them; and that same something is neither small nor moderate, but of great account. For although you deny that they contract the original sin wliich is remitted in baptism, yet you do not deny that in that laver of regeneration they are adopted from the sons of men unto the sons of God; nay, you even preach this. Tell us, then, how the infants, whoever they are, that are baptized in Christ and have departed from the body, received so lofty a gift as this, and with what preceding merits. If you should say that they have deserved this by the piety of their parents, it will be replied to you, Why is this benefit sometimes denied to the children of pious people and given to the children of the wicked? For sometimes the offspring born from religious people, in tender age, and thus fresh from the womb, is forestalled by death before it can be washed in the laver of regeneration, and the infant born of Christ's foes is baptized in Christ by the mercy of Christians, — the baptized mother bewails her own little one not baptized, and the chaste virgin gathers in to be baptized a foreign offspring, exposed by an unchaste mother. Here, certainly, the merits of parents are wanting, and even by your own confession the merits of the infants themselves are wanting also. For we know that you do not believe this of the human soul, that it has lived somewhere before it inhabited this earthly body, and has done something either of good or of evil for which it might deserve such difference in the flesh. What cause, then, has procured baptism for this infant, and has denied it to that?
Do they have fate because they do not have merit? or is there in these things acceptance of persons with God? For you have said both, — first fate, afterwards acceptance of persons, — that, since both must be refuted, there may remain the merit which you wish to introduce against grace. Answer, then, concerning the merits of infants, why some should depart from their bodies baptized, others not baptized, and by the merits of their parents neither possess nor fail of so excellent a gift that they should become sons of God from sons of men, by no deserving of their parents, by no deservings of their own. You are silent, forsooth, and you find yourselves rather in the same position which you object to us. For if when there is no merit you say that consequently there is fate, and on this account wish the merit of man to be understood in the grace of God, lest you should be compelled to confess fate; see, you rather assert a fate in the baptism of infants, since you avow that in them there is no merit. But if, in the case of infants to be baptized, you deny that any merit at all precedes, and yet do not concede that there is a fate, why do you cry out, — when we say that the grace of God is therefore given freely, lest it should not be grace, and is not repaid as if it were due to preceding merits, — that we are assertors of fate? — not perceiving that in the justification of the wicked, as there are no merits because it is God's grace, so that it is not fate because it is God's grace, and so that it is not acceptance of persons because it is God's grace.
CHAP. 12, WHAT IS MEANT UNDER THE NAME OF FATE, Because they who affirm fate contend that not only actions and events, but, moreover, our very wills themselves depend on the position of the stars at the time in which one is conceived or born; which positions they call "constellations." But the grace of God stands above not only all stars and all heavens, but, moreover, all angels. In a word, the assertors of fate attribute both men's good and evil doings and fortunes to fate; but God in the ill fortunes of men follows up their merits with due retribution, while good fortunes He bestows by undeserved grace with a merciful will; doing both tlie one and the other not according to a temporal conjunction of stars, but according to the eternal and high counsel of His severity and goodness. We see, then, that neither belongs to fate. Here, if you answer that this very benevolence of God, by which He follows not merits, but bestows undeserved benefits with gratuitous bounty, should rather be called " fate," when the apostle calls this "grace," saying, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, lest perchance anyone should be lifted up,"' — do you not consider, do you not perceive that it is not by us that fate is asserted under the name of grace, but it is rather by you that divine grace is called by the name of fate?
» Eph. ii. 8.
\97 » Eph. ii. 8.
\97 CHAP. 13 [VII.] HE REPELS THE CALUMNY CON- CERNING THE ACCEPTANCE OF PERSONS.
And, moreover, we rightly call it "acceptance of persons " where he who judges, neglecting the merit of the cause concerning which he is judging, favours the one against the other, because he finds something in his person which is worthy of honour or of pity. But if any one have two debtors, and he choose to remit the debt to the one, to require it of the other, he gives to whom he will and defrauds nobody; nor is this to be called " acceptance of persons," since there is no injusdce. The acceptance of persons may seem otherwise to those who are of small understanding, where the lord of the vineyard gave to those labourers who had done work therein for one hour as much as to those who had borne the burden and heat of the day, making them equal in wages in the labour of whom there had been such a difference. But what did he reply to those who murmured against the goodman of the house concerning this, as it were, acceptance of persons? "Friend," said he, "I do thee no wrong. Hast not thou agreed with me for a denarius? Take what thine is, and go; but I choose to give to this last as to thee. Is it not lawful to me to do what I will? Is thine eye evil because I am good?" ' Here, forsooth, is the entire justice: " I choose this. To thee," he says, " I have repaid; on him I have bestowed; nor have I taken anything away from thee to bestow it on hmi; nor have 1 either diminished or denied what I owed to you."
" May I not do what I will? Is thine eye evil because I am good? " As, therefore, here there is no acceptance of persons, because one is honoured freely in such wise as that another is not defrauded of what is due to him: so also when, according to the purpose of God, one is called, another is not called, a gratuitous benefit is bestowed on the one that is called, of which benefit the calling itself is the beginning, — an evil is repaid to him that is not called, because all are guilty, from the fact that by one man sin entered into the world. And in that parable of the labourers, indeed, where they received one denarius who laboured for one hour, as well as those who laboured twelve times as long, — though assuredly these latter, according to human reasonings, however vain, ought in proportion to the amount of their labour to have received twelve denarii, — both were put on an equality in respect of benefit, not some delivered and others condemned; because even those who laboured more had it from the goodman of the house himself, both that they were so called as to come, and that they were so fed as to have no want. But where it is said, "Therefore, on ' Matt. XX. 9 ff.
whom He will He has mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth," ^ who " maketh one vessel to honour and another to dishonour," ^ it is given indeed without deserving, and freely, because he is of the same mass to whom it is not given; but evil is deservedly and of debt repaid, since in the mass of perdition evil is not repaid to the evil unjustly. And to him to whom it is repaid it is evil, because it is his punishment; while to Him by whom it is repaid it is good, because it is His right to do it. Nor is there any acceptance of persons in the case of two debtors equally guilty, if to the one is remitted and from the other is claimed that which is ecjually owed by both.
CHAP. 14. HE ILLUSTRATES HIS ARGUMENT BY AN EXAMPLE.
But that what I am saying may be made clear ' by the exhibition of an example, let us sujjpose certain twins, born of a certain harlot, and exposed that they might be taken up by others. One of them has expired without baptism; the other is baptized. What can we say was in this case the " fate " or the " fortune," which are here absolutely nothing? What "acceptance of persons," when with God there is none, even if there could be any such thing in these cases, seeing that they certainly had nothing for which the one could be preferred to the other, and no merits of their own, — whether good, for which the one might deserve to be baptized; or evil, for which the other might deserve to die without baptism? Were there any merits in their parents, when the father was a fornicator, the mother a harlot? But of whatever kind those merits were, there were certainly not any that were different in those who died in such different conditions, but all were common to both. If, then, neither fate, since no stars made them to differ; nor fortune, since no fortuitous accidents produce these things; nor the diversity of persons nor of merits have done this; what remains, so far as it refers to the baptized child, save the grace of God, which is given freely to vessels made unto honour; but, as it refers to the unbaptized child, the wrath of God, which is repaid to the vessels made for dishonour in respect of the deservings of the lump itself? But in that one which is baptized we constrain you to confess j the grace of God, and convince you that no merit of its own preceded; but as to that one which died without baptism, why that sacrament ' should have been wanting to it, which even you I confess to be needful for all ages, and what in that manner may have been punished in him, it is for you to see who will not have it that there is any original sin.
2 Rom. ix. 18.
3 Rom. ix. 21.
39^ [Book IT.
CHAP. 15. THE APOSTLE MEETS THE QUESTION' BY LEAVING IT UNSOLVED.
Since in the case of those two twins we have without a doubt one and the same case, the difficuky of the question why the one died in one way, and the other in another, is sohetl by the apostle as it were by not solving it; for, when he had proposed something of the same kind about two twins, seeing that it was said (not of works, since they had not as yet done anything either of good or of evil, but of Him that calleth), "The elder shall serve the younger," ' and, " Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated; " ' and he had prolonged the horror of this deep thing even to the point of saying, " Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth: " ^ he perceived at once what the trouble was, and opposed to himself the words of a gainsayer which he was to check by apostolical authority. For he says, " You say, then, unto me, " Why doth He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?" And to him who says this he answered, " O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Doth the thing formed say to him that formed it, \\'hy hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power of the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? "3 Then, following on, he opened up this great and hidden secret as far as he judged it fit that it should be disclosed to men, saying, " But if God, willing to show His wrath and to demonstrate His power, endured in much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, even that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory." "^ This is not only the assistance, but, moreover, the proof of 1 God's grace — the assistance, namely, in the vessels of mercy, but the proof in the vessels of| wrath; for in these He shows His anger and' makes known His power, because His goodness j is so mighty that He even uses the evil well; and in those He makes known tlie riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, because what the I justice of a punisher requires from the vessels of wrath, the grace of the Deliverer remits to the! vessels of mercy. Nor would the kindness ' which is bestowed on some freely appear, unless to others equally guilty and from the same mass ' God showed what was really due to both, and condemned them with a righteous judgment. '•For who maketh thee to difier?"5 says the same apostle to a man as it Were boasting concerning himself and his own benefits. " For who maketh thee to differ " from the vessels of wrath; of course, from the mass of perdition which has sent all by one into damnation?
^ Rom. ix. iQ "Who maketh thee to differ?" And as if he had answered, " My faith maketh me to differ, — my purpose, my merit," — he says, " For what hast thou which thou hast not received? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou boast as if thou receivedst it not? " — that is, as if that by which thou art made to differ were of thine own. Therefore He maketh tliee to differ who bestows that whence thou art made to differ, by removing the penalty that is due, by conferring the grace which is not due. He maketh to differ, who, when the darkness was upon the face of the abyss, said, " Let there be light; and there I was light, and divided " — that is, made to differ I — " between the light and the darkness." ^ For when there was only darkness. He did not find what He should make to differ; but by making the light. He made to differ; so that it may be 1 said to the justified wicked, " For ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the I Lord." 7 And thus he who glories must glory j not in himself, but in the Lord. He makes to differ who — of those who are not yet born, and I who have not yet done any good or evil, that His purpose, according to the election, might stand not of works, but of Himself that calleth — said. The elder shall serve the younger, and commending that very purpose afterwards by the mouth of the prophet, said, " Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." ^ Because he said " the election," and in this God does not find made by another what He may choose, but Himself makes what He may find; just as it is written of the remnant of Israel: " There is made a remnant by the election of grace; but if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace." 9 On which account you are certainly foolish who, when the Truth declares, " Not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said," say that Jacob was loved on account of fiiture works which God foreknew that he would do, and thus contradict the apostle when he says, " Not of works; " as if he could not have said, " Not of present, but of future works." But he says, " Not of works," that He might commend grace; " but if of grace, now is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace." For grace, not due, but free, precedes, that by it good works may be done; but if good works should precede, grace should be repaid, as it were, to works, and thus grace should be no more grace, CHAP. 16. — THE PELAGI.-^NS ARE REFUTED BY THE CASE OF THE TWIN INFANTS DYING, THE ONE AFTER, AND THE OTHER WITHOUT, THE GR-'\CE OF B.-VPTISM.
But that every lurking-place of your darkness 7 Eph. V. 8.
* Mai. i. 2.
Chap. i8.] AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE PELAGIANS.
may be taken away from you, I have proposed to you the case of such twins as were not assisted by the merits of their parents, and both died in the very beginning of infancy, the one bajiti/ed, the other without baptism; lest you should say that God foreknew their future works, as you say of Jacob and Esau, in opposition to the apostle. For how did He foreknow that those things should be, which, in those infants who were to die in infancy, He rather foreknew as not to be, since His foreknowledge cannot be deceived?
Or what does it profit those who are taken away from this life that wickedness may not change their understanding, nor deceit beguile their soul, if even the sin which has not been done, said, or thought, is thus punished as if it had been committed? Because, if it is most/absurd, silly, and senseless, that certain men should have to be condemned for those sins, the guilt of which they could neither derive from their parents, as you say, nor could incur themselves, either by committing them, or even by conceiving of thern, there comes back to you that unbaptized twin brother of the baptized one, and silently asks you for what reason he was made to differ from his brother.in respect of happiness, — why he was punished with that infelicity, so that, while his brother was adopted into a child of God, he himself should not receive that sacrament which, as you confess, is necessary for every age, if, even as there is not a fortune or a fate, or an acceptance of persons with God, so there is no gift of grace without merits, and no original sin. To this dumb child you absolutely ' submit your tongue and voice; to this witness who says nothing, — you have nothing at all say 1 to CHAP. I 7 [vni.] EVEN THE DESIRE OF AN IM- PERFECT GOOD IS A GIFT OF GR.ACE, OTHER- WISE GRACE WOULD BE GIVEN ACCORDING TO MERITS.
Let us now see, as we can, the nature of this thing which they will have to precede in man, in order that he may be regarded as worthy of the assistance of grace, and to the merit of which in him grace is not given as if unearned, but is rendered as due; and thus grace is no more grace. Let us see, however, what this is. " Under the ' name," say they, " of grace, they so assert fate i as to say that unless God should have inspired the desire for good, and that, imperfect good, ■ into unwilling and resisting man, he would neither be able to decline from evil nor to grasp after good." I have already shown what empty things they speak about fate and grace. Now the question which I ought to consider is this, whether God inspires the desire of good into unwilling and resisting man, that he ma}- be no longer unwilling, no longer resisting, but consenting to the good and willing the good. For those men will have it that the desire of good in man begins from man himself; that the merit of this beginning is, moreover, attended with the grace of completion — if, at least, they will allow so much as even this. For Pelagius says tiiat what is good is " more easily " fulfilled if grace assists." By which addition — that is, by adding " more easily " — he certainly signifies that he is of the opinion that, even if the aid of grace should be wanting, yet good might be accomplished, although with greater difficulty, by free will. But let me prescribe to my present opponents what they should think in this matter, without speaking of the author of this heresy himself. Let us allow them, with their free will, to be free even from Pelagius himself, and rather give heed to their words which they have written in this letter to which I am replying.
CHAP. 1 8. — THE DESIRE OF GOOD IS GOD'S GIFT.
For they have thought that it was to be objected to us that we say " that God inspires into unwilling and resisting man the desire," not of any very great good, but " even of imperfect good." Possibly, then, they themselves are keeping open, in some sense at least, a place for grace, as thinking that man may have the desire of good without grace, but only of imperfect good; while of perfect, he could not easily have the desire with grace, but except with it they could not have it at all. Truly, even in this way, too, they are saying that God's grace is given according to our merits, which Pelagius, in the ecclesiastical meeting in the East, condemned, in the fear of being condemned. For if without God's grace the desire of good begins with ourselves, merit itself will have begun — to which, as if of debt, comes the assistance of grace; and thus God's grace will not be bestowed freely, but will be given according to our merit. But that he might furnish a reply to the future Pelagius, the Lord does not say, " Without me it is with difficulty that you can do anything," but He says, " Without me ye can do nothing."^ And, that He might also furnish an answer to these future heretics, in that very same evangelical saying He does not say, " Without me you can perfect nothing," but " do " nothing. For if He had said " perfect," they might say that God's aid is necessary not for beginning good, which is of ourselves, but for perfecting it. But let them hear also the apostle. For when the Lord says, " Without me ye can do nothing," in this one word He comprehends both the beginning and the ending. The apostle, indeed, as if he were an expounder of the Lord's saying, distinguished both very clearly when he says, " Because ' See above, On the Grace of Chrht, ch. 8. 2 John XV. 5.
[Book II.
He who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it even to the day of Christ Jesus." ' But in the Holy Scriptures, in the writings of the same apostle, we find more about that of which we are speaking. For we are now speaking of the desire of good, and if they will have this to begin of ourselves and to be perfected by God, let them see what they can answer to the apostle when he says, " Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God."- "To think anything," he says, — he certainly means, " to think anything good; " but is it less to think than to desire. Because we think all that we desire, but we do not desire all that we think; because sometimes also we think what we do not desire. Since, then, it is a smaller thing to think than to desire, — for a man may think good which he does not yet desire, and by advancing may afterwards desire what before without desire he thought of, — how are we not sufficient as of ourselves to that which is less, that is, to the thinking of something good, but our sufficiency is of God; while to that which is greater, — that is, to the desire of some good thing — without the divine help, we are sufficient of free will? For what the apostle says here is not, " Not that we are sufficient as of ourselves to think that which is perfect; " but he says, "to think anything," to which "nothing" is the contrary. And this is the meaning of wliat the Lord says, " Without me ye can do nothing."
CHAP. 19 [iX.] HE INTERPRETS THE SCRIPTURES WHICH THE PELAGIANS MAKE ILL USE OF.
But assuredly, as to what is written, " The preparation of the heart is man's part, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord,"^ they are misled by an imperfect understanding, so as to think that to prepare the heart — that is, to begin good — pertains to man without the aid of God's grace. Be it far from the children of promise thus to understand it! As if, when they heard the Lord saying, " \\^ithout me ye can do nothing,"^ they would convict Him by-saying, " Behold, without Thee we can prepare the heart;" or when they heard from Paul the apostle, " Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God,"^ as if they would also convict him, saying, " Behold, we are sufficient of ourselves to prepare our heart, and thus also to think some good thing; for who can without good thought prepare his heart for good?" Be it far from any thus to understand the passage, except the proud maintainers of free will and forsakers of the catholic faith! Therefore, since it is wTitten, " It is man's part to prepare the heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord," it is that man pre- ^ 2 Cor.
111. 5.
3 Prov. xvi. I.
pares his heart, not, however, without the aid of God, who so touches the heart that man prepares the heart. But in the answer of the tongue — that is, in that which the divine tongue answers to the prepared heart — man has no part; but the whole is from the Lord God.
CHAP, 20. — god's AGENCY IS NEEDFUL EVEN IN man's doings.
For as it is said, " It is man's part to prepare his heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord; " so also is it said, " Open thy mouth, and I will fill it." 5 For although, save by His assistance without whom we can do nothing, we cannot open our mouth, yet we open it by His aid and by our own agency, while the Lord fills it without our agency. For what is to prepare the heart and to open the mouth, but to prepare the will? And yet in the same scriptures is read, " The will is prepared by the Lord," ^ and, " Thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise." 7 So God admonishes us to prepare our will in what we read, " It is man's part to prepare his heart; " and yet, that man may do this, God helps him, because the will is prepared by the Lord. And, " Open thy mouth." This He so says by way of command, as that nobody can do this unless it is done by His aid, to whom it is said, " Thou shalt open my lips." Are any of these men so foolish as to contend that the mouth is one thing, the lips another; and to say with marvellous triviality that man opens his own mouth, and God opens man's lips? And yet God restrains them from even that absurdity where He says to Moses His servant, " I will open thymouth, and I will instruct thee what thou oughtest to speak." '^ In that clause, therefore, where He says, " Open thy mouth and I will fill it," it seems, as it were, that one of them pertains to man, the other to God. But in this, where it is said, " I will open thy mouth and will instruct thee," both belong to God. Why is this, except that in one of these cases He co-operates with man as the agent, in the other He does it alone?