On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.19 · 1.20–1.42 · 1.43–2.11 · 2.12–2.29 · 2.30–2.48

1. 1.1Augustine greets Albina, Pinianus, and Melania and explains that he writes in haste at Carthage in reply to their inquiry.
2. 1.2Pelagius's anathema against denying the need of grace for every act sounds orthodox but can be read to mean only the memory of forgiven sins or Christ's example.
3. 1.3Despite condemning these views at the synod, Pelagius in his books still places grace in nature, free choice, or law and teaching, not in God's inward help.
4. 1.4Pelagius distinguishes capacity, will, and action, and holds that grace helps only the God-given capacity, not the will or the action.
5. 1.5Augustine quotes Pelagius's own statement of the triad: being able is from God, while willing and being (doing) are man's own.
6. 1.6Paul's words 'God works in you both to will and to work' contradict Pelagius's claim that grace helps only the capacity, not the willing and doing.
7. 1.7Pelagius's apparent concession that the praise is 'both man's and God's' refers only to the capacity God gave in nature.
8. 1.8Pelagius's fuller description of grace (revelation, opening the eyes of the heart, warning of the devil's snares) still amounts to law and teaching.
9. 1.9The law shows what to do but cannot enable it; it drives the proud to grace, and the righteousness of God is given, not commanded.
10. 1.10No one fulfills the law through the law, only through the love poured in by the Spirit; Pelagius disguises his view of grace as law and teaching by changing his terms.
11. 1.11Pelagius explains 'God works in you to will' as God's promises and exhortations; Augustine insists on a grace that makes people actually believe, love, and be persuaded.
12. 1.12Even Paul, given great revelations, needed the 'angel of Satan' to curb his pride, because his love was not yet perfect; revelation alone is not grace.
13. 1.13Power is made perfect in weakness of mind as well as flesh; grace leads the predestined not only to know and believe the good but to do and love it.
14. 1.14If grace is teaching, it is God's inward teaching that imparts love, so that those taught by God do what they learn; the righteousness 'from God' is given, not commanded.
15. 1.15Christ's words 'everyone who has learned comes to me' show that God's teaching by grace produces the actual willing and coming, not just the capacity to come.
16. 1.16Against Pelagius's example that seeing well or badly is our own, the prayer 'Turn away my eyes from vanity' shows that God helps the will.
17. 1.17In his examples Pelagius assigns good speech and action to us alone, forgetting even his earlier 'both man's and God's'.
18. 1.18Pelagius avoided saying good acts are 'both ours and God's' because, on his view, evil acts would then be God's too.
19. 1.19Pelagius calls the capacity a single root that can bear virtues or vices, contrary to Christ's teaching that good and bad trees bear different fruit and Paul's that covetousness is the root of evils.
20. 1.20A man becomes a good tree only by God's grace, which must also help him to bear fruit; he becomes bad by falling away from God, a corruption of a good nature, not a nature in itself.
21. 1.21The capacity can receive either root, love or covetousness, but covetousness comes from man or the devil, not from the Creator.
22. 1.22Love, which is the good will itself, is from God according to John, so the good will cannot be from ourselves.
23. 1.23Pelagius's book to a consecrated virgin teaches that grace is merited by doing God's will, which contradicts his condemnation of that view at the Palestinian synod.
24. 1.24Pelagius says that running to God and becoming one spirit with him is done by free choice alone, and that grace follows as a reward; Augustine answers that grace so earned would not be grace.
25. 1.25God turned the angry heart of the Persian king in Esther to gentleness without any prior merit, showing that he works good wills inwardly.
26. 1.26Scripture attributes to God not only our ability but our actual good willing, doing, speaking, and thinking, as Paul's prayers and Christ's words show.
27. 1.27Pelagius should confess that love itself is God's gift, given before any merit, and that without grace no good can be done at all, not merely done less easily.
28. 1.28Pelagius's word 'more easily' betrays his view that the devil can be resisted even without the Holy Spirit.
29. 1.29Pelagius calls free choice strong and firm for not sinning, with God's daily help added only to make it easier.
30. 1.30The word 'more easily' implies that good works can be done without grace, contrary to Christ's 'Without me you can do nothing'.
31. 1.31Augustine urges Pelagius to correct his errors and notes that neither he nor Caelestius anywhere confesses justifying grace or the 'children of the promise'.
32. 1.32Augustine turns to the letter and statement of faith Pelagius sent to Pope Innocent, which answer charges about infant baptism and about excluding God's help.
33. 1.33Pelagius's letter to Innocent says free choice is 'always helped by divine aid' and in Christians 'helped by grace', but still leaves open that he means only law and teaching.
34. 1.34Pelagius says the grace of the Lord is merited by the good use of free choice; Augustine answers that faith itself, the beginning of all merit, is God's free gift.
35. 1.35Pelagius's statement that infants are baptized with the same words, or even for the forgiveness of sins, still leaves him denying they have any sin to be forgiven.
36. 1.36Caelestius's statement at Rome shows that confessing infant baptism for forgiveness can go with denying original sin; Pelagius's 'we always need God's help' remains ambiguous.
37. 1.37In none of the writings Pelagius cites could Augustine find a confession of grace that helps the will and action themselves.
38. 1.38Pelagius's letter to Paulinus of Nola, cited as proof of his belief in grace, dwells almost entirely on nature and barely names Christian grace.
39. 1.39Augustine has not seen the letter to Constantius but expects it to be like the others.
40. 1.40Pelagius's Letter to Demetrias nearly persuaded Augustine that he confessed true grace, until his later writings showed how ambiguously he used the word.
41. 1.41In the Letter to Demetrias, nature 'restored' through Christ means only forgiveness of sins, and the 'aid of grace' may again be teaching.
42. 1.42Pelagius's praise of Christians as 'restored through the grace of Christ' again places grace only in forgiveness and Christ's example.
43. 1.43Pelagius explains Romans 7 as spoken by one under the law, freed by forgiveness in baptism and by imitating Christ's example, which shows he places grace in example rather than inward help.
44. 1.44In the book to the consecrated virgin, the Holy Spirit's help only makes resisting the tempter easier and seems to be knowledge added through teaching.
45. 1.45In his four books On Free Choice Pelagius speaks of grace only ambiguously, as law, teaching, revelation, and Christ's example, never as help for the will and action.
46. 1.46Augustine turns from Scripture to the Catholic writers whom Pelagius himself respects, beginning with Ambrose.
47. 1.47Pelagius praises Ambrose highly because he thinks Ambrose supports the possibility of sinlessness.
48. 1.48Ambrose teaches that no one can even begin anything good without the Lord, and that the greater love of the forgiven debtor is itself a gift of grace.
49. 1.49Ambrose says Peter wept only when Jesus looked at him; since Jesus was inside the house, that look was an inward act of grace moving Peter's will to repentance.
50. 1.50Ambrose warns from the falls of Peter and David that no one should presume on himself; Pelagius should heed the man he praises.
51. 1.51Ambrose's saying that 'God calls whom he deigns and makes religious whom he wills' contradicts Pelagius's claim that turning to God is done by free choice alone.
52. 1.52If Pelagius admits that God helps the will and action themselves, so that without that help we do nothing good, the dispute about grace will be over.
53. 1.53Ambrose's praise of Zechariah and Elizabeth as blameless refers to commendable conduct before men, not to the perfect righteousness hoped for hereafter.
54. 1.54In his exposition of Isaiah Ambrose says that no one in this world is truly spotless, which corrects any stronger reading of his praise of Zechariah and Elizabeth.
55. 1.55Ambrose also teaches that human nature, corrupted by the first man's sin, is weak and can be helped only by grace; Augustine now turns to original sin.
56. 2.1Augustine opens book 2, on original sin, by warning that the Pelagians grant infant baptism for forgiveness of sins while denying that infants inherit any sin.
57. 2.2Caelestius refused at Carthage to condemn the denial of inherited sin and at Rome openly asserted that infants have no original sin.
58. 2.3Augustine quotes the minutes of the Carthaginian hearing of 411, where Caelestius, questioned by Aurelius and the deacon Paulinus, called the transmission of sin an open question while affirming that infants must be baptized.
59. 2.4Caelestius granted infant baptism but would not confess that Adam's sin passes to infants.
60. 2.5Caelestius's Roman statement confessed infant baptism for the forgiveness of sins, words that seem to imply original sin.
61. 2.6Caelestius explained that he confessed infant baptism for forgiveness only to avoid two kinds of baptism, while denying that any sin is inherited.
62. 2.7Pope Zosimus dealt gently with Caelestius, who had professed himself ready to be corrected by the apostolic see.
63. 2.8Zosimus asked Caelestius to condemn the charges and accept Innocent's letter; he refused the first but promised the second, was given two months, and was later condemned.
64. 2.9Pelagius deceived the Palestinian synod but not the Roman church, where he was well known; Zosimus followed Innocent's judgment of the Palestinian proceedings.
65. 2.10Innocent replied to five African bishops that he could neither approve nor blame the Palestinian judgment, since Pelagius seemed to have evaded the charges rather than cleared himself.
66. 2.11Augustine sets out to prove from the Palestinian proceedings that Pelagius, by condemning propositions he actually held, deceived the judges.
67. 2.12Augustine quotes the minutes of the Synod of Diospolis, where Pelagius anathematized the propositions of Caelestius, including that Adam's sin harmed only himself and that newborns are as Adam was before his sin.
68. 2.13By condemning these propositions Pelagius let the judges think he confessed inherited sin; if he in fact holds them, he differs from Caelestius only in being less open.
69. 2.14Pelagius's own words in On Free Choice ('we are begotten without vice') show that he holds the very propositions he condemned at Diospolis.
70. 2.15Augustine had at first thought Pelagius's anathema at Diospolis confessed original sin, until his four books showed him still denying it while boasting of his acquittal.
71. 2.16Pelagius explains to his followers that he condemned the propositions in a sense of his own (sin passes by example, infants differ from Adam in lacking reason), while still holding that infants are born without fault.
72. 2.17The judges acquitted Pelagius because they took his anathemas in the Catholic sense; what they acquitted was not what he actually held.
73. 2.18Councils, the apostolic see, the Roman church, and the Christian empire have rightly acted against Pelagius and Caelestius, in hope of their repentance and for the sake of their followers.
74. 2.19Pelagius misstated the charge against him: the issue is not whether infants are baptized but whether unbaptized infants are under Adam's condemnation and need cleansing from original sin.
75. 2.20Pelagius protests that no one would deny infants baptism or the kingdom, words that seemed orthodox but prove ambiguous.
76. 2.21The real question is not whether infants need baptism for the kingdom but whether it cleanses them of original sin; Pelagius's 'common redemption' is ambiguous.
77. 2.22Pelagius's phrase about infants born to 'an uncertain life' at first seemed to imply that unbaptized infants suffer eternal death and hence have original sin.
78. 2.23Pelagius was known to say that he knew where unbaptized infants do not go but not where they do go, so his words could still hide his denial of original sin.
79. 2.24Pelagius's 'same sacramental words' implied only verbal forgiveness for infants; Zosimus's circular letter later condemned passages from his Expositions of Romans denying inherited sin.
80. 2.25Now that the error has been condemned, every Catholic should refute it, so that the heresy serves to instruct the church.
81. 2.26Caelestius claimed that the transmission of sin was an open question outside the faith, so that error on it would not be heresy.
82. 2.27Augustine distinguishes truly open questions (the location of paradise, where Enoch and Elijah are, the number of heavens, the elements, eclipses, Methuselah's age) from questions of faith.
83. 2.28The Christian faith rests on the two men, Adam and Christ; even the righteous of old, including Job, were justified only by faith in the one mediator's incarnation, death, and resurrection.
84. 2.29Even under the law the righteous were saved by grace through the same faith in Christ that they expressed in the Psalms and prophets; that grace was hidden then and is revealed now.
85. 2.30Augustine rejects the Pelagian division of history into three ages of righteousness: by nature, under the law, and under grace.
86. 2.31The righteous of old belong to Christ's body and will rise in him, because they believed in his future incarnation, just as we believe in his future judgment.
87. 2.32Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day and made his servant swear with a hand under his thigh, showing that the righteous of old believed in the coming incarnation.
88. 2.33Melchizedek's offering foreshadowed Christ's flesh and blood; Christ is mediator as man, lower than the Father in the form of a servant and higher than us because sinless.
89. 2.34Denying that nature was corrupted in Adam attacks the rule of faith itself; far from being purer before the law, humanity was then so sinful that the flood destroyed all but Noah's family.
90. 2.35God's threat that an uncircumcised infant would perish from his people cannot be just unless infants inherit guilt, since they have committed no sin of their own.
91. 2.36The penalty cannot be for sins in a previous life, as Platonists suggest, since the unborn have done nothing; it is for Adam's debt, and circumcision on the eighth day with a stone knife prefigured Christ.
92. 2.37Baptism in Christ is the true circumcision, freeing infants from the debt contracted by carnal birth through Christ, who was made 'sin', that is, a sacrifice for sin.
93. 2.38Original sin does not make marriage evil or children not God's work; nature and its fault are propagated together, the one from the Creator, the other from Adam's sin.
94. 2.39Marriage has three goods, offspring, fidelity, and the sacramental bond, and it makes good use of lust; the shame attached to sexual desire comes from the disobedience of sin, not from marriage.
95. 2.40There would have been marriage and procreation in paradise without sin, but the members would have obeyed the will without lust, pain, or bloodshed.
96. 2.41Marriage without lust cannot now be shown but is believed from Scripture, just as childbirth without pain and life without death; shame over the body followed the first sin.
97. 2.42Marriage's goods (offspring, chastity, sacrament) are distinct from the evil of lust at which even marriage blushes; infants receive their nature from God and the contagion of sin from that inherited fault.
98. 2.43Lust does not harm regenerated spouses unless they misuse it, even within marriage; intercourse for procreation is good in itself, and Paul's concession for other intercourse implies a fault.
99. 2.44Concupiscence remains in the baptized but no longer harms them, while it makes their offspring guilty until they too are reborn; its full removal awaits the resurrection, to which baptism leads.
100. 2.45Baptized parents still beget children guilty of the inherited fault, as olive seeds produce wild olives; the church's exorcism and renunciation in infant baptism show that infants are freed from the devil's power.
101. 2.46God still creates human beings out of goodness even though they are born under the devil's power because of their inherited fault; the fault dishonors their nature without destroying it, and Christ in weakness overcomes the proud angel.
102. 2.47Augustine quotes Ambrose on original sin: all fell and died in Adam, all are born under sin, and only Christ, conceived without intercourse, was free of it.
103. 2.48Pelagius's claim that we are born without vice contradicts Ambrose, whom he praised, so he must either renounce his error or remain rightly condemned.