said, " I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat." 5 There will, however, be also "judgment without mercy; " but it will be for him " that hath not showed mercy." ^ But " blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy " 7 of God. Then, as soon as those on the left hand shall have gone into eternal fire, the righteous, too, shall go into everlasting life,^ because He says: " This is life eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." 9 And with this knov/ledge, this vision, this contemplation, shall the desire of their soul DC satisfied; for it shall be enough for it to have this and nothing else, — there being nothing more for it to desire, to aspire to, or to require. It was with a craving after this full joy that his heart glowed who said to the Lord Christ, " Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us; " and to whom the answer was returned, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." '° Because He is Himself the eternal life, in order that men may know the one true God, Thee and whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. If, however, he that has seen the Son has also seen the Father, then assuredly he who sees the Father and the Son sees also the j Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son. So we I 2 Rom. vii. 23. 5 Matt. XXV. 35. 8 Matt. XXV. 46.
s Rom. vii. 18. '' Jas. ii. 13. 9 John xvii. 3.
do not take away freewill, whilst our soul blesses the Lord and forgets not all His recompenses; " nor does it, in ignorance of God's righteousness, wish to set up one of its own; '- but it believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, '^ and until it arrives at sight, it lives by faith, — even the faith which works by love.-* And this love is shed abroad in our hearts, not by the sufficiency of our own will, nor by the letter of the law. but by the Holy Ghost who has been given to us.'^ CHAP. 60 [XXXIV.J THE WILL TO BELIEVE IS FROM GOD.
Let this discussion suffice, if it satisfactorily meets the question we had to solve. It may be, however, objected in reply, that we must take heed lest some one should suppose that the sin would have to be imputed to God which is committed by free will, if in the passage where it is asked, " What hast thou which thou didst not receive? " '5 the very will by which we believe is reckoned as a gift of God, because it arises out of the free will which we received at our creation. Let the objector, however, attentively observe that this will is to be ascribed to the divine gift, not merely because it arises from our free will, which was created naturally with us; but also because God acts upon us by the incentives of our perceptions, to will and to believe, either externally by evangelical exhortations, where even the commands of the law also do something, if they so far admonish a man of his infirmity that he betakes himself to the grace that justifies by believing; or internally, where no man has in his own control what shall enter into his thoughts, although it appertains to his own will to consent or to dissent. Since God, therefore, in such ways acts upon the reasonable soul in order that it may believe in Him (and certainly there is no ability whatever in free will to believe, unless there be persuasion or summons towards some one in whom to believe), it surely follows that it is God who both works in man the willing to believe, and in all things prevents us with His mercy. To yield our consent, indeed, to God's summons, or to w'ithhold it, is (as I have said) the function of our own will.
And this not only does not invalidate what is said, " For what hast thou that thou didst not receive? "'5 but it really confirms it. For the soul cannot receive and possess these gifts, which are here referred to, except by yielding its consent. And thus whatever it possesses, and whatever it receives, is from God; and yet the act of receiving and having belongs, of course, to the receiver and possessor. Now, should any man be for constraining us to examine into this profound mystery, why this person is so per- 13 Rom. i'- Chap. 63.]
1 1 1 suaded as to yield, and that person is not, there are only two things occurring to me, which I should like to advance as my answer: " O the depth of the riches! " ' and " Is there unrighteousness with God? " ^ If the man is displeased with such an answer, he must seek more learned | disputants; but let him beware lest he find presumptuous ones.
CHAP. 61 [XXXV.] — CONCLUSION OF THK WORK.
Let us at last bring our book to an end. I hardly know whether we have accomplished our purpose at all by our great prolixity. It is not in respect of you, [my Marcellinus,] that I have this misgiving, for I know your faith; but with reference to the minds of those for whose sake you wished me to write, — who so much in opposition to my opinion, but ^to speak mildly, and not to mention Him who spoke in His apostles) certainly against not only the opinion of the great Apostle Paul, but also his strong, earnest, and vigilant conflict, prefer maintaining their own views with tenacity to listening to him, when he " beseeches them by the mercies of God," and tells them, " through the grace of God which was given to him, not to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God had dealt to every man the measure of faith." ^ CHAP. 62. — HE RETURNS TO THE QUESTION WHICH MARCELLINUS HAD PROPOSED TO HIM.
But I beg of you to advert to the question which you proposed to me, and to what we have made out of it in the lengthy process of this discussion. You were perplexed how I could have said that it was possible for a man to be without sin, if his will were not wanting, by the help of God's aid, although no man in the present life had ever lived, was living, or would live, of such perfect righteousness. Now, in the books which I formerly addressed to you, I set forth this very question. I said: " If I were asked whether it be possible for a man to be without sin in this life, I should allow the possibility, by the grace of God, and his own free will; for I should have no doubt that the free will itself is of God's grace, — that is, has its place among the gifts of God, — not only as to its existence, but also in respect of its goodness; that is, that it applies itself to doing the commandments of God. And so, God's grace not only shows what ought to be done, but also helps to the possibility of doing what it shows." ■♦ You seemed to think it absurd, that a thing which was possible should be unexampled. Hence arose the subject treated of in this book; and thus did it devolve on me to show that a thing was possible although no ' Rom. xi. 33. 2 Rom. ix. 14. 3 Rom. xii. 1,3.
* See his work preceding this, De Peccat. Mentis, ii. 7.
example of it could be found. We accordingly adduced certain cases out of the gospel and of the law, at the beginning of this work, — such as the passing of a camel through the eye of a needle; 5 and the twelve thousand legions of angels, who could fight for Christ, if He pleased;'^ and those nations which God said He could have exterminated at once from the face of His people, 7 — none of which possiliilities were ever reduced to fact. To these instances may be added those which are referred to in the Book of Wisdom,** suggesting how many are the strange torments and troubles which God was able to employ against ungodly men, by using the creature which was obedient to His beck, which, however, He did not employ. One might also allude to that mountain, which faith could remove into the sea,^ although, nevertheless, it was never done, so far as we have ever read ■" or heard. Now you see how thoughtless and foolish would be the man who should say that any one of these things is impossible with God, and how opposed to the sense of Scripture would be his assertion. INIany other cases of this kind may occur to anybody who reads or thinks, the possibility of which with God we cannot deny, although an example of them be lacking.
CHAP. 63. AN OBJECTION.
But inasmuch as it may be said that the instanceG which I have been quoting are divine works, whereas to live righteously is a work that belongs to ourselves, I undertook to show that even this too is a divine work. This I have done in the present book, with perhaps a fuller statement than is necessary, although I seem to myself to have said too little against the opponents of the grace of God. And I am never so much delighted in my treatment of a subject as when Scripture comes most copiously to my aid; and when the question to be discussed requires that " he that glorieth should glory in the Lord; " " and that we should in all things lift up our hearts and give thanks to the Lord our God, from whom, " as the Father of lights, every good and every perfect gift cometh down." '^ Now if a gift is n' )t God's gift, because it is wrought by us, or because we act by His gift, then it is not a work I of God that " a mountain should be removed into the sea," inasmuch as, according to the Lord's statement, it is by the faith of men that this is possible. Moreover, He attributes the I deed to their actual operation: " If ye have faith 5 Matt, xix 24. 6 Matt, xxvi 53.
7 Dent. xxxl. 3; comp. Judg. ii. 3.
8 Wisdom xvi. 9 Mntt. xxi. 21.
'° Aiigustin, it would then seem, had not met with the statement of Eusebius. as translated by Kufiniis (Hist vi. 24), to the effect that (jrcgory, bishop of Neocajsarea, in Pontus, once performed the miracle of removing a mountain or rock from its place; which Bede also mentions, Ccinnient. on Mark xi.. Honk iii.
I 12 [Chap. 64.
in yourselves as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, " Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and it shall be done, and nothing shall be impossible to yoiiy ^ Observe how He said " to you," not " to Me " or " to the Father; " and yet it is certain that no man does such a thing without God's gift and operation. See how an instance of perfect righteousness is unexampled among men, and yet is not impossil-)le. For it might be achieved if there were only applied so much of will as suffices for so great a thing. There would, however, be so much will, if there were hidden from us none of those conditions which pertain to righteousness; and at the same time these so delighted our mind, that whatever hindrance of pleasure or pain might else occur, this delight in holiness would prevail over every rival affection. And that this is not realized, is not owing to any intrinsic impossibility, but to God's judicial act. P'or who can be ignorant, that what he should know is not in man's power; nor does it follow that what he has discovered to be a desirable object is actually desired, unless he also feel a delight in that object, commensurate with its claims on his affection? For this belongs to health of soul.
CHAP. 64 [XXXVI.] — WHEN THE COMMA>nDMENT TO LOVE IS FULFILLED.
But somebody will perhaps think that we lack nothing for the knowledge of righteousness, since the Lord, when He summarily and briefly expounded His word on earth, informed us that the whole law and the prophets depend on two conmiandments; ^ nor was He silent as to what these were, but declared them in the plainest words: " Thou shalt love," said He, '' the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; " and " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." ^ What is more surely true than that, if these be fulfilled, all righteousness is fulfilled? But the man who sets his mind on this truth must also carefully attend to another, — in how many things we all of us offend.^ while we suppose that what we do is pleasant, or, at all events, not unpleasing, to God whom we love; and afterwards, having (through His inspired word, or else by being warned in some clear and certain way) learned what is not pleasing to Him, we pray to Him that He would forgive us on our repentance. The life of man is full of examples of this. But whence comes it that we fall short of knowing what is pleasing to Him, if it be not that He is to that extent unknown to us? "For now we see throucfh a glass, darkly; but then face to face." s Who, ' Compare Matt. xvii. 20, Mark xi. 23, Luke xvii. 6.
^ I Cor. xiii. 12.
however, can make so bold, on arriving far enough, to say: " Then shall I know even as also I am known," s as to think that they who shall see God will have no greater love towards Him than they have who now believe in Him? \ or that the one ought to be compared to the other, as if they were very near to each other? \ Now, if love increases just in proportion as our j knowledge of its object becomes more intimate, of course we ought to believe that there is as j much wanting now to the fulfilnient of righteous-I ness as there is defective in our love of it. A thing may indeed be known or believed, and yet not loved; but it is an impossibility that a thing can be loved which is neither known nor believed. But if the saints, in the exercise of their faith, could arrive at that great love, than which (as the Lord Himself testified) no greater can possibly be exhibited in the present life, — even to lay down their lives for the faith, or for their brethren,^ — then after their pilgrimage here, in which their walk is by " faith," when they shall have reached the " sight " of that final happiness 7 which we hope for, though as yet we see it not, and wait for in patience,^ then undoubtedly love itself shall be not only greater than that which we here experience, but far higher than all which we ask or think; '' and yet it cannot be possibly more than " with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind." For there remains in us nothing which can be added to the whole; since, if anything did remain, there would not be the whole. Therefore the first commandment about righteousness, which bids us love the Lord with all our heart, and soul, and mind '° (the next to w-hich is, that we love our neighbour as ourselves), we shall completely fulfil in that life when we shall see face to face. 5 But even now this commandment is enjoined upon us, that we may be reminded what we ought by faith to require, and what we should in our hope look forward to, and, " forgetting the things which are behind, reach forth to the things which are before." " And thus, as it appears to me, that man has made a far advance, even in the present life, in the righteousness which is to be perfected hereafter, who has discovered by this very advance how very far removed he is from the completion of righteousness.
CHAP. 65. — IN WHAT SENSE A SINLESS RIGHTEOUS- NESS IN THIS LIFE CAN BE ASSERTED.
Forasmuch, however, as an inferior righteousness may be said to be competent to this life, whereby the just man lives by faith '^ although absent from the Lord, and, therefore, walking I- Rom.
* Rom. viii. 23. n Phil. iii. 13.
I Chap. 66.]
by faith and not yet by sight," — it may be without absurdity said, no doubt, in respect of it, that it is free from sin; for it ought not to be attributed to it as a fault, that it is not as yet sufificient for so great a love to God as is due to the final, complete, and perfect condition thereof. It is one thing to fail at present in attaining to the fulness of love, and another thing to be swayed by no lust. A man ought therefore to abstain from every unlawful desire, although he loves God now far less than it is possible to love Him when He becomes an object of sight; just as in matters connected with the bodily senses, the eye can receive no pleasure from any kind of darkness, although it may be unable to look with a firm sight amidst refulgent light. Only let us see to it that we so constitute the soul of man in this corruptible body, that, although it has not yet swallowed up and consum.ed the motions of earthly lust in that super-eminent perfection of the love of God, it nevertheless, in that inferior righteousness to which we have referred, gives no consent to the aforesaid lust for the purpose of eflectmg any unlawful thing. In respect, therefore, of that immortal life, the commandment is even now applicable: " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might; " ^ but in reference to the present life the following: " Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." ^ To the one, again, belongs, " Thou shalt not covet; " "• to the other, "Thou shalt not go after thy lusts." 5 To the one it appertains to seek for nothing more than to continue in its perfect state; to the other it belongs actively to do the duty committed to it, and to hope as its reward for the perfection of the future life, — so that in the one the just man may live forevermore in the sight of that happiness which in this life was his object of desire; in the other, he may live by that faith whereon rests his desire for the ultimate blessedness as its certain end. (These things being so, it will be sin in the man who lives by faith ever to consent to an unlawful delight, — by committing not only frightful deeds and crimes, but even trifling faults; sinful, if he lend an ear to a word that ought not to be listened to, or a tongue to a phrase which should not be uttered; sinful, if he entertains a thought in his heart in such a way as to wish that an evil pleasure were a lawful one, although known to be unlawful by the commandment, — for this amounts to a consent to sin, which would certainly be carried out in act, unless fear of punishment deterred.) ^ Have such just men, * Ex. XX. 17. 5 Ecclus. xviii. 30.
6 The Benedictine editor is not sati.sfied with the place of the lines in the parenthesis. He would put them in an earlier position, perhaps before the clause beginnmg with, " Only let us see to it," etc.
while living by faith, no need to say: " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors?" ^ And do they prove this to be wrong which is written, " In 'Fhy sight shall no man living be justified? " ^ and this: " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us? "9 and, "There is no man that sinneth not; " '° and again, "There is not on the earth a righteous man, who doeth good and sinneth not"" (for both these statements are expressed in a general future sense, — "sinneth not," " will not sin," — not in the past time, " has not sinned")? — and all other places of this purport contained in the Holy Scripture? Since, however, these passages cannot possibly be false, it plainly follows, to my mind, that whatever be the quality or extent of the righteousness which we may definitely ascribe to the present life, there is not a man living in it who is absolutely free from all sin; and that it is necessary for every one to give, that it may be given to him; '^ and to forgive, that it may be forgiven him; '^ and whatever righteousness he has, not to presume that he has it of himself, but from the grace of God, who justifies him, and still to go on hungering and thirsting for righteousness ^* from Him who is the living bread,'s and with whom is the fountain of life; '^ who works in His saints, whilst labcuring amidst temptation in this life, their justification in such manner that He may still have somewhat to impart to them liberally when they ask, and something mercifully to forgive them when they confess.
CHAP. 66. ALTHOUGH PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS BE NOT FOUND HERE ON EARTH, IT IS STILL NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
But let objectors find, if they can, any man, while living under the weight of this corruption, in whom God has no longer anything to forgive; unless nevertheless they acknowledge that such an individual has been aided in the attainment of his good character not merely by the teaching of the law which God gave, but also by the infusion of the Spirit of grace — they will incur the charge of ungodliness itself, not of this or that particular sin. Of course they are not at all able to discover such a man, if they receive in a becoming manner the testimony of the divine writings. Still, for all that, it must not by any means be said that the possibility is lacking to God whereby the will of man can be so assisted, that there can be accomplished in every respect even now in a man, not that righteousness only which is of faith, "7 but that also in accordance with which we shall by and by have to live for ever in the very vision of God. For if he should now 7 Matt. vi. 12.
■3 Luke xi. 4.
"' Ps. xxxvi. 9.
[Chap. 66.
wish even that this corruptible in any particular man should put on incorruption,' and to command him so to live among mortal men (not destined himself to die) that his old nature should be wholly and entirely withdrawn, and there should be no law in his members warring against the law of his mind,' — moreover, that he should discover God to be everywhere present, as the saints shall hereafter know and behold Him, — who will madly venture to afifirm that this is impossible? Men, however, ask why He docs not do this; but they who raise the question consider not duly the fact that they are human. I am quite certain that, as nothing is impossible with God,3 so also there is no iniquity with Him.'* Equally sure am I that He resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.s I know also that to him who had a thorn in the flesh, the messenger 3 Luke i. 37.
of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be exalted above measure, it was said, when he besought God for its removal once, twice, nay thrice: " My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness." ^ There is, therefore, in the hidden depths of God's judgments, a certain reason why every mouth even of the righteous should be shut in its own praise, and only opened for the praise of God. But what this certain reason is, who can search, who investigate, who know? So "unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."?
6 2 Cor. xii. 7-9.
7 Rom. xi. 33-36.
A TREATISE ON NATURE AND GRACE.
Book II. Chap. 42, (( DE NATURA ET GRATIA."
" At that time also there came into my hands a certain book of Pelagius', in which he defends, with all the argumentative skill he could muster, the nature of man, in opposition to the grace of God whereby the unrighteous is justified and we become Christians. The treatise which contains my reply to him, and in which I defend grace, not indeed as in opposition to nature, but as that which liberates and controls nature, I have entitled Oti Nature and Grace. In this work sundry short passages, which were quoted by Pelagius as the words of the Roman bishop and martyr, Xystus, were vindicated by myself as if they really were the words of this Sixtus. For this I thought them at the time; but I afterwards discovered, that Sextus the heathen philosopher, and not Xystus the Christian bishop, was their author. This treatise of mine begins with the words: * The book which you sent me.' " * In chap. 77.
NOTE ON THE* FOLLOWING WORK.
In a letter (169th ') to Evodius, written in the course of the year a.d. 415, Augustin assigned to this work, On NaUire and Grace, the last place of several treatises written in that year. " I have also written," says he, "an extensive book in opposition to the heresy of Pelagius, at the request of some brethren, whom he had persuaded to accept a very pernicious opinion against the grace of Christ." The work had been begun, but was not completed, when Orosius sailed from Africa to Palestme, in the spring of this year of 415; for, shortly after his arrival there, at a council in Jerusalem, where Pelagius was present, he expressly affirmed, " that the blessed Augustin had prepared a very complete answer to Pelagius' book, two of whose followers had presented the work to him, and requested him to reply to it." Jerome, also, at this time mentioned a certain production of Augustin's, which he had not yet seen, wherein it was said that he had expressly opposed Pelagius. His words, which occur in his third dialogue against the heresy of Pelagius, are these: "It is said that he is preparing other treatises likewise, especially against yonr name." Augustin, however, did not actually employ in this work of his the 7iame of Pelagius, whose book he was refuting, in order that (as he says in his letter [iS6th] to Paulinus) he might not by personal irritation drive him into a more incurable degree of opposition; for he hoped to be of some service to his opponent, if by still inaintaining friendly terms with him he might be able to spare his feelings, although he could not in duty show leniency to his writings. Thus, at least, he expresses his mind, in his book On the Proceedings of Pelagius, ch. xxiii. No. 47. In this latter passage he subjoins a letter which he had received from Timasius and Jacobus, containing the expression of great gratitude to Augustin on receiving his volume On Nature and Grace, in which they expressed "their agreeable surprise" at the answers he had furnished to them " on every point " of the Pelagian controversy.
In the following year Augustin despatched this work, along with Pelagius' own book, to John, bishop o£ Jerusalem, in order that that prelate might at length become acquainted with the views of the new heresiarch, accompanying the books with a letter to the bishop [179th]. In the course of this year 416, he had the same two treatises (his own and Pelagius') forwarded to Pope Innocent, with a letter [177th] sent in the name of five bishops, to which Innocent returned an answer [iS3d]. It may be here stated, that in this last-mentioned letter [183, n. 5], and in the foregoing epistle [177, n. 6], there is honourable mention made of Timasius and Jacobus, as "conscientious and honourable young men, servants of God, who had relinquished the hope which they had in the world, and continued diligently to serve God." The same persons are described in another epistle [179, n. 2] as "young men of very honourable birth, and highly educated;" and in the work On the Proceedings of Pelagius, ch. xxiii. No 47, they are called " servants of God, good, and honourable men."
Julianus [who espoused the side of Pelagius], in his work addressed to Florus (book iv. n. 112, of the Imperfect Work),^ quotes this treatise of Augustin's as addressed to Timasius, and calumniously pronounces it to be written " against free will " 2 [i.e., the work of Augustin against Julianus, which was left incomplete at his death, and hence is called the Imperfect Work. — W.]
CONTENTS OF THE TREATISE "ON NATURE AND GRACE."
1. The occasion of publishing this work; what God's righteousness is 121 2. Faith in Christ not necessary to salvation, if a man without it can lead a righteous LIFE 3. Nature was created sound and whole; it was afterwards corrupted by sin...4. Free grace 5. It was a matter of justice that all should be condemned 6. The Pelagians have very strong and active minds 7. He proceeds to confute the work of Pelagius; he refrains as yet from mentioning Pelagius' name 8. A distinction drawn by Pelagius between the possible and actual 9. Even they who were not able to be justified are condemned He could not be justified, who had not heard of the name of Christ; rendering the cross of Christ of none effect Grace subtly acknowledged by Pelagius In our discussions about grace, we do not speak of that which relates to the constitution OF OUR nature, but TO ITS RESTORATION The scope and purpose of the law's threatenings; "perfect wayfarers" Refutation of Pelagius Not everything [of doctrinal truth] is written in Scripture in so many words...Pelagius corrupts a passage of the Apostle James by adding a note of interrogation, Explanation of this text continued Who may be said to be in the flesh Sins of ignorance; to whom wisdom is given by God on their requesting it What prayer Pelagius would admit to be necessary Pelagius denies that human nature has been depraved or corrupted by sin How our nature could be vitiated by sin, even though it be not a substance...Adam delivered by the mercy of Christ Sin and the penalty of sin the same God forsakes only those who deserve to be forsaken. We are sufficient of ourselves TO commit SIN; but NOT TO RETURN TO THE WAY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. DEATH IS the PUNISHMENT, NOT THE CAUSE OF SIN 26. Christ died of His own power and choice 27. Even evils, through God's mercy, are of use 28. The disposition of nearly all who go astray. With some heretics our business ought not to be disputation, but prayer 29. A simile to show that God's grace is necessary for doing any good work whatever.
God never forsakes the justified man if He be not Himself forsaken 30. Sin is removed by sin 31. The order and process of healing our heavenly physician does not adopt from the sick patient, but derives from Himself. What cause the righteous have for FEARING 32. God FORSAKES us to SOME EXTENT THAT WE MAY NOT GROW PROUD 33. Not every sin is pride. How pride is the commencement of every sin 34. A man's sin is his own, but he needs grace for his cure 35. Why God does not immediately cure pride itself. The secret and insidious growth of pride. Preventing and subsequent grace 36. Pride even in such things as are done aright must be avoided. Free will is not taken away when grace is preached 10, II IS 20, I20 CONTENTS.
37. Being wholly without sin does not put man on an equality with God 134 38. We must not lie, even for the sake of moderation. The praise of humility must not BE placed to the ACCOUNT OF FALSEHOOD I34 39. PELAGIUS GLORIFIES GOD AS CREATOR AT THE EXPENSE OF GOD AS SAVIOUR I34 40. Why THERE IS A RECORD IN SCRIPTURE OF CERTAIN MEN'S SINS. RECKLESSNESS IN SIN accounts it to be so much loss whenever it falls short in gratifying lust • •. 135 41. Whether holy men have died without sin 135 42. The blessed Virgin Mary may have lived without sin. None of the saints besides her without sin 135 43. Why Scripture has not mentioned the sins of all 135 44. Pelagius argues that Abel was sinless 136 45. Why Cain has been by some thought to have had children by his mother Eve. The