Anti-Pelagian writings

But since, in these five particulars which I have set forth, in which they seek lurking-places, and from which they weave misrepresentations, they are forsaken and convicted by the divine writings, they have thought to deter those whom they could by the hateful name of Manicheans, lest in opposition to their most perverse teachings their ears should be conformed to the truth; because doubtless the Manicheans blasphemously condemn the three former of those five dogmas, saying that neither the human creature, nor marriage, nor the law was ordained by the supreme and true God. But they do not receive what the truth says, that sin took its origin from free will, and that all evil, whether of angel or man, comes from it; because they prefer to believe, in their turning aside from God, that the nature of evil was always evil, and co-eternal with God. They, moreover, attack the holy patriarchs and prophets with as many execrations as they can. This is the way in which the modern heretics think, that by objecting the name of Manicheans, they evade the force of truth. But they do not evade it; because it follows them up, and overturns at once Manicheans and Pelagians. For in that when a man is born there is something good, so far as he is a man, he condemns the Manichean, and praises the Creator; but in so far as he derives original sin, he condemns the Pelagian, and holds a Saviour necessary. For even because that nature is said to be healable, it repels both teachings; because it would not, on the one hand, have need of medicine if it were sound, which is opposed to the Pelagian, nor could it be healed at all if the evil in it were eternal and immutable, which is opposed to the Manichean. Moreover, in that to marriage, which we praise as ordained of God, we do not say that the concupiscence of the flesh is to be attributed, this is both contrary to the Pelagians, who make this concupiscence itself a matter of praise, and contrary to the Manicheans, who attribute it to a foreign and evil nature, when it really is an evil accidental to our nature, not to be separated by the disjunction from God, but to be healed by the mercy of God. Moreover, in that we say that the law, holy and just and good, was given not for the justification of the wicked, but for the conviction of the proud, for the sake of transgressions,—this is, on the one hand, opposed to the Manicheans, in that according to the apostle the law is praised; and on the other opposed to the Pelagians, in that, in accordance with the apostle, no one is justified by the law; and therefore, for the sake of making alive those whom the letter has killed, that is, whom the law, enjoining good, makes guilty by transgressions, the Spirit of grace freely brings aid. Also in that we say that the will is free in evil, but for doing good it must be made free by God's grace, this is opposed to the Pelagians; but in that we say it originated from that which previously was not evil, this is opposed to the Manicheans. Again, that we honour the holy patriarchs and prophets with praises due to them in God, is in opposition to the Manicheans; but that we say that even to them, however righteous and pleasing to God they might have been, the propitiation of the Lord was necessary, this is in opposition to the Pelagians. The catholic faith, therefore, finds them both, as it does also other heretics, in opposition to it, and convicts both by the authority of the divine testimonies and by the light of truth.

The Pelagians, indeed, add to the clouds which envelop their lurking-places the unnecessary question concerning the origin of the soul, for the purpose of erecting a hiding-place by disturbing manifest things by the obscurity of other matters. For they say "that we guard the continuous propagation of souls with the continuous propagation of sin." And where and when they have read this, either in the addresses or in the writings of those who maintain the catholic faith against this, I do not know; because, although I find something written by catholics on the subject, yet the defence of the truth had not yet been undertaken against those men, neither was there any anxiety to answer them. But this I say, that according to the Holy Scriptures original sin is so manifest, and that this is put away in infants by the laver of regeneration is confirmed by such antiquity and authority of the catholic faith, notorious by such a clear concurrent testimony of the Church, that what is argued by the inquiry or affirmation of anybody concerning the origin of the soul, if it is contrary to this, cannot be true. Wherefore, whoever builds up, either concerning the soul or any other obscure matter, any edifice whence he may destroy this, which is true, best founded, and best known, whether he is a son or an enemy of the Church, must either be corrected or avoided. But let this be the end of this Book, that the things which follow may have another beginning.

After the matters which I have considered, and to which I have answered, they repeat the same things as those contained in the letter which I have refuted, but in a different manner. For before, they put them forward as objecting to us things which we think as it were falsely; but afterwards, as explaining what they themselves think, they have presented the same things from the opposite side, adding two certain points which they had not mentioned—that is, "that they say that baptism is necessary for all ages," and "that by Adam death passed upon us, not sins," which things must also themselves be considered in their own place. Hence, because in the former Book which I have just finished I said that they alleged hindrances of five matters in which lurk their dogmas hostile to God's grace and to the catholic faith,—the praise, to wit, of the creature, the praise of marriage, the praise of the law, the praise of free will, the praise of the saints,—I think it is more convenient to make a general discrimination of all that they maintain, the contrary of which they object to us, and to show which of those things pertain to any of those five, that so my answer may be by that very distinction clearer and briefer.

They accomplish the praise of the creature, inasmuch as it pertains to the human race of which the question now is, in these statements: "That God is the Maker of all those that are born, and that the sons of men are God's work; and that all sin descends not from nature, but from the will." With this praise of the creature they connect, "that they say that baptism is necessary for every age, so that," namely, "the creature itself may be adopted among the children of God; not because it derives anything from its parents which must be purified in the laver of regeneration." To this praise they add also, "that they say that Christ the Lord was sprinkled with no stain of sin as far as pertains to His infancy;" because they assert that His flesh was most pure from all contagion of sin, not by His own excellence and singular grace, but by His fellowship with the nature which is shared by all infants. It also belongs to this that they introduce the question "of the origin of the soul," thus endeavouring to make all the souls of infants equal to the soul of Christ, maintaining that they likewise are sprinkled with no stain of sin. On this account, also, they say, "that nothing of evil passed from Adam upon the rest of humanity except death, which," they say, "is not always an evil, since to the martyrs, for instance, it is for the sake of rewards; and it is not the dissolution of the bodies, which in every kind of men shall be raised up, that can make death to be called either good or evil, but the diversity of merits which arises from human liberty." These things they write in this letter concerning the praise of the creature.

They praise marriage truly according to the Scriptures, "because the Lord saith in the gospel, He who made men from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth." Although this is not written in that passage of the gospel, yet it is written in the law. They add, moreover, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."¹ And these we acknowledge to be gospel words.

In the praise of the law they say, "that the old law was, according to the apostle, holy and just and good; that on those who keep its commandments, and live righteously by faith, such as the prophets and patriarchs, and all the saints, life eternal could be conferred."

In the praise of free will they say, "that free will has not perished, since the Lord says by the prophets, If ye be willing and will hear me, ye shall eat the good things of the land: if ye are unwilling, and will not hear, the sword shall devour you.'² And thus, also, it is that grace assists the good purpose of any person, but yet does not infuse a desire of virtue into the reluctant heart, because there is no acceptance of persons with God."

In the praise of the saints they conceal themselves, saying "that baptism perfectly renews men, inasmuch as the apostle is a witness who testifies that, by the washing of water, the Church is made out of the heathen holy and spotless;³ that the Holy Spirit also assisted pious souls in ancient times, even as the prophet says to God, Thy good Spirit shall lead me into the right way;'⁴ that all the prophets, moreover, and apostles or saints, as well of the New as of the Old Testament, to whom God gives witness, were righteous, not in comparison with the wicked, but by the rule of virtue; and that in future time there is a reward as well of good works as of evil. But that no one can then perform the commandment which here he may have contemned, because the apostle said, We must be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things belonging to the body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil.'"⁵

In all these points, whatever they say of the praise of the creature and of marriage, they endeavour to bring us back to this,—that there is no original sin; whatever of the praise of law and of free will, to this, that grace does not assist without merit, and that thus grace is no more grace; whatever of the praise of the saints, to this, that mortal life in the saints appears not to have sin, and that it is not necessary for them to pray God for the remitting of their debts.

Let every one who, with a catholic mind, shudders at these impious and damnable doctrines, in this tripartite division, shun the lurking-places and snares of this fivefold error, and be so careful between one and another as in such wise to decline from the Manicheans as not to incline to the Pelagians; and again, so to separate himself from the Pelagians as not to associate himself with the Manicheans; or, if he should already be taken hold of in one or the other bondage, that he should not so pluck himself out of the hands of either as to rush into those of the other. Because they seem to be contrary to one another; since the Manicheans manifest themselves by vituperating these five points, and the Pelagians conceal themselves by praising them. Wherefore he condemns and shuns both, whoever he may be, who according to the rule of the catholic faith so glorifies the Creator in men, that are born of the good creature of flesh and soul (for this the Manichean will not have), as that he yet confesses that on account of the corruption which has passed over into them by the sin of the first man, even infants need a Saviour (for this the Pelagian will not have). He who so distinguishes the evil of shameful concupiscence from the blessing of marriage, as neither, like the Manicheans, to reproach the source of our birth, nor, like the Pelagians, to praise the source of our disorder. He who so maintains the law to have been given holy and just and good through Moses by a holy and just and good God (which Manicheus, in opposition to the apostle, denies), as to say that it both shows forth sin and yet does not take it away, and commands righteousness which yet it does not give (which, again, in opposition to the apostle, Pelagius denies). He who so asserts free will as to say that the evil of both angel and man began, not from I know not what nature always evil, which is no nature, but from the will itself, which overturns Manichean heresy, and nevertheless that even thus the captive will cannot breathe into a wholesome liberty save by God's grace, which overturns the Pelagian heresy. He who so praises in God the holy men of God, not only after Christ manifested in the flesh and subsequently, but even those of the former times, whom the Manicheans dare to blaspheme, as yet to believe their own confessions concerning themselves, more than the lies of the Pelagians. For the word of the saints is, "If we should say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."⁶

These things being so, what advantage is it to new heretics, enemies of the cross of Christ and opposers of divine grace, that they seem sound from the error of the Manicheans, if they are dying by another pestilence of their own? What advantage is it to them, that in the praise of the creature they say "that the good God is the maker of those that are born, by whom all things were made, and that the children of men are His work," whom the Manicheans say are the work of the prince of darkness; when between them both, or among them both, God's creation, which is in infants, is perishing? For both of them refuse to have it delivered by Christ's flesh and blood,—the one, because they destroy that very flesh and blood, as if He did not take upon Him these at all in man or of man; and the other, because they assert that there is no evil in infants from which they should be delivered by the sacrament of this flesh and blood. Between them lies the human creature in infants, with a good origination, with a corrupted propagation, confessing for its goods a most excellent Creator, seeking for its evils a most merciful Redeemer, having the Manicheans as disparagers of its benefits, having the Pelagians as deniers of its evils, and both as persecutors. And although in infancy there is no power to speak, yet with its silent look and its hidden weakness it addresses the impious vanity of both, saying to the one, "Believe that I am created by Him who creates good things;" and saying to the other, "Suffer me to be healed by Him who created me." The Manicheans say, "There is nothing of this infant save the good soul to be delivered; the rest," which belongs not to the good God, but to the prince of darkness, "is to be rejected." The Pelagians say, "Certainly there is nothing of this infant to be delivered, because we have shown the whole to be safe." Both lie; but now the accuser of the flesh alone is more bearable than the praiser, who is convicted of cruelty against the whole. But neither does the Manichean help the human soul by blaspheming God, the Author of the entire man; nor does the Pelagian permit the divine grace to come to the help of human infancy by denying original sin. Therefore it is by the catholic faith that God has mercy, seeing that by condemning both mischievous doctrines it comes to the help of the infant for salvation. It says to the Manicheans, "Hear the apostle crying, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you?'⁷ and believe that the good God is the Creator of bodies, because the temple of the Holy Ghost cannot be the work of the prince of darkness." It says to the Pelagians, "The infant that you look upon was conceived in iniquity, and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.'⁸ Why, as if in defending it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth.⁹ Allow the wretched creatures to receive remission of sins, through Him who alone neither as small nor great could have any sin."

What advantage, then, is it to them that they say "that all sin descends not from nature, but from the will," and resist by the truth of this judgment the Manicheans, who say that evil nature is the cause of sin; when by being unwilling to admit original sin although itself also descends from the will of the first man, they make infants to depart in guilt from the body? What advantage is it to them "that they confess that baptism is necessary for all ages," while the Manicheans say that it is superfluous for every age, while they say that in infants it is false so far as it pertains to the forgiveness of sins? What advantage is it to them that they maintain "the flesh of Christ" (which the Manicheans contend was either no flesh at all, or a feigned flesh) to have been not only the true flesh, but also "that the soul itself was stained by no spot of sin," when other infants are by them so put on the same level with His infancy, with not unequal purity, as that both that flesh does not appear to keep its own holiness in comparison with these, and these obtain no salvation from that?

In that particular, indeed, wherein they say "that death passed to us by Adam, not sins," they have not the Manicheans as their adversaries: since they, too, deny that original sin from the first man, at first of pure and upright body and spirit, and afterwards depraved by free will, subsequently passed and passes as sin into all with death; but they say that the flesh was evil from the beginning, and was created by an evil spirit and along with an evil spirit; but that a good soul—a portion, to wit, of God—for the deserts of its defilement by food and drink, in which it was before bound up, came into man, and thus by means of copulation was bound in the chain of the flesh. And thus the Manicheans agree with the Pelagians that it was not the guilt of the first man that passed into the human race—neither by the flesh, which they say was never good; nor by the soul, which they assert comes into the flesh of man with the merits of its own defilements with which it was polluted before the flesh. But how do the Pelagians say "that only death passed upon us by Adam's means"? For if we die because he died, but he died because be sinned, they say that the punishment passed without the guilt, and that innocent infants are punished with an unjust penalty by deriving death without the deserts of death. This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death—that is, the penalty of sin—without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was due. Therefore, commending His love to them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer for them an undeserved death. This special prerogative of the Mediator the Pelagians endeavour to make void, so that this should no longer be special in the Lord, if Adam in such wise suffered a death due to him on account of his guilt, as that infants, drawing from him no guilt, should suffer undeserved death. For although very much good is conferred on the good by means of death, whence some have fitly argued even "of the benefit of death;" yet from this what can be declared except the mercy of God, since the punishment of sin is converted into beneficent uses?

But these speak thus who wish to wrest men from the apostle's words into their own thought. For where the apostle says, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men,"¹⁰ they will have it there understood not that "sin" passed over, but "death." What, then, is the meaning of what follows, "Whereto all have sinned"? For either the apostle says that in that "one man" all have sinned of whom he had said, "By one man sin entered into the world," or else in that "sin," or certainly in "death." For it need not disturb us that he said not "in which" [using the feminine form of the pronoun], but "in whom" [using the masculine] all have sinned; since "death" in the Greek language is of the masculine gender. Let them, then, choose which they will,—for either in that "man" all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all were in him; or in that "sin" all have sinned, because that was the doing of all in general which all those who were born would have to derive; or it remains for them to say that in that "death" all sinned. But in what way this can be understood, I do not clearly see. For all die in the sin; they do not sin in the death; for when sin precedes, death follows—not when death precedes, sin follows. Because sin is the sting of death—that is, the sting by whose stroke death occurs, not the sting with which death strikes.¹¹ Just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death, because by that cup death is caused, not because the cup is caused by the death, or is given by death. But if "sin" cannot be understood by those words of the apostle as being that "wherein all have sinned," because in Greek, from which the Epistle is translated, "sin" is expressed in the feminine gender, it remains that all men are understood to have sinned in that first "man," because all men were in him when he sinned; and from him sin is derived by birth, and is not remitted save by being born again. For thus also the sainted Hilary understood what is written, "wherein all have sinned;" for he says, "wherein," that is, in Adam, "all have sinned."¹² Then he adds, "It is manifest that all have sinned in Adam, as it were in the mass; for he himself was corrupted by sin, and all whom he begot were born under sin." When he wrote this, Hilary, without any ambiguity, indicated how we should understand the words, "wherein all have sinned."

But on account of what does the same apostle say, that we are reconciled to God by Christ, except on account of what we had become enemies? And what is this but sin? Whence also the prophet says, "Your sins separate between you and God."¹³ On account of this separation, therefore, the Mediator was sent, that He might take away the sin of the world, by which we were separated as enemies, and that we, being reconciled, might be made from enemies children. About this, certainly, the apostle was speaking; hence it happened that he interposed what he says, "That sin entered by one man." For these are his former words. He says, "But God commendeth His love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved in His life. And not only so, but glorying also in God through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom also we have now received reconciliation." Then he subjoins, "Therefore, as by one man sin entered into this world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned."¹⁴ Why do the Pelagians evade this matter? If reconciliation through Christ is necessary to all men, on all men has passed sin by which we have become enemies, in order that we should have need of reconciliation. This reconciliation is in the laver of regeneration and in the flesh and blood of Christ, without which not even infants can have life in themselves. For as there was one man for death on account of sin, so there is one man for life on account of righteousness; because "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive;"¹⁵ and "as by the sin of one upon all men to condemnation, so also by the righteousness of one upon all men unto justification of life."¹⁶ Who is there that has turned a deaf ear to these apostolical words with such hardiness of wicked impiety, as, having heard them, to contend that death passed upon us through Adam without sin, unless, indeed, they are opposers of the grace of God and enemies of the cross of Christ?—whose end is destruction if they continue in this obstinacy. But let it suffice to have said thus much for the sake of that serpentine subtlety of theirs, by which they wish to corrupt simple minds, and to turn them away from the simplicity of the faith, as if by the praise of the creature.

But further, concerning the praise of marriage,¹⁷ what advantage is it to them that, in opposition to the Manicheans, who assign marriage not to the true and good God, but to the prince of darkness, these men resist the words of true piety, and say, "That the Lord speaks in the gospel, saying, Who from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Increase and multiply and replenish the earth. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder"?¹⁸ What does this profit them, by means of the truth to seduce to a falsehood? For they say this in order that infants may be thought to be born free from all fault, and thus that there is no need of their being reconciled to God through Christ, since they have no original sin, on account of which reconciliation is necessary to all by means of one who came into the world without sin, just as the enmities of all were caused by means of one through whom sin entered into the world. And this is believed by catholics for the sake of the salvation of the nature of men, without detracting from the praise of marriage; because the praise of marriage is a righteous intercourse of the sexes, not a wicked defence of vices. And thus, when, by their praise of marriage, these persons wish to draw over men from the Manicheans to themselves, they desire merely to change their disease, not to heal it.

Once more, in the praise of the law, what advantage is it to them that, in opposition to the Manicheans, they say the truth when they wish to bring men from that view to this which they hold falsely against the catholics? For they say, "We confess that even the old law, according to the apostle, is holy and just and good, and that this could confer eternal life on those that kept its commandments, and lived righteously by faith, like the prophets and patriarchs, and all the saints." By which words, very craftily expressed, they praise the law in opposition to grace; for certainly that law, although just and holy and good, could not confer eternal life on all those men of God, but the faith which is in Christ. For this faith worketh by love, not according to the letter which killeth, but according to the Spirit which maketh alive, to which grace of God the law, as it were a schoolmaster, leads by deterring from transgression, that so that might be conferred upon man which it could not itself confer. For to those words of theirs in which they say "that the law was able to confer eternal life on the prophets and patriarchs, and all saints who kept its commandments," the apostle replies, "If righteousness be by the law, then has Christ died in vain."¹⁹ "If the inheritance be by the law, then is it no more of promise."²⁰ "If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect."²¹ "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, is evident: for, The just by faith liveth."²² "But the law is not of faith: but The man that doeth them shall live in them."²³ Which testimony, quoted by the apostle from the law, is understood in respect of temporal life, in respect of the fear of losing which, men were in the habit of doing the works of the law, not of faith; because the transgressors of the law were commanded by the same law to be put to death by the people. Or, if it must be understood more highly, that "He who doeth these things shall live in them" was written in reference to eternal life; the power of the law is so expressed that the weakness of man in himself, itself failing to do what the law commands, might seek help from the grace of God rather of faith, seeing that by His mercy even faith itself is bestowed. Because faith is thus possessed, according as God has given to every one the measure of faith.²⁴ For if men have it not of themselves, but men receive the Spirit of power and of love and of continence, whence that very same teacher of the Gentiles says, "For we have not received the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of continence,"²⁵ —assuredly also the Spirit of faith is received, of which he says, "Having also the same Spirit of faith."²⁶ Truly, then, says the law, "He who doeth these things shall live in them." But in order to do these things, and live in them, there is necessary not law which ordains this, but faith which obtains this. Which faith, however, that it may deserve to receive these things, is itself given freely.

But those enemies of grace never endeavour to lay more secret snares for more vehement opposition to that same grace than when they praise the law, which, without doubt, is worthy to be praised.²⁷ Because, by their different modes of speaking, and by variety of words in all their arguments, they wish the law to be understood as "grace"—that, to wit, we may have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, whereby we may know those things which have to be done,—not the inspiration of love, that, when known, we may do them with a holy love, which is properly grace. For the knowledge of the law without love puffeth up, does not edify, according to the same apostle, who most openly says, "Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth."²⁸ Which saying is like to that in which it is said, "The letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive."²⁹ For "Knowledge puffeth up," corresponds to "The letter killeth:" and, "Love edifieth," to "The spirit maketh alive;" because "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us."³⁰ Therefore the knowledge of the law makes a proud transgressor; but, by the gift of charity, he delights to be a doer of the law. We do not then make void the law through faith, but we establish the law,³¹ which by terrifying leads to faith. Thus certainly the law worketh wrath, that the mercy of God may bestow grace on the sinner, frightened and turned to the fulfilment of the righteousness of the law through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is that wisdom of God of which it is written, "She carries law and mercy on her tongue,"³² —law whereby she frightens, mercy by which she may help,—law by His servant, mercy by Himself,—the law, as it were, in the staff which Elisha³³ sent to raise up the son of the widow, and it failed to raise him up, "For if a law had been given which could have given life, righteousness would altogether have been by the law,"³⁴ but mercy, as it were, in Elisha himself, who, wearing the figure of Christ, by giving life to the dead was joined in the signification of the great sacrament, as it were, of the New Testament.