ administered by God's own hand outside of the ordi- nary channels of his grace. We are indeed born in sin, and those that die in infancy are, in Adam, children of wrath even as others; but God's hand is not shortened by the limits of His Church on earth, that it cannot save. In Christ Jesus, all souls are the Lord's, and only the soul that itself sinneth shall die (Ezek. xviii. 1-4); and the only judgment wherewith men shall be judged proceeds on the principle that as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged by the law (Rev. ii. 12).
Thus, although Augustin's theology had a very strong churchly element within it, it was, on the side that is presented in the controversy against Pelagianism, distinctly anti-ecclesiastical. Its central thought was the absolute dependence of the individual on the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It made everything that concerned salvation to be of God, and traced the source of all good to Him. "Without me ye can do nothing," is the inscription on one side of it; on the Other stands written, " All things are yours." Augustin held that he who builds on a human foun- dation builds on sand, and founded all his hope on the Rock itself. And there also he founded his teaching; as he distrusted man in the matter of salvation, so he distrusted him in the form of theology. No other of the fathers so conscientiously wrought out his theology from the revealed Word; no other of them so sternly excluded human additions. The subjects of which theology treats, he declares, are such as " we could by no means find out unless we believed them on the testimony of Holy Scripture." ' *' Where Scripture gives no certain testimony," he says, " human presumption must beware how it decides in favor of either side." ^ " We must first bend our necks to the authority of Scripture," he insists, " in order that we may arrive at knowledge and understanding through faith." ^ And this was not merely his theory, but his practice.-* No theology was ever, it may be more broadly asserted, more conscientiously wrought out from the Scriptures. Is it without error? No; but its errors are on the surface, not of the essence. It leads to God, and it came from God; and in the midst of the controversies of so many ages it has shown itself an edifice whose solid core is built out of material " which cannot be shaken." 5 ' On the Soul and its Origin, iv. 14. 2 Q„ ij^ ^fcriis and Forgiveness 0/ Sins, etc., ii. 59.
3 On ths Merits and Forgiveness 0/ Sins, i. 29. * Compare On the Spirit and the Letter, 63.
S On the subject of this whole section, compare Renter's Augusiinische Stndien, which has come to hand only after the whole was already in type, but which in all essential matters — such as the formative principle, the sources, and the main outlines of Augustin's theology — is in substantial agreement with what is here said.
TABLE OF MATTERS TREATED IN THE PRECEDING ESSAY.
I. The Origin and Nature of Pelagianism pp. xiii.-xvii.
The first task of the Church, xiii.; inevitableness of this heresy, xiii.; the author of it, xiii.; its novelty, xiii.; its ami-Christian basis, xiv.; its roots, xiv.; its formative and central principle, xiv.; its three chief contentions, xv.; its altitude as to grace, xv.; its crass individualism, xvi.; the claims made for it, xvii.
II. The External History of the Pelagian Controversy pp. xvii.-xxi.
Pelagius' work in Rome, xvii.; Pelagius and Ccelestius in Africa, xviii.; Coelestius' condemnation at Carthage, xviii.; Pelagius' examination before John of Jerusalem, xviii.; his trial at Diospolis, xviii., xix.; his condemnation at Carthage and Mileve, xix.; Innocent's acquiescence, xix.; Zosimus' wavering policy, xix.; the interference of the State and the final action of the Africans, xx.; Julian of Eclaniun, xx., xxi.; Semi-Pelagianism and its condemnation, xxi.
III. Augustin's Part in the Controversy pp. xxi.-lxvi.
Augustin's readiness for the controversy, xxii.; first oral stage of it, Augustin's early anti-Pelagian sermons, xxii., xxiii.; occasion, object, and contents of the first two books of the treatise On the lilcrits and Forgiveness of Si>ts, xxiv.; occasion, object, and contents of the third book, xxv.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Spirit and the Letter, xxvi.; the letter to Anastasius, xxvii.; the note to Pelagius, xxviii.; the first letter to Paulinus of Kola, xxviii.; Augustin's sermons of this period, xxix., xxx.; the progress of the controversy, xxx.; Sicilian Pelagianism and the letter to Hilary, xxxi.; Timasius and James, xxxii.; occasion, object, and contents of On Nature and Grace, xxxii., xxxiii.; Paulus Orosius, xxxiv.; letter to Jerome on the origin of the soul, xxxiv.; Ccelestius' Definitions, xxxv.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Perfection of Man's Righteousness, XXXV.; news of the doings in Palestine, xxxvi.; Pelagian view of "Forgive us our debts," xxxvi.; councils in Africa, and letters to Innocent, xxxvi., xxxvii.; letter to Hilary of Norbonne, xxxvii.; letter to John of Jerusalem, xxxvii.; letter to Juliana, xxxviii.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Proceedings of Pelagius, xxxix.; second letter to Paulinus of Nola, xxxix., xl.; the sharpest period of controversy, xl.; Augustin's policy, xli.; Zosimus' discomfiture, xli.; occasion and object of On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin, xiii.; contents of On the Grace of Christ, xiii., xliii.; of On Original Sin, xliii., xliv.; Augustin's sermons of this period, xliv.-xlvii.; letter to Optatus on the soul, xlvii., xlviii.; correspondence with Sixtus, xlviii., xlix; letter to Mercator, I.; letter to Assclicus, 1., li.; occasion, object, and contents of the first book of On Marriage and Concupiscence, li., lii.; second letter to Optatus, lii.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Soul and its Origin, liii.; advent of Julian, liv.; his first controversial writings, liv.; occasion, object, and contents of the second book of On Marriage and Co7icupisccnce, Iv.; and of Against Txvo Letters of the Pelagians, Iv., Ivi.; of Against fulian, Ivii., Iviii.; the Enchiridion, Iviii.; occasion of On Grace and Free Will, Iviii., lix.; object and contents of this treatise, lix.; occasion, object, and contents of On Rebuke and Grace, Ix.; the letter to Vitalis, Ixi., Ixii.; Julian's reply to the second book of On Marriage and Concupiscence, Ixii.; occasion of On Heresies, Ixii.; its treatment of Pelagianism, Ixiii.; rise of Semi-Pelagianism in Gaul, Ixiii.; occasion, object, and contents of On the Perseverance of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, lxiv.,lxv.; contents of the Unfinished Work, Ixv.; Augustin's crowning anti- Pelagian work, Ixvi.
IV. The Theology of Grace pp- Ixvi.-lxxi.
Roots and formative principles of Augustin's theology, Ixvi.; grace its central thought, Ixvi.; the necessity of grace, / Ixvi.-lxviii.; the fall, Ixvii.; free will, Ixvii.; the nature of grace, Ixviii.; prevenient grace, Ixviii.; gratuitous grace, Ixviii.; sovereignty of grace, Ixviii.; the effects of grace, Ixix.; irresistible grace, Ixix.; indefectible grace, Lxix.; predestination, Ixix., Lxx.; the means of grace, \kx..; infant damnation, Ixx., Lxxi.; the Scriptural basis of Augustin's theology, lxxi.
Ixxii DEDICATION OF VOLUME I. OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION.
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER.
My dear Lord, — I gladly avail myself of your permission to dedicate this volume to you. In the course of a professional life of nearly the third of a century, which has not been idly spent, I have never failed to find pleasure in theological pursuits. In the intervals.of most pressing labour, these have often tended to refresh and comfort one's wearied spirit. If this confession of my own experience should have any weight with any one in our sacred calling to combine the hard work which we owe to others while ministering to their wants, with " that diligent attendance to read- ing " which we require for ourselves, to inform our minds and refresh our spirits, I shall have accomplished my only purpose in making it. Your Lordship, I am sure, will entirely approve of such a combination of employments in your clergy. I well remember your recommendation of theological study to us at the opening of Bishop Phillpott's Library at Truro; and how you coun- selled us the more earnestly to pursue it, from the danger there is, in these busy times, of merging the acquisition of sacred learning in the active labours of our holy vocation. That the divine blessing may crown the work which you are so diligently prosecuting in the several functions of your high office, is the earnest wish, ray dear Lord, of your faithful servant, PETER HOLMES.
Mannamead, Plymouth, March lo, 1872.
DEDICATION OF VOLUME II. OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION.
TO THE REV. C. T. WILKINSON, M.A., VICAR OF ST. ANDREWS WITH PENNYCROSS, PLYMOUTH.
My dear Vicar, — I have great pleasure in associating your name with my own in this volume. We are ofificially connected in the sacred ministry of the Church, and I think I may, not unsuita- bly, extend our relations in this little effort to strengthen the defences of the great doctrine of Grace committed to our care and advocacy. Never was this portion of revealed truth more for- midably assailed than at the present day. Rationalism, as its primary dogma, asserts the perfecti- bility of our nature, out of its own resources; and with a versatihty and power of argument and illustration, which gathers help from every quarter in literature and philosophy, it opposes " the truth as it is in Jesus." This truth, which implies, as its cardinal points, the ruin of man's nature in the sin of the first Adam, and its recovery in the obedience of the second Adam, is vindicated with admirable method and convincing force in the Anti-Pelagian treatises of the great Doctor of the Western Church. Some of these treatises appear for the first time in our language in this vol- ume; and you will, I am sure, admire the acuteness with which Saint Augustin tracks out and refutes the sophistries of the rationalists of his own day, as well as the profound knowledge and earnest charity with which he enforces and recommends the CathoUc verity.
In identifying you thus far with myself in this undertaking, I not only gratify my own feelings of sincere friendship, but with a confidence which I believe I do not over-estimate, I assume, what I highly prize, your agreement with me in accepting and furthering the principles set forth in this volume.
With sincere sympathy for you in your important work at Plymouth, and best wishes for the divine blessing upon it, believe me, yours very faithfully, PETER HOLMES.
Mannamead, Plymouth, June 24, 1874.
PREFACE TO VOLUME I. OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION.
Contents. — § i. The Latin Titles of the Treatises contained in this Volume; on the Preface of the Benedictine Edition. § 2. Notice of Pelagius, and his Opinions. § 3. Of Ccelestius and his Doctrine, in Seven Propositions. § 4. On Augustin as compared with other Doctors of the Church; his Estimate of Pelagius and Ccelestius. § 5. The Different Fortunes of these Two Men at First. § 6. St. Jerome differs from St. Augustin as to the Origin op Pelagianism; East and West, their Doctrinal Characteristics — how Agreeing, how Varying. § 7. On the Conduct of Augustin and Pelagius; Partisanship of their Followers and Critics. § 8. Paramount Influence of St. Augustin IN Ancient and Modern Times, and in Various Parts of Christendom. § 9. Reason of this Influence; Augustin true TO Scripture and Human Experience; in Favourable Contrast to Pelagius as to the Scientific Depth and Accuracy OF his Doctrine. § 10. R.ationalis.m and Revelation; Pelagius' Views Isolated and Incoherent; Augustin an Excel- lent Guide in Scripture Knowledge. § 11. Popularity and Permanence of Pelagianis.m; Consentient with Man's Natur.\l Feelings; Elevating Influence of Divine Grace, its Ulti.mate Triumph in Everlasting Glory. § 12. Original Text from which this Translation is made; Works useful in the Pelagian Controversy.
§ I. The reader has in this volume, translated for the first time in English, five of the fifteen treatises of St. Augustin on the Pelagian heresy. They are here arranged in the same order (the chronological one) in which they are placed in the tenth volume of the Benedictine edition, and are therefore St. Augustin's earliest contributions to the great controversy. These are their Latin titles: De peccatorum mentis et remissione, et de baptismo parvuloriim ad Marcellinum; libri tres, scripti anno Christi 412.
De Spiritii et littera ad eiundem; liber unus, scriptus sub finem anni 412.
De naiura et gratia contra Pelagnivt,ad Tijitasium et Jacolmm; liber unus, scriptus anno Christi 415.
De perfectione jiistitice hominis; [Epistola sen] liber ad Eutropium et Paulum, scriptus circiter finem anni 415.
De gestis Pelagii ad Aiireliinn episcopum; liber unus, scriptus sub initium anni 417.
The Benedictine editors have enriched their edition with prefaces (" Admonitiones ") and critical and explana- tory notes, and, above all, with the appropriate extracts from St. Augustin's Retractations,^ in which we have the author's own final revision and correction of his works. All these have been reproduced in a translated form in this volume; and they will, it is believed, afford the reader sufficient guidance for an intelligent apprehension of at least the special arguments of the several treatises. The Benedictine editors, however, prefixed to this detailed information an elaborate and lengthy preface, in which they reviewed the general history of the Pelagian discus- sions and their authors, with especial reference to the part which St. Augustin played throughout it. This historical introduction it was at first intended to present to the reader in English at the head of this volume. In consideration, however, of the length of the document, we have so far changed our purpose as to substitute a shorter statement of certain facts and features of the Pelagian controversy, which it is hoped may contribute to a better understanding of the general subject.
§ 2. The Pelagian heresy is so designated after Pelagius, a British monk. (Augustin calls him Brito, so do Prosper and Gennadius; by Orosius he is called Britannicus noster, and by Mercator described as gente Britannus. This wide epithet is somewhat restricted by Jerome, who says of him, Habet progeniem ScoticB gentis de Britan- norum vicinia; leaving it uncertain, however, whether he deemed Scotland his native country, or Ireland. His monastic character is often referred to both by Augustin and other writers, and Pope Zosimus describes him as Laicitm virum ad bonam frtigeni longa erga Deum servitute nitentent. It is, after all, quite uncertain what part of " Britain " gave him birth; among other conjectures, he has been made a native of Wales, attached to a monastery at Bangor, and gifted with the Welsh name of Morgan, of which his usual designation of Pelagius is supposed to be simply the Greek version, UeXayio^.) It was at the beginning of the fifth century that he became conspicuous. He then resided at Rome, known by many as an honourable and earnest man, seeking in a ' It is satisfactory to observe how brief and scanty are his " retractations " on the topics treated in the present vohime.
4 PREFACE TO VOLUME I. OF THE EDINBURGH EDITION.
corrupt a^e to reform the morals of society. (In the present volume the reader will not fail to observe the eulo- gistic language which Augustin often uses of Pelagius; see 0)t the Merits of Sin, iii. i, 5, 6.) Sundry theological treatises are even attributed to him; among them one On the Trinity, of unquestionable orthodoxy, and showing great ability. Unfavourable reports, however, afterwards began to be circulated, charging him with opening, in fact, entirelv new ground in the fields of heresy. During the previous centuries of Christian opinion the speculations of active thinkers had been occupied on Theology properly so called, or the doctrine of God as to His nature and personal attributes, including Christology, which treated of Christ's divine and human natures. This was objective divinity. With Pelagius, however, a fresh class of subjects was forced on men's attention: in his peculiar system of doctrine he deals with what is subjective in man, and reviews the whole of his relation to God. His heresy turns mainly upon two points — the assumed incorruptness of human nature, and the denial of all supernatural influence upon the human will.
§ 3. He had an early associate in Coelestius, a native of Campania, according to some, or as others say, of Ireland or of Scotland. This man, who is said to have been highly connected, began life as an advocate, but, influenced by the advice and e.xample of Pelagius, soon became a monk. He excelled his master in boldness and energy; and thus earlv precipitated the new doctrine into a formal dogmatism, from which the caution and subtler management of Pelagius might have saved it. In the year a.d. 412 (Pelagius having just left him at Carthage to goto Palestine), Coelestius was accused before the bishop Aurelius of holding and teaching the following opinions: I. Adam was created mortal, and must have died, even if he had not sinned; 2. Adam's sin injured himself oniv, and not mankind; 3. Infants are born in the state of Adam before he fell; 4. Mankind neither died in Adam, nor rose again in Christ; 5. The Law, no less than the Gospel, brings men to the kingdom of heaven; 6. There were sinless men before the coming of Christ.' What Coelestius thus boldly propounded, he had the courage to maintain. On his refusal to retract, he was excommunicated. He threatened, or perhaps actually though ineffectually made, an appeal to Rome, and afterwards quitted Carthage for Ephesus.
§ 4. Augustin, who had for some time been occupied in the Donatist controversy, had as yet taken no per- sonal part in the proceedings against Coelestius. Soon, however, was his attention directed to the new opinions, and he wrote the first two treatises contained in this volume, in the year when Coelestius was excommunicated. At first he treated Pelagius, as has been said, with deference and forbearance, hoping by courtesy to recall him from danger. But as the heresy developed, Augustin's opposition was more directly and vigorously exhibited. The gospel was being fatally tampered with, in its essential facts of human sin and divine grace; so, in the ful- ness of his own absolute loyalty to the entire volume of evangelical truth, he concentrated his best efforts in opposition to the now formidable heresy. It is perhaps not too much to say, that St. Augustin, the greatest doctor of the Catholic Church, effected his greatness mainly by his labours against Pelagianlsm. Other Christian writers besides Augustin have achieved results of decisive influence on the Church and its deposit of the Christian faith. St. Athanasius, "alone against the world," has oft^n been referred to as a splendid instance of what constancy, aided by God's grace and a profound knowledge of theology, could accomplish; St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Leo of Rome, might be also quoted as signal proofs of the efficacy of catholic truth in opposition to popular heresy: these men, under God, saved the Creed from the ravages of Arianism, and the subtler injuries of Nestorius and Eutyches. Then, again, in the curious learning of the primitive Irenajus; in the critical skill, and wide knowledge, and indomitable labours of Origen; in the catechetical teaching of the elder Cyril; in the chaste descriptive power of Basil; in the simplicity and self-denial of Ambrose; in the fervid eloquence of the "golden-mouthed" Chrysostom; in the great learning of Jerome; in the scholastic accuracy of Damascene; and in the varied sacred gifts of other Christian worthies, from the impetuous Tertullian and the gentle Cyprian, with all the Gregories of manifold endowments, down to the latest period of patristic wisdom,