for such an one to read it, a virgin of Christ would read that her holiness and all her spiritual riches are to spring from no other source than herself; and thus before she attains to the perfection of blessedness, she would learn — which may God forbid! — to be ungrateful to God." Then, after quoting the words of Pelagius, in which he declares that " earthly riches came from others, but your spiritual riches no one can have conferred on you but yourself; for these, then, you are justly praised, for these you are deservedly to be preferred to others, — for they can exist only from yourself and in yourself," he continues: " Far be it from any virgin to listen to statements like these. Every virgin of Christ understands the innate poverty of the human heart, and there- fore declines to be adorned otherwise than by the gifts of her spouse...Let her not listen to him who says, ' No one can confer them on you but yourself, and they cannot exist except from you and in you: ' but to him who says, ' We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.' And be not surprised that we speak of these things as yours, and not from you; for we speak of daily bread as ' ours,' but yet add. ' give it to us,' lest it should be thought it was from ourselves." Again, he warns her that grace is not mere knowledge any more than mere nature; and that Pelagius, even when using the word " grace," means no inward or efficient aid, but mere nature or knowledge or forgiveness of past sins; and beseeches her not to forget the God of all grace from whom (Wisdom i. 20, 21) Deme- trias had that very virgin continence which was so justly her boast.
' See vol. i. of this series, p. 459, and the references there given. Compare Canon Robertson's vivid account of them in his History 0/ the Christian Church, ii. 18, 145.
2 EfiiitU 188.
3 Compare On the Grace 0/ Christ, 40. In the succeeding sections, some of its statements are examined.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxix With the opening of 417, came the answers from Innocent to the African letters.' And although they were marred by much boastful language concerning the dignity of his see, which could not but be distasteful to the Africans, they admirably served their purpose in the satisfac- tory manner in which they, on the one hand, asserted the necessity of the " daily grace, and help of God," for our good living, and, on the other, determined that the Pelagians had denied this grace, and declared their leaders Pelagius and Coelestius deprived of the communion of the Church until they should " recover their senses from the wiles of the Devil by whom they are held captive according to his will." Augustin may be pardoned for supposing that a condemnation pronounced by two provincial synods in Africa, and heartily concurred in by the Roman bishop, who had already at Jerusalem been recognized as in some sort the fit arbiter of this Western dispute, should settle the matter. If Pelagius had been before jubilant, Augustin found this a suitable time for his rejoicing.
About the same time with Innocent's letters, the official proceedings of the synod of Diospolis at last reached Africa, and Augustin lost no time (early in 417) in publishing a full account and examination of them, thus providing us with that inestimable boon, a full contemporary history of the chief events connected with the controversy up to this time. This treatise, which is addressed to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, opens with a brief explanation of Augustin's delay heretofore, in discussing Pelagius' defence of himself in Palestine, as due to his not having received the official copy of the Proceedings of the Council at Diospolis (i-2^z). Then Augustin proceeds at once to discuss at length the doings of the synod, point by point, following the official record step by step (2^-45). He treats at large here eleven items in the indictment, with Pelagius' answers and the synod's decision, showing that in all of them Pelagius either explained away his heresy, taking advantage of the ignorance of the judges of his books, or else openly repudiated or anathematized it. When the twelfth item of the indictment was reached (4i<!^-43), Augustin shows that the synod was so indignant at its character (it charged Pelagius with teaching that men cannot be sons of God unless they are sinless, and with condoning sins of ignorance, and with asserting that choice is not free if it depends on God's help, and that pardon is given accord- ing to merit), that, without waiting for Pelagius' answer, it condemned the statement, and Pelagius at once repudiated and anathematized it (43). How could the synod act in such circum- stances, he asks, except by acquitting the man who condemned the heresy? After quoting the final judgment of the synod (44), Augustin briefly characterizes it and its effect (45) as being indeed all that could be asked of the judges, but of no moral weight to those better acquainted than they were with Pelagius' character and writings. In a word, they approved his answers to them, as indeed they ought to have done; but they by no means approved, but both they and he condemned, his heresies as expressed in his writings. To this statement, Augustin appends an account of the origin of Pelagianism, and of his relations to it from the beginning, which has the very highest value as history (46-49); and then speaks of the character and doubtful practices of Pelagius (50-58), returning at the end (59-65) to a thorough canvass of the value of the acquittal which he obtained by such doubtful practices at the synod. He closes with an indig- nant account of the outrages which the Pelagians had perpetrated on Jerome (66).
This valuable treatise is not, however, the only account of the historical origin of Pelagianism that we have, from Augustin's hands. Soon after the death of Innocent (March 12, 417), he found occasion to write a very long letter ^ to the venerable Paulinus of Nola, in which he sum- marized both the history of and the arguments against this " worldly philosophy." He begins by saying that he knows Paulinus has loved Pelagius as a servant of God, but is ignorant in what way he now loves him. For he himself not only has loved him, but loves him still, but in differ- ent \vays. Once he loved him as apparently a brother in the true faith: now he loves him in the longing that God will by Kis mercy free him from his noxious opinions against God's grace.
^ E/isiUs iSi, 1S2, i8j, among Aug.:.'.in's Letters. ^ Epistle i86, written conjointly with Alypius.
xl INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
He is not merely following report in so speaking of him: no doubt report did for a long time represent this of him, but he gave the less heed to it because report is accustomed to lie. But a book of his ' at last came into his hands, which left no room for doubt, since in it he asserted repeatedly that God's grace consisted of the gift to man of the capacity to will and act, and thus reduced it to what is common to pagans and Christians, to the ungodly and godly, to the faithful and infidels. He then gives a brief account of the measures that had been taken against Pelagius. and passes on to a treatment of the main matters involved in the controversy, — all of which gather around the one magic word of " the grace of God." He argues first that we are all lost, — in one mass and concretion of perdition, — and that God's grace alone makes us to differ. It is therefore folly to talk of deserving the beginnings of grace. Nor can a faithful man say that he merits justification by his faith, although it is given to faith; for at once he hears the words, " What hast thou that thou didst not receive?" and learns that even the deserving faith is the gift of God. But if, peering into God's inscrutable judgments, we go farther, and ask why, from the mass of Adam, all of which undoubtedly has fallen from one into condemnation, this vessel is made for honor, that for dishonor, — we can only say that we do not know more than the fact; and God's reasons are hidden, but His acts are just. Certain it is that Paul teaches that all die in Adam; and that God freely chooses, by a sovereign election, some out of that sinful mass, to eternal life; and that He knew from the beginning to whom He would give this grace, and so the number of the saints has always been fixed, to whom he gives in due time the Holy Ghost. Others, no doubt, are called; but no others are elect, or " called according to his purpose." On no other body of doctrines, can it be possibly explained that some infants die unbaptized, and are lost. Is God unjust to punish innocent children with eternal pains? And are they not innocent if they are not partakers of Adam's sin? And can they be saved from that, save by the undeserved, and that is the gratuitous, grace of God? The account of the Proceedings at the Palestinian synod is then taken up, and Pelagius' position in his latest writings is quoted and examined. "But why say more?" he adds..."Ought they not, since they call themselves Christians, to be more careful than the Jews that they do not stumble at the stone of offence, while they subtly defend nature and free will just like philosophers of this world who vehemently strive to be thought, or to think themselves, to attain for themselves a happy life by the force of their own will? Let them take care, then, that they do not make the cross of Christ of none effect by the wisdom of word (i Cor. i. 17), and thus stumble at the rock of offence. For human nature, even if it had remained in that integrity in which it was created, could by no means have served its own Creator without His aid. Since then, without God's grace it could not keep the safety it had received, how can it without God's grace repair what it has lost?" With this pro- found view of the Divine immanence, and of the necessity of His moving grace in all the acts of all his creatures, as over against the heathen-deistic view of Pelagius, Augustin touched in reality the deepest point in the whole controversy, and illustrated the essential harmony of all truth.'
The sharpest period of the whole conflict was now drawing on.^ Innocent's death brought Zosimus to the chair of the Roman See, and the efforts which he made to re-instate Pelagius and Ccfilestius now began (September, 417). How little the Africans were likely to yield to his remarkable demands, may be seen from a sermon -♦ which Augustin preached on the 23d of Sep- tember, while Zosimus' letter (written on tlic 21st of September) was on its way to Africa. The preacher took his text from John vi. 54-66. " We hear here," he said, " the true Master, the ' The book given him by Timasius and James, to which On Nature and Grace is a reply.
2 Compare also Innocent's letter {^Epistle iSi) to the Carthaginian Council, chap. 4, which also Neandcr, History of the Christian Church, E. T., ii. 646, quotes in this connection, as showing that Innocent " perceived that this dispute was connected with a different way of regarding the relation of God's providence to creation." As if Augustin did not see this too!
i The book addressed to Dardanus, in which the Pelagians are confuted, but not named, belongs about at this time. Compare Retractations, ii. 49.
* Sermon 131, preached at Carthage.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xli Di\ ine Redeemer, the human Saviour, commending to us our ransom, His blood. He calls His body food, and His blood drink; and, in commending such food and drink. He says, ' Unless you eat My flesh, and drink My blood, ye shall have no life in you.' What, then, is this eating and drinking, but to live? Eat life, drink life; you shall have life, and nfe is whole. This will come, — that is, the body and blood of Christ will be life to every one, — if what is taken visibly in the sacrament is in real truth spiritually eaten and spiritually drunk. But that He might teach us that even to believe in Him is of gift, not of merit, He said, ' No one comes to Me, except the Father who sent Me draw him.' Dniio him, not lead him. This violence is done to the heart, not the flesh. Why do you marvel? Believe, and you come; love, and you are drawn. Think not that this is harsh and injurious violence; it is soft, it is sweet; it is sweetness itself that draws you. Is not the sheep drawn when the succulent herbage is shown to him? And I think that there is no compulsion of the body, but an assembling of the desire. So, too, do you come to Christ; wish not to plan a long journey, — when you believe, then you come. For to Him who is everywhere, one comes by loving, not by taking a voyage. No doubt, if you come not, it is your work; but if you come, it is God's work. And even after you have come, and are walking in the right way, become not proud, lest you perish from it: ' happy are those that confide in Him,' not in theinselves, but in Him. We are saved by grace, not of ourselves: it is the gift of God. Why do I continually say this to you? It is because there are men wlio are ungrateful to grace, and attribute much to unaided and wounded nature. It is true that man received great powers of free will at his creation; but he lost them by sinning. He has fallen into death; he has been made weak; he has been left half dead in the way, by robbers; the good Samaritan has lifted him up upon his ass, and borne him to the inn. Why should we boast? But I am told that it is enough that sins are remitted in baptism. But does the removal of sin take away weak- ness too? What! will you not see that after pouring the oil and the wine into the wounds of the man left half dead by the robbers, he must still go to the inn where his weakness may be healed? Nay, so long as we are in this life we bear a fragile body; it is only after we are redeemed from corruption that we shall find no sin, and receive the crown of righteousness. Grace, that was hidden in the Old Testament, is now manifest to the whole world. Even though the Jew may be ignorant of it, why should Christians be enemies of grace? why presumptuous of themselves? why ungrateful to grace? For, why did Christ come? Was not nature already here, — that very nature by the praise of which you are beguiled? Was not the law here? But the apostle says, ' If righteousness is of the law, then is Christ dead in vain.' What the apostle says of the law, that we say to these men about nature: if righteousness is by nature, then Christ is dead in vain. What then was said of the Jews, this we see repeated in these men. They have a zeal for God: I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish their own, they are not subject to the righteousness of God. My brethren, share my compassion. Where you find such men, wish no concealment; let there be no perverse pity in you: where you find them, wish no concealment at all. Contradict and refute, resist, or persuade them to us. For already two councils have, in this cause, sent letters to the Apostolic See, whence also rescripts have come back. The cause is ended: would that the error might some day end! Therefore we admonish so that they may take notice, we teach so that they may be instructed, we pray so that their way be changed." Here is certainly tenderness to the persons of the teachers of error; readiness to forgive, and readiness to go all proper lengths in recovering them to the truth. But here is also absolute firm- ness as to the truth itself, and a manifesto as to policy. Certainly, on the lines of the policy here indicated, the Africans fought out the coming campaign. They met in council at the end of this year, or early in the next (418); and formally replied to Zosimus, that the cause had been tried, and was finished, and that the sentence that had been already pronounced against Pelagius and Coelestius should remain in force until they should unequivocally acknowledge that " we are aided by the grace of God through Christ, not only to know, but to do, what is right, and that xlii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
in each single act; so that without grace we are unable to have, think, speak, or do anything! belonging to piety." As we may see Augustin's hand in this, so, doubtless, we may recognize itj in that remarkable piece of engineering which crushed Zosimus' plans within the next few months. There is, indeed, no direct proof that it was due to Augustin, or to the Africans under his leading, or to the Africans at all, that the State interfered in the matter; it is even in doubt whether I the action of the Empire was put forth as a rescript, or as a self-moved decree: but surely it is difficult to believe that such a coup de theatre could have been prepared for Zosimus by chance jj and as it is well known, both that Augustin believed in the righteousness of civil penalty fori heresy, and invoked it on other occasions, and defended and used it on this, and that he had [ influential friends at court with whom he was in correspondence, it seems, on internal grounds, \ altogether probable that he was the Deiis ex machind who let loose the thunders of ecclesiasticalj and civil enactment simultaneously on the poor Pope's devoted head.
The "great African Council" met at Carthage, on the ist of May, 418; and, after its decrees] were issued, Augustin remained at Carthage, and watched the effect of the combination of which he was probably one of the moving causes. He had now an opportunity to betake himself oncej more to his pen. While still at Carthage, at short notice, and in the midst of much distraction, he wrote a large work, in two books which have come down to us under the separate titles of On the Grace of Christ, and On Original Sin, at the instance of another of those ascetic families which formed so marked a feature in those troubled times. Pinianus and Melania, the daughter of Albina, were husband and wife, who, leaving Rome amid the wars with Alaric, had lived in continence in Africa for some time, but now in Palestine had separated, he to become head of a| monastery, and she an inmate of a convent. While in Africa, they had lived at Sagaste under the tutelage of Alypius, and in the enjoyment of the friendship and instruction of Augustin. After retiring to Bethlehem, like the other holy ascetics whom he had known in Africa, they kept up their relations with him. Like the others, also, they became acquainted with Pelagius in Palestine, and were well-nigh deceived by him. They wrote to Augustin that they had begged Pelagius to condemn in writing all that had been alleged against him, and that he had replied in the presence of them all, that " he anathematized the man who either thinks or says that the grace of God whereby Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners is not necessary, not only for every hour and for every moment, but also for every act of our lives," and asserted that " those who endeavor to disannul it are worthy of everlasting punishment." ' Moreover, they wrote that Pelagius had read to them, out of his book that he had sent to Rome,^ his assertion " that infants ought to be baptized with the same formula of sacramental words as adults." 3 They wrote that they were delighted to hear these words from Pelagius, as they seemed exactly what they had been desirous of hearing; and yet they preferred consulting Augustin about them, before they were fully committed regarding them.-* It was in answer to this appeal, that the present work was written; the two books of which take up the two points in Pelagius' asseveration, — the theme of the first being " the assistance of the Divine grace towards our justification, by which God co-oper- ates in all things for good to those who love Him, and whom He first loved, giving to them that He may receive from them," — while the subject of the second is *' the sin which by one man has entered the world along with death, and so has passed upon all men." s The first book, On the Grace of Christ, begins by quoting and examining Pelagius' anathema of all those who deny that grace is necessary for every action (2 sq.)- Augustin confesses that this would deceive all who were not fortified by knowledge of Pelagius' writings; but asserts that in the light of them it is clear that he means that grace is always necessary, because we need continually to remember the forgiveness of our sins, the example of Christ, the teaching of the law, and the like. Then he enters (4 sq.) upon an examination of Pelagius' scheme of human • On the Grace of Christ, 2.
* The so-called Confession 0/ Faith sent to Innocent after the Synod of Diospolis, but which arrived after Innocent's death. 3 On Original Sin, i. 4 Do., 5. S On the Grace of Christ, 55.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xllil faculties, and quotes at length his account of them given in his book, In Defence of Free Will, wherein he distinguishes between the possihilitas {fosse'), voluntas {velle), and acdo {esse), and declares that the first only is from God and receives aid from God, while the others are entirely ours, and in our own power. Augustin opposes to this the passage in Phil. ii. 12, 13 (6), and then criticises (7 sq.) Pelagius' ambiguous acknowledgment that God is to be praised for man's good works, "because the capacity for any action on man's part is from God," by which he reduces all grace to the primeval endowment of nature with "capacity" {possilnlitas, posse), and the help afforded it by the law and teaching. Augustin points out the difference between law and grace, and the purpose of the former as a pedagogue to the latter (9 sq.), and then refutes Pelagius' further definition of grace as consisting in the promise of future glory and the revelation of wisdom, by an appeal to Paul's thorn in the flesh, and his experience under its discipline (11 sq.). Pelagius' illustrations from our senses, of his theory of natural faculty, are then sharply tested {id); and the criticism on the whole doctrine is then made and pressed (17 sc[.), that it makes God equally sharer in our blame for evil acts as in our praise for good ones, since if God does help, and His help is only His gift to us of ability to act in either part, then He has equally helped to the evil deeds as to the good. The assertion that this " capacity of either part " is the fecund root of both good and evil is then criticised (19 sq.), and opposed to Matt. vii. 18, with the result of establishing that we must seek two roots in our dispositions for so diverse results, — covetousness for evil, and love for good, — not a single root for both in nature. Man's " capacity," it is argued, is the root of nothing; but it is capable of both good and evil according to the moving cause, which, in the case of evil, is man-originated, while, in the case of good, it is from God (21). Next, Pelagius' assertion that grace is given according to our merits (23 sq.) is taken up and examined. It is shown, that, despite his anathema, Pelagius holds to this doctrine, and in so extreme a form as explicitly to declare that man comes and cleaves to God by his freedom of will alone, and without God's aid. He shows that the Scriptures teach just the opposite (24-26); and then points out how Pelagius has confounded the functions of knowledge and love (27 sq.), and how he forgets that we cannot have merits until we love God, while John certainly asserts that God loved us first (i John iv. 10). The representation that what grace does is to render obedience easio' (28-30), and the twin view that prayer is only relatively necessary, are next criticised (32). That Pelagius never acknowledges real grace, is then demonstrated by a detailed examination of all that he had written on the subject (31-45). The book closes (46-80) with a full refutation of Pelagius' appeal to Ambrose, as if he supported him; and exhibition of Ambrose's contrary testimony as to grace and its necessity.
The object of the second book — On Original Sin — is to show, that, in spite of Pelagius' admissions as to the baptism of infants, he yet denies that they inherit original sin and contends that they are born free from corruption. The book opens by pointing out that there is no ques- tion as to Coelestius' teaching in this matter (2-8), as he at Carthage refused to condemn those who say that Adam's sin injured no one but himself, and that infants are born in the same state that Adam was in before the fall, and openly asserted at Rome that there is no sin ex traduce. As for Pelagius, he is simply more cautious and mendacious than Coelestius: he deceived the Council at Diospolis, but failed to deceive the Romans (5-13), and, as a matter of fact (14-18), teaches exactly what Coelestius does. In support of this assertion, Pelagius' Defence of Free Will is quoted, wherein he asserts that we are born neither good nor bad, " but with a capacity for either," and " as without virtue, so without vice; and previous to the action of our own proper will, that that alone is in man which God has formed" (14). Augustin also quotes Pelagius' explanation of his anathema against those who say Adam's sin injured only himself, as meaning that he has injured man by setting a bad " example," and his even more sinuous explanation of his anathema against those who assert that infants are born in the same condition that Adam was in before he fell, as meaning that they are infants and he was a man I (16-18). With this intro- duction to them, Augustin next treats of Pelagius' subterfuges (19-25), and then animadverts on xliv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
the importance of the issue (26-37), pointing out that Pelagianism is not a mere error, but a deadly heresy, and strikes at the very centre of Christianity. A counter argument of the Pelagians is then answered (3S-45), " Does not the doctrine of original sin make marriage an evil thing? " No, says Augustin, marriage is ordained by God, and is good; but it is a diseased good, and hence what is born of it is a good nature made by God, but this good nature in a diseased con- dition, — the result of the Devil's work. Hence, if it be asked why God's gift produces any thing for the Devil to take possession of, it is to be answered that God gives his gifts liberally (Matt. V. 45), and makes men; but the Devil makes these men sinners (46). Finally, as Ambrose hatl been appealed to in the former book, so at the end of this it is shown that he openly proclaimed the doctrine of original sin, and here too, before Pelagius, condemned Pelagius (47 sq-)- ^ What Augustin means by writing to Pinianus and his family that he was more oppressed by work at Carthage than any\vhere else, may perhaps be illustrated from his diligence in preaching while in that capital. He seems to have been afmost constantly in the pulpit, during this period " of the sharpest conflict with them," ' preaching against the Pelagians. There is one series of his sermons, of the exact dates of which we can be pretty sure, which may be adverted to here, — Sermons 151 and 152, preached early in October, 418; Sermon 155 on Oct. 14, 156 on Oct. 17, and 26 on Oct. 18; thus following one another almost with the regularity of the days. The first of these was based on Rom. vii. 15-25, which he declares to contain dangerous words if not properly understood; for men are prone to sin, and when they hear the apostle so speaking they do evil, and think they are like him. They are meant to teach us, however, that the life of the just in this body is a war, not yet a triumph: the triumph wdll come only when death is swallowed up in victory. It would, no doubt, be better not to have an enemy than even to con- quer. It would be better not to have evil desires: but we have them; therefore, let us not go after them. If they rebel against us, let us rebel against them; if they fight, let us fight; if they