man for exciting him; unless, perhaps (as Scripture informs us that even Abimelech himself was healed), he would tell us that virile concupiscence was restored to him. If, however, it were true that he had lost this, what necessity was there that he should be warned by God to hold no connection with Abraham's wife? The truth is, Abimelech is said to have been healed, because his household was cured of the affliction which smote it.
CHAP. 31 [XVI.] WHY GOD PROCEEDS TO CRE- ATE HUMAN BEINGS, WHO HE KNOWS WILL BE BORN IN SIN.
Let US now look at those three clauses of his, than which three, he says, nothing more profane could possibly be uttered: " Either God did not make man, or else He made him for the devil; or, at any -rate, the devil framed God's image, that is, man." Now, the ilrst and the last of these sentences, even he himself must allow, if he be not reckless and perverse, were never uttered by us. The dispute is confined to that which he puts second between the other two. In respect of this, he is so far mistaken as to suppose that we had said that God made man for the devil; as if, in the case of human beings whom God creates of human parents, His care and purpose and provision were, that by means of His workmanship the devil should have as slaves those whom he is unable to make for himself. God forbid that any sort of pious belief, however childish, should ever entertain such a sentiment as this! Of His own goodness God has made man — the first without sin, all others under sin — for the purposes of His own profound thoughts. For just as He knew full well what to do with reference to the malice of the devil himself, and what He does is just and good, however unjust and evil he is, about whom He takes His measures; and just as He was not unwilling to create him because He foresaw that he would be evil; so in regard to the entire human race, though not a man of it is born without the taint of sin. He who is supremely good Himself is always working out good, making some men, as it were, " vessels of mercy," whom grace distinguishes from those who are "vessels of wrath; " whilst He makes others, as it were, " vessels of wrath," that He may make known the riches of His glory towards the vessels of mercy.' Let, then, this objector go and contest the point against the apostle, whose words I use; nay, against the very Potter, whom the apostle forbids us answering again, in the well-known words: " Who art thou, O man, that rcpliest against God! Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, \\'hy hast * Rom. Ix. 23.
[Book II.
thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? " ' Well now, will this man contend that the vessels of wrath are not under the dominion of the devil? or else, because they are under this dominion, are they made by another creator than He who makes the vessels of mercy? Or does He make them of other material, and not out of the self-same lump? Here, then, he may object, and say: " Therefore God makes these vessels for the devil." As if God knew not how to make such a use of even these for the furtherance of His own good and righteous works, as He makes of the very devil himself.
CHAP. 32 [x\ai.] — GOD NOT THE AUTHOR OF THE EVIL IN THOSE WHOM HE CREATES.
Then, does God feed the children of perdition, the goats on His left hand,^ for the devil, and nourish and clothe them for the devil, " because He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust "? ^ He creates, then, the evil, just in the same way as He feeds and nourishes the evil; because what He bestows on them by creating them appertains to the goodness of nature; and the growth which He gives them by food and nourishment, He bestows on them, of course, as a kindly help, not to their evil character, but to that same good nature which He in His goodness created. For in as far as they are human beings — this is a good of that nature whose author and maker is God; but in as far as they are born with sin and so destined to perdition unless they are born again, they belong to the seed which was cursed from the beginning,"* by the fault of the primitive disobedience. This fault, however, is turned to good account by the Maker of even the vessels of wrath, that He may make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy: s and that no one may attribute to any merits of his own, pertaining as he does to the self-same mass, his deliverance through grace; but " he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." ^ CHAP. 33 [XVIII.] — THOUGH GOD MAKES US, WE PERISH UNLESS HE RE-MAKES US IN CHRIST.
From this most true and firmly-established principle of the apostolic and catholic faith the writer before us departs in company with the Pelagians. He will not have it that men are born under the dominion of the devil, lest infants be carried to Christ to be delivered from the power of darkness, and to be trans- ' Rom. ix. 20, 21. * Wisd. xii. II.
2 Matt. XXV. 33. 5 Rom ix. 33.
lated into His kingdom. 7 Thus he becomes the accuser of the Church which is spread over the world; into this Church everj^vhere infants, when to be baptized, are first exorcised, for no other reason than that the prince of this world may be cast out ** of them. For by him must they be necessarily possessed, as vessels of wrath, since they are born of Adam, unless they be born again in Christ, and transferred through grace as vessels of mercy into His kingdom. In his attack, however, upon this most firmlyestablished truth, he would avoid the appearance of an assault upon the entire Church of Christ. Accordingly, he limits his appeal to me alone, and in the tone of reproof and admonition he says: " But God made even you, though it must be confessed that a serious error has infected you." Well now, I thankfully acknowledge that God did make even me; and still I must have perished with the vessels of wrath, if He had only made me of Adam, and had not re-made me in Christ. Possessed, however, as this man is with the heresy of Pelagius, he does not believe this: if, indeed, he persists in so great an error to the very end, then not he, but catholics, will be able to see the character and extent of the error which has not simply infected, but absolutely destroyed 9 him.
CHAP. 34 [XIX.] — THE PELAGUNS ARGUE THAT COHABITATION RIGHTLY USED IS A GOOD, AND WHAT IS BORN FROM IT IS GOOD.
I request your attention now to the following words. He says, "That children, however, who are conceived in wedlock are by nature good, we may learn from the apostle's words, when he speaks of men who, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust, men with men working together that which is disgraceful. '° Here," says he, " the apostle shows the use of the woman to be both natural, and, in its way, laudable; the abuse consisting in the exercise of one's own will in opposition to the decent use of the institution. Deservedly then," says he, " in those who make a right use thereof, concupiscence is commended in its kind and mode; whilst the excess of it, in which abandoned persons indulge, is punished. Indeed, at the very time when God punished the abuse in Sodom with His judgment of fire, He invigorated the generative powers of Abraham and Sarah, which had become impotent through old age." If, therefore," he goes on to say, "you think that fault must be found with the strength of the generative organs, because the Sodomites were steeped in sin thereby, you will have also to censure such created things as bread and Chap. 36.]
ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE.'
wine, since Holy Scripture informs us that they sinned also in the abuse of these gifts. For the Lord, by the mouth of His propliet Ezekicl, says: ' These, moreover, were the sins of thy sister Sodom; in their pride, she and her children overflowed in fulness of bread and abundance of wine; and they helpetl not the hand of the poor and needy.' ' Choose, therefore," says he, " which alternative you would rather have: either impute to the work of God the sexual connection of human bodies, or account such created things as bread and wine to be equally evil. But if you should prefer this latter conclusion, \ou pro\'e yourself to be a Manichean. The truth, however, is this r he who observes moderation in natural concupiscence uses a good thing well; but he who does not observe moderation, abuses a good thing. What means your statement, then," ^ he asks, " when you say that * the good of marriage is no more impeachable on account of the original sin which is derived herefrom, than the evil of adultery and fornication can be excused because of the natural good which is born of them '? In these words," says he, "you conceded what you had denied, and what you had conceded you nullified; and you aim at nothing so much as to be unintelligible. Show me any bodily marriage without sexual connection. Else impose some one name on this operation, and designate the conjugal union as either a good or an evil. You answer, no doubt, that you have already defined marriages tQ be good. Well then, if marriage is good, — if the human being is the good fruit of marriage; if this fruit, being God's work, cannot be evil, born as it is by good agency out of good, — where is the original evil which has been set aside by so many prior admissions?"
CHAP. 35 [XX.] — HE ANSWERS THE ARGUMENTS OF JULIAXUS. WHAT IS THE NATURAL USE OF THE WO^UN? WHAT IS THE UNNATURAL USE?
My answer to this challenge is, that not only the children of wedlock, but also those of adultery, are a good work in so far as they are the work of God, by whom they are created: but as concerns original sin, they are all born under condemnation of the first Adam; not only those who are born in adultery, but likewise such as are born in wedlock, unless they be regenerated in the second Adam, which is Christ. As to what the apostle says of the wicked, that " leaving the natural use of the woman, the men burned in their lust one toward another: men with men working that which is unseemly; " ^ he did not speak of the conjugal use, but the " natural use," wishing us to understand how it ' Ezek. xvi. 49.
2 See first chapter of the first book of this treatise.
3 Rom. i. 27.
comes to pass that by means of the members created for the purpose the two sexes can combine for generation. Thus it follows, that even when a man unites with a harlot to use these members, the use is a natural one. It is not, however, commendable, but rather culpable. But as regards any part of the body which is not meant for generative purposes, should a man use even his own wife in it, it is against nature and flagitious. Indeed, the same apostle had previously ■* said concerning women: " Even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature; " and then concerning men he added, that they worked that which is unseemly by leaving the natural use of the woman. Therefore, by the phrase in question, " the natural use," it is not meant to praise conjugal connection; but thereby are denoted those flagitious deeds which are more unclean and criminal than even men's use of women, which, even if unlawful, is nevertheless natural.
CHAP. 36 [XXI.] GOD MADE NATURE GOOD: THE SAVIOUR RESTORES IT WHEN CORRUFIED.
Now we do not reprehend bread and wine because some men are luxurious and drunkards, any more than we disapprove of gold because of the greedy and avaricious. Wherefore on the same principle we do not censure the honourable connection between husband and wife, because of the shame-causing lust of bodies. For the former would have been quite possible before any antecedent commission of sin, and by it the united pair would not have been made to blush; whereas the latter arose after the perpetration of sin, and they were obliged to hide it, from very shame. 5 Accordingly, in all united pairs ever' since, however well and lawfully they have used this evil, there has been a permanent necessity of avoiding the sight of man in any work of this kind, and thus acknowledging what caused in^ evitable shame, though a good thing woukl cer tainly cause no man to be ashamed. In this way we have two distinct facts insensibly introduced to our notice: the good of that laudable union of the sexes for the purpose of generating children; and the evil of that shameful lust, in consequence of which the offspring must be regenerated in order to escape condemnation. The man, therefore, who, though with the lust which causes shame, joins in lawful cohabitation, turns an evil to good account; whereas he who joins in an unlawful cohabitation uses an evil badly; for that is more correctly called evil than good, at which both bad and good alike blush.
We tlo better to believe. him who has said, " I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing," ^ rather than him who calls that 4 Rom. ix. 26.
5 Gen. iii. 7.
6 Rom. vii. 18.
^gS [Book II.
good, by which he is so conformed that he admits it to be evil; but if he feels no shame, he adds the worse evil of impudence. Rightly then did we declare that " the good of marriage is no more impeachable because of the original sin which is derived therefrom, than the evil of adultery and fornication can be excused, because of the natural good which is born of them: " since the human nature which is born, whether of wedlock or of adultery, is the work of God. Now if this nature were an evil, it ought not to have been born; if it had not evil, it would not have to be regenerated; and (that I may combine the two cases in one and the same predicate) if human nature were an e\il thing, it would not have to be saved; if it had not in it any evil, it would not have to be saved. He, therefore, who contends that nature is not good, says that the Maker of the creature is not good; whilst he who will have it, that nature has no evil in it, deprives it in its corrupted condition of a merciful Saviour. From this, then, it follows, that in the birth of human beings neither fornication is to be excused on account of the good which is formed out of it by^ the good Creator, nor is marriage to be impeached by reason of the evil which has to be healed in it by the merciful Saviour.
CHAP. 37 [XXII.] IF THERE IS NO MARRIAGE WITH- OUT COH.\BITATION, SO THERE IS NO COHABITA- TION WITHOUT SHAME.
"Show me," he says, "any bodily marriage without sexual connection." I do not show him any bodily marriage without sexual connection; but then, neitlier does he show me any case of sexual connection which is without shame. In paradise, however, if sin had not preceded, there would not have been, indeed, generation without union of the sexes, but this union would certainly have been without shame; for in the sexual union there would have been a quiet acquiescence of the members, not a lust of the flesh productive of shame. Matrimony, therefore, is a good, in which the human being is born after orderly conception; the fruit, too, of matrimony is good, as being the very human being which is thus born; sin, however, is an evil with which every man is born. Now it was God who made and still makes man; but " by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all sinned." ' CHAP. 38 [XXIII.] JOVINIAN USED FORMERLY TO CALL CATHOLICS MANICHEANS; THE ARIANS ALSO USED TO CALL CATHOLICS SABELLIANS.
" By your new mode of controversy," says he, * Rom. V. 12.
" you both profess to be a catholic and patronize Manichgeus, inasmuch as you designate matrimony both as a great good and a great evil."
Now he is utterly ignorant of what he says, or pretends to be ignorant. Or else he does not understand what we say, or does not wish it to be understood. But if he does not understand, he is impeded by the pre-occupation of error; or if he does not wish our meaning to be understood, then obstinacy is the fault with which he defends his error. Jovinian, too, who endeavoured a few years ago to found a new heresy, used to declare that the catholics patronized the Manicheans, because in opposition to him they preferred holy virginity to marriage. But this man is sure to reply, that he does not agree with Jovinian in his indifference about marriage and virginity. I do not myself say that this is their opinion; still these new heretics must allow, by the fact of Jovinian's playing off the Manicheans upon the catholics, that the expedient is not a novel one. We then declare that marriage is a good, not an evil. But just as the Arians charge us with being Sabellians, although we do not say that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one and the same, as the Sabellians hold; but affirm that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost have one and the same nature, as the catholics believe: so do the Pelagians cast the Manicheans in our teeth, although we do not declare marriage to be an evil, as the Manicheans pretend, but affirm that evil accrued to the first man and woman, that is to say, to the first married pair, and from them passed on to all men, as the catholics hold. As, however, the Arians, while avoiding the Sabellians, fall into worse company, because they have had the audacity to divide not the Persons of the Trinity, but the natures; so the Pelagians, in their efforts to escape from the pestilent error of the Manicheans, by taking the opposite extreme, are convicted of entertaining worse sentiments than the Manicheans themselves touching the fruit of matrimony, inasmuch as they believe that infants stand in no need of Christ as their Physician.
CHAP. 39 [XXIV.] MAN BORN OF WHATEVER PAR- ENTAGE IS SINFUL AND CAPABLE OF REDEMPTION.
He then says: "You conclude that a human being, if born of fornication, is not guilty; and if born in wedlock, is not innocent. Your assertion, therefore, amounts to this, that natural good may possibly subsist from adulterous connections, while original sin is actually derived from marriage." Well now, he here attempts, but in vain before an intelligent reader, to give a wrong turn to words which are correct enough. Far be it from us to say, that a human being, if born in fornication, is not guilty. But we do Chap. 42.]
affirm, that a human being, whether he be born in wedlock oi in fornication, is in some respect good, because of the Author of nature, God; we add, however, that he derives some e\'il by reason of original sin. Our statement, therefore, " that natural good can subsist even from adulterous parentage, but that original sin is derived even from marriage," does not amount to what | he endeavours to make of it, that one born in adultery is not guilty, nor innocent when born in wedlock; but that one who is generated in either condition is guilty, because of original sin; and that the offspring of either state may be freed by regeneration, because of the good of nature.
CHAP. 40 [XXV.] — AUGUSTIN DECLINES THE DI- LEMMA OFFERED HIM.
" One of these propositions," says he, " is true, the other false." My reply is as brief as the allegation: Both are really true, neither is false. " It is true," he goes on to say, " that the sin of adultery cannot be excused by reason of the man who is born of it; inasmuch as the sin which adulterers commit, pertains to corruption of the will; but the offspring which they produce tends to the praise of fecundity. If one were to sow wheat which had been stolen, the crop which springs up is none the worse. Of course," says he, " I blame the thief, but I praise the corn. So I pronounce him innocent who is born of the generous fruitfulness of the seed; even as the apostle puts it: ' God giveth it a body, as it pleases Him; and to every seed its own body; ' ■ but, at the same time, I condemn the flagitious man who has committed his adulterous sin in his perverse use of the divine appointment."
CHAP. 41 [xXVL] THE PELAGIANS ARGUE THAT ORIGINAL SIN CANNOT COME THROUGH MARRIAGE IF MARRIAGE IS GOOD.
After this he.proceeds with the following words: "Certainly if evil is contracted from marriage, it may be blamed, nay, cannot be excused; and you place under the devil's power its work and fruit, because everything which is the cause of evil is itself without good. The human being, however, who is born of wedlock owes his origin not to the reproaches of wedlock, but to its seminal elements: the cause of these, however, lies in the condition of bodies; and whosoever makes a bad use of these bodies, deals a blow at the good desert thereof, not at their nature. It is therefore clear," argues he, " that the good is not the cause of the evil. If, therefore," he continues, " original evil is derived even from marriage, the cause of the evil is the compact of marriage; and that must needs be evil by which and from which the evil fruit has made its appearance; even as the Lord says in the Gospel: ' A tree is known by its fruits.' ^ How then," he asks, "do you think yourself worthy of attention, when you say that marriage is good, and yet declare that nothing but evil proceeds from it? It is evident, then, that marriages are guilty, since original sin is deduced from them; and they are indefensible, too, unless their fruit be proved innocent. But they are defended, and pronounced good; therefore their fruit is proved to be innocent."
CHAP. 42. THE PELAGIANS TRY TO GET RID OF ORIGINAL SIN BY THEIR PRAISE OF GOD'S WORKS; MARRIAGE, IN ITS NATURE AND BY ITS INSTITUTION, IS NOT THE CAUSE OF SIN.
I have an answer ready for all this; but before I give it, I wish the reader carefully to notice, that the result of the opinions of these persons is, that no Saviour is necessary for infants, whom they deem to be entirely without any sins to be saved from. This vast pen-ersion of the truth, so hostile to God's great grace, which is given through our Lord Jesus Christ, who "came to seek and to save what was lost," ^ tries to insinuate its way into the hearts of the unintelligent by eulogizing the works of God; that is, by its eulogy of human nature, of human seed, of marriage, of sexual intercourse, of the fruits of matrimony — which are all of them good things. I will not say that he adds the praise of lust; because he too is ashamed even to name it, so that it is something else, and not //, which he seems to praise. By this method of his, not distinguishing between the evils which have accrued to nature and the goodness of nature's very self, he does not, indeed, show it to be sound (because that is untrue), but he does not permit its diseased condition to be healed. And, therefore, that first proposition of ours, to the effect that the good thing, even the human being, which is born of adultery, does not excuse the sin of adulterous connection, he allows to be true; and this point, which occasions no question to arise between us, he even defends and strengthens (as he well may) by his similitude of the thief who sows the seed which he stole, and out of which there arises a really good harvest. Our other proposition, however, that " the good of marriage cannot be blamed for the original sin which is derived from it," he will not admit to be true; if, indeed, he assented to it, he would not be a Pelagian heretic, but a catholic Christian. " Certainly," says he, " if evil arises from marriage, it may be blamed, nay, cannot be excused; and you place its work and fruit under the devil's power, because everything which is ' 1 Cor. XV. 38.
2 Malt. vii. i6.
3 Luke xix. lo.
lOO [Book II.
the cause of evil is itself without good." And in addition to this, he contrived other arguments to show that good could not possibly be the cause of evil; and from this he drew the inference, that marriage, which is a good, is not the cause of evil; and that consequently from it no man could be born in a sinful state, and having need of a Saviour: just as if we said that marriage is the cause of sin, though it is true that the human being which is born in wedlock is not born without sin. Marriage was instituted not for the purpose of sinning, but of producing children. Accordingly the Lord's blessing on the married state ran thus: " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." ' The sin, however, which is derived to children from marriage does not belong to marriage, but to the evil which accrues to the human agents, from whose union marriage comes into being. The truth is, both the evil of shameful lust can exist without marriage, and marriage might have been without it. It appertains, however, to the condition of the body (not of that life, but) of this death, that marriage cannot exist without it, though it may exist without marriage. Of course, that lust of the flesh which causes shame has existence out of the married state, whenever it urges men to the commission of adultery, chambering and uncleanness, so utterly hostile to the purity of marriage; or again, when it does not commit any of these things, because the human agent gives no permission or assent to their commission, but still rises and is set in motion and creates disturbance, and (especially in dreams) effects the likeness of its own veritable work, and reaches the end of its own emotion. Well, now, this is an evil which is not even in the married state actually an evil of marriage; but it has this apparatus all ready in the body of this death, even against its own will, which is indispensable no doubt for the accomplishment of that which it does will. The evil in question, therefore, does not accrue to marriage from its own institution, which was blessed; but entirely from the circumstance that sin entered into the world by one man, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all sinned.^