Letters 185.50–186.23

But these men, with whom or about whom we are dealing, are not to be despaired of; for they are still in the body. But let them not seek the Holy Spirit except in the body of Christ, whose sacrament they have outside, but do not hold inside the reality itself of which that is the sacrament; and therefore they eat and drink judgment on themselves. For the one bread is the sacrament of unity, since, as the apostle says, “We, being many, are one bread, one body.” Accordingly, the Catholic Church alone is the body of Christ, of which he is the head, the savior of his body. Outside this body the Holy Spirit gives life to no one, because, as the apostle himself says, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” But one who is an enemy of unity does not share in divine love. So those who are outside the church do not have the Holy Spirit; for of them it is written, “Those who separate themselves, natural men, not having the Spirit.” But neither does he receive the Spirit who is in the church by pretense, since of this too it is written, “For the holy Spirit of discipline will flee from deceit.” Whoever, then, wishes to have the Holy Spirit, let him beware of remaining outside the church, beware of entering it in pretense, or, if he has already entered thus, beware of persisting in that pretense, so that he may truly grow together with the tree of life.

I have sent you a long book, perhaps burdensome for your occupations. If, then, it can be read to you even in parts, the Lord will give you understanding, so that you may have an answer for correcting and healing those whom mother church commends to you yourself too, as a faithful son, to be corrected and healed with the Lord's help, wherever and however you can, whether by speaking and answering yourself or by bringing them to the teachers of the church.

At long last God has provided us with a most trustworthy bearer of letters, our brother Januarius, deservedly most dear to all of us. Through him, even if we did not write, Your Sincerity could learn everything about our affairs as through a living and understanding letter. We know that you loved Pelagius as a servant of God (we believe he was surnamed 'the Briton' to distinguish him from another, who is called Pelagius son of Terentius); but how you love him now, we do not know. For we too not only loved him but love him still; but we love him now in one way and loved him once in another. Then it was because he seemed to us to be of the right faith; now it is in order that, by God's mercy, he may be set free from the views that he is said to hold, which are hostile and opposed to the grace of God. For when report had for some time spread this about him, it was certainly not to be readily believed (report is apt to lie); but what brought us nearer to believing it was that we read a certain book of his, handed to us by servants of Christ who had listened to him most eagerly as he taught such things and had followed him. That book labours to persuade people of exactly those things that would blot out from the hearts of believers their faith in the grace of God, bestowed on the human race through the one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus. At their request, and because we too saw that it ought to be done, the book was answered in a treatise by one of us, without naming its author, so that he might not be offended and made harder to heal. In that book of his this view is contained and asserted in many ways and at length. He also argues it in a letter addressed to Your Reverence, where he says that he should not be thought to defend free choice without the grace of God, since he says that the capacity to will and to act, without which we could neither will nor do any good, was implanted in us by nature by the Creator; so that, as he himself teaches, this is to be understood as the grace of God, which is common to pagans and Christians, to the ungodly and the godly, to unbelievers and believers.

These evils, by which the Saviour's coming would be made void (so that we could say of them what the apostle says of the law, 'If righteousness is by nature, then Christ died for nothing'), we refuted as best we could in the hearts of those who held such views, so that when he learned of this he too might, if possible, correct these things without being provoked, and so the destructive error might be destroyed and the man's sense of shame spared. But after letters reached us from the East discussing the same matter quite openly, we could no longer in any way fail the Church with whatever episcopal authority we have. Reports on this matter were therefore sent to the apostolic see from two councils, of Carthage and of Milevis, before the church proceedings in which Pelagius is said to have been cleared before the bishops of the province of Palestine had reached either our hands or Africa. Besides the councils' reports we also wrote a personal letter to Pope Innocent of most blessed memory, in which we dealt with the case at somewhat greater length. To all of these he wrote back to us in the manner that was right and fitting for the bishop of the apostolic see.

You can now read all of these, if perhaps none of them, or not all, had reached you. There you will see that toward the men themselves due moderation was kept, so that they would not be condemned if they condemned the wrong teachings; yet the new and pernicious error itself has been so suppressed by the authority of the Church that we are greatly surprised there are still some who by any error at all try to resist the grace of God (if indeed they have learned of these proceedings). That grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, as the true Catholic faith, which the Church always holds, maintains, carries little ones together with the great from the death of the first man to the life of the second man, not only by blotting out sins but also by helping those who can already use the choice of the will not to sin and to live rightly, in such a way that unless it helps, we can have nothing of godliness and righteousness either in deed or even in the will itself; for 'God works in us both to will and to work, according to his good will.'

For who distinguishes us from that mass and lump of perdition, except he who came to seek and to save what was lost? Hence the apostle asks, 'For who distinguishes you?' If a man answers, 'My faith, my good will, my good work', the reply is: 'What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?' All this is said, not so that a man should not boast, but so that 'he who boasts should boast in the Lord'; 'not by works, so that no one may be lifted up'; not because good works are made void by a pious way of thinking, since God 'renders to each according to his works', and 'glory and honour and peace to everyone who does good'; but because works come from grace, not grace from works. For 'faith, which works through love', would work nothing unless that very love of God were 'poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us'. Nor would faith itself be in us unless God apportioned to each 'the measure of faith'.

It is good, then, for a man to say truthfully with all the strength of his free choice: 'I will keep my strength for you.' For the one who thought he could keep what the Father gave without his help set out into a far country, lived prodigally and squandered everything; and worn down by the misery of hard servitude, he came back to himself and said, 'I will arise and go to my father.' When would he have had this good thought unless the most merciful Father had secretly inspired it in him? Understanding this, that minister of the new covenant says: 'Not that we are sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.' Hence the psalmist too, having said, 'I will keep my strength for you', lest he claim even the keeping as due to his own strength (as if it had come into his mind that 'unless the Lord guards the city, those who guard it keep watch in vain', and that 'he who guards does not sleep or slumber'), added the reason why he is able to keep it, or rather by what guardian he is kept: 'For you, O God, are my protector.'

Let this man, then, recall his merits, if he can: what caused God to deign to be his protector, as though God had been taken up by him; let him recall whether he sought, or was sought by him who came to seek and to save what was lost. For if he wishes to look for what he deserved before grace, so as to receive it, a man will be able to find his evil deeds, not good ones, even if the Saviour's grace found him having lived but a single day on earth. For if a man does some good in order to merit grace, the reward is reckoned to him not as grace but as debt. But if he believes in him who justifies the ungodly, so that his faith is counted as righteousness (for 'the righteous shall live by faith'), then surely, before he is justified by grace, that is, made righteous, what is the ungodly man but ungodly? If what is owed followed him, what would be rendered to his deserts but punishment? 'If, then, it is by grace, it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.' To works what is owed is paid; grace is given gratis, which is why it is so named.

But if anyone says that faith merits the grace of doing good, we cannot deny it; indeed we confess it most gladly. For this is the faith we wish these brothers of ours, who boast much of their works, to have: the faith by which they may obtain love, which alone truly does good. And love is so much the gift of God that God is called love. Those, then, who have the faith by which they obtain justification have come by God's grace to the law of righteousness; hence it is said, 'At an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.' Accordingly, in those who are saved by the election of grace, God as helper works both to will and to work according to his good will, since for those who love God all things work together for good. If all things, then surely love itself too, which we obtain by faith, so that by his grace we may love him who first loved us so that we might believe in him, and by loving may do good, which we had not done in order to be loved.

But those who expect rewards as owed to their merits, and attribute those merits not to God's grace but to the powers of their own will, are like what was said of carnal Israel: pursuing the law of righteousness, they do not attain to the law. Why? Because they pursue it not by faith but as if by works. For that is the righteousness from faith which the Gentiles took hold of, of whom it is said: 'What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not know righteousness, took hold of righteousness, but the righteousness that is by faith; whereas Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not attain to the law. Why? Because it was not by faith but as if by works. They stumbled over the stone of stumbling, as it is written: Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.' That is the righteousness from faith, by which we believe that we are justified, that is, made righteous, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, 'so that we may be found in him not having our own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God in faith', in faith, that is, by which we believe that righteousness is given to us from God, not produced in us by ourselves through our own powers.

Why did the apostle call the righteousness that is from the law his own and not God's? As if the law were not from God! Who but an ungodly man would think that? It is because the law commands by the letter; it does not help by the Spirit. Whoever hears the letter of the law in such a way that it seems enough to him to know what it commands or forbids, and trusts that he will fulfil it by the strength of his own choice, and does not take refuge by faith in the life-giving Spirit to be helped, so that the letter may not kill him once he is guilty, certainly has a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. For not knowing the righteousness of God, that is, the righteousness that is given from God, and wishing to establish his own, so that it is only from the law, he has not submitted to the righteousness of God. 'For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes', as the same apostle says, 'so that we might become the righteousness of God in him'. 'Therefore, being justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ', justified freely by his grace. Nor should faith itself be proud.

Nor should it say to itself: 'If it is by faith, how is it freely given? What faith merits, why is it not paid rather than given?' Let the believer not say this; for if he says, 'I have faith in order to merit justification', the answer to him is: 'What do you have that you did not receive?' So when faith obtains justification, as God has apportioned to each the measure even of faith itself, no human merit precedes the grace of God; rather, grace itself merits to be increased, so that, once increased, it may merit to be perfected, with the will accompanying and not leading, following behind and not going before. Hence he who said, 'I will keep my strength for you; for you, O God, are my protector', as though asking by what merits he had obtained this, and finding nothing in himself before the grace of God, said: 'My God, his mercy will go before me.' However much, he says, I think of my preceding merits, his mercy will go before me. So, keeping for him his strength granted by him, he does not lose, with the same keeper, what he received from the same giver. And he merits more for no other reason than by knowing, piously and faithfully, from whom all his good things come, and by knowing this too not from himself, so that not even this should be in him which is not from God. Hence the apostle says excellently: 'We have received not the spirit of this world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things that have been given to us by God.' And so even a man's merit is a free gift, and no one merits to receive anything good from the Father of lights, from whom every best gift comes down, except by receiving what he does not merit.

Much more indulgent, and beyond all doubt free, is what the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord grants to infants: that their birth from Adam may not harm them and their rebirth in Christ may benefit them. In them God's mercy comes so long beforehand that it precedes even their capacity to receive it. Certainly, if they leave the body at this tender age, they receive eternal life and the kingdom of heaven knowingly, by the merit of a gift that they did not know of here when it benefited them. Certainly in them the merits of later gifts are nothing but earlier gifts. In giving these the grace of God so works that the will of those receiving is neither put before nor joined to nor made to follow; for so great a benefit is given not only to the unwilling but even to the resisting, which would be counted to them as great sacrilege if the choice of the will already had any force in them.

We have said this because of those who, being unable in the question of grace to search out God's unsearchable judgments (why, from the lump of Adam, which has wholly collapsed from one man into condemnation, he makes one vessel for honour and another for dishonour), nevertheless dare to make little children guilty of their own sins, so that those who cannot think good or evil are thought able, by free choice, to merit either punishment or grace. Yet the apostolic truth, by saying 'From one, all to condemnation', shows clearly enough that they are born in punishment, so that they may be reborn in grace not by merit but by mercy. Otherwise grace is no longer grace, if it is not given freely from divine riches but paid back to human merits. Grace alone so distinguishes from punishment that, since punishment is owed to all from Adam, while grace through the one Jesus Christ is owed to none but is free, so as to be true grace, the judgments of God can be as deep as God is, as to why he distinguishes among little children whom no merits distinguish, but they cannot be unjust, because 'all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth'. Hence when the mercy of grace is shown to one, he has no reason to boast of human merit, 'since it is not by works, so that no one may be lifted up'; and when the truth of retribution is rendered to another, he has no reason to complain justly, for what is rendered is what is rightly owed to sin, since the one in whom all sinned is not unjustly punished in each individual too. In their punishment it is shown more clearly what is conferred on the vessels of mercy through grace that is not owed but true, that is, free.

But how they argue against the apostle, who says most plainly, 'Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned', saying that even little children have their own sins through free choice, is wearisome to consider and distasteful to set out; but we are compelled to speak of it. For what great and sharp minds have been able to think up, it is either a lack of resources to avoid by silence, or arrogance to pass over with contempt. 'Look,' they say, 'Esau and Jacob wrestle within their mother's womb; and as they are born, one is supplanted by the other, and by the hand of the one following being found holding the foot of the one going first, the struggle, persisting in some way, is proved. How then can there be in infants who do such things no choice of their own will for good or evil, on which rewards or punishments might follow according to preceding merits?'

To this we say that those movements and, as it were, the quarrel of the little ones were a sign of great things, because it was not choice but portent. For we are not going to grant free power of choice to asses as well, since a beast of this kind, as it is written, a voiceless beast of burden answering with a human voice, restrained the madness of the prophet. But those who contend that these were not portentous movements but voluntary acts, and done not in the little ones but by the little ones, what will they answer the apostle? For seeing that these twins too were to be mentioned as a proof of free grace, he says: 'Though they were not yet born and had done nothing good or evil, so that God's purpose according to election might stand, not from works but from him who calls, it was said that the elder will serve the younger.' Then he adds the testimony of the prophet, spoken long afterwards indeed, but declaring God's ancient counsel on this matter: 'As it is written,' he says, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'

The teacher of the Gentiles, in faith and truth, testifies that these twins, not yet born, had done nothing good or evil, so that grace might be commended: so that the saying 'The elder will serve the younger' might be understood to have been said not from works but from him who calls, so that God's purpose according to election might stand, and no human merit might come first. For he does not speak of an election of human will or nature, since the condition of death and condemnation was equal in both, but beyond doubt of an election of grace, which does not find people fit to be chosen but makes them so. Speaking of it later in the same letter he says: 'So too at the present time a remnant has been saved by the election of grace. But if by grace, it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.' This passage agrees well with the one in which it is recalled that 'the elder will serve the younger' was said not from works but from him who calls. Why then is this most illustrious commender of grace so shamelessly resisted with talk of the free choice of infants and the acts of the unborn? Why is grace said to be preceded by merits, when it would not be grace if it were reckoned according to merit? Why is there contention against the salvation that was sent to the lost and came to the unworthy, by argument however sharp, however copious and ornate, but hardly Christian?

'But how,' someone says, 'is there no injustice with God, if he distinguishes by loving those whom no merits of works distinguish?' This is said to us as if the apostle himself had not seen it, not put it forward, not answered it. He certainly saw what human weakness or ignorance might think on hearing these things; and putting the same question to himself he says, 'What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God?' He answered at once: 'By no means.' And giving the reason why not, that is, why there is no injustice with God, he did not say, 'For he judges the merits or works even of little ones, even while they are still in their mother's womb' (how could he say this, who had already said of those not yet born, who had done nothing good or evil, that 'the elder will serve the younger' was said not from works but from him who calls?), but wishing to show why there is no injustice with God in their case, he says: 'For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I have been compassionate.' What did he teach us here, except that it belongs not to human merits but to God's mercy that anyone is set free from that mass of the first man to which death is deservedly owed; and so there is no injustice with God, because he is unjust neither in remitting nor in exacting what is owed? For pardon is welcome where punishment could have been just. And from this it appears more clearly how great a benefit is conferred on the one set free from the punishment owed and justified freely, when another, equally guilty, is punished without injustice on the part of the one who punishes.

Then he adds: 'So it depends not on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy.' This was said with regard to those who are set free through grace and justified. But with regard to those on whom the wrath of God remains (for God makes good use of them too, to teach others whom he deigns to set free), he added: 'For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up, to show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' Then, concluding to both: 'So then,' he says, 'he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills', certainly neither by any injustice, but both by mercy and truth. And yet the bold weakness of those who try to reckon the unsearchable depth of God's judgments by the guesses of the human heart is still stirred.

Setting this objection against himself the apostle says: 'You will say to me then, Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?' Let us take this as said to us. What else, then, should we answer than what the apostle answered? Or if such things trouble us too, since we too are human, we must all together hear him say: 'O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to the one who formed it, Why have you made me thus? Has the potter no power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?' If this lump were so neutral that, as it merited nothing good, so it merited nothing evil, it would not be without reason that it seemed unjust for vessels for dishonour to be made from it. But since by the free choice of the first man the whole has flowed down from one into condemnation, beyond doubt the fact that vessels for honour are made from it must be credited not to its own righteousness, which did not precede grace, but to the mercy of God; and the fact that vessels for dishonour are made must be credited not to injustice in God (far be it that there should be any in God) but to his judgment. Whoever thinks this with the Catholic Church does not argue for merits against grace, but sings of mercy and judgment to the Lord, so as neither to refuse mercy ungratefully nor to accuse judgment unjustly.

For there is another lump, of which the same apostle says: 'If the first portion is holy, so is the lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.' That one is from Abraham, not from Adam, that is, from the fellowship of the sacrament and likeness of faith, not from mortal descent. But this lump (or 'mass', as it reads in most manuscripts), since it is wholly of death (for 'through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned'), from it by mercy one vessel is made for honour, and by judgment another for dishonour. Neither do merits there precede the grace of the one who sets free, nor do sins here escape the justice of the one who punishes. This indeed is not so evident in older ages against the contentious, where they fight for human merits as if protected by some obscurity. That is why, against their contention, the apostle found those of whom, not yet born and doing nothing good or evil, it was said, not from works but from him who calls: 'The elder will serve the younger.'

In this matter, since the judgments of God are exceedingly deep and unsearchable and his ways inscrutable, let a man meanwhile hold that there is no injustice with God; but by what equity he has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills, let him confess, as a man, that he does not know. Yet let him do so in such a way that, because of what he holds unshaken (that there is no injustice with God), he knows that although no one is justified by him on account of preceding merits, no one is hardened except deservedly. For it is believed piously and truly that God, in justifying the guilty and ungodly, frees them from punishments they owe; but if God were believed to condemn anyone undeserving and liable to no sin, he would not be believed free of injustice. So where the unworthy is set free, the greater thanks are owed, the more just was the punishment that was owed; but if the undeserving were condemned, neither mercy nor truth would be upheld.

'How then,' they say, 'is Esau not condemned undeservedly, if it was said not from works but from him who calls that the elder will serve the younger? For just as no good works of Jacob had gone before to bring him to grace, so no evil works of Esau had gone before by which he should come to punishment.' Clearly there were in neither any works of his own, good or evil; but both were liable to that one man in whom all sinned, so that all died in him. For all the many who were to come from that one man, each in himself, were then one in him. That sin would have been his alone if no one had come from him; but as it is, from the vice of the one in whom the common nature was, no one is immune. If, then, both, who were not yet doing any good or evil of their own, were nevertheless born guilty by origin, let the one who is set free praise mercy, and let the one who is punished not blame judgment.

If at this point we say, 'How much better if both were set free!', nothing could be said to us more fittingly than: 'O man, who are you to answer back to God?' For he knows what he is doing and how great the number ought to be, first of all human beings, then of the saints, as of the stars, as of the angels, and, to speak of earthly things, as of cattle, fish and birds, as of trees and plants, and finally as of leaves and of our hairs. For we, by human reasoning, could still say: 'Since all these things that he made are good, how much better if he had doubled or multiplied them, so that they were far more than they are!' For if the world could not hold them, could he not make the world itself as much larger as he wished? And yet however much he made, whether more of those things or this world more capacious and larger, the same could still be said about multiplying them, and there would be no limit to the limitless.

For this too can be said: whether it is grace by which the unrighteous are justified (which we may not doubt), or whether, as some would have it, free choice always comes first, on whose merit either punishment or reward follows, why were they created at all, when God foreknew without doubt that they would sin in such a way as to be condemned to eternal fire? For although he did not make their sins, yet who but God created the natures themselves, which in themselves are without doubt good, but in which the vices of sins were to arise from the choice of the will, and in many of them such sins as eternal punishment would have to be paid for? Why, if not because he willed it? But as for why he willed it: 'O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to the one who formed it, Why have you made me thus? Has the potter no power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?'