Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.6–3.17

Since this is so, from these things are refuted also those which they next charge against us. For what Catholic says what they keep boasting that we say, that the Holy Spirit was not a helper of virtue in the Old Testament, unless we understand the Old Testament in the way the apostle spoke of it: "from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery"? But because the New was prefigured in it, those men of God who understood this at that time are shown, according to the distribution of the times, to have been dispensers and bearers indeed of the Old Testament, but heirs of the New. Or shall we deny that he belongs to the New Testament who says, "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me"? Or him who says, "He set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps, and put a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God"? Or him, before the Old Testament which is from Mount Sinai, the father of the faithful, of whom the apostle says: "Brothers, I speak in human terms: even a man's covenant, once confirmed, no one annuls or adds to. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his offspring. He does not say 'and to offsprings', as of many, but as of one, 'and to your offspring', who is Christ. This I say," he says: "a covenant confirmed by God, the law which came four hundred and thirty years afterward does not annul, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance is from the law, it is no longer from the promise; but God gave it to Abraham through the promise."

Here certainly, if we ask whether this covenant, which he says was confirmed by God and is not annulled by the law made four hundred and thirty years afterward, is to be understood as the New or the Old, who would hesitate to answer "the New", but hidden in prophetic obscurities until the time should come when it would be revealed in Christ? For if we say "the Old", what will that be which is "from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery"? For there the law was made four hundred and thirty years afterward, by which law he affirms that this covenant of the promise to Abraham cannot be annulled; and he wishes that which was made with Abraham to belong rather to us, whom he wishes to be children of the free woman, not of the maidservant, heirs from the promise, not the law, when he says: "For if the inheritance is from the law, it is no longer from the promise; but God gave it to Abraham through the promise"; so that the law, made four hundred and thirty years afterward, came in for this purpose, that the offense might abound, when the pride of man presuming on his own righteousness is convicted by the sin of transgression; and that, where the offense abounded, grace might superabound, through the faith of man now humbled, failing in the law and fleeing to the mercy of God. Therefore, when he had said, "For if the inheritance is from the law, it is no longer from the promise; but God gave it to Abraham through the promise", as if he were asked, "Why, then, was the law made afterward?", he added and said: "Why then the law?" To which question he at once replied: "It was added because of transgression, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made." He says the same thing again in this way: "For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is emptied and the promise made void. For the law works wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression either." What he says in that testimony, "For if the inheritance is from the law, it is no longer from the promise; but God gave it to Abraham through the promise", he says in this one: "For if those who are through the law are heirs, faith is emptied and the promise made void", showing clearly enough that what God gave to Abraham through the promise belongs to our faith, which is certainly of the New Testament. And what he says in that testimony, "Why then the law?", answering, "It was added because of transgression", he likewise added in this one: "For the law works wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression either."

Whether, then, Abraham, or the righteous before him, or those after him up to Moses himself, through whom was given the covenant from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery, or the other prophets after him and holy men of God up to John the Baptist, they are children of the promise and of grace, like Isaac the son of the free woman, heirs of God not from the law but from the promise, and fellow heirs with Christ. For far be it that we should deny that the righteous Noah and the righteous of the earlier time, and whoever could be righteous from him to Abraham, whether conspicuous or hidden, belong to the Jerusalem above, which is our mother, although they are found to be earlier in time than Sarah, who bore the prophecy and figure of that free mother. How much more evidently, then, after Abraham, to whom the promise itself was so declared that he was called the father of many nations, are all who pleased God to be held children of the promise! For from Abraham onward it is not that the generation of the righteous is found to be truer, but that the prophecy is found to be clearer.

But to the Old Testament, which is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar, belong those who, having received the holy and just and good law, think that the letter can suffice them for life, and therefore do not seek the divine mercy by which they may become doers of the law, but, "ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God". Of this kind was that multitude which murmured against God in the desert and made an idol, and that which, already in the very land of promise, committed fornication after foreign gods. But this multitude is thoroughly reprobate even in the Old Testament itself. Those too, whoever were there, who pursued only the earthly promises which God there makes, and did not know what these very things signify for the New Testament, kept God's commandments out of love of obtaining them and fear of losing them; or rather they did not keep them, but seemed to themselves to keep them; for faith was not working in them through love, but earthly desire and carnal fear. But whoever does the commandments in this way beyond doubt does them unwillingly, and therefore does not do them in his mind; for he would rather not do them at all, if, as regards what he desires and fears, he were permitted to do so with impunity. And therefore he is guilty within, in the will itself, where God himself who commands looks. Such were the children of the earthly Jerusalem, of which the apostle says, "For she is in slavery with her children", belonging to the Old Testament from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar. Of that same kind were those who crucified the Lord and remained in the same unbelief. From them also are their children, still in the vast multitude of the Jews, although the New Testament has now, as was prophesied, been opened and confirmed through the blood of Christ, and the gospel spread abroad from the river where he was baptized and began his teaching to the ends of the earth. These Jews, according to the prophecies which they read, are dispersed everywhere through all lands, so that from their books too testimony may not be lacking to the Christian truth.

God, then, established the Old Testament too, because it pleased God, until the fullness of time, to veil the heavenly promises under earthly promises set up as a reward, and to give to a people gaping after earthly goods, and therefore having a hard heart, a law which, though spiritual, was nevertheless on tablets of stone. For, apart from the sacraments of the old books, which were commanded only for the sake of signifying (although in them too, since they are to be understood spiritually, the law is rightly called spiritual), as for the rest, which pertain to piety and good morals and are not to be referred by any interpretation to some signification, but are to be done exactly as they are said, surely no one will doubt that that law of God is necessary for rightly ordering life, not only for that people then but also for us now. For if Christ has taken from us that very heavy yoke of many observances, so that we are not circumcised in the flesh, do not sacrifice victims of cattle, do not rest on the Sabbath, as the seven-day cycle returns, even from necessary works, and other things of this kind, but hold them understood spiritually, and, the signifying shadows being removed, keep watch in the light of the very realities which are signified, shall we therefore say that what is written does not apply to us, that whoever finds anything lost belonging to another should return it to him who lost it, and many other similar things by which one learns to live piously and rightly, and above all the Decalogue itself, which is contained on those two tablets of stone, except the carnal observance of the Sabbath, which signifies spiritual sanctification and rest? For who would say that Christians ought not to observe that the one God is served with religious worship, that an idol is not worshiped, that the name of the Lord is not taken in vain, that parents are honored, that adulteries, murders, thefts, and false testimonies are not committed, that another's wife, or anything at all of another's, is not coveted? Who is so ungodly as to say that he does not keep these precepts of the law because he is a Christian and established not under the law but under grace?

But this is plainly the great difference: those placed under the law, whom the letter kills, do these things out of desire of obtaining or fear of losing earthly happiness, and therefore do not truly do them, since the carnal desire by which sin is committed is rather changed or increased by another desire, not healed. These belong to the Old Testament, which bears children for slavery, because carnal fear and desire make them slaves, not evangelical faith and hope and love making them free. But those placed under grace, whom the Spirit gives life, do these things from faith which works through love, in hope of goods not carnal but spiritual, not earthly but heavenly, not temporal but eternal, believing above all in the Mediator, through whom they do not doubt that the Spirit of grace is supplied to them so that they may do these things well, and that they can be pardoned when they sin. These belong to the New Testament, children of the promise, regenerated by God the Father and the free mother. Of this kind were all the ancient righteous, and Moses himself, minister of the Old Testament, heir of the New, because they lived by one and the same faith by which we live, believing in the future incarnation, passion, and resurrection of Christ which we believe has taken place; up to John the Baptist himself, as a kind of boundary of the past dispensation, who, signifying the Mediator himself not by some shadow of the future or allegorical meaning or any prophetic foretelling that he would come, but pointing him out with his finger, said: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world"; as if saying: he whom many righteous men desired to see, in whom they believed as the one to come from the very beginning of the human race, of whom the promises were spoken to Abraham, of whom Moses wrote, to whom the law and the prophets are witnesses: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world." From this John onward, things about Christ began to be past or present which by all those righteous of the earlier time were believed, hoped for, and desired as future. The same faith, therefore, is both in those who were Christians before, not yet in name but in reality, and in these who not only are but are also called so; and in both there is the same grace through the Holy Spirit. Hence the apostle says: "But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, 'I believed, therefore I spoke', we too believe, and therefore we also speak."

So the term "Old Testament" is used in one sense, according to the now prevailing usage of speech, for the law and all the prophets who prophesied up to John (which is more distinctly called the old instrument than the old testament), and in another sense as apostolic authority names it, whether expressing this name or signifying it. For it expresses it where it says: "Until this very day, as long as Moses is read, the same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament, not being lifted, because it is done away in Christ." For here certainly he referred the Old Testament to the ministry of Moses. Likewise he says, "so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter", signifying that same testament by the name "letter". Likewise in another place: "Who also made us sufficient," he says, "as ministers of a new testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." And here by mentioning the new he certainly wished that old one to be understood. But much more evidently, although he said neither "old" nor "new", he distinguished the two testaments themselves by the two sons of Abraham, one of the maidservant, the other of the free woman, which we have already mentioned above. For what more explicit than his saying: "Tell me, you who wish to be under the law: have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one of the maidservant and one of the free woman. But the one of the maidservant was born according to the flesh, the one of the free woman through the promise. These things are an allegory; for these are the two testaments, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar (for Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which corresponds to the present Jerusalem; for she is in slavery with her children), but the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother." What is clearer, what more certain, what further removed from all obscurity and ambiguity? And a little later: "But we, brothers," he says, "are children of the promise, like Isaac." Likewise a little later: "But we, brothers, are not children of the maidservant but of the free woman, with the freedom with which Christ has set us free." Let us choose, then, whether we call the ancient righteous children of the maidservant or of the free woman. Far be it that we call them children of the maidservant; so if of the free woman, they belong to the New Testament in the Holy Spirit, whom, as giving life, the apostle opposes to the letter that kills. For how do they not belong to the grace of the New Testament, from whose sayings and books we refute and convict these most senseless and most ungrateful enemies of that same grace?

But someone will say: how is that called "old" which was made through Moses four hundred and thirty years afterward, and that called "new" which was made with Abraham so many years before? Let him who is moved by this not contentiously but studiously understand, first, that if the one is called old from the earlier time and the other new from the later, it is their revelations that are considered in these names, not their institutions. For through Moses the Old Testament was revealed, through whom the law was given, holy and just and good, by which should come about not the abolition but the knowledge of sin, by which the proud might be convicted, wishing to establish their own righteousness as though not needing divine help, and, made guilty by the letter, might flee to the Spirit of grace, to be justified not by their own righteousness but by God's, that is, the righteousness which would be theirs from God. For, as the same apostle says, "through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested without the law, witnessed by the law and the prophets." For the law, by the very fact that no one is justified in it, bears witness to the righteousness of God; "for that no one is justified in the law before God is evident, because the righteous lives by faith". So when the law does not justify the ungodly man convicted of transgression, it sends him to the God who justifies, and thus bears witness to the righteousness of God. And the prophets bear witness to the righteousness of God by foretelling Christ, "who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, he who glories may glory in the Lord." This law was hidden from the beginning, when nature itself convicted unjust men of doing to others what they would not have wished done to themselves. But the revelation of the New Testament took place in Christ, when he was manifested in the flesh; in him the righteousness of God appeared, that is, the righteousness which is to men from God. For so he says: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested without the law." See for what reason that one is called the Old Testament, because it was revealed at an earlier time, and this one the New, because at a later time. Next, because the Old Testament pertains to the old man, from whom man must begin, and the New to the new man, into whom man ought to pass from oldness, therefore in the former there are earthly promises, in the latter heavenly promises; because this too belonged to the mercy of God, that no one should think that even earthly happiness of any kind can be conferred on anyone except by the Lord, the Creator of the universe. But if God is worshiped for the sake of that, it is a servile worship, belonging to the children of the maidservant; but if for the sake of God himself, so that in eternal life God may be all in all, it is a free service, belonging to the children of the free woman, who is our eternal mother in heaven. She formerly appeared as if barren, when she had no evident children; but now we see what was prophesied of her: "Rejoice, barren one, who do not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband", that is, more than of that Jerusalem which was in a manner married by the bond of the law and is in slavery with her children. In the time of the Old Testament, then, we say that the Holy Spirit, in those who even then were children of the promise like Isaac, was not only a helper, which these men think sufficient for their dogma, but also a giver of virtue, which these men deny, attributing it rather to free choice, contradicting those fathers who knew how to cry out to the Lord with true piety: "I will love you, O Lord, my strength!"

They say also that we define all the apostles or prophets as not fully holy, but say that they were less evil in comparison with worse men, and that this is the righteousness to which God bears witness, so that, just as the prophet says that Sodom was justified in comparison with the Jews, so we too say that the saints exercised some virtue in comparison with criminals. Far be it from us to say this; but either they cannot understand, or they will not pay attention, or out of zeal for slander they pretend not to know what we say. Let them hear, then, either they themselves or rather those whom, as simple and unlearned, they try to deceive. Our faith, that is, the Catholic faith, distinguishes the righteous from the unrighteous not by the law of works but by the law of faith itself, because the righteous lives by faith. Through this distinction it comes about that a man who leads a life without murder, without theft, without false witness, without coveting anything belonging to another, rendering due honor to his parents, chaste even to continence from all intercourse whatever, even marital, most generous in almsgiving, most patient under injuries, who not only does not take what belongs to others but does not even ask back his own when taken, or even, having sold all his goods and distributed them to the poor, possesses nothing of his own; yet with all these apparently praiseworthy morals of his, if he does not hold a right and Catholic faith in God, he departs this life to be condemned. But another man, having indeed good works from right faith, which works through love, yet not as that man of good morals does: he supports his incontinence by the honor of marriage; he both renders and asks the carnal debt of marriage, and lies with his wife, though with her alone, not only for the sake of procreation but also of pleasure, which the apostle grants to married people by way of pardon; he does not accept injuries so patiently, but is carried away in anger by desire for revenge, although, so that he can say "as we also forgive our debtors", he forgives when asked; he possesses property, giving alms from it indeed, but not as generously as that other; he does not take what belongs to others, but asks back his own, though in the church's court, not in the civil one: this man, surely, who seems inferior to the other in morals, because of the right faith which he has in God, by which he lives and according to which he accuses himself in all his offenses and praises God in all his good works, attributing shame to himself and glory to God, and receiving from him both the forgiveness of sins and the love of right deeds, departs from this life to be set free and to be received into the fellowship of those who will reign with Christ. Why, except because of faith? Although faith saves no one without works (for that faith is not reprobate which works through love), yet through it even sins are loosed, because the righteous lives by faith; but without it even works which seem good are turned into sins, for "whatever is not from faith is sin." And because of this very great difference it comes about that, although, as no one doubts, persevering virginal integrity is better than marital chastity, yet a Catholic woman even twice married is preferred to a heretical professed virgin; and she is preferred not in such a way that the Catholic will be better in the kingdom of God, but in such a way that the other will not be there at all. For that man too whom we described as of better morals, if he has right faith, surpasses that other, but both will be there; but if he lacks faith, he is so surpassed by the other that he himself will not be there.

So, since all the righteous, both the more ancient ones and the apostles, lived by right faith, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and had such holy morals together with faith that, although they could not in this life be of such perfect virtue as there will be after this life, yet whatever of sin crept in from human weakness was continually wiped out by the piety of that very faith (hence it can be that, in comparison with the wicked whom God will condemn, they must be called righteous, since through pious faith they are so far removed in the opposite direction from those ungodly men that the apostle cries: "What part has a believer with an unbeliever?"); but, of course, the new Pelagian heretics seem to themselves to be religious lovers and praisers of the saints if they do not dare to say that they were of imperfect virtue, when the vessel of election confesses this, who, considering where he still was, and that "the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul", says: "Not that I have already received, or am already perfect; brothers, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it myself." And yet a little later he who had denied that he was perfect says: "Let as many of us, then, as are perfect think this", to show that, according to the measure of this life, there is a certain perfection, and that this too is counted to that perfection, if each knows that he is not yet perfect. For what was more excellent in the ancient people than the holy priests? And yet God commanded them to offer sacrifice first for their own sins. And what was holier in the new people than the apostles? And yet the Lord commanded them to say in prayer, "Forgive us our debts." For all the pious, then, groaning under this burden of corruptible flesh and in the weakness of this life, there is one hope: that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.

Those do not have this advocate who are separated from the righteous, far away in the opposite direction, even if this were the only difference. Far be it that we should say of this righteous advocate, as they slander us, that he lied through the necessity of the flesh; but we say that "in the likeness of the flesh of sin, concerning sin, he condemned sin". Perhaps, not understanding this, blinded by the desire to slander, and not knowing in how many different ways the word "sin" is used in the holy Scriptures, they boast that we affirm sin in Christ. We say, then, that Christ had no sin either in soul or in flesh, and that by taking flesh in the likeness of the flesh of sin he condemned sin concerning sin. This, said somewhat obscurely by the apostle, is resolved in two ways: either because likenesses of things are usually called by the names of the things they are like, so that the apostle may be understood to have wished to call that very likeness of the flesh of sin "sin"; or because sacrifices for sins were called "sins" in the law, all of which were figures of the flesh of Christ, which is the true and only sacrifice for sins, not only for those which are all washed away in baptism, but also for those which afterward creep in from the weakness of this life. On account of these the whole church cries daily to God in prayer, "Forgive us our debts", and they are forgiven us through the singular sacrifice for sins, which the apostle, speaking according to the law, did not hesitate to call "sin". Hence also that saying of his, much more evident and not made uncertain by any fork of ambiguity: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Him who did not know sin he made sin for us, so that we might be the righteousness of God in him." For as to what I mentioned above, "concerning sin he condemned sin", since it is not said "concerning his own sin", someone could understand it in such a way as to say that he condemned sin concerning the sin of the Jews, because it came about from the sin of those who crucified him that he shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins. But this, where it is said that God made Christ himself, who did not know sin, to be sin, does not seem to me to be more fittingly understood than that Christ was made a sacrifice for sins and for this reason called "sin".

But who would bear their charging us with saying that after the resurrection there will be such advances that men will begin there to fulfill the commandments of God which they would not fulfill here, because we say that there will be no sin at all there, nor any conflict with any desire of sin, as though they themselves would dare to deny this? Who will deny that wisdom too and the knowledge of God will then be perfected in us, and such exultation in the Lord that there will be full and true security, unless he is so turned away from the truth that for that reason he cannot arrive at it? But these things will not be in commandments, but in the reward of the commandments which are to be observed here. The contempt of these commandments, indeed, does not lead to the reward there; but the zeal to keep the commandments here is given by the grace of God. And if anything in those commandments is kept less well, grace pardons it; for this reason we say in prayer both "Your will be done" and "Forgive us our debts." Here, then, the commandment is that we should not sin; there the reward is not to be able to sin. Here the commandment is that we should not obey the desires of sin; there the reward is that we should not have the desires of sin. Here the commandment is: "Understand, you who are foolish among the people, and you fools, at last be wise"; there the reward is full wisdom and perfect knowledge ("For now we see through a mirror in an enigma," says the apostle, "but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as I also have been known"). Here the commandment is: "Exult in God our helper", and "Exult, you righteous, in the Lord"; there the reward is to exult with perfect and ineffable joy. Finally, in the commandment is set, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness", but in the reward, "for they will be satisfied". Satisfied with what, I ask, if not with that for which they hunger and thirst? Who, then, is so estranged not only from divine but also from human sense as to say that there can be as much righteousness in a man while he hungers and thirsts for it as there will be when he is satisfied with it? And when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, if the faith of Christ is awake in us, what must we believe we hunger and thirst for but Christ, "who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, he who glories may glory in the Lord"? And because we now believe in him without seeing him, therefore we thirst and hunger for righteousness. "For as long as we are in the body, we are away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight." When we see him, arriving indeed at sight, we shall exult with unspeakable joy, and then we shall be satisfied with righteousness; for now we say to him with pious desire: "I shall be satisfied when your glory is made manifest."