CHAP. 52 [XXXII.] WHY CHRIST, AFTER HIS RESURRECTION, WITHDREW HIS PRESENCE FROM THE WORLD.
Although, therefore, the Lord wrought many ' Heb. xi. 13.
° Heb. xi. 39, 40.
5 Heb. it. 14.
visible miracles in order that faith might sprout at first and be fed by infant nourishment, and grow to its full strength by and by out of this softness (for as fliith becomes stronger the less does it seek such help); He nevertheless wished us to wait quietly, without visible inducements, for the promised hope, in order that " the just might live by faith; " 5 and so great was this wish of His, that though He rose from the dead the third day, He did not desire to remain among men, but, after leaving a proof of his resurrection by showing Himself in the flesh to those whom He deigned to have for His witnesses of this event, He ascended into heaven, withdrawing Himself thus from their sight, and conferring no such thing on the flesh of any one of them as He had displayed in His own flesh, in order that they too " might live by faith," and in the present world might wait in patience and without visible inducements for the reward of that righteousness in which men live by faith, — a reward which should hereafter be visibly and openly bestowed. To this signification I believe that passage must be referred which He speaks concerning the Holy Ghost: " He will not come, unless I depart." ^ For this was in fact saying, Ye shall not be able to live righteously by faith, which ye shall have as a gift of mine, — that is, from the Holy Ghost, — unless I withdraw from your eyes that which ye now gaze upon, in order that your heart may advance in spiritual growth by fixing its faith on invisible things. This righteousness of faith He constantly commends to them. Speaking of the Holy Ghost, He says, " He shall reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they have not believed on me: of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye shall see me no more." ^ What is that righteousness, whereby men w^ere not to see Him, except that " the just is to live by faith," and that we, not looking at the things which are seen, but at those which are not seen, are to wait in the Spirit for the hope of the righteousness that is by faith?
CHAP. 53 [XXXIII.] — AN OBJECTION OF THE But those persons who say, " If the death of the body has happened by sin, we of course ought not to die after that remission of sins which the Redeemer has bestowed upon us," do not understand how it is that some things, whose guilt God has cancelled in order that they may not stand in our way after this life, He yet permits to remain for the contest of faith, in order that they may become the means of instructing and exercising those who are advancing in the 5 Hab. ii. 4. '' John xvi. 7. ' John xvi. 8-iOw [Book TI.
struggle after holiness. Might not some man, by not understanding this, raise a question and ask. If God has said to man because of his sin, " In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread: thorns also and thistles shall the ground bring forth to thee," ' how comes it to pass that this labour and toil continues since the remission of sins, and that the ground of believers yields them this rough and terrible harvest? Again, since it was said to the woman in consequence of her sin, " In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," ^ how is it that believing women, notwithstanding the remission of their sins, suffer the same pains in the process of parturition? And nevertheless it is an incontestable fact, that by reason of the sin which they had committed, the primeval man and woman heard these sentences pronounced by God, and deserved them; nor does any one resist these words of the sacred volume, which I have quoted about man's labour and woman's travail, unless some one who is utterly hostile to the catholic faith, and an adversary to the inspired writings.
CHAP. 54 [XXXIV.] — WHY PUNISHMENT IS STILL INFLICTED, AFTER SIN HAS BEEN FORGIVEN.
But, inasmuch as there are not wanting persons of such character, just as we say in answer to those who raise this question, that those things are punishments of sins before remission, which after remission become contests and exercises of the righteous; so again to such persons as are similarly perplexed about the death of the body, our answer ought to be so drawn as to show both that we acknowledge it to have accrued because of sin, and that we are not discouraged by the punishment of sins having been bequeathed to us for an exercise of discipline, in order that our great fear of it may be overcome by us as we advance in holiness. For if only small virtue accrued to " the faith which worketh by love " in conquering the fear of death, there would be no great glory for the martyrs; nor could the Lord say, " Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends; " ^ which John in his epistle expresses in these terms: " As He laid down His life for us, so ought we to lay down our lives for the brethren." ■♦ In vain, therefore, would com-'mendation be bestowed on the most eminent suffering in encountering or despising death for righteousness' sake, if there were not in death itself a really great and very severe trial. And the man who overcomes the fear of it by his faith, procures a great glory and just recompense for his faith itself. Wherefore it ought to surprise no one, either that the death of the body ' Gen. iii. 18, 19.
2 Gen. iii. 16.
3 John XV. 13.
* 1 John iii. 16.
could not possibly have happened to man unless sin had been previously committed, since it was of this that it was to become the punishment; nor that after the remission of their sins it comes to the faithful, in order that in their triumphing over the fear of it, the fortitude of righteousness may be exercised.
CHAP. 55. — TO RECOVER THE RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH ILAD BEEN LOST BY SIN, MAN HAS TO STRUGGLE, WITH ABUNDANT LABOUR AND SOR- ROW.
The flesh which was originally created was not that sinful flesh in which man refused to maintain his righteousness amidst the delights of, Paradise, wherefore God determined that sinful flesh should propagate itself after it had sinned, and struggle for the recovery of holiness, in many toils and troubles. Therefore, after Adam was driven out of Paradise, he had to dwell over against Eden, — that is, over against the garden of delights, — to indicate that it is by labours and sorrows, which are the very contraries of delights, that sinful flesh had to be educated, after it had failed amidst its first pleasures to maintain its holiness, previous to its becoming sinful flesh. As therefore our first parents, by their subsequent return to righteous living, by which they are supposed to have been released from the worst penalty of their sentence through the blood of the Lord, were still not deemed worthy to be recalled to Paradise during their life on earth, so in like manner our sinful flesh, even if a man lead a righteous life in it after the remission of his sins, does not deserve to be immediately exempted from that death which it has derived from its propagation of sin.5 CHAP. 56. — THE CASE OF D.AVID, IN ILLUSTRA- TION.
Some such thought has occurred to us about the patriarch David, in the Book of Kings.- After the prophet was sent to him, and threatened him with the evils which were to arise from the anger of God on account of the sin which he had committed, he obtained pardon by the confession of his sin, and the prophet replied that the shame and crime had been remitted to him; but yet, for all that, the evils with which God had threatened him followed in due course, so that he was brought low by his son. Now why is not an objection at once raised here: " If it was on account of his sin that God threatened him, why, when the sin was forgiven, did He fulfil His threat?" except because, if the cavil had been raised, it would have been most correctly answered, that the remission of the sin was given that the man S See also his treatise, De NaturA et Crati'd, ch. xxiii.
Chap. 59.]
might not be hindered from gaining the hfe eternal, but the threatened evil was still carried into effect, in order that the man's piety might be exercised and approved in the lowly condition to which he was reduced. Thus also God has both inflicted on man the death of his body, because of his sin, and, after his sins are forgiven, has not released him in order that he may be exercised in righteousness.
CHAP. 5 7 [XXXV.] — TURN TO NEITHER HAND.
Let us hold fast, then, the confession of this faith, without faltering or failure. One alone is there who was born without sin, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who lived without sin amid the sins of others, and who died without sin on account of our sins. " Let us turn neither to the right hand nor to the left." ' For to turn to the right hand is to deceive oneself, by saying that we are without sin; and to turn to the left is to surrender oneself to one's sins with a sort of impunity, in I know not how perverse and depraved a recklessness. " God indeed knoweth the ways on the right hand," ^ even He who alone is without sin, and is able to blot out our sins; " but the ways on the left hand are perverse," 3 in friendship with sins. Of such inflexibility were those youths of twenty years,-* who foretokened in figure God's new people; they entered the land of promise; they, it is said, turned neither to the right hand nor to the left.5 Now this age of twenty is not to be compared with the age of children's innocence, but if I mistake not, this number is the shadow and echo of a mystery. For the Old Testament has its excellence in the five books of Moses, while the New Testament is most refulgent in the authority of the four Gospels. These numbers, when multiplied together, reach to the number twenty: four times five, or five times four, are twenty. Such a people (as I have already said), instructed in the kingdom of heaven by the two Testaments — the Old and the New — turning neither to the right hand, in a proud assumption of righteousness, nor to the left hand, in a reck- 1 less delight in sin, shall enter into the land of promise, where we shall have no longer either 1 to pray that sins may be forgiven to us, or to - fear that they may be punished in us, having been freed from them all by that Redeemer, who, not being " sold under sin," ^ " hath re- : deemed Israel out of all his iniquities," ^ whether committed in the actual life, or derived from the original transgression.
' Prov. iv. 27.
^ Same verse [in the Latin and Septuagint; the clause does not occur in the Hebrew]. 3 [See the last note.] * Num. xiv. 29, 31. 5 Josh, xxiii. 6, 8. '' Rom. vii. 14.
' Ps. XXV. 22.
CHAP. 58* [XXXVI.] "likeness OF SINFUL flesh" implies the reality.
It is no small concession to the authority and truthfulness of the inspired pages which those persons have made, who, although unwilling to admit openly in their writings that remission of sins is necessary for infants, have yet confessed that they need redemption. Nothing that they have said differs indeed from another word, even that which is derived from Christian instruction. Whilst by those who faithfully read, faithfully hear, and faithfully hold fast the Holy Scriptures, it cannot be doubted that from that flesh, which first became sinful flesh by the choice of sin, and which has been subsequently transmitted to all through successive generations, there has been propagated a sinful flesh, with the single exception of that " likeness of sinful flesh," * — which likeness, however, there could not have been, had there not been also the reality of sinful flesh.
chap. 59. WHETHER THE SOUL IS PROPA- GATED; ON OBSCURE POINTS, CONCERNING WHICH THE SCRIPTURES GIVE US NO ASSIST- ANCE, WE MUST BE ON OUR -GUARD AGAINST FORMING HASTY JUDGMENTS AND OPINIONS; THE SCRIPTURES ARE CLEAR ENOUGH ON THOSE SUBJECTS WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO SALVATION.
Concerning the soul, indeed, the question arises, whether it, too, is propagated in the same way [as the flesh,] and bound by the same guilt, which is forgiven to it — for we cannot say that it is only the flesh of the infant, and not his soul also, which requires the help of a Saviour and Redeemer, or that the latter must not be included in that thanksgiving in the Psalms, where we read and repeat, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction." 9 Or if it be not likewise propagated, we may ask, whether, by the very fact of its being mingled with and weighed down by the sinful flesh, it still has need of the remission of its own sin, and of a redemption of its own, God being judge, in the height of His foreknowledge,'" what infants do not deserve " to be absolved from that guilt, even before they are bom, or have in any instance ever done anything good or evil. The question also arises, how God (even if He does not create souls by natural propagation) can yet not be the Author of that very guilt, on account of which redemption by the sacrament is necessary to the infant's soul. The subject is a wide and important one,'^ 8 Rom. viii. 3.
9 Ps. ciii. 2-4.
'° We follow the rcz.di\a^, per suintnam prascientiatn, " Non mereantur.
'2 He treats it in his Epistle, 166: in his work, De Atiimd et ejus Origitie; and in his De Libera A rbitrio, 42.
[Book II.
and requires another treatise. The discussion, however, so far as I can judge, ought to be conducted with temper and moderation, so as to deserve the praise of cautious inquiry, rather than the censure of headstrong assertion. For whenever a question arises on an unusually obscure subject, on which no assistance can be rendered by clear and certain proofs of the Holy Scriptures, the presumption of man ought to restrain itself; nor should it attempt anything definite by leaning to either side. But if I must mdeed be ignorant concerning any points of this sort, as to how they can be explained and proved, this much I should still believe, that from this very circumstance the Holy Scriptures would possess a most clear authority, whenever a point arose which no man could be ignorant of, without imperilling the salvation which has been promised him. You have now before you, [my dear Marcellinus,] this treatise, worked out to the best of my ability. I only wish that its value equalled its length; for its length I might probably be able to justify, only I should fear that, by adding the justification, I should stretch the prolixity beyond your endurance.
BOOK III..
IN THE SHAPE OF A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE SAME MARCELLINUS.
IN WHICH AUGUSTIN REFUTES SOME ERRORS OF PELAGIUS ON THE QUESTION OF THE MERITS OF SINS AND THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS BEING SUNDRY ARGUMENTS OF HIS WHICH HE HAD INTERSPERSED AMONG HIS EXPOSITIONS OF SAINT PAUL, IN OPPOSITION TO ORIGINAL SIN.
To his beloved son Marcellitms, Angustin, bishop and servant of Christ and of the servants of Christ, sendetJi greeting in the Lord.
CHAP. I [l.] — PELAGIUS ESTEEMED A HOLY man; HIS EXPOSITIONS ON SAINT PAUL.
The questions which you proposed that I should write to you about, in opposition to those persons who say that Adam would have died even if he had not sinned, and that nothing of his sin has passed to his posterity by natural transmission; and especially on the subject of the baptism of infants, which the universal Church, with most pious and maternal care, maintains in constant celebration; and whether in this life there are, or have been, or ever will be, children of men without any sin at all — I have already discussed in t^vo lengthy books. And I venture to think that if in them I have not met all the points which perplex all men's minds on such matters (an achievement which, I apprehend, — nay, which I have no doubt, — lies beyond the power either of myself, or of any other person), I have at all events prepared something in the shape of a firm ground on which those who defend the faith delivered to us by our fathers, against the novel opinions of its opponents, may at any time take their stand, not unarmed for the contest. However, within the last few days I have read some writings by Pelagius, — a holy man, as I am told, who has made no small progress in the Christian life, — containing some very brief expository notes on the epistles of the Apostle Paul; ' and therein I found, on coming to the passage where the apostle says, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so it passed upon all men," - an argument which is used by those who say that infants ' [This commentary is also made known to us by Marius Mercator's Comviointoria, cap. 2, and has been preserved for us among the works of Jerome (Vallarsius' ed., tom. xi.), ahhough probably not without alterations. It seems to have been composed before a.d. 410, at Rome. — W. ] ^ Rom. V. 12.
are not burdened with original sin. Now I confess that I have not refuted this argument»in my lengthy treatise, because it did not indeed once occur to me that anybody was capable of thinking such sentiments. Being, however, unwilling to add to that work, which I had concluded, I have thought it right to insert in this epistle both the argument itself in the very words in which I read it, and the answer which it seems to me proper to give to it.
CHAP. 2 [11.] — PELAGIUS' OBJECTION; INFANTS RECKONED AMONG THE NUMBER OF BELIEVERS AND THE FAITHFUL.
In these terms, then, the argument is stated: — " But they who deny the transmission of sin endeavour to impugn it thus: If (say they) Adam's sin injured even those who do not sin, therefore Christ's righteousness also profits even those who do not believe; because ' In like manner, nay, much more,' he says, 'are men saved by one, than they had previously perished by one.' " Now to this argument, I repeat, I advanced no reply in the two books which I previously addressed to you; nor, indeed, had I proposed to myself such a task. But now I beg you first of all to observe, when they say, " If Adam's sin injures even those who do not sin, then Christ's righteousness also profits even those who do not believe," how absurd and false they judge it to be, that the righteousness of Christ should profit even those who do not believe; and that thence they think to put together such an argument as this: That no more could the first man's sin possibly do injury to infants who commit no sin, than the righteousness of Christ can benefit any who do not believe. Let them therefore tell us what is the benefit of Christ's •o [Book in.
righteousness to baptized infants; let them by all means tell us what they mean. For of course, since they do not forget that they are Christians themselves, they have no doubt that there is some benefit. But whatever be this benefit, it is incapable (as they themselves assert) of benefiting those who do not believe. Whence they are compelled to class baptized infants in the number of believers, and to assent to the authority of the Holy Universal Church, which does ^ not account those unworthy of the name of be- 1 lievers, to whom the righteousness of Christ could •be, according to them, of no use except as believers. As, therefore, by the answer of those, through whose agency they are born again, the Spirit of righteousness transfers to them that faith which, of their own will, they could not yet have; so the sinful flesh of those, through whose agency they are born, transfers to them that injury, which they have not yet contracted in their own life. And even as the Spirit of life regenerates them in Christ as believers, so also the body of death had generated them in Adam as sinners. The one generation is carnal, the other Spiritual; the one makes children of the flesh, the other children of the Spirit; the one children of death, the other children of the resurrection; the one the children of the world, the other the children of God; the one children of wrath, the other children of mercy; and thus the one binds them under original sin, the other liberates them from the bond of every sin.
CHAP. 3. — PELAGIUS MAKES GOD UNJUST.
We are driven at last to yield our assent on divine authority to that which we are unable to investigate with even the clearest intellect. It is well that they remind us themselves that Christ's righteousness is unable to profit any but believers, while they yet allow that it somewhat j profits infants; according to this (as we have already said) they must, without evasion, find ' room for baptized infants among the number of believers. Consequently, if they are not bap- j tized, they will have to rank amongst those who do not believe; and therefore they will not even have life, but "the wrath of God abideth on them," inasmuch as " he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him; " ' and they are under judgment, since " he that believeth not is condemned al- { ready;'"= and they shall be condemned, since "he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; \ but he that believeth not shall be damned." ^ ^ Let them, now, then see to it with what justice I they can hold or strive to maintain that human Ijeings have no part in eternal life, but in the ' John iii. 36.
2 John iii. 18.
3 Mark xvi. 16.
wrath of God, and incur the divine judgment and condemnation, who are without sin; if, that is, as they cannot have any actual sin, so also they have within them no original sin.
To the other points which Pelagius makes them urge who argue against original sin, I have already, I think, sufficiently and clearly replied in the two former books of my lengthy treatise. Now if my reply should seem to any persons to be brief or obscure, I beg their pardon, and request the favour of their coming to terms with those who perhaps censure my treatise, not for being too brief, but rather as being too long; whilst any who still do not understand the points which I cannot help thinking I have explained as clearly as the nature of the subject allowed me, shall certainly hear no blame or reproach from me for indifference, or want of understanding me.-* I would rather that they should pray God to give them intelligence.
CHAP. 5 [in.] — PELAGIUS PRAISED BY SOME; ARGUMENTS AGAINST ORIGINAL SIN PROPOSED BY PELAGIUS IN HIS COMMENTARY.
But we must not indeed omit to observe that this good and praiseworthy man (as they who know him describe him to be) has not advanced this argument against the natural transmission of sin in his own person, but has reproduced what is alleged by those persons who disapprove of the doctrine, and this, not merely so far as I have just quoted and confuted the allegation, but also as to those other points on which I have now further undertaken to furnish a reply. Now, after saying, " If (they say) Adam's sin injured even those who do not sin, therefore Christ's righteousness also profits even those who do not believe," — which sentence, you will perceive from what I have said in answer to it, is not only not repugnant to what we hold, but even reminds us what we ought to hold, — he at once goes on to add, " Then they contend, if baptism cleanses away that old sin, those children who are born of two baptized parents must needs be free from this sin, for they could not have transmitted to their children what they did not possess themselves. Besides," says he, " if the soul is not of transmission, but only the flesh, then only the latter has the transmission of sin, and it alone deserv^es punishment; for they allege that it would be unjust for the soul, which is only now born, and comes not of the lump of Adam, to bear the burden of so old an alien sin. They say, likewise," says Pelagius, " that it cannot by any means be conceded tliat God, who remits to a man his own sins, should impute to him another's."
* [Or, " because they lack my own faculty of understanding the subject."!
Chap. 8.]
CHAP. 6. WHY PELAGIUS DOES NOT SPEAK IN HIS OWN PERSON.
Pray, don't you see how Pelagius has inserted the whole of this paragraph in his writings, not in his own person, but in that of others, knowing so well the novelty of this unheard-of doctrine, which is now beginning to raise its voice against the ancient ingrafted opinion of the Church, that he was ashamed or afraid to acknowledge it himself? And perhaps he does not himself think that a man is born without sin for whom he confesses that baptism to be necessary by which comes the remission of sins; or that the man is condemned without sin who must be reckoned, when unbaptized, in the class of non-believers, since the gospel of course cannot deceive us, when it most clearly asserts, " He that believeth not shall be damned; " ' or, lastly, that the image of God, when without sin, is not admitted into the kingdom of God, forasmuch as " except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," 2 — and so must either be precipitated into eternal death without sin, or, what is still more absurd, must have eternal life outside the kingdom of God; for the Lord, when foretelling what He should say to His people at last, — "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the w-orld,"3 — also clearly indicated what the kingdom was of which He was speaking, by concluding thus: " So these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." •* These opinions, then, and others which spring from the central error, I believe so worthy a man, and so good a Christian, does not at all accept, as being too perverse and repugnant to Christian truth. But it is quite possible that he may, by the very arguments of those who deny the transmission of sin, be still so far distressed as to be anxious to hear or know what can be said in reply to them; and on this account he was both unwilling to keep silent the tenets propounded by them who deny the transmission of sin, in order that he might get the question in due time discussed, and, at the same time, declined to report the opinions in his own person, lest he should be supposed to entertain them himself.