On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.20–1.42

A man makes the tree good when he receives the grace of God; for he does not make himself good from evil by himself, but from him and through him and in him who is always good. And not only that the tree may be good, but also that it may bear good fruit, he must be helped by the same grace, without which he can do nothing good. For he himself cooperates in producing fruit in the good trees, who both waters and cultivates outwardly through any minister and gives the increase inwardly by himself. But a man makes the tree bad when he makes himself bad, when he falls away from the unchangeable good; for the falling away from him is the origin of an evil will. This falling away does not begin another, evil nature, but corrupts the one that was created good; and when the corruption is healed no evil remains, because the corruption was indeed in the nature, but the corruption was not the nature.

That capacity, then, is not, as he supposes, one and the same root of good and evil things; for love, the root of good things, is one thing, and covetousness, the root of evil things, another, and they differ from each other as much as virtue and vice. But plainly that capacity is capable of either root, because a man can have not only love, by which he may be a good tree, but also covetousness, by which he may be a bad tree. But human covetousness, which is a vice, has as its author man, or the deceiver of man, not the creator of man; for it is 'the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the ambition of the world, which is not from the Father but from the world.' And who does not know that Scripture usually calls by the name 'world' those by whom this world is inhabited?

But love, which is a virtue, is ours from God, not from ourselves, as Scripture testifies, which says: 'Love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, because God is love.' In accordance with this love is better understood the saying, 'He who is born of God does not sin,' and that 'he cannot sin'; because love, in accordance with which he is born of God, 'does not act wrongly' and 'thinks no evil.' When, then, a man sins, he sins not in accordance with love but in accordance with covetousness, in accordance with which he is not born of God; since that capacity, as was said, is capable of either root. Since, then, Scripture says, 'Love is from God,' or, what is more, 'God is love'; since the apostle John cries most plainly, 'See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called and be sons of God'; why does this man, hearing 'God is love,' still contend that of those three we have only the capacity from God, but have the good will and the good action from ourselves? As if a good will were anything other than love, which Scripture cries is ours from God and given by the Father, so that we might be his sons.

But perhaps our preceding merits brought it about that it should be given to us, as this man thinks of the grace of God in the book he wrote to a consecrated virgin, which he also mentioned in the letter he sent to Rome. For there, after citing the testimony of the apostle James, where he says, 'Be subject to God, but resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' he adds and says: 'He shows how we ought to resist the devil: if indeed we are subject to God and, by doing his will, merit divine grace, and more easily resist the wicked spirit with the help of the Holy Spirit.' See with what truthful heart he condemned, in the ecclesiastical court in Palestine, those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits! Or do we still doubt that he holds this and proclaims it most openly? How then was that confession truthful in the episcopal examination? Or had he perhaps already written this book, in which he says most openly that grace is given according to our merits, which he condemned without any objection at the Eastern synod? Then let him confess that he once held this but holds it no longer, so that we might rejoice most openly at his correction. But as it is, when this too, among other things, had been put to him, he answered: 'Whether these are Caelestius's, let those see to it who say they are Caelestius's; but I never held this, and I anathematize those who hold it.' How did he never hold it, if he had composed this book before? Or how does he anathematize those who hold it, if he composed this book afterward?

But lest he perhaps answer that he said here 'by doing God's will we merit divine grace' in the sense in which grace is added to the faithful and those who live piously, by which they may resist the tempter bravely, although they had also received grace at the first in order to do God's will: lest, I say, he answer so, hear other words of his on this matter. 'He who runs to the Lord,' he says, 'and desires to be ruled by him, that is, makes his own will depend on his will, who by cleaving to him constantly becomes one spirit with him, according to the apostle, does this only by freedom of choice.' See how great a thing he said is done only by freedom of choice; and therefore he thinks we cleave to God without God's help. For this is what 'only by freedom of choice' means: that when we have cleaved to him without his help, then, because we have cleaved, we merit also to be helped. For he goes on and says: 'He who uses it well' (that is, he who uses freedom of choice well) 'so gives himself wholly to God and mortifies all his own will that he can say with the apostle: I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me; and he places his heart in the hand of God, so that he may turn it wherever he wills.' A great help indeed of divine grace, that God himself turns our heart wherever he wills! But this so great help, as this man foolishly thinks, we merit when without any help, only by freedom of choice, we run to the Lord, desire to be ruled by him, make our will depend on his will, and by cleaving to him constantly are made one spirit with him. Such immense goods, according to him, we do only by freedom of choice, so that by these preceding merits we obtain his grace in such a way that he turns our heart wherever he wills. How then is it grace, if it is not given gratuitously? How is it grace, if it is paid as a debt? How does the apostle speak truly, 'It is not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone should be exalted,' and again, 'But if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace'? How, I say, is this true, if such great works come first, which earn us the merit of obtaining grace, so that it is not given to us freely but paid as a debt? Is it then that, in order to reach God's help, one runs to God without God's help? And that in order to be helped by God while cleaving to God, we cleave to God without being helped by God? What greater thing, or what like it, could grace itself bestow on a man, if without it he could already be made one spirit with the Lord only by freedom of choice?

But I should like this man to tell us whether that Assyrian king, whose bed the holy woman Esther abhorred, when 'he sat on the throne of his kingdom and was clothed in all the robe of his splendor, all adorned with gold and precious stones, and was very terrifying; and lifting up his face, flushed with glory, he looked at her like a bull in the rush of his anger; and the queen was afraid, and her color changed as she fainted, and she bowed herself on the head of her maid who went before her': I should like him, then, to tell us whether that king had already run to the Lord and desired to be ruled by him, and made his will depend on his will, and by cleaving to him constantly had become one spirit with him only by freedom of choice; whether he had given himself wholly to God and mortified all his own will and placed his heart in the hand of God. I think that whoever thinks this of that king, as he then was, is not foolish but mad. And yet God turned him and changed his anger into gentleness. And who does not see that it is a much greater thing to turn and change anger into its opposite, gentleness, than to turn in some direction a heart preoccupied with neither feeling but in the middle between the two? Let them read, then, and understand, consider and confess, that God works in the hearts of men not by the law and teaching sounding from outside, but by an inward and hidden, wonderful and ineffable power, not only true revelations but also good wills.

Let Pelagius therefore stop deceiving himself and others by arguing against the grace of God. The grace of God toward us is to be proclaimed not on account of only one of those three, that is, the capacity for good will and work, but also on account of the good will and good working; for he defines that capacity as able for both. And yet our sins are not therefore to be attributed to God, as he wants to attribute our good works to him on account of that same capacity; so the great help of divine grace is not commended because it helps natural capacity. Let him stop saying, 'That we can do, say, and think every good thing is his who gave this being able and who helps this being able; but that we act or speak or think well is ours'; let him stop, I say, saying this. For God not only gave and helps our being able, but also works in us willing and working; not because we do not will or do not act, but because without his help we neither will anything good nor do it. For how is it said, 'That we can act well is God's, but that we act is ours,' when the apostle says that he prays to God for those to whom he was writing, 'that they may do nothing evil' and 'that they may do what is good'? For he does not say, 'We pray that you may be able to do nothing evil,' but 'that you may do nothing evil'; nor 'that you may be able to do good,' but 'that you may do good'; since of those of whom it is written, 'For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God,' surely, in order that they may do what is good, they are led by him who is good. How does Pelagius say, 'That we can speak well is God's; that we speak well is ours,' when the Lord says, 'It is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you'? For he does not say, 'It is not you who gave yourselves the ability to speak well,' but he says, 'It is not you who speak'; nor does he say, 'It is the Spirit of your Father who gives or has given you the ability to speak well,' but he says, 'who speaks in you,' signifying not the advance of capacity but expressing the effect of cooperation. How does the proud defender of free choice say, 'That we can think well is God's, but that we think well is ours'? The humble preacher of grace answered him: 'Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God'; for he does not say 'to be able to think' but 'to think.'

Let Pelagius, too, openly confess this grace of God, which is plain in the divine Scriptures, and let him not cover up with most shameless shame that he has so long thought the contrary, but disclose it with most wholesome sorrow, so that the holy church may not be troubled by his stubborn obstinacy but may rejoice in his truthful correction. Let him distinguish knowledge and love, as they are to be distinguished, because 'knowledge puffs up, love builds up' (and knowledge does not puff up when love builds up); and since both are gifts of God, but one lesser and the other greater, let him not here exalt our righteousness above the praise of our justifier, attributing the lesser of these two to divine help and claiming the greater for human choice. And if he agrees that we receive love by the grace of God, let him not think it in such a way as though any good merits of ours had preceded. For what good merits could we have had when we did not love God? For in order that we might receive the love with which to love, we were loved when we did not yet have it. The apostle John says this most plainly: 'Not that we loved God, but that he loved us'; and elsewhere, 'Let us love, because he first loved us.' Most excellently and most truly! For we would not have that with which to love him unless we received it from him when he first loved us. And what good would we do if we did not love? Or how do we not do good if we love? For although God's commandment sometimes seems to be done not by those who love but by those who fear, yet where there is no love no good work is counted, nor is it rightly called a good work, because 'everything that is not from faith is sin,' and 'faith works through love.' And therefore let whoever wants to confess truthfully confess the grace of God, by which 'the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us,' in such a way as not to doubt that without it absolutely nothing good that belongs to piety and true righteousness can be done; not as this man does, who, when he says that grace is given so that what God commands may be fulfilled more easily, shows clearly enough what he thinks of it, namely, that even without it, though less easily, what is divinely commanded can nevertheless be done.

For in the book to the consecrated virgin, which I mentioned above too, when he says, 'we merit divine grace and more easily resist the wicked spirit with the help of the Holy Spirit,' he certainly shows what he thinks. For why did he insert this word, 'more easily'? Or was the sense not complete, 'that we may resist the wicked spirit with the help of the Holy Spirit'? But who does not understand how much damage he did by this addition? He wants it to be believed, of course, that the powers of nature, which he casts down by exalting them, are so great that even without the help of the Holy Spirit, though less easily, the wicked spirit can nevertheless be resisted in some way.

Again, in the first book in defense of free choice, he says: 'But while we have in us a free choice so strong and so firm for not sinning, which the Creator implanted in human nature universally, we are again, by his inestimable kindness, protected by his daily help.' What need is there of this help, if free choice is so strong and so firm for not sinning? But here too he wants it understood that the help exists so that what he thinks is done even without grace, though less easily, may be done more easily through grace.

Again, in the same book, in another place, he says: 'so that what men are commanded to do through free choice they may more easily fulfill through grace.' Take away 'more easily,' and the sense is not only complete but also sound, if it is put thus: 'so that what men are commanded to do through free choice they may be able to fulfill through grace.' But when 'more easily' is added, it is suggested by tacit implication that the fulfilling of a good work can be done even without the grace of God. This sense is refuted by him who says, 'Without me you can do nothing.'

Let him correct all these things, lest, if human weakness has erred in the depth of great matters, there should also be added to this error either the deceit or the obstinacy of the devil, whether by denying what he thought or by defending what he wrongly thought, once he has recognized, when the clear truth has been set before him, that he ought not to have thought it. For in the writings of Pelagius and Caelestius, as many as I have been able to read, I have nowhere found them confessing as it ought to be confessed that grace by which we are justified, that is, by which 'the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us'; and I have never noticed them acknowledging, as they ought to be acknowledged, the children of the promise, of whom the apostle says: 'Not the children of the flesh are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.' For what God promises we do not do by choice or nature, but he himself does by grace.

For, to say nothing for the present of Caelestius's short works, or of the statements he presented to ecclesiastical courts, all of which we have taken care to send you with other letters that we thought necessary (and if you examine them all carefully you can see that he places the grace of God, by which we are helped either to turn away from evil or to do good, apart from the natural choice of the will, only in the law and teaching, so that he asserts that even prayers themselves are necessary for this purpose, that it may be shown to a man what he should desire and love): to leave these aside for the present, Pelagius himself recently sent to Rome both a letter and a statement of his faith, writing to Pope Innocent of blessed memory, whom he did not know to be dead. In this letter, then, he says that there are two things about which people try to defame him: one, that he denies to infants the sacrament of baptism and promises the kingdom of heaven to some apart from the redemption of Christ; the other, that he says a man can avoid sin in such a way that he excludes God's help, and trusts so much in free choice that he rejects the help of grace. But concerning the baptism of infants, although he grants that it is to be given to them, how perversely he thinks against the Christian faith and Catholic truth this is not the place to discuss more carefully; for now we must carry through what we have undertaken concerning the help of grace. So let us see what he answers on this point too, to the charge he himself set out. For, to pass over his invidious complaints about his enemies, when he came to the matter, he spoke thus.

'See,' he says, 'let this letter clear me before your Blessedness, in which we say purely and simply that we have a free choice intact for sinning and not sinning, which in all good works is always helped by divine aid.' You surely see, with the understanding the Lord has given you, that these words of his are not enough to settle the question. For we still ask by what aid he says free choice is helped, lest perhaps, as usual, he wants the law and teaching to be understood. For if you ask why he said 'always,' he can answer: because it is said, 'And on his law he will meditate day and night.' Then, after inserting some remarks about the condition of man and his natural capacity for sinning and not sinning, he added: 'This power of free choice we say is in all generally, in Christians, Jews, and gentiles. In all there is free choice equally by nature, but in Christians alone it is helped by grace.' Again we ask: by what grace? And again he can answer: by the law and Christian teaching.

Then, whatever grace he means, he says that it is given to Christians themselves according to merits, although, as I mentioned above, he had already condemned in Palestine, in that famous self-defense of his, those who say this. For these are his words: 'In them,' he says, 'the good of their created condition is naked and unarmed' (he means those who are not Christians); then, continuing, he says: 'but in those who belong to Christ it is fortified by the help of Christ.' You see that it is still uncertain what help, in view of what we said above. But he goes on still about those who are not Christians, and says: 'They are to be judged and condemned for this reason, that although they have free choice, through which they could come to faith and merit the grace of God, they make bad use of the freedom granted them. But these are to be rewarded who, using free choice well, merit the grace of the Lord and keep his commandments.' It is plain, then, that he says grace is given according to merits, whatever or whatever kind of grace he means, which he nevertheless does not state openly. For when he says that those are to be rewarded who use free choice well, and so merit the grace of the Lord, he confesses that a debt is paid to them. Where, then, is that saying of the apostle, 'justified freely by his grace'? Where is that other, 'By grace you have been saved'? And lest they think it was by works, he added, 'through faith.' Again, lest they think that faith itself was to be attributed to themselves without the grace of God, he says, 'And this is not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God.' So that from which everything begins that we are said to receive by merit, namely faith itself, we receive without merit. Or if it is denied that it is given, what is the meaning of what is said, 'as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith'? And if it is said to be given in such a way that it is paid to merits and not freely bestowed, what is the meaning of what he says again: 'To you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him'? For he testified that both are granted: that a person believes in Christ and that he suffers for Christ. But these people so attach faith to free choice that grace seems to be paid to faith not as free but as due, and so no longer as grace, because unless it is free it is not grace.

But from this letter Pelagius wants the reader to pass on to the statement of his faith, which he mentioned to you, in which he discussed at length many matters about which he was not being asked. But let us look at the very matters about which we are dealing with them. For after he had carried through as long a discussion as he wished, from the unity of the Trinity to the resurrection of the flesh, which no one was asking of him, he says: 'We hold one baptism, which we say is to be celebrated with the same sacramental words for infants as for adults.' You said that you had heard this from him in person too. But what good is it that he says the sacrament of baptism is celebrated with the same words for little ones as for adults, when the reality, not only the words, is what we are asking about? It is more that he answered you, as you write, when you questioned him in person, that infants receive baptism for the forgiveness of sins. For here he did not say 'with the words of forgiveness of sins,' but confessed that they are baptized for forgiveness itself. And yet, if you asked him what sin is believed to be forgiven them, he would contend that they have none.

Who would believe that under this seemingly plain confession a contrary meaning was hidden, had not Caelestius disclosed it? In the statement he presented at Rome in the ecclesiastical proceedings he both confessed that little ones are baptized for the forgiveness of sins and denied that they have any original sin. But now let us consider not the baptism of little ones but rather what Pelagius thought about the help of grace, even in the statement of his faith that he sent to Rome. 'We so confess free choice,' he says, 'as to say that we always need the help of God.' See, again we ask what help he confesses we need, and again we find it ambiguous, since he can answer that he means the law or Christian teaching, by which that natural capacity is helped. But we look in their confession for the grace of which the apostle says, 'For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control.' And it does not follow that whoever has the gift of knowledge, by which he knows what he ought to do, also has the gift of love, so that he may do it.

Those books or writings of his too which he mentions in the same letter he sent to Pope Innocent of holy memory, I have read, except one letter which he says he sent, a short one, to the holy bishop Constantius; and nowhere could I find him confessing this grace, by which not only the natural capacity for will and action, which he says we have even if we neither will nor do good, but also the will and action themselves are helped by the supply of the Holy Spirit.

'Let them read,' he says, 'that letter which we wrote nearly twelve years ago to the holy man, Bishop Paulinus, which in some three hundred lines confesses nothing but the grace and help of God, and that we can do absolutely nothing good without God.' I have read this letter, then, and found that through almost the whole of it he dwells only on the faculty and capacity of nature, and places the grace of God almost entirely there; but Christian grace he touches on with such brevity, by the mere mention of its name, that he seems to have done nothing more than fear to be silent about it. Yet whether he wants it understood as the forgiveness of sins, or also as the teaching of Christ, in which there is also the example of his conduct (as he does in several places of his writings), or whether he believes that some help for acting well is added to nature and teaching through the inspiration of a most ardent and luminous love, does not appear at all.

'Let them read also,' he says, 'the letter to the holy bishop Constantius, where briefly indeed, but plainly, I joined the grace and help of God to the free choice of man.' This letter, as I said above, I have not read; but if it is not unlike the others he mentions which are known to me, it too does not contain what we are looking for.

'Let them read also,' he says, 'the letter we wrote in the East to Demetrias, the consecrated virgin of Christ, and they will find that we so praise the nature of man that we always add the help of the grace of God.' This one I have indeed read, and it had almost persuaded me that he confessed the grace in question, although in many places of that work he seemed to contradict himself. But when other writings, which he composed later and at greater length, had also come into my hands, I saw how he could name grace even there, hiding what he thought under an ambiguous generality, yet by the word 'grace' breaking the force of ill will and avoiding offense. For at its very beginning, where he says, 'Let us toil at the work we have undertaken, and not distrust the modesty of our talent, which we believe is helped both by the faith of the mother and the merit of the virgin,' he had seemed to me to confess the grace by which we are helped to do something, and I had not noticed that he could place it in the revelation of teaching alone.

Again, in another place in the same work: 'But if even without God,' he says, 'men show what sort they were made by God, see what Christians can do, whose nature has been restored for the better through Christ and who are also helped by the aid of divine grace.' By nature 'restored for the better' he wants the forgiveness of sins to be understood, as he showed clearly enough in another place in this same book, where he says: 'Even those who have in a way grown hard by long practice of sinning can be restored through repentance.' But the aid of divine grace he can place here too in the revelation of teaching.

Again, elsewhere in the same letter: 'For if even before the law,' he says, 'as we have said, and long before the coming of our Lord and Savior, some are reported to have lived righteously and holily, how much more must we believe that we can do so after the light of his coming, we who have been restored through the grace of Christ and reborn into a better man, who, expiated and cleansed by his blood and spurred on by his example to a more perfect righteousness, ought to be better than those who were before the law!' See how here too, in other words indeed, he has nevertheless placed the help of grace in the forgiveness of sins and in the example of Christ. Then he adds and says: 'Better even than those who were under the law, since the apostle says, Sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.' 'And since,' he says, 'we have said enough on this, I think, let us now instruct the perfect virgin, who, always kindled by both, may bear witness by the holiness of her conduct to the good of both nature and grace.' And in these words you ought to notice that he wanted to conclude what he was saying in such a way that we understand the good of nature as what we received when we were created, and the good of grace as when we look at the example of Christ; as if sin was not forgiven to those who were or are under the law because they either did not have the example of Christ or do not believe it.