' See above, 37.
2 Matt. vi. 12.
3 I John iii. 2.
when it shall be said, not by those that are fight- ing: " I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind," "* but by those that are triumphing: " O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? "s Now, this is perhaps hardly a question which ought to be dis- cussed between catholics and heretics, but only among catholics with a view to a peaceful settle- ment.^ CHAP. 56 [XXXI.J — IS PELAGIUS SINCERE?
How, then, can it be believed that Pelagius (if indeed this epistle is his) could have been sincere, when he acknowledged the grace of God, which is not nature with its free will, nor the knowledge of the law, nor simply the forgive- ness of sins, but a something which is necessary to each of our actions; or could have sincerely anathematized everybody who entertained the contrary opinion: — seeing that in his epistle he set forth even the ease wherewith a man can avoid sinning (concerning which no question had arisen at this trial) just as if the judges had come to an agreement to receive even this word, and said nothing about the grace of God, by the confession and subsequent addition of which he escaped the penalty of condemnation by the Church?
CHAP. 57 [XXXII.] — FRAUDULENT PRACTICES PUR- SUED BY PELAGIUS IN HIS REPORT OF THE PRO- CEEDINGS IN PALESTINE, IN THE PAPER WHEREIN HE DEFENDED HIMSELF TO AUGUSTIN.
There is yet another point which I must not pass over in silence. In the paper containing his defence which he sent to me by a friend of ours, one Charus, a citizen of Hippo, but a dea- con in the Eastern Church, he has made a state- ment which is different from what is contained in the Proceedings of the Bishops. Now, these Proceedings, as regards their contents, are of a higher and firmer tone, and more straightforward in defending the catholic verity in opposition to this heretical pestilence. For, when I read this paper of his, previous to receiving a copy of the Proceedings, I was not aware that he had made use of those words which he had used at the trial, when he was present for himself; they are few, and there is not much discrepancy, and they do not occasion me much anxiety, [xxxiii.] But I could not help feeling anno\ance that he can appear to have defended sundry sentences of Ccelestius, which, from the Proceedings, it is clear enough that he anathematized. Now, some of these he disavowed for himself, simply remark- ing, that " he was not in any way responsible for * This point, nowever, was definitely settled a year or two after- wards, at a council held in Carthage. (See its Canons 6-8.) See also, above, the Preface to the treatise On the Perfection 0/ Man's Ktghteousneis.
208 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. 58.
them." In his paper, however, he refused to anathematize these same opinions, which are to this effect: " That Adam was created mortal, and ■ that he would have died whether he had sinned or not sinned. That Adam's sin mjured only himself, and not the human race. That the law, no less than the gospel, leads us to the kmgdom. That new-born infants are in the same condition that Adam was before he fell. That, on the one hand, the entire human race does not die owing to Adam's death and transgression; nor, on the other hand, does the whole human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ. That infants, even if they die unbaptized, have eternal life. That rich men, even if they are baptized, unless they renounce and give up all, have, what- ever good they may seem to have done, nothing of it reckoned to them; neither shall they possess the kingdom of heaven." Now, in his paper, the answer which he gives to all this is: " All these statements have not been made by me, even on their own testimony, nor do I hold myself re- sponsible for them." In the Proceedings, how- ever, he expressed himself as follows on these points: " They have not been made by me, as even their testimony shows, and for them I do not feel that I am at all responsible. But yet, for the satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathe- matize those who either now hold, or have ever held, them." Now, why did he not express himself thus in his paper also? It would not, I suppose, have cost much ink, or writing, or delay; nor have occupied much of the paper itself, if he had done this. Who, however, can help believing that there is a purpose in all this, to pass off this paper in all directions as an abridgment of the Episcopal Proceedings. In consequence of which, men might think that his right still to maintain any of these opinions which he pleased had not been taken away, — on the ground that they had been simply laid to his charge but had not received his approbation, nor yet had been anathematized and condemned by him.
CHAP. 58. THE SAME CONTINUED.
He has, moreover, in this same paper, huddled together afterwards many of the points which were objected against him out of the "Chapters," of Ccelestius' ]>ook; nor has he kept distinct, at the intervals which separate them in the Pro- ceedings, the two answers in which he anathema- tized these very heads; but has substituted one general reply for them all. This, I should have supposed, had been done for the sake of brevity, had I not perceived that he had a very special object in the arrangement which disturbs us. For thus has he closed this answer: " I say again, that these opinions, even according to their own testimony, are not mine; nor, as I have already said, am I to be held responsible for them. The opinions which I have confessed to be my own, I maintain are sound and correct; those, how- ever, wjiich I have said are not my own, I reject according to the judgment of the holy Church, pronouncing anathema on every man that opposes and gainsays the doctrines of the holy and cath- olic Church; and likewise on those who by in- venting false opinions have excited odium against us." This last paragraph the Proceedings do not contain; it has, however, no bearing on the matter which causes us anxiety. By all means let them have his anathema who have excited odium against him by their invention of false opinions. But, when first I read, " Those opin- ions, however, which I have said are not my own, I reject in accordance with the judgment of the holy Church," being ignorant that any judgment had been arrived at on the point by the Church, since there is here nothing said about it, and I had not then read the Proceedings, I really thought that nothing else was meant than that he promised that he would entertain the same view about the "Chapters " as the Church, which had not yet determined the question, might some day decide respecting them; and that he was ready to reject the opinions which the Church had not yet indeed rejected, but might one day have occasion to reject; and that this, too, was the purport of what he further said: " Pronoun- cing anathema on every man that opposes and gainsays the doctrines of the holy catholic Church." But in fact, as the Proceedings testify, a judgment of the Church had already been pro- nounced on these subjects by the fourteen bish- ops; and it was in accordance with this judgment that he profes.sed to reject all these opinions, and to pronounce his anathema against those persons who, by reason of the said opinions, were contravening the judgment which had already, as the Proceedings show, been actually settled. For already had the judges asked: " \\'hat says the monk Pelagius to all these heads of opinion which have been read in his presence? For this holy synod condemns them, as does also God's holy catholic Church." Now, they who know nothing of all this, and only read this pai:>er of his, are led to suppose that some one or other of these opinions may lawfully be maintained, as if they had not been determined to be contrary to catholic doctrine, and as if Pelagius had declared himself to be ready to hold the same sentiments concerning them which the Church had not as yet determined, but might have to determine. He has not, therefore, expressed himself in this paper, to which we have so often referred, straightforwardly enough for us to dis- cover the fact, of which we find a voucher in the Proceedings, that all those dogmas by means of which this heresy has been stealing along and Chap. 6i.]
ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.
209 growing strong with contentious audacity, have been condemned by fourteen bishops presiding in an ecclesiastical synod! Now, if he was afraid that this fact would become known, as is the case, he has more reason for self-correction than for resentment at the vigilance with which we are watching the controversy to the best of our ability, however late. If, however, it is un- true that he had any such fears, and we are only indulging in a suspicion which is natural to man, let him forgive us; but, at the same time, let him continue to oppose and resist the opinions which were rejected by him with anathemas in the proceedings before the bishops, when he was on his defence; for if he now shows any leniency to them, he would seem not only to have be- lieved these opinions formerly, but to be cherish- ing them still.
CH.A.P. 59 [XXXIV.] — ALTHOUGH PELAGIUS WAS ACQUITTED, HIS HERESY WAS CONDEMNED.
Now, with respect to this treatise of mine, which perhaps is not unreasonably lengthy, con- sidering the importance and extent of its sub- ject, I have wished to inscribe it to your Rever- ence, in order that, if it be not displeasing to your mind, it may become known to such per- sons as I have thought may stand in need of it under the recommendation of your authority, which carries so much more weight than our own poor industry. Thus it may avail to crush the vain and contentious thoughts of those persons who suppose that, because Pelagius was acquit- ted, those Eastern bishops who pronounced the judgment approved of those dogmas which are beginning to shed very pernicious influences against the Christian faith, and that grace of God whereby we are called and justified. These the Christian verity never ceases to condemn, as indeed it condemned them even by the authori- tative sentence of the fourteen bishops; nor would it, on the occasion in question, have hesitated to condemn Pelagius too, unless he had anathema- tized the heretical opinions with which he was charged. But now, while we render to this man the respect of brotherly affection (and we have all along expressed with all sincerity our anxiety for him and interest in him), let us observe, with as much brevity as is consistent with accuracy of observation, that, notwithstanding the un- doubted fact of his having been acquitted by a human verdict, the heresy itself has ever been held worthy of condemnation by divine judg- ment, and has actually been condemned by the sentence of these fourteen bishops of the East- ern Church.
CHAP. 60 [XXXV.] — THE SYNOD'S CONDEMNATION OF HIS DOCTRINES.
This is the concluding clause of their judgment. The synod said: " Now forasmuch as we have received satisfaction in these inquiries from the monk Pelagius, who has been present, who yields assent to godly doctrines, and rejects and anathematizes those which are contrary to the Church, we confess him still to belong to the communion of the catholic Church." Now, there are two facts concerning the monk Pela- gius here contained with entire perspicuity in this brief statement of the holy bishops who judged him: one, that "he yields assent to godly doctrines; " the other, that " he rejects and anathematizes those which are contrary to the Church." On account of these two conces- sions, Pelagius was pronounced to be " in the communion of the catholic Church." Let us, in pursuit of our inquiry, briefly recapitulate the entire facts, in order to discover what were the words he used which made those two points so clear, as far as men were able at the moment to form a judgment as to what were manifest points. For among the allegations which were made against him, he is said to have rejected and anathematized, as " contrary, " all the state- ments which in his answer he denied were his. Let us, then, summarize the whole case as far as we can.
CHAP. 61. HISTORY OF THE PELAGIAN HERESY.
THE PELAGIAN HERESY W.\S RAISED BY SUNDRY PERSONS WHO AFFECTED THE MONASTIC STATE.
Since it was necessary that the Apostle Paul's prediction should be accomplished, — " There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you," ' — after the older heresies, there has been just now introduced, not by bishops or presbyters or any rank of the clergy, but by cer- tain would-be monks, a heresy which disputes, under colour of defending free will, against the grace of God which we have through our Lord Jesus Christ; and endeavours to overthrow the foundation of the Christian faith of which it is written, " By one man, death, and by one man the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive;" * and denies God's help in our actions, by affirm- ing that, " in order to avoid sin and to fulfil righteousness, human nature can be sufficient, seeing that it has been created with free will; and that God's grace lies in the fact that we have " been so created as to be able to do this by the will, and in the further fact that God has given to us the assistance of His law and command- ments, and also in that He forgives their past sins when men turn to Him;" that "in these things alone is God's grace to be regarded as consisting, not in the help He gives to us for ' I Cor. xi. 19.
* I Cor. XV. 21, 22 2IO THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. 62.
each of our actions," — " seeing that a man can be without sin, and keep God's commandments easily if he wishes."
CHAP. 62. — THE HISTORY CONTINUED. CCELESTIUS CONDEMNED AT CARTHAGE BY EPISCOPAL JUDG- MENT. PEL.AGIUS ACQUITI'ED BY BISHOPS IN PAL- ESTINE, IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS DECEPTIVE AN- SWERS; BUT YET HIS HERESY WAS CONDEMNED BY THEM.
After this heresy had deceived a great many persons, and was disturbing the brethren whom it had failed to deceive, one Ccelestius, who entertained these sentiments, was brought up for trial before the Church of Carthage, and was | condemned by a sentence of the bishops.' Then, a few years afterwards, Pelagius, who was said to have been this man's instructor, having fi been accused of holding his heresy, found also his way before an episcopal tribunal.^ The in- dictment was prepared against him by the Gal- ilean bishops, Heros and Lazarus, who were, however, not present at the proceedings, and were excused from attendance owing to the ill- ness of one of them. After all the charges were duly recited, and Pelagius had met them by his answers, the fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine pronounced him, in accordance with his answers, free from the perversity of this heresy; while yet without hesitation condemn- ing the heresy itself. They approved indeed of his answer to the objections, that "a. man is assisted by a knowledge of the law, towards not sinning; even as it is written, ' He hath given them a law for a help; '"3 but yet they disapproved of this knowledge of the law being that grace of God concerning which the Scripture says: " Who shall deliver me from.the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord."-* Nor did Pelagius say absolutely: " All men are ruled by their own will," as if God did not rule them; for he said, when questioned on this point: " This I stated in the interest of the freedom of our will; God is its helper, whenever it makes choice of good. Man, however, when sinning, is himself in fault, as being under the direction of his free will." 5 They approved, moreover, of his statement, that " in the day of judgment no forbearance will be shown to the ungodly and sinners, but they will j be punished in everlasting fires; " because in i his defence he said, " that he had made such an assertion in accordance with the gospel, in which it is written concerning sinners, ' These shall go ' This trial was held at Carthage, before the Bishop Aiirelius (to whom Augustin dedicated the present treatise), at the beginning of the year 412, as appears from the letter to Innocentius among Augus- tm's E/>istles, 175, Nos. i and 6.
2 This happened in the year 415, in the month of December, at Diospolis.
^ Isa. viii. 20. See above, 2.
away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.'"^ But he did not say, a/i sinners are reserved for eternal punishment, for then he would evidently have run counter to the apostle, who distinctly states that some of them will be saved, " yet so as by fire." ' When also Pelagius said that " the kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament," they approved of the statement, on the ground that he supported himself by the testimony of the prophet Daniel, who thus wrote: "The saints shall take the kingdom of the Most High."^ They understood him, in this statement of his, to mean by the term " Old Testament," not simply the Testament which was made on Mount Sinai, but the entire body of the canonical Scriptures which had been given previous to the coming of the Lord. His allegation, however, that "a man is able to be without sin, if he wishes," was not approved by the bishops in the sense which he had evidently meant it to bear in his book 9 — as if this was solely in a man's power by free will (for it was contended that he must have meant no less than this by his saying: " if he wishes"), — but only in the sense which he actu- ally gave to the passage on the present occasion in his answer; in the very sense, indeed, in which the episcopal judges mentioned the subject in their own interlocution with especial brevity and clearness, that a man is able to be without sin with the help and grace of God. But still it was left undetermined when the saints were to attain to this state of perfection, — whether in the body of this death, or when death shall be swallowed up in victory.
CHAP. 63. — THE SAME CONTINUED. THE DOGMAS OF CCELESTIUS LAID TO THE CHARGE OF PELA- GIUS, AS HIS MASTER, AND CONDEMNED.
Of the opinions which Ccelestius has said or written, and which were objected against Pelagius, on the ground that they were the dogmas of his disciple, he acknowledged some as entertained also by himself; but, in his vindication, he said that he held them in a different sense from that which was alleged in the indictment. One of these opinions was thus stated: " Before the ad- vent of Christ some men lived holy and righteous lives." '° Ccelestius, however, was stated to have said that " they lived sinless lives. Again, it was objected that Ccelestius declared " the Church to be without spot and wrinkle."" Pelagius, however, said in his reply, " that he had made such an assertion, but as meaning that the Church is by the laver cleansed from every spot and wrinkle, and that in this purity the Lord would have her continue." Respecting that statement <> Matt. XXV. 46. See above, 9. ^ Dan. vii. 18. See above, 13. '° See above, 26.
Chap. 65.]
ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.
21 1 of Ccfilestius: " That we do more than is com- manded us in the law and the gospel," Pelagius urged in his own vindication,' that "he spoke: concerning virginity," of which Paul says: "I have no commandment of the lx>n\." ^ Another objection alleged that Ccelestius had maintained ^ that '• every individual has the ability to possess all powers and graces," thus annulling that " diver- sity of gifts " which the apostle sets forth. ^ Pela- gius, however, answered, that " he did not annul the diversity of gifts, but declared that God gives to the man who has proved himself worthy to receive them, all graces, even as He gave the Apostle Paul."
CHAP. 64. — HOW THE BISHOPS CLEARED PELAGIUS OF THOSE CHARGES.
These four dogmas, thus connected with the name of Ccelestius, were therefore not approved by the bishops in their judgment, in the sense in which Ccelestius was said to have set them forth, but in the sense which Pelagius gave to them in his reply. For they saw clearly enough, that it is one thing to be without sin, and another thing to live holily and righteously, as Scripture testifies that some lived even before the coming of Christ. And that although the Church here on earth is not without spot or wrinkle, she is yet both cleansed from every spot and wrinkle by the laver of regeneration, and in this state the Lord would have her continue. And continue she certainly will, for without doubt she shall reign without spot or wrinkle in an everlasting felicity. And that the perpetual virginity, which is not commanded, is unquestionably more than the purity of wedded life, which is commanded — although virginity is persevered in by many per- sons, who, notwithstanding, are not without sin. And that all those graces which he enumerates in a certain passage were possessed by the Apostle Paul; and yet, for all that, either they could quite understand, in regard to his having been worthy to receive them, that the merit was not according to his works, but rather, in some way, according to predestination ( for the apostle says himself: " I am not meet to be called an apostle;") '* or else their attention was not arrested by the sense which Pelagius gave to the word, as he himself viewed it. Such are the points on which the bishops pronounced the agreement of Pelagius with the doctrines of godly truth.
CHAP. 65. — RECAPITULATION OF WHAT PELAGIUS CONDEMNED.
Let us now, by a like recapitulation, bestow a little more attention on those subjects which the bishops said he rejected and condemned as " con- ^ I Cor. vii. 25.
3 See above, 32.
trary; " for herein especially lies the whole of that heresy. We will entirely pass over the strange terms of adulation which he is reported to have put into writing in praise of a certain widow; these he denied having ever inserted in any of his writings, or ever given utterance to, and he anathematized all who held the opinions in question not indeed as heretics, but as fools.' The following are the wild thickets of this heresy, which we are sorry to see shooting out buds, nay growing into trees, day by day: — " That '' Adam was made mortal, and would have died whether he had sinned or not; that Adam's sin injured only himself, and not the human race; that the law no less than the gospel leads to the kingdom; that new-born infants are in the same condition that Adam was before the transgression; that the whole human race does not, on the one hand, die in consequence of Adam's death and trans- gression, nor, on the other hand, does the whole human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ; that infants, even if they die unbap- tized, have eternal life; that rich men, even if baptized, unless they renounce and surrender everything, have, whatever good they may seem to have done, nothing of it reckoned to them, neither can they possess the kingdom of God; that 7 God's grace and assistance are not given for single actions, but reside in free will, and in the law and teaching; that the grace of God is bestowed according to our merits, so tliat grace really lies in the will of man, as he makes him- self worthy or unworthy of it; that men cannot be called children of God, unless they have be- come entirely free from sin; that forgetfulness and ignorance do not come under sin, as they do not happen through the will, but of necessity; that there is no free will, if it needs the help of God, inasmuch as every one has his proper will either to do something, or to abstain from doing it; that our victory comes not from God's help, but from free will; that from what Peter says, that ' we are partakers of the divine nature,' ^ it must follow that the soul has the power of being without sin, just in the way that God Himself has." For this have I read in the eleventh chapter of the book, which bears no