sins of righteous men. Who can be both righteous, and yet not without sin.. 136 46. Shall we follow Scripture, or add to its declarations? 137 47. For what Pelagius thought that Christ is necessary to us 137 48. How the term "all" is to be understood 137 49. A MAN CAN be sinless, BUT ONLY BY THE HELP OF GRACE. In THE SAINTS THIS POSSIBILITY ADVANCES AND KEEPS PACE WITH THE REALIZATION I38 50. God COMMANDS NO IMPOSSIBILITIES I38 51. State of the question between the Pelagians and the catholics. Holy men of old saved by the self-same faith in christ which we exercise i38 52. The WHOLE discussion is about grace 139 53. Pelagius distinguishes between a power and its use 139 54. There is no incompatibility between necessity and free will 139 55. The same continued. 139 56. The assistance of grace in a perfect nature 140 57. It does not detract from God's almighty power, that He is incapable of either sinning, or dying, or destroying Himself 140 58. Even pious and God-fearing men resist grace 141 59. In what sense Pelagius attributed to God's grace the capacity of not sinning...r4i 60. Pelagius admits "contrary flesh" in the unbaptized 141 61. Paul asserts that the flesh is contrary even in the baptized 142 62. Concerning what grace of God is here under discussion. The ungodly man, when DYING, IS not delivered FROM CONCUPISCENCE I42 63 Does God create contraries.' 143 64. Pelagius' admission as regards the unbaptized, fatal 143 65. " This body of death," so called from its defect, not from its substance 144 66. The works, not the substance, of the "flesh" opposed to the "spirit" 144 67. Who MAY BE SAID to BE UNDER THE LAW I44 68. Despite the devil, man m.\y, by God's help, be perfected 145 69. Pelagius puts nature in the place of grace 145 70 Whether any man is without sin in this life 145 71. AUGUSTIN replies AGAINST THE QUOTATIONS WHICH PeLAGIUS HAD ADVANCED OUT OF THE CATHOLIC WRITERS. LACTANTIUS I46 72. Hilary. The pure in heart blessed. The doing and perfecting of righteousness.. 146 73. He meets Pelagius with another passage from Hilary 147 74. Ambrose 147 75. Augustin adduces in reply some other passages of Ambrose 147 76. John of Constantinople 14S 77. XvsTus 148 78. Jerome 148 79. A certain necessity of sinning 149 80. Augustin himself. Two methods whereby sins, like diseases, are guarded against.. 149 81. Augustin quotes himself on free will 149 82. How to exhort men to faith, repentance, and advancement 150 83. God enjoins no impossibility, because all things are possible and easy to love...150 84. The degrees of love are also degrees of holiness 151 A TREATISE ON NATURE AND GRACE, AGAINST PELAGIUS; £y AURELIUS AUGUSTIN, BISHOP OF HIPPO; CONTAINED IN ONE BOOK, ADDRESSED TO TIMASIUS AND JACOBUS. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 415.
HE BEGINS WITH A STATEMENT OF WHAT IS TO BE INVESTIGATED CONCERNING NATURE AND GRACE; HE SHOWS THAT NATURE, AS PROPAGATED FROM THE FLESH OF THE SINFUL ADAM, BEING NO LONGER WHAT GOD MADE IT AT FIRST, FAULTLESS AND SOUND, REQUIRES THE AID OF GRACE, IN ORDER THAT IT MAY BE REDEEMED FROM THE WRATH OF GOD AND REGULATED FOR THE PER-FECTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: THAT THE PENAL FAULT OF NATURE LEADS TO A MOST RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION: WHILST GRACE ITSELF IS NOT RENDERED TO ANY DESERTS OF OURS, BUT IS GIVEN GRATUITOUSLY; AND THEY WHO ARE NOT DELIVERED BY IT ARE JUSTLY CONDEMNED. HE AFTERWARDS REFUTES, WITH ANSWERS ON EVERY SEVERAL POINT, A WORK BY PELAGIUS, WHO SUPPORTS THIS SELF-SAME NATURE IN OPPOSITION TO GRACE; AMONG OTHER THINGS ESPECIALLY, IN HIS DESIRE TO RECOMMEND THE OPINION THAT A ^ MAN CAN LIVE WITHOUT SIN, HE CONTENDED THAT NATURE HAD NOT BEEN WEAKENED AND CHANGED BY sin; FOR, OTHERWISE, THE MATTER OF SIN (WHICH HE THINKS ABSURD) WOULD BE ITS PUNISHMENT, IF THE SINNER WERE WEAKENED TO SUCH A DEGREE THAT HE COMMITTED MORE SIN. HE GOES ON TO ENUMERATE SUNDRY RIGHTEOUS MEN BOTH OF THE OLD AND OF THE NEW TESTAMENTS: DEEMING THESE TO HAVE BEEN FREE FROM SIN, HE ALLEGED THE POSSIBILITY OF NOT SINNING TO BE INHERENT IN MAN; AND THIS HE ATTRIBUTED TO GOD's GRACE, ON THE GROUND THAT GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF THAT NATURE IN WHICH IS INSEPARABLY INHERENT THIS POSSIBILITY OF AVOIDING SIN. TOWARDS THE END OF THIS TREATISE THERE IS AN EXAMINATION OF SUNDRY EXTRACTS FROM OLD WRITERS, WHICH PELAGIUS ADDUCED IN SUPPORT OF HIS VIEWS, AND EXPRESSLY FROM HILARY, AMBROSE, AND EVEN AUGUSTIN HIMSELF.
CHAP. I [l.] — THE OCCASION OF PUBLISHING THIS work; WHAT GOD's RIGHTEOUSNESS IS.
The book which you sent to me, my beloved sons, Timasius and Jacobus, I have read through hastily, but not indifferently, omitting only the few points which are plain enough to everybody; and I saw in it a man inflamed with most ardent zeal against those, who, when in their sins they ought to censure human will, are more forward in accusing the nature of men, and thereby endeavour to excuse themselves. He shows too great a fire against this evil, which even authors of secular literature have severely censured with the exclamation: " The human race falsely complains of its own nature! " ' This same senti- ' See Sallust's Prologue to his J-ugurtha.
ment your author also has strongly insisted upon, with all the powers of his talent. I fear, however, that he will chiefly help those '• who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge," who, " being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." ^ Now, what the righteousness of God is, which is spoken of here, he immediately afterwards explains by adding: " For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." ^ This righteousness of God, therefore, lies not in the commandment of the law, which excites fear, but in the aid afforded by the grace of Christ, 2 Rom. X. 2, 3.
3 Rom. X. 4.
[Chap. 2.
to which alone the fear of the law, as of a schoolmaster,' usefully conducts. Now, the man who understands this understands why he is a Christian. For " If righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." ^ If, however, He did not die in vain, in Him only is the ungodly man justified, and to him, on believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned for righteousness.^ For all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His blood.-* But all those who do not think themselves to belong to the " all who have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," have of course no need to become Christians, because " they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; " 5 whence it is, that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.^ CHAP. 2 [11.] FAITH IN CHRIST NOT NECESSARY TO SALVATION, IF A MAN WITHOUT IT CAN LEAD A RIGHTEOUS LIFE.
Therefore the nature of the human race, generated from the flesh of the one transgressor, if it is self-sufficient for fulfilling the law and for perfecting righteousness, ought to be sure of its reward, that is, of everlasting life, even if in any nation or at any former time faith in the blood of Christ was unknown to it. For God is not so unjust as to defraud righteous persons of the reward of righteousness, because there has not been announced to them the mystery of Christ's divinity and humanity, which was manifested in the flesh. 7 For how could they believe what ■they had not heard of; or how could they hear without a preacher?** For "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." But I say (adds he): Have they not heard?
"Yea, verily; their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." ^ Before, however, all this had been accomplished, before the actual preaching of the gospel reaches the ends of all the earth — because there are some remote nations still (although it is said they are very few) to whom the preached gospel has not found its way, — what must human nature do, or what has it done — for it had either not heard that all this was to take place, or has not yet learnt that it was accomplished — but believe in God who made heaven and earth, by whom also it perceived by nature that it had been itself created, and lead a right life, and thus accomplish His will, uninstructed with any faith in the death and resur-. rection of Christ? Well, if this could have been I done, or can still be done, then for my part I! have to say what the apostle said in regard to I Hal iii. i4.
' Rom. lii 23, 24.
' 1 inn- ill. 16.
3 Rom. iv 5, I the law: " Then Christ died in vain^" ^ For if he said this about the law, which only the nation of the Jews received, how much more justly may it be said of the law of nature, which the whole human race has received, " If righteousness come by nature, then Christ died in vain." If, however, Christ did not die in vain, then human nature cannot by any means be justified and redeemed from God's most righteous wrath — in a word, from punishment — except by faith and the sacrament of the blood of Christ.
CHAP. 3 [ill.] — NATURE WAS CREATED SOUND AND WHOLE; IT WAS AFTERWARDS CORRUPTED BY SIN.
Man's nature, indeed, was created at first faultless and without any sin; but that nature of man in which every one is born from Adam, now wants the Physician, because it is not sound. All good qualities, no doubt, which it still possesses in its make, life, senses, intellect, it has of the Most High God, its Creator and Maker. But the flaw, which darkens and weakens all those natural goods, so that it has need of illumination and healing, it has not contracted from its blameless Creator — but from that original sin, which it committed by free will. Accordingly, criminal nature has its part in most righteous punishment. For, if we are now newly created in Christ, '° we were, for all that, children of wrath, even as others," " but God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by whose grace we were saved." '^ CHAP. 4 [iV.] — FREE GRACE.
This grace, however, of Christ, without which neither infants nor adults can be saved, is not rendered for any merits, but is given gratis, on account of which it is also ci'iS^tdi grace. " Being justified," says the apostle, " freely through His blood." '^ Whence they, who are not liberated through grace, either because they are not yet able to hear, or because they are unwilling to obey; or again because they did not receive, at the time when they were unable on account of youth to hear, that bath of regeneration, which they might have received and through which they might have been saved, are indeed justly condemned; because they are not without sin, either that which they have derived from their birth, or that which they have added from their own misconduct. " For all have sinned " — whether in Adam or in themselves — " and come short of the glory of God."'-* Eph. ij.
4. 5- Chap. 8.| CHAP. 5 [v.] IT WAS A MATTKR OF JUSTICE THAT ALL SHOULD BE CONDEMNED.
The entire mass, therefore, incurs penalty; and if the deserved punishment of condemnation were rendered to all, it would without doubt be righteously rendered. They, therefore, who are delivered therefrom by grace are called, not vessels of their own merits, but " vessels of mercy." ' But of whose mercy, if not His who sent Christ Jesus into the world to save sinners, whom He foreknew, and foreordained, and called, and justified, and glorified?- Now, who could be so madly insane as to fail to give ineffable thanks to the Mercy which liberates whom it would? The man who correctly appreciated the whole subject could not possibly blame the justice of God in wholly condemning all men whatsoever.
CHAP. 6 [VI.] — THE PELAGIANS HAVE VERY STRONG AND ACTIVE MINDS.
If we are simply wise according to the Scriptures, we are not compelled to dispute against the grace of Christ, and to make statements attempting to show that human nature both requires no Physician, — in infants, because it is whole and sound; and in adults, because it is able to suffice for itself in attaining righteousness, if it will. Men no doubt seem to urge acute opinions on these points, but it is only word-wisdom,^ by which the cross of Christ is made of none effect. This, however, " is not the wisdom which descendeth from above." * The words which follow in the apostle's statement I am unwilling to quote; for we would rather not be thought to do an injustice to our friends, whose very strong and active minds we should be sorry to see running in a perverse, instead of an upright, course.
CHAP. 7 [VII.] — HE PROCEEDS TO CONFUTE THE WORK OF PELAGIUS; HE REFRAINS AS VET FROM MENTIONING PELAGIUS' NAME.
However ardent, then, is the zeal which the author of the book you have forwarded to me entertains against those who find a defence for their sins in the infirmity of human nature; not less, nay even much greater, should be our eagerness in preventing all attempts to render the cross of Christ of none effect. Of none effect, however, it is rendered, if it be contended that by any other means than by Christ's own sacrament it is possible to attain to righteousness and everlasting life. This is actually done in the book to which I refer — I will not say by its author wittingly, lest I should express the judgment that he ought not to be accounted even a ' Rom. ix. 23, * Jas. iiu 15.
3 I Cor. t. 17.
Christian, but, as I rather believe, unconsciously. He has done it, no doubt, with much power; I only wish that the ability he has displayed were sound and less like that which insane persons are accustomed to exhibit.
CHAP. 8. — A DISTINCTION DRAWN BY PELAGIUS BETWEEN THE POSSIBLE AND ACTUAL.
For he first of all makes a distinction: " It is one thing," says he, " to inquire whether a thing can be, which has respect to its possibility only; and another thing, whether or not it is." This distinction, nobody doubts, is true enough; for it follows that whatever is, was able to be; but it does not therefore follow that what is able to be, also is. Our Lord, for instance, raised Lazarus; He unquestionably was able to do so. But inasmuch as He did not raise up Judas, 5 must we therefore contend that He was unable to do so? He certainly was able, but He would not. For if He had been willing, He coul^ have effected this too. For the Son quickeneth whomsoever He will.^ Observe, however, what he means by this distinction, true and manifest enough in itself, and what he endeavours to make out of it. " We are treating," says he, " of possibility only; and to pass from this to something else, except in the case of some certain fact, we deem to be a very serious and extraordinary process." This idea he turns over again and again, in many ways and at great length, so that no one would suppose that he was inquiring about any other point than the possibility of not committing sin. Among the many passages in which he treats of this subject, occurs the following: " I once more repeat my position: I say that it is possible for a man to be without sin. What do you say? That it is impossible for a man to be without sin? But I do not say," he adds, " that there is a man without sin; nor do yd\i say, that there is not a man without sin. Our contention is about what is possible, and not possible; not about what is, and is not." He then enumerates certain passages of Scripture,^ which are usually alleged in opposition to them, and insists that they have nothing to do with the question, which is really in dispute, as to the possibility or impossibility of a man's being without sin. This is what he says: " No man indeed is clean from pollution; and, There is no man that sinneth not; and. There is not a just man upon the earth; and, There is none that doeth good. There are these and similar passages in Scripture," says he, " but they testify to the point of not being, not of not being able; for by testimonies of this sort it is shown what kind of per- 5 Peter Lombard refers to this passage of Augiistin, to show that Goil can do many things which He will not do. See his i Sfni. Disi, 43, last chapter.
* John V. 21.
' Job XIV. 2; I Kings viii. 46; Eccles. vii. 21; Ps. xiv. 1.
[Chap. 9.
sons certain men were at such and such a time, not that they were unable to be something else. Whence they are justly found to be blameworthy. If, however, they had been of such a character, simply because they were unable to be anything else, they are free from blame."
CHAP. 9 [VIII.] — EVEN THEY WHO WERE NOT ABLE TO BE JUSTIFIED ARE CONDEMNED.
See what he has said. I, however, affirm that an infant born in a place where it was not possible for him to be admitted to the baptism of Christ, and being overtaken by death, was placed in such circumstances, that is to say, died without the bath of regeneration, because it was not possible for him to be otherwise. He would therefore absolve him, and, in spite of the Lord's sentence, open to him the kingdom of heaven. The apostle, however, does not absoh^e him, when he says: " By one man sin entered into the world, ancf death by sin; by which death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." ' Rightly, therefore, by virtue of that condemnation which runs throughout the mass, is he not admitted into the kingdom of heaven, although he was not only not a Christian, but was unable to become one.
CHAP. 10 [iX.] — HE COULD NOT BE JUSTIFIED, WHO HAD NOT HEARD OF THE NAME OF CHRIST; RENDERING THE CROSS OF CHRIST OF NONE EFFECT.
But they say: " He is not condemned; because the statement that all sinned in Adam, was not made because of the sin which is derived from one's birth, but because of imitation of him." If, therefore, Adam is said to be the author of all the sins which followed his own, because he was the first sinner of the human race, then how is it that Abel, rather than Christ, is not placed at the head of all the righteous, because he was the first righteous man? But I am not speaking of the case of an infant. I take the instance of a young man, or an old man, who has died in a region where he could not hear of the name of Christ. \\'ell, could such a man have become righteous by nature and free will; or could he not? If they contend that he could, then see what it is to render the cross of Christ of none effect,^ to contend that any man without it, can be justified by the law of nature and the power of his will. VVe may here also say, then is Christ dead in vain,^ forasmuch as all might accomplish so much as this, even if He had never died; and if they should be unrighteous, they would be so because they wished to be, not because they were unable to be righteous. But even ' Rom. V. 12.
* I Cor. i. I.
3 Gal. ii. 21.
though a man could not be justified at all without the grace of Christ, he would absolve him, if he dared, in accordance with his words, to the effect that, " if a man were of such a character, because he could not possibly have been of any other, he would be free from all blame."
BY PELAGIUS.
He then starts an objection to his own position, as if, indeed, another person had raised it, and says: " ' A man,' you will say, ' may possibly be [without sin]; but it is by the grace of God.' " He then at once subjoins the following, as if in answer to his own suggestion: " I thank you for your kindness, because you are not merely content to withdraw your opposition to my statement, which you just now opposed, or barely to acknowledge it; but you actually go so far as to approve it. For to say, ' A man may possibly, but by this or by that,' is in fact nothing else than not only to assent to its possibility, but also to show the mode and condition of its possibility. Nobody, therefore, gives a better assent to the possibility of anything than the man who allows the condition thereof; because, without the thing itself, it is not possible for a condition to be." After this he raises another objection against himself: " 'But, you will say, * you here seem to reject the grace of God, inasmuch as you do not even mention it; ' " and he then answers the objection: " Now, is it I that reject grace, who by acknowledging the thing must needs also confess the means by which it may be effected, or you, who by denying the thing do undoubtedly also deny whatever may be the means through which the thing is accomplished? " He forgot that he was now answering one who does not deny the thing, and whose objection he had just before set forth in these words: " A man may possibly be [without sin]; but it is by the grace of God." How then does that man deny the possibility, in defence of which his opponent earnestly contends, when he makes the admission to that opponent that " the thing is possible, but only by the grace of God? " That, however, after he is dismissed who already acknowledges the essential thing, he still has a question against those who maintain the impossibility of a man's being without sin, what is it to us? Let him ply his questions against any opponents he pleases, provided he only confesses this, which cannot be denied without the most criminal impiety, that without the grace of God a man cannot be without sin. He says, indeed: " Whether he confesses it to be by grace, or by aid, or by mercy, whatever that be by which a man can be without sin, — every one acknowledges the thing itself."
Chap. 15.]
CH.\P. 1 2 [XI.] — IN OUR DISCUSSIONS ABOUT GR.A.CE, WE DO NOT SPEAK OF THAT WHICH RELATES TO THE CONSTITUTION OF OUR NATURE, BUT TO ITS RESTORATION.
I confess to your love, that when I read those words I was filled with a sudden joy, because he did not deny the grace of God by which alone a man can be justified; for it is this which I mainly detest and dread in discussions of this kind. But when I went on to read the rest, I began to have my suspicions, first of all, from the similes he employs. For he says: " If I were to say, man is able to dispute; a bird is able to fly; a liare is able to run; without mentioning at the same time the instruments by which these acts can be accomplished — that is, the tongue, the wings, and the legs; should I then have denied the conditions of the various offices, when I acknowledged the very offices themselves? " It is at once apparent that he has here instanced such things as are by nature efficient; for the members of the bodily structure which are here mentioned are created with natures of such a kind — the tongue, the wings, the legs. He has not here posited any such thing as we wish to have understood \yj grace, without which no man is justified; for this is a topic which is concerned about the cure, not the constitution, of natural functions. Entertaining, then, some apprehensions, I proceeded to read all the rest, and I soon found that my suspicions had not been unfounded.
CHAP. 13 [xn.] — THE SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THE LAW S THREATENINGS FARERS."
PERFECT WAY- But before I proceed further, see what he has said. When treating the question about the difference of sins, and starting as an objection to himself, what certain persons allege, " that some sins are light by their very frequency, their constant irruption making it impossible that they should be all of them avoided; " he thereupon denied that it was " proper that they should be censured even as light offences, if they cannot possibly be wholly avoided." He of course does not notice the Scriptures of the New Testament, wherein we learn ' that the intention of the law in its censure is this, that, by reason of the transgressions which men commit, they may flee for refuge to the grace of the Lord, who has pity upon them — "the schoolmaster'"' "shutting them up unto the same faith which should afterwards be revealed; " ^ that by it their transgressions may be forgiven, and then not again be committed, by God's assisting grace. The road indeed belongs to all who are progressing in it; ' We have read discimus, not dicimus.
^ Gal. iii. 24. 3 Gal. iii. 23.
although it is they who make a good advance that are called " perfect travellers." That, however, is the height of perfection which admits of no addition, when the gual to which men tend has begun to be possessed.
CHAP. 14 [XIII.] REFUTATION OF PELAGIUS.
But the truth is, the question which is proposed to him — " Are you even yourself without sin? " — does not really belong to the subject in dispute. What, however, he says, — that " it is rather to be imputed to his own negligence that he is not without sin," is no doubt well spoken; but then he should deem it to be his duty even to pray to God that this faulty negligence get not the dominion over him, — the prayer that a certain man once put up, when he said: " Order my steps according to Thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me,"* — lest, whilst relying on his own diligence as on strength of his own, he should fail to attain to the true righteousness either by this way, or by that other method in which, no doubt, perfect righteousness is to be desired and hoped for.
CHAP. 15 [XIV.] NOT EVERYTHING [OF DOC- TRINAL truth] is WRITIEN IN SCRIPTURE IN so MANY WORDS.
That, too, which is said to him, " that it is nowhere written in so many words, A man can be without sin," he easily refutes thus: " That the question here is not in what precise words each doctrinal statement is made." It is perhaps not without reason that, while in several passages of Scripture we may find it said that men are without excuse, it is nowhere found that any man is described as being without sin, except Him only, of whom it is plainly said, that " He knew no sin." 5 Similarly, we read in the passage where the subject is concerning priests: " He was in all points tempted like as we are, only without sin,"^ — meaning, of course, in that flesh which bore the likeness of sinful flesh, although it was not sinful flesh; a likeness, indeed, which it would not have borne if it had not been in every other respect the same as sinful flesh. How, however, we are to understand this: " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; neither can he sin, for his seed remaineth in him; " ^ while the Apostle John himself, as if he had not been born of God, or else were addressing men who had not been born of God, lays down this position: " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," ** — I have already explained, with such care as I was able, in those books which I wrote to Marcellinus on this very subject.'^ It seems, 9 See the De Peccat. Meritis et Reinissione, ii. 8-10.
[Chap. i6.
moreover, to me to be an interpretation worthy of acceptance to regard the clause of the above quoted passage: " Neither can he sin," as if it meant: He ought not to commit sin. For who could be so foolish as to say that sin ought to be committed, when, in fact, sin is sin, for no other reason than that it ought not to be committed?
CHAP. 16 [XV.] — PELAGIUS CORRUPTS A PASSAGE OF THE APOSTLE JAMES BY ADDING A NOTE OF INTERROG.^TION.
Now that passage, in which the Apostle James says: " But the tongue can no man tame," ' does not appear to me to be capable of the interpretation which he would put upon it, when he expounds it, " as if it were written by way of reproach; as much as to say: Can no man, then, tame the tongue? As if in a reproachful tone, which would say: You are able to tame wild beasts; cannot you tame the tongue? As if it were an easier thing to tame the tongue than to subjugate wild beasts." I do not think that this is the meaning of the passage. For, if he had meant such an opinion as this to be entertained of the facility of taming the tongue, there would have followed in the sequel of the passage a comparison of that member with the! beasts. As it is, however, it simply goes on to! say: " The tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison," ' — such, of course, as is more noxious than that of beasts and creeping things.
For while the one destroys the flesh, the other kills the soul. For, " The mouth that belieth slayeth the soul."^ It is not, therefore, as if this is an easier achievement than the taming of beasts that St. James pronounced the statement before us, or would have others utter it; but he rather aims at showing what a great evil in man his tongue is — so great, indeed, that it cannot be tamed by any man, although even beasts are tameable by human beings. And he said this, not with a view to our permitting, through our neglect, the continuance of so great an evil to ourselves, but in order that we might be induced to request the help of divine grace for the taming of the tongue. For he does not say: " None can tame the tongue; " but " No man; " in order that, when it is tamed, we may acknowledge it to be effected by the mercy of God, the help of God, the grace of God. The soul, therefore, | should endeavour to tame the tongue, and while endeavouring should pray for assistance; the tongue, too, should beg for the taming of the tongue, — He being the tamer who said to His disciples: " It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." ^ Thus, we are warned by the precept to do this, — namely, to make the attempt, and, failing » Jas. iil. 8.
2 Wisd. i. II.
3 Matt. X. 20.
in our own strength, to pray for the help of God.
CHAP. 1 7 [XVI.] — EXPLANATION OF THIS TEXT CONTINUED.
Accordingly, after emphatically describing the evil of the tongue — saying, among other things: "My brethren, these things ought not so to be"* — he at once, after finishing some remarks which arose out of his subject, goes on to add this advice, showing by what help those things would not happen, which (as he said) ought not: '•' Who is a wise man and endowed with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, de\'ilish. For where there is envying and strife, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." 5 This is the wisdom which tames the tongue; it descends from above, and springs from no human heart. Will any one, then, dare to divorce it from the grace of God, and with most arrogant vanity place it in the power of man? Why should I pray to God that it be accorded me, if it may be had of man?