On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.43–2.11

That this is what he thinks is shown also by other words of his, not in this book but in the third book in defense of free choice. There, speaking to the man against whom he argues, since that man had cited the words of the apostle, 'What I will I do not do,' and 'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind,' and the rest that is said there, he answered: 'For this which you wish to understand of the apostle, all churchmen assert that he said in the person of a sinner and of one still placed under the law, who by excessive habit of vices was held as it were by a kind of necessity of sinning, and although he desired the good with his will, was nevertheless hurled into evil by practice. In the person of one man,' he says, 'he signifies the people still sinning under the old law, which he says is to be freed from this evil of habit through Christ, who first forgives all sins through baptism to those who believe in him, then spurs them on to perfect holiness by imitation of himself and conquers the habit of vices by the example of virtues.' See how he wants it understood that those who sin under the law are helped, so that, justified by the grace of Christ, they may be freed: as though the law alone were not enough for them because of their excessive habit of sinning, unless there were added, not the inspiration of love through the Holy Spirit, but the example of Christ's virtue, to be looked at and imitated in the teaching of the Gospel. And certainly here there was the greatest reason for stating what grace he meant, since the apostle concluded the very passage about which he is answering by saying, 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Since he places this grace not in the help of Christ's power but in the example of imitating him, what more ought we to hope from him wherever he mentions the name of grace under an ambiguous generality?

Again, in the same book to the consecrated virgin, which we have already discussed above too, where he says, 'Let us be 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': in these words of his it is certainly plain that he wants us to be helped by the grace of the Holy Spirit, not because without it, by the mere capacity of nature, we cannot resist the tempter, but so that we may resist more easily. And whatever this help is, and however slight, it is credible that he places it in this, that knowledge is added to us by the Spirit revealing it through teaching, which we either cannot have by nature or can have only with difficulty. These are the things I could notice in the book he wrote to the virgin of Christ where he seems to confess grace. What they amount to you certainly see.

'Let them read also,' he says, 'my recent little work, which we were recently compelled to publish in defense of free choice, and they will recognize how unjustly they have been eager to defame us with the denial of grace, we who through almost the whole text of that work confess free choice and grace perfectly and completely.' There are four books of this work. I have read them too and taken from them what I have set out for treatment and discussion, and have dealt with it as well as I could, before we came to this letter of his that was sent to Rome. But in these four books too, whatever he seems to say in favor of the grace by which we are helped to turn away from evil and do good, he says in such a way that he never departs from an ambiguity of words which he can so explain to his disciples that they believe in no help of grace by which the capacity of nature is helped except in the law and teaching; so much so that he thinks even prayers themselves, as he states most openly in his writings, are to be used for nothing else than that teaching may be opened to us also by divine revelation, not that the mind of man may be helped to accomplish by love and action what it has learned should be done. For he does not depart at all from that most evident teaching of his, in which he sets up those three things, capacity, will, and action, and says that only the capacity is always helped by divine aid, while he thinks that will and action need no help from God. And that very aid by which he maintains natural capacity is helped he places in the law and teaching, which he confesses is also revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, and for that reason he grants that we must also pray. But he thinks this help of the law and teaching existed also in the times of the prophets, while the help of grace, which is properly called grace, he thinks consists in the example of Christ; and you perceive that this too belongs to teaching, the teaching preached to us in the Gospel: so that, as if the way on which we must walk had been pointed out, we are now sufficient to ourselves by the powers of free choice, needing no help from anyone else, so as not to fail on the way; although he contends that even the way itself can be found by nature alone, but more easily if grace helps.

This, then, is what I could understand, as far as I am able, in the writings of Pelagius when he names grace. But you see that those who think such things, 'being ignorant of the righteousness of God, want to establish their own,' and are far from the righteousness that is ours from God, not from ourselves, which they ought to have noticed and recognized in the Scriptures, above all the holy canonical Scriptures. But since they read them according to their own sense, they do not see in them even what is plain. Would that they would at least attend, not carelessly, in the writings of Catholic men, by whom they do not doubt the Scriptures were rightly understood, to what is to be thought about the help of divine grace, and not pass it by from excessive love of their own opinion! For this same Pelagius, in that same recent work of his, by mention of which he defends himself, namely in the third book in defense of free choice, praises Saint Ambrose; hear how.

'The blessed bishop Ambrose,' he says, 'in whose books above all the Roman faith shines out, who shone forth as a lovely flower among the Latin writers, whose faith and most pure understanding of the Scriptures not even an enemy dared to criticize.' See with what great praises he proclaims a man who, however holy and learned, is in no way to be compared with the authority of canonical Scripture. He commends him so for this reason, that he thinks he uses him as a witness in a certain passage of his books to prove that a man can be without sin. That is not the question now; the question is about the help of grace by which we are helped not to sin and to live righteously.

Let him hear, then, that venerable bishop saying and teaching in the second book of his Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke that the Lord cooperates even with our wills. 'You see, of course,' he says, 'that the power of the Lord everywhere cooperates with human efforts, so that no one can build without the Lord, no one keep watch without the Lord, no one begin anything without the Lord. And therefore, according to the apostle, whether you eat or drink, do all things to the glory of God.' You see how Saint Ambrose by these words has taken away even that saying which people commonly use, 'We begin and God completes,' when he says that no one begins anything without God. Again, in the sixth book of the same work, when he was dealing with the two debtors of one moneylender, he says: 'According to men, perhaps he who owed more gave more offense; but by the mercy of the Lord the case is changed, so that he who owed more loves more, if he obtains grace.' See how plainly the Catholic teacher proclaims that even love itself, by which one loves more, belongs to the benefit of grace.

Finally, that repentance itself, which the will without doubt performs, is brought about by the mercy and help of the Lord, blessed Ambrose says in the ninth book of the same work, speaking thus: 'Good are the tears that wash away guilt. Those on whom Jesus looks weep. Peter denied the first time and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked at him; he denied a second time and did not weep, because the Lord had still not looked at him; he denied a third time, Jesus looked, and he wept most bitterly.' Let these people read the Gospel and see that the Lord Jesus was then inside, being heard by the chief priests, while the apostle Peter was outside and below in the courtyard with the servants by the fire, now sitting, now standing, as is shown by the most truthful and harmonious narrative of the evangelists. Hence it cannot be said that the Lord looked at him with bodily eyes, admonishing him visibly. And therefore what is written there, 'The Lord looked at him,' was done within; it was done in the mind; it was done in the will. The Lord in mercy secretly came to his aid, touched his heart, recalled his memory, visited the inner Peter by his grace, moved and drew forth the affection of the inner man even to outward tears. See how God is present to help our wills and actions! See how he works in us both to will and to work!

Again, in the same book the same Saint Ambrose says: 'For if Peter fell, who said, Even if others are made to stumble, I will not be made to stumble, who else can rightly presume on himself? Then David, because he had said, I said in my abundance, I shall never be moved, confesses that his boasting harmed him, saying, You turned away your face, and I was troubled.' Let this man hear so great a man teaching, let him imitate the believer whose teaching and faith he praised; let him hear humbly, imitate faithfully; let him not presume stubbornly on himself, lest he perish. Why does Pelagius want to be drowned in that sea from which Peter was delivered through the Rock?

Let him hear the same bishop of God saying, likewise in the sixth book of the same work: 'Why they did not receive him the evangelist himself recorded, saying: Because his face was that of one going to Jerusalem. But the disciples were eager to be received in Samaria. But God calls those whom he deigns to call, and makes religious whom he wills.' O understanding of a man of God, drawn from the very fountain of the grace of God! 'God,' he says, 'calls those whom he deigns to call, and makes religious whom he wills.' See whether this is not the prophetic saying, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I am merciful,' and the apostolic saying, 'So then it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy,' who, as a man of his in our own times also says, 'calls whom he deigns to call and makes religious whom he wills.' Will anyone dare to say that he is not yet religious who runs to the Lord and desires to be ruled by him and makes his will depend on his will, and who by cleaving to him constantly becomes one spirit with him, according to the apostle? Yet Pelagius says that this whole great work of a religious man is done only by freedom of choice. On the contrary, blessed Ambrose, so excellently praised by his own mouth, says, 'The Lord God calls whom he deigns to call and makes religious whom he wills.' So, that a man may run to the Lord and desire to be ruled by him and make his will depend on his will, and by cleaving to him constantly become one spirit with him, according to the apostle, God makes religious whom he wills; and a man does all this only if he is religious. Therefore, unless it is brought about by God that he does this, who does it?

But since this question, where the choice of the will and the grace of God are discussed, is so difficult to settle that when free choice is defended the grace of God seems to be denied, and when the grace of God is asserted free choice is thought to be taken away, Pelagius can so wrap himself in the hiding places of this obscurity as to say that he agrees even with the passages of Saint Ambrose that we have set out, and proclaim that he too thinks and has always thought them, and try to explain each of them so that they are believed to fit his own opinion. Therefore, as far as this question of divine grace and help is concerned, attend to those three things which he has most plainly distinguished: being able, willing, being, that is, capacity, will, and action. If, then, he agrees with us that not only the capacity in man, even if he neither wills nor acts well, but also the will and action themselves, that is, that we will well and act well, which are not in man except when he wills well and acts well; if, as I said, he agrees that the will and action themselves are also helped by God, and helped in such a way that without that help we neither will nor do anything well, and that this is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, in which he makes us righteous by his righteousness, not ours, so that our true righteousness is that which is ours from him: then, as far as I judge, no controversy about the help of the grace of God will remain between us.

As for the reason why he so praised Saint Ambrose, namely that he found in his writings, from the praises of Zechariah and Elizabeth, that a man can be without sin in this life: although this is not to be denied if God wills it, with whom all things are possible, let him nevertheless consider more carefully in what sense it was said. It was said, as far as it seems to me, according to a certain conduct among men that is commendable and praiseworthy, which no man could justly call into complaint of accusation and charge. That is why Zechariah and his wife are said to have had it 'in the sight of God,' because in it they deceived men by no pretense, but as they appeared to men, so they were known to the eyes of God. But this was not said according to that perfection of righteousness in which we shall live truly and wholly spotless and perfect. For the apostle Paul too said that according to the righteousness which is from the law he had been blameless, the law in which Zechariah too lived blameless; but the apostle counted this righteousness as dung and loss in comparison with the righteousness which we hope for, and which we ought now to hunger and thirst for, so that we may one day be filled with it in sight, which is now in faith, as long as the righteous man lives by faith.

Let him hear, finally, that same venerable bishop, when he was expounding the prophet Isaiah, saying that no one in this world is without sin; where no one can say that he said 'in this world' in the sense of 'in the love of this world,' for he was speaking of the apostle, who said, 'Our way of life is in heaven.' Explaining this sense, then, the bishop I mentioned says: 'The apostle says that many are perfect with him who are still placed in this world, who, if you look to true perfection, could not be perfect, because he himself said: We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know as I also am known. So they are both spotless in this world and will be spotless in the kingdom of God, although, if you examine more minutely, no one can be spotless, because no one is without sin.' That testimony of Saint Ambrose, then, which Pelagius uses for his opinion, was either said in a certain sense, commendable indeed but not examined minutely; or certainly, if that holy and humble man thought that Zechariah and Elizabeth had the highest and wholly perfect righteousness, to which nothing could be added, he surely corrected his opinion by examining it more minutely.

Let him notice, indeed, that in the very same place from which he took this testimony of Ambrose that pleased him, Ambrose also said that it is impossible for human nature to be spotless from the beginning. There the venerable Ambrose testifies that that natural capacity, which Pelagius will not faithfully acknowledge to have been corrupted by sin and therefore boastfully exalts, is altogether nerveless and weak; certainly contrary to this man's wish, but not contrary to the apostolic truth, where we read, 'We too were once by nature children of wrath, like the rest.' For it is nature itself, corrupted and condemned through the sin of the first man, which came from his free choice, that only divine grace comes to help, through the mediator between God and men, the almighty physician. Since we have long been discussing its help for our justification, by which God works all things together for good for those who love him, whom he first loved, giving them the gift of loving him, let us now begin, as far as the Lord helps, to say also what will seem sufficient about the sin which entered the world through one man, together with death, and so passed to all men, against these people who have broken out more openly into an error contrary to this truth.

Now consider carefully how cautiously you ought to listen, on the baptism of little ones, to people of this kind, who do not dare openly to deny to that age the washing of regeneration and of the forgiveness of sins, lest Christian ears should not bear it, and yet persist in protecting and defending their opinion, by which they think that carnal generation is not held liable to the sin of the first man, although they seem to grant them baptism for the forgiveness of sins. You wrote that you yourselves heard from Pelagius, in your presence, as he read to you from his statement, which he asserted he had also sent to Rome, that they say infants ought to be baptized with the same sacramental words as adults. Who after these words would think that any question should be raised with them on this matter? Or, if anyone did raise it, to whom would he not seem most slanderous, were their plain words not read, in which they deny that little ones contract original sin and contend that all are born without any fault?

Caelestius, indeed, showed himself freer in this error, so much so that in the episcopal court at Carthage he would not condemn those who say that Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in the state in which Adam was before his transgression. And in the city of Rome, in the statement he gave to the most blessed Pope Zosimus, he asserted more expressly that original sin binds none of the little ones. From the ecclesiastical proceedings at Carthage we have copied these words of his.

Bishop Aurelius said: 'Let the following be read.' And it was read: 'That the sin of Adam harmed him alone and not the human race.' And when it had been read, Caelestius said: 'I said that I was in doubt about the transmission of sin, but in such a way that I would agree with anyone to whom God has given the grace of expert knowledge; because I have heard different things from those who are indeed established as presbyters in the Catholic Church.' The deacon Paulinus said: 'Tell us their names.' Caelestius said: 'The holy presbyter Rufinus, who lived at Rome with the holy Pammachius; I heard him say that there is no transmission of sin.' The deacon Paulinus said: 'Is there anyone else?' Caelestius said: 'I have heard more say it.' The deacon Paulinus said: 'Tell their names.' Caelestius said: 'Is one priest not enough for you?' And after some other things, in another place: Bishop Aurelius said: 'Let the rest of the statement be read.' And it was read: 'That infants who are born are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression,' to the end of the shorter statement inserted above. Bishop Aurelius said: 'Have you, Caelestius, at any time taught, as the deacon Paulinus says, that infants who are born are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression?' Caelestius said: 'Let him explain what he meant by before the transgression.' The deacon Paulinus said: 'Deny that you taught this. It is one of two things: either let him deny that he taught it or let him now condemn it.' Caelestius said: 'I have already said, let him explain in what sense he said before the transgression.' The deacon Paulinus said: 'Deny that you taught those things.' Bishop Aurelius said: 'I ask: what I have gathered from this man's charge, I say, is that Adam, placed in paradise, is said to have been made at first incorruptible, and afterward through the transgression of the commandment to have been made corruptible. Is this what you say, brother Paulinus?' The deacon Paulinus said: 'This, my lord.' Bishop Aurelius said: 'Whether the state of infants who are baptized today is such as it was before Adam's transgression, or whether indeed they contract the guilt of transgression from the same origin of sin from which they are born, this is what the deacon Paulinus wants to hear.' The deacon Paulinus said: 'Let him deny whether he taught this or not.' Caelestius said: 'I have already spoken about the transmission of sin: that I have heard many established within the Catholic Church deny it and others also affirm it, although this is a matter of inquiry, not of heresy. I have always said that infants need baptism and ought to be baptized. What else does he want?'

You see clearly, then, that Caelestius granted baptism to little ones in such a way that he would not confess that the sin of the first man, which is washed away by the washing of regeneration, passes into them, although he did not dare to deny it either; and because of this doubt of his he did not condemn those who say that Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression.

But in the statement he published at Rome, which was presented in the ecclesiastical proceedings there, he speaks of this matter in such a way as to show that he believes what here he had said he doubted. For these are his words: 'We confess that infants ought to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins according to the rule of the universal church and according to the saying of the Gospel, because the Lord established that the kingdom of heaven can be conferred only on the baptized; and since the powers of nature do not have this, it must be conferred through the freedom of grace.' If he said nothing further on this matter, who would not believe that he confessed that original sins too are forgiven infants in baptism, when he says that they ought to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins? This, then, explains what you wrote, that Pelagius answered you that infants are baptized with the same sacramental words as adults, and that you rejoiced to have heard what you wished, and yet chose to consult us further about his words.

Consider, then, what Caelestius said most openly, and there you will see what Pelagius concealed from you. For Caelestius adds and says: 'But we have not said that infants are to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins in order to seem to affirm sin by transmission, which is far removed from the Catholic sense; because sin is not born with a man, since it is afterward committed by the man, because it is shown to be a fault not of nature but of will. It is fitting, then, to confess the one, so that we may not seem to make different kinds of baptism; and it is necessary to guard against the other, so that it may not be said, on the occasion of the sacrament and to the injury of the Creator, that evil is handed on to man through nature before it is done by man.' This meaning of his Pelagius either feared or was ashamed to disclose to you, while his disciple neither feared nor was ashamed to profess it openly before the apostolic see, without the evasions of any obscurity.

But the most merciful bishop of that see, when he saw him carried headlong by such presumption, as if raving, preferred, until he might if possible come to his senses, to bind him gradually by his own questions and the man's answers, rather than to drive him, by striking with a strict sentence, over that precipice toward which he already seemed to lean. And I did not say 'he had openly fallen,' but 'he seemed to lean,' because earlier in the same statement, when about to speak on questions of this kind, he had said beforehand: 'If perhaps some error of ignorance has crept upon us, as upon men, let it be corrected by your judgment.'

Holding him to this preface of his, the venerable Pope Zosimus dealt with the man, whom the wind of false teaching had puffed up, that he should condemn the things charged against him by the deacon Paulinus, and give his assent to the letter of the apostolic see which had come from his predecessor of holy memory. But he would not condemn the deacon's charges; yet he did not dare to resist the letter of the blessed Pope Innocent; indeed, he promised that he would condemn everything that that see condemned. And so, like a man out of his mind, gently soothed so that he might calm down, he was nevertheless not yet thought fit to be released from the bonds of excommunication. But an interval of two months was allowed, until a reply should come from Africa, and room for recovering his senses was granted him under a certain medicinal mildness of sentence; since in truth, if he had laid aside the vanity of obstinacy and been willing to attend to what he had promised, and had carefully read the same letter to which he had answered that he would consent, he would have been healed. But after the reply was sent from the council of African bishops, what followed, so that sentence was most justly pronounced against him, read it all, for we have sent it all.

Hence Pelagius too, if he thinks of himself and his writings without guile, does not rightly say that he should not have been held by the same sentence. For he deceived the Palestinian court, and that is why he seems to have been cleared there; but the Roman church, where you know he is very well known, he could not deceive at all, although he tried even this in some way; but, as I said, he was not at all able. For the most blessed Pope Zosimus recalled what his predecessor, whom he was bound to follow, had thought of those very proceedings. He also noted what was thought of him by the faith of the Romans, which is to be praised in the Lord, whose zeal for Catholic truth against his error he saw burning in harmony and concord; among them he had long lived, and his teachings could not be hidden from them; they knew Caelestius to be his disciple so well that they could bear the most faithful and firm testimony on this matter. What, then, holy Pope Innocent judged about the proceedings of the Palestinian synod, by which Pelagius boasts he was acquitted, although you can read it both in his letter which he wrote back to us and as recalled when the African synod replied to the venerable Pope Zosimus, which we sent to your Charity with the other documents, nevertheless it seems it should not be passed over in this work either.

For when we five bishops, in the letter we wrote to him, mentioned those same Palestinian proceedings, report of which had already reached us, saying that in the East, where he lives, ecclesiastical proceedings had taken place by which he is thought to have been cleared, he wrote back on this among other things: 'Since there are some things placed in those proceedings which, when charged against him, he partly suppressed by evading them, partly confused in total obscurity by turning many words back on himself; some he cleared by an argument more false than true, as could seem so for the moment, by denying some things and twisting others by false interpretation. But would that (what is more to be wished) he would now turn from that error of his to the true way of the Catholic faith, and desire and will to be cleared, considering and acknowledging the daily grace and help of God, so that he may be seen truly and approved by all as corrected by a plain argument, not by the judgment of proceedings but by a heart converted to the Catholic faith. Therefore we can neither approve nor blame their judgment, since we do not know whether the proceedings are genuine or, if genuine, whether it is clear that he rather evaded than cleared himself with the whole truth.' You certainly see in these words how the most blessed Pope Innocent does not seem to speak as of an unknown man; you see what judgment he passed on his clearing; you see what his successor, holy Pope Zosimus, was bound to recall, as he did recall it, so as to confirm his predecessor's judgment on him without delay.

Now consider carefully how it is shown that Pelagius deceived the Palestinian judges, to say nothing of other matters, on this very question of the baptism of little ones; lest perhaps anyone should think that in saying that Pelagius concealed from you the view in which Caelestius was freer, though he himself thinks no differently, we are slandering or suspecting rather than grasping something certain. It has already become clear enough above that Caelestius would not condemn the saying that Adam's sin harmed him alone, not the human race, and that infants who are born are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression, because he saw that if he condemned these things he would be affirming the passing of sin from Adam into infants. But when these things were charged against Pelagius, as if he too held them with Caelestius, he condemned them without any retraction. Although I know that you have read this, yet since this is not written for you alone, let the reader not be reluctant to go back to the proceedings themselves, or, if he does not have them, to seek them out even with effort; we copy from them the very words that are written below.