Saint Augustine (354-430)

Against Two Letters of the Pelagians

Translated by Robert Wallis

Book IV

Chapter 11

But now also to the most glorious martyr Cyprian, let me add, for the sake of more amply confuting these men, the most blessed Ambrose; because even Pelagius praised him so much as to say that in his writings could be found nothing to be blamed even by his enemies. Since, then, the Pelagians say that there is no original sin with which infants are born, and object to the catholics the guilt of the Manichean heresy, who withstand them on behalf of the most ancient faith of the Church, let this catholic man of God, Ambrose, praised even by Pelagius himself in the truth of the faith, answer them concerning this matter. When he was expounding the prophet Isaiah, he says: “Christ was, therefore, without spot, because He was not stained even in the usual condition itself of birth.” And in another place in the same work, speaking of the Apostle Peter, he says: “He offered himself, which he thought before to be sin, asking for himself that not only his feet but his head also should be washed, because he had directly understood that by the washing of the feet, for those who fell in the first man, the filth of the obnoxious succession was abolished.” Also in the same work he says: “It was preserved, therefore, that of a man and woman, that is, by that mingling of bodies, no one could be seen to be free from sin; but He who is free from sin is free also from this kind of conception.” Also writing against the Novatians he says: “All of us men are born under sin. And our very origin is in corruption, as you have it read in the words of David, ‘For lo, I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins hath my mother brought me forth.’ ” Also in the apology of the prophet David, he says: “Before we are born we are spotted with contagion, and before the use of light we receive the mischief of that origin. We are conceived in iniquity.” Also speaking of the Lord, he says: “It was certainly fitting that He who was not to have the sin of a bodily fall, should feel no natural contagion of generation. Rightly, therefore, David with weeping deplored in himself these defilements of nature, and the fact that the stain had begun in man before his life.” Again, in the Ark of Noah he says: “Therefore by one Lord Jesus the coming salvation is declared to the nations; for He only could be righteous, although every generation should go astray, nor for any other reason than that, being born of a virgin, He was not at all bound by the ordinance of a guilty generation. ‘Behold,’ he says, ‘I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins has my mother brought me forth’; he who was esteemed righteous beyond others so speaks. Whom, then, should I now call righteous unless Him who is free from those chains, whom the bonds of our common nature do not hold fast?” Behold, this holy man, most approved, even by the witness of Pelagius, in the catholic faith, condemned the Pelagians who deny original sin with such evidence as this; and yet he does not with the Manicheans deny either God to be the Creator of those who are born, or condemn marriage, which God ordained and blessed.

The Pelagians say that merit begins from man by free will, to which God repays the subsequent aid of grace. Let the venerable Ambrose here also refute them, when he says, in his exposition of the prophet Isaiah, “that human care without divine help is powerless for healing, and needs a divine helper.” Also, in the treatise which is inscribed, “On the Avoidance of the World,” he says: “Our discourse is frequent on the avoidance of this world; and I wish that our disposition were as cautious and careful as our discourse is easy. But what is worse, the enticement of earthly lusts frequently creeps in, and the flowing forth of vanities takes hold of the mind, so that the very thing that you desire to avoid you think upon, and turn over in your mind; and this it is difficult for a man to beware of, but to get rid of it is impossible. Finally, that that is rather a matter to be wished than to be accomplished the prophet testifies when he says, ‘Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to avarice.’ For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power, seeing that they are suddenly forced forth and confuse the mind and the soul and draw them in other directions from those which you have proposed for them;—they recall to things of time, they suggest worldly things, they obtrude voluptuous thoughts, they inweave seducing thoughts, and, in the very season in which we are proposing to lift up our mind, vain thoughts are intruded upon us, and we are cast down for the most part to things of earth; and who is so happy as always to rise upwards in his heart? And how can this be done without the divine help? Absolutely in no manner. Finally, of old Scripture says the same thing, ‘Blessed is the man whose help is of Thee, O Lord; in his heart is going up.’ ” What can be said more openly and more sufficiently? But lest the Pelagians perchance should answer that, in that very point in which divine help is asked for, man’s merit precedes, saying that that very thing is merit, that by his prayer he is desiring that divine grace should come to his assistance, let them give heed to what the same holy man says in his exposition of Isaiah. He says: “And to pray God is a spiritual grace; for no man says that Jesus is the Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.” Whence also, expounding the Gospel according to Luke, he says: “You see certainly that everywhere the power of the Lord cooperates with human desires, so that no man can build without the Lord, no man can undertake anything without the Lord.” Because such a man as Ambrose says this, and commends God’s grace, as it is fitting for a son of promise to do, with grateful piety, does he therefore destroy free will? Or does he mean grace to be understood as the Pelagians in their different discourses will have to appear nothing but law—so that, for instance, God may be believed to help us not to do what we may know, but to know what we may do? If they think that such a man of God as this is of this mind, let them hear what he has said about the law itself. In the book “On the Avoidance of the World,” he says: “The law could stop the mouth of all men; it could not convert their mind.” In another place also, in the same treatise, he says: “The law condemns the deed; it does not take away its wickedness.” Let them see that this faithful and catholic man agrees with the apostle who says, “Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to those who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Because by the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight.” For from that apostolic opinion Ambrose took and wrote these things.

But now, since the Pelagians say that there either are or have been righteous men in this life who have lived without any sin, to such an extent that the future life which is to be hoped for as a reward cannot be more advanced or more perfect, let Ambrose here also answer them and refute them. For, expounding Isaiah the Prophet in reference to what is written, “I have begotten and brought up children, and they have despised me,” he undertook to dispute concerning the generations which are of God, and in that argument he quoted the testimony of John when he says, “He that is born of God sinneth not.” And, treating the same very difficult question, he says: “Since in this world there is none who is free from sin; since John himself says, ‘If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar.’ But if ‘they that are born of God sin not,’ and if these words refer to those of them who are in the world, it is necessary that we should regard them as those numberless people who have obtained God’s grace by the regeneration of the laver. But yet, when the prophet says, ‘All things are waiting upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them meat in season. That Thou givest them they gather for themselves; when Thou openest Thine hand, all things shall be filled with goodness. But when Thou turnest away Thy face, they shall be troubled: Thou shall take away their breath, and they shall fail, and shall be turned into their dust. Thou shall send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth,’ such things as these cannot seem to have been said of any time whatever but of that future time, in which there shall be a new earth and a new heaven. Therefore they shall be disturbed that they may take their beginning. ‘And when Thou openest Thy hand all things shall be filled with goodness,’ which is not easily characteristic of this age. For concerning this age what does Scripture say? ‘There is none that doeth good, no, not one.’ If, therefore, there are different generations,—and here the very entrance into this life is the receiver of sins to such an extent that even he who begot should be despised; while another generation does not receive sins;—let us consider whether by any means there may not be a regeneration for us after the course of this life,—of which regeneration it is said, ‘In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory.’ For as that is called the regeneration of washing whereby we are renewed from the filth of sins washed away, so that seems to be called a regeneration by which we are purified from every stain of bodily materiality, and are regenerated in the pure sense of the soul to life eternal; so that every quality of regeneration may be purer than of that washing, so that no suspicion of sins can fall either on a man’s doings, or even on his very thoughts themselves.” Moreover, in another place in the same work he says: “We see it to be impossible that any person created in a body can be absolutely spotless, since even Paul says that he is imperfect. For thus he has it: ‘Not that I have already received, or am already perfect’; and yet after a little he says, ‘As many of us, therefore, as are perfect.’ Unless, perchance, there is one perfection in this world, another after this is completed, of which he says to the Corinthians, ‘When that which is perfect is come’; and elsewhere, ‘Till we all come into the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, into the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ.’ As, then, the apostle says that many are placed in this world who are perfect along with him, but who, if you have regard to true perfection, could not be perfect, since he says, ‘We see now through a mirror, enigmatically; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known’: so also there both are those who are ‘spotless’ in this world, and will be those who are ‘spotless’ in the kingdom of God, although certainly, if you consider it accurately, no person can be spotless, because no person is without sin.” Also in the same he says: “We see that, while we live in this life, we ought to purify ourselves and to seek God; and to begin from the purification of our soul, and as it were to establish the foundations of virtue, so that we may deserve to attain the perfection of our purgation after this life.” And again, in the same he says: “But laden and groaning, who does not say, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ So with the same teacher we give all varieties of interpretation. For if he is unhappy who recognises himself as involved in the evils of the body, certainly everybody is unhappy; for I should not call that man happy who, being confused with any darkness of his mind, does not know his own condition. That, moreover, has not absurdly come to be understood; for if a man who knows himself is unhappy, assuredly all are wretched, because every one either recognises his weakness by wisdom, or by folly is ignorant of it.” Moreover, in the treatise “On the Benefit of Death,” he says: “Let death work in us, in order that that may work life also, a good life after death,—that is, a good life after victory, a good life after the contest is finished; so that now no longer the law of the flesh may know how to resist the law of the mind, that no longer we may have any contention with the body of death.” Again, in the same treatise he says: “Therefore, because the righteous have this reward, that they see the face of God, and that light which lightens every man, let us henceforth put on the desire of this kind of reward, that our soul may draw near to God, our prayer may draw near to Him, our desire may cleave to Him, that we be not separated from Him. And placed here as we are, let us by meditating, by reading, by seeking, be united with God. Let us know Him as we can. For we know Him in part here; because here all things are imperfect, there all are perfect; here we are infants, there we shall be strong men. ‘We see,’ says he, ‘now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face.’ Then, His face being revealed, we shall be allowed to look upon the glory of God, which now our souls, involved in the compacted dregs of this body, and shadowed by some stains and filth of this flesh, cannot clearly see. ‘For who,’ He says, ‘shall see my face and live?’ and rightly. For if our eyes cannot bear the rays of the sun,—and if any one should gaze too long on the region of the sun he is said to be blinded,—if a creature cannot look upon a creature without deceit and offence, how can he without his own peril look upon the glittering face of the eternal Creator, covered as he is with the clothing of this body? For who is justified in God’s sight, when even the infant of one day cannot be pure from sin, and no one can boast of his integrity and pureness of heart?”

Book IV Chapter 10

Book IV Chapter 12