xxxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
there does not refer to the baptized (60-70); and then the passages are examined which Pelagius had quoted against Augustin out of earher writers, — Lactantius (71), Hilary (72), Ambrose (75), John of Constantinople (76),Xystus, — a blunder of Pelagius,who quoted from a Pythagorean philosopher, mistaking him for the Roman bishop Sixtus (57), Jerome (78), and Augustin himself (80). All these writers, Augustin shows, admitted the universal sinfulness of man, — and especially he himself had confessed the necessity of grace in the immediate context of the passage (juoted by Pelagius. The treatise closes (82 sq.) with a noble panegyric on that love which God sheds abroad in the heart, by the Holy Ghost, and by which alone we can be made keepers of the law.
The treatise On Nature and Grace^ was as yet unfinished, when the over-busy ' scriptorium at Hippo was invaded by another young man seeking instruction. This time it was a zealous }oung presbyter from the remotest part of Spain, " from the shore of the ocean," — Paulus Orosius by name, whose pious soul had been afflicted with grievous wounds by the Priscillianist and Origenist heresies that had broken out in his country, and who had come with eager haste to Augustin, on hearing that he could get from him the instruction which he needed for confuting them.
Augustin seems to have given him his heart at once; and, feeling too little informed as to the special heresies which he wished to be prepared to controvert, persuaded him to go on to Palestine to 'be taught by Jerome, and gave him introductions which described him as one " who is in the bond of catholic peace a brother, in point of age a son, and in honour a fellow-presbyter, — a man of quick understanding, ready speech, and burning zeal." His departure to Palestine gave Augustin an opportunity to consult with Jerome on the one point that had been raised in the Pelagian controversy on which he had not been able to see light. The Pelagians had early argued,* ihat, if souls are created anew for men at their birth, it would be unjust in God to impute Adam's fiin to them. And Augustin found himself unable either to prove that souls are transmitted {tra-.duced, as the phrase is), or to show that it would not involve God in injustice to make a soul only rto make it subject to a sin committed by another. Jerome had already put himself on record as a believer in both original sin and the creation of souls at the time of birth. Augustin feared the logical consequences of this assertion, and yet was unable to refute it. He therefore seized this occasion to send a long treatise on the origin of the soul to his friend, with the request that he would consider the subject anew, and answer his doubts. ^ In this treatise he stated that he was fully persuaded that the soul had fallen into sin, but by no fault of God or of nature, but of its own free will; and asked when could the soul of an infant have contracted the guilt, which, unless the grace of Christ should come to its rescue by baptism, would involve it in condemnation, if God (as Jerome held, and as he was willing to hold with him, if this difficulty could be cleared up) makes each soul for each individual at the time of birth? He professed himself embarrassed on such a supposition by the penal sufferings of infants, the pains they endured in this life, and much more the danger they are in of eternal damnation, into which they actually go unless saved by baptism. God is good, just, omnipotent: how, then, can we account for the fact that "in Adam all die," if souls are created afresh for each birth? " If new souls are made for men," he affirms, " individually at their birth, I do not see, on the one hand, that they could have any sin while yet in infancy; nor do I believe, on the other hand, that God condemns any soul which He sees to have no sin; " " and yet, whoever says that those children who depart out of this life without partaking of the sacrament of baptism, shall be made alive in Christ, certainly contradicts the apostolic declaration," and " he that is not made alive in Christ must necessarily remain under the condemnation of which the apostle says that by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." "Wherefore," he adds to his correspondent, "if that ' For Augustin's press of work just now, see Efristle 169, i and 13.
* The nrgument occurs in Pelagius' Commentary on Paul, written before 410, and is already before Augustin in Oh the Merits and For^vencis 0/ Sins, etc., iii. 5. 3 Epistle 166.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxv opinion of yours does not contradict this firmly grounded article of faith, let it be mine also; but if it does, let it no longer be yours." ' So far as obtaining light was concerned, Augustin might have spared himself the pain of this composition: Jerome simply answered ^ that he had no leisure to reply to the questions submitted to him. But Orosius' mission to Palestine was big with consequences. Once there, he became the accuser of Pelagius before John of Jerusalem, and the occasion, at least, of the trials of Pelagius in Palestine during the summer and winter of 415 which issued so disastrously, and ushered in a new phase of the conflict.
Meanwhile, however, Augustin was ignorant of what was going on in the East, and had his mind directed again to Sicily. About a year had passed since he had sent thither his long letter to Hilary. Now his conjecture that Ccelestius was in some way at the bottom of the Sicilian outbreak, received confirmation from a paper which certain catholic brethren brought out of Sicily, and which was handed to Augustin by two exiled Spanish bishops, Eutropius and Paul. This paper bore the title. Definitions Ascribed to Ccelestius, and presented internal evidence, in style and thought, of being correctly so ascribed. ^ It consisted of three parts, in the first of which were collected a series of brief and compressed " definitions," or " ratiocinations " as Augustin calls them, in which the author tries to place the catholics in a logical dilemma, and to force them to admit that man can live in this world without sin. In the second part, he adduced certain passages of Scripture in defence of his doctrine. In the third part, he undertook to deal with the texts that had been quoted against his contention, not, however, by examining into their meaning, or seeking to explain them in the sense of his theory, but simply by matching them with others which he thought made for him. Augustin at once (about the end of 415) wrote a treatise in answer to this, which bears the title of On the Perfection of Mattes Righteousness. The distribution of the matter in this work follows that of the treatise to which it is an answer. First of all (1-16), the "ratiocinations " are taken up one by one and briefly answered. As they all concern sin, and have for their object to prove that man cannot be accounted a sinner unless he is able, in his own power, wholly to avoid sin, — that is, to prove that a plenary natural ability is the necessary basis of responsibility, — Augustin argues per contra that man can entail a sinfulness on himself for which and for the deeds of which he remains responsible, though he is no longer able to avoid sin; thus admitting that for the race, plenary ability must stand at the root of sinfulness.
Next (17-22) he discusses the passages which Ccelestius had advanced in defence of his teachings, viz., (i) passages in which God commands men to be without sin, which Augustin meets by saying that the point is, whether these commands are to be fulfilled without God^s aid, in the body of this death, while absent from the Lord (17-20); and (2) passages in which God declares that His commandments are not grievous, which Augustin meets by explaining that all God's commandments are fulfilled only by Love, which finds nothing grievous; and that this love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, without whom we have only fear, to which the commandments are not only grievous, but impossible. Lastly, Augustin patiently follows Ccelestius through his odd " oppositions of texts," explaining carefully all that he had adduced, in an orthodox sense (23-42). In closing, he takes up Ccelestius' statement, that "it is quite possible for man not to sin even in word, if God so will," pointing out how he avoids saying " if God gi\'e him His help," and then proceeds to distinguish carefully between the differing assertions of sinlessness that maybe made. To say that any man ever lived, or will live, without needing forgiveness, is to contradict Rom. v. 12, and must imply that he does not need a Saviour, against Matt, ix. 12, 13. To say that after his sins have been forgiven, any one has ever remained without sin, contradicts i John i. 8 and Matt. vi. 12. Yet, if God's help be allowed, this contention is not so wicked as the other; and the great heresy is to deny the necessity of God's constant grace, for which we pray when we say, " Lead us not into temptation."
' An almost contemporary letter to Oceanus {Epistle i8o, written in 416) adverts to the same subject and in the same spirit, showing how much it was in Augustin's thoughts. Compare Epistle 180, 2 and 5.
2 Epistle 172. 3 See Oh the Perfection 0/ Man's Righteousness, i.
xxxvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
Tidings were now (416) beginning to reach Africa of what was doing in the East. There was dihgcntly circulated everywhere, and came into Augustin's hands, an epistle of Pelagius' own " filled with vanity," in which he boasted that fourteen bishops had approved his assertion that " man can live without sin, and easily keep the commandments if he wishes," and had thus " shut the mouth of opposition in confusion," and " broken up the whole band of wicked conspirators against him." Soon aftenvards a copy of an " apologetical paper," in which Pelagius used the authority of the Palestinian bishops against his adversaries, not altogether without disingcnuousness, was sent by him to Augustin through the hands of a common acquaintance, Charus by name. It was not accompanied, however, by any letter from Pelagius; and Augustin wisely refrained from making public use of it. Towards midsummer Orosius came with more authentic information, and bearing letters from Jerome and Heros and Lazarus. It was apparently before his coming that a controversial sermon was preached, only a fragment of which has come down to us.' So far as we can learn from the extant part, its subject seems to have been the relation of prayer to Pelagianism; and what we have, opens with a striking anecdote: " When these two petitions — ' Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors,' and 'Lead us not into temptation ' — are objected to the Pelagians, what do you think they reply? I was horrified, my brethren, when I heard it. I did not, indeed, hear it with my own ears; but my holy brother and fellow-bishop Urbanus, who used to be presbyter here, and now is bishop of Sicca," when he was in Rome, and was arguing with one who held these opinions, pressed him with the weight of the Lord's Prayer, and "what do you think he replied to him? 'We ask God,' he said, 'not to lead us into temptation, lest we should suffer something that is not in our power, — lest I should be thrown from my horse; lest I should break my leg; lest a robber should slay me, and the like.
For these things,' he said, ' are not in my power; but for overcoming the temptations of my sins, I both have ability if I wish to use it, and am not able to receive God's help.' ^ You see, brethren," the good bishop adds, " how malignant this heresy is: you see how it horrifies all of you.
Have a care that you be not taken by it." He then presses the general doctrine of prayer as proving that all good things come from God, whose aid is always necessary to us, and is always attainable by prayer; and closes as follows: " Consider, then, these things, my brethren, when any one comes to you and says to you, ' What, then, are we to do if we have nothing in our power, unless God gives all things? God will not then crown us, but He will crown Himself.' You already see that this comes from that vein: it is a vein, but it has poison in it; it is stricken by the serpent; it is not sound. For what Satan is doing to-day is seeking to cast out from the Church by the poison of heretics, just as he once cast out from Paradise by the poison of the serpent. Let no one tell you that this one was acquitted by the bishops: there was an acquittal, but it was his confession, so to speak, his amendment, that was acquitted. For what he said before the bishops seemed catholic; but what he wrote in his books, the bishops who pronounced the acquittal were ignorant of. And perchance he was really convinced and amended. For we ought not to despair of the man who perchance preferred to be united to the catholic faith, and fled to its grace and aid. Perchance this was what happened. But, in any event, it was not the heresy that was acquitted, but the man who denied the heresy." 3 The coming of Orosius must have dispelled any lingering hope that the meaning of the counril's finding was that Pelagius had really recanted. Councils were immediately assembled at Carthage and Mileve, and the documents which Orosius had brought were read before them. We know nothing of their proceedings except what we can gather from the letters which they sent + to Innocent at Rome, seeking his aid in their condemnation of the heresy now so nearly approved in Palestine. To these two official letters, Augustin, in company with four other bishops, added a ' Migne's Edition of Augustin's Works, vol. v. pp. 1719-1723. 2 Compare the words of Cicero quoted above, p. xiv.
' Compare the similar words in Ef>istle 177, 3, which was written, not only after what had occurred in Palestine was known, but also after the condemnatory decisions of the African synods. * EpiitUs 175 and 176 in Augustin's Letters.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxvli third private letter,' in which they took care that Innocent should be informed on all the points necessary to his decision. This important letter begins almost abruptly with a characterization of Pelagianism as inimical to the grace of God, and has grace for its subject throughout. It accounts for the action of the Palestinian synod, as growing out of a misunderstanding of Pelagius' words, in which he seemed to acknowledge grace, which these catholic bishops understood naturally to mean that grace of which they read in the Scriptures, and which they were accustomed to preach to their people, — the grace by which we are justified from iniquity, and saved from weakness; while he meant nothing more than that by which we are given free will at our creation. " For if these bishops had understood that he meant only that grace which we have in common with the ungodly and with all, along with whom we are men, wliile he denied that by which we are Christians and the sons of God, they not only could not have patiently listened to him, — they could not even have borne him before their eyes." The letter then proceeds to point out the difference between grace and natural gifts, and between grace and the law, and to trace out Pelagius' meaning when he speaks of grace, and when he contends that man can be sinless without any really inward aid. It suggests that Pelagius be sent for, and thoroughly examined by Innocent, or that he should be examined by letter or in his writings; and that he be not cleared until he unequivocally confessed the grace of God in the catholic sense, and anathematized the false teachings in the books attributed to him. The book of Pelagius which was answered in the treatise On Nature and Grace was enclosed, with this letter, with the most important passages marked: and it was suggested that more was involved in the matter than the fate of one single man, Pelagius, who, perhaps, was already brought to a better mind; the fate of multitudes already led astray, or yet to be deceived by these false views, was in danger.
At about this same time (417), the tireless bishop sent a short letter^ to a Hilary, who seems to be Hilary of Norbonne, which is interesting from its undertaking to convey a characterization of Pelagianism to one who was as yet ignorant of it. It thus brings out what Augustin conceived to be its essential features. " An effort has been made," we read, " to raise a certain new heresy, inimical to the grace of Christ, against the Church of Christ. It is not yet openly separated from the Church. It is the heresy of men who dare to attribute so much power to human weakness that they contend that this only belongs to God's grace, — that we are created with free will and the possibility of not sinning, and that we receive God's commandments which are to be fulfilled by us; but, for keeping and fulfilling these commandments, we do not need any divine aid. No doubt, the remission of sins is necessary for us; for we have no power to right what we have done wrong in the past. But for avoiding and overcoming sins in the future, for conquering all temptations with virtue, the human will is sufficient by its natural capacity without any aid of God's grace. And neither do infants need the grace of the Saviour, so as to be liberated by it through His baptism from perdition, seeing that they have contracted no contagion of damnation from Adam." 3 He engages Hilary in the destruction of this heresy, which ought to be " concordandy condemned and anathematized by all who have hope in Christ," as a " pestiferous impiety," and excuses himself for not undertaking its full refutation in a brief letter. A much more important letter was sent off, at about the same time, to John of Jerusalem, who had conducted the first Palestinian examination of Pelagius, and had borne a prominent part in the synod at Diospolis. He sent with it a copy of Pelagius' book which he had examined in his treatise On Nature and Grace, as well as a copy of that reply itself, and asked John to send him an authentic copy of the proceedings at Diospolis. He took this occasion seriously to warn his brother bishop against the wiles of Pelagius, and begged him, if he loved Pelagius, to let men see that he did not so love him as to be deceived by him. He pointed out that in the book sent with the letter, Pelagius called nothing the grace of God except nature; and that he affirmed, and even vehemently contended, that by free will alone, human nature was able to sufiice for itself for working righteousness and keeping • Epistle \^^. The other bishops were Aurelius, Alypius, Evodius, and Possidius. * Epistle ^■^%. ^ Epistle ij^.
xxxviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY all God's commandments; whence any one could see that he opposed the grace of God of which the apostles spoke in Rom. vii. 24, 25, and contradicted, as well, all the prayers and benedictions J of the Church by which blessings were sought for men from God's grace. " If you love Pelagius, then," he continued, " let him, too, love you as himself, — nay, more than himself; and let him not ■ deceive you. For when you hear him confess the grace of God and the aid of God, you tliink he means what you mean by it. But let him be openly asked whether he desires that we should pray God that we sin not; whether he proclaims the assisting grace of God, without which we would do much evil; whether he believes that even children who have not yet been able to do good or evil are nevertheless, on account of one man by whom sin entered into the world, sinners in him, and in need of being delivered by the grace of Christ." If he openly denies such things, Augustin would be pleased to hear of it.
Thus we see the great bishop sitting in his library at Hippo, placing his hands on the two ends of the world. That nothing may be lacking to the picture of his universal activity, we have another letter from him, coming from about this same time, that exhibits his care for the individuals who had placed themselves in some sort under his tutelage. Among the refugees from Rome in the • terrible times when Alaric was a second time threatening the city, was a family of noble women, — Proba, Juliana, and Demetrias,' — grandmother, mother, and daughter, — who, finding an asylum in Africa, gave themselves to God's service, and sought the friendship and counsel of Augustin. In 413 the granddaughter " took the veil" under circumstances that thrilled the Christian world, and brought out letters of congratulation and advice from Augustin and Jerome, and also from Pelagius. This letter of Pelagius seems not to have fallen into Augustin's way until now (416): he was so disturbed by it that he wrote to Juliana a long letter warning her against its evil counsels.^ It was so shrewdly phrased, that, at first sight, Augustin was himself almost persuaded that it did somehow acknowledge the grace of God; but when he compared it with others of Pelagius' writings, he saw that here, too, he was using ambiguous phrases in a non-natural sense. The object of his letter (in which Alypius is conjoined, as joint author) to Juliana is to warn her and her holy daughter against all opinions that opposed the grace of God, and especially against the covert teaching of the letter of Pelagius to Demetrias.^ " In this book," he says, " were it lawful for such an one to read it, a virgin of Christ would read that her holiness and all her spiritual riches are to spring from no other source than herself; and thus before she attains to the perfection of blessedness, she would learn — which may God forbid! — to be ungrateful to God." Then, after quoting the words of Pelagius, in which he declares that " earthly riches came from others, but your spiritual riches no one can have conferred on you but yourself; for these, then, you are justly praised, for these you are deservedly to be preferred to others, — for they can exist only from yourself and in yourself," he continues: " Far be it from any virgin to listen to statements like these. Every virgin of Christ understands the innate poverty of the human heart, and therefore declines to be adorned otherwise than by the gifts of her spouse...Let her not listen to him who says, ' No one can confer them on you but yourself, and they cannot exist except from you and in you: ' but to him who says, ' We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.' And be not surprised that we speak of these things as yours, and not from you; for we speak of daily bread as ' ours,' but yet add. ' give it to us,' lest it should be thought it was from ourselves." Again, he warns her that grace is not mere knowledge any more than mere nature; and that Pelagius, even when using the word " grace," means no inward or efficient aid, but mere nature or knowledge or forgiveness of past sins; and beseeches her not to forget the God of all grace from whom (Wisdom i. 20, 21) Demetrias had that very virgin continence which was so justly her boast.
' See vol. i. of this series, p. 459, and the references there given. Compare Canon Robertson's vivid account of them in his History 0/ the Christian Church, ii. 18, 145.
2 EfiiitU 188.
3 Compare On the Grace 0/ Christ, 40. In the succeeding sections, some of its statements are examined.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxix With the opening of 417, came the answers from Innocent to the African letters.' And although they were marred by much boastful language concerning the dignity of his see, which could not but be distasteful to the Africans, they admirably served their purpose in the satisfactory manner in which they, on the one hand, asserted the necessity of the " daily grace, and help of God," for our good living, and, on the other, determined that the Pelagians had denied this grace, and declared their leaders Pelagius and Coelestius deprived of the communion of the Church until they should " recover their senses from the wiles of the Devil by whom they are held captive according to his will." Augustin may be pardoned for supposing that a condemnation pronounced by two provincial synods in Africa, and heartily concurred in by the Roman bishop, who had already at Jerusalem been recognized as in some sort the fit arbiter of this Western dispute, should settle the matter. If Pelagius had been before jubilant, Augustin found this a suitable time for his rejoicing.
About the same time with Innocent's letters, the official proceedings of the synod of Diospolis at last reached Africa, and Augustin lost no time (early in 417) in publishing a full account and examination of them, thus providing us with that inestimable boon, a full contemporary history of the chief events connected with the controversy up to this time. This treatise, which is addressed to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, opens with a brief explanation of Augustin's delay heretofore, in discussing Pelagius' defence of himself in Palestine, as due to his not having received the official copy of the Proceedings of the Council at Diospolis (i-2^z). Then Augustin proceeds at once to discuss at length the doings of the synod, point by point, following the official record step by step (2^-45). He treats at large here eleven items in the indictment, with Pelagius' answers and the synod's decision, showing that in all of them Pelagius either explained away his heresy, taking advantage of the ignorance of the judges of his books, or else openly repudiated or anathematized it. When the twelfth item of the indictment was reached (4i<!^-43), Augustin shows that the synod was so indignant at its character (it charged Pelagius with teaching that men cannot be sons of God unless they are sinless, and with condoning sins of ignorance, and with asserting that choice is not free if it depends on God's help, and that pardon is given according to merit), that, without waiting for Pelagius' answer, it condemned the statement, and Pelagius at once repudiated and anathematized it (43). How could the synod act in such circumstances, he asks, except by acquitting the man who condemned the heresy? After quoting the final judgment of the synod (44), Augustin briefly characterizes it and its effect (45) as being indeed all that could be asked of the judges, but of no moral weight to those better acquainted than they were with Pelagius' character and writings. In a word, they approved his answers to them, as indeed they ought to have done; but they by no means approved, but both they and he condemned, his heresies as expressed in his writings. To this statement, Augustin appends an account of the origin of Pelagianism, and of his relations to it from the beginning, which has the very highest value as history (46-49); and then speaks of the character and doubtful practices of Pelagius (50-58), returning at the end (59-65) to a thorough canvass of the value of the acquittal which he obtained by such doubtful practices at the synod. He closes with an indignant account of the outrages which the Pelagians had perpetrated on Jerome (66).
This valuable treatise is not, however, the only account of the historical origin of Pelagianism that we have, from Augustin's hands. Soon after the death of Innocent (March 12, 417), he found occasion to write a very long letter ^ to the venerable Paulinus of Nola, in which he summarized both the history of and the arguments against this " worldly philosophy." He begins by saying that he knows Paulinus has loved Pelagius as a servant of God, but is ignorant in what way he now loves him. For he himself not only has loved him, but loves him still, but in different \vays. Once he loved him as apparently a brother in the true faith: now he loves him in the longing that God will by Kis mercy free him from his noxious opinions against God's grace.
^ E/isiUs iSi, 1S2, i8j, among Aug.:.'.in's Letters. ^ Epistle i86, written conjointly with Alypius.
xl INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.