Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
Against the Pelagians 389 plaint, whether heretics or pagans or even the lukewarm, even if they hold the true faith and are in the true Church, that we are amazed at how they are surpassed not only in patience and sobriety but also in faith, hope, and love by prostitutes and actors who undergo sudden conversions? What's left, therefore? That wills are chosen. But the will itself cannot be moved in any way unless something happens that delights and invites our core self. That that occur is not in any person's power. What did Saul want to do except attack, arrest, tie up, kill Christians? How rabid a will, how enraged, how blind! Yet it took one voice from on high, and he was laid prostrate and met such a vision that his mind and will, shattered by savagery, were twisted round the right way and set straight towards the faith—he it was who went from being the Gospel's extraordinary persecutor to being its even more extraordinary preacher. And yet, "what shall we say? Is there injustice with God" (Rom 9:14), who exacts payment from whom He pleases and gives to whom He pleases, who never exacts anything un-owed and never gives anything foreign? "Is there injustice with God? Of course not!" (Rom 9:14) Why, then, this one this way and that one that way? "O man, who are you?" (Rom 9:20) If you do not have to repay the debt, you have something to be grateful for. If you have to, you have nothing to complain about. Let us believe this much, even if we cannot grasp it: that the One who founded and made the created universe, both spiritual and physical, arranges everything in its number and weight and measure (Wis 11:20). But "inscrutable are His judgments, and unsearchable His ways" (Rom 11:33). Let us say, "Alleluia," and let us together give praise in song, and let us not say: "Why's this?" or "Why's that?" For everything has been created, each in its own time.39
Phase One: The Debate with
Caelestius (411–413)
Caelestius on Trial (411)
The controversy erupted dramatically in Carthage in 411.40 Augustine was not present; nor was Pelagius. At the center of the storm was Pelagius's disciple, Caelestius, who applied to become a presbyter in the Carthaginian church. Paulinus of Milan, Ambrose's one-time deacon, knew of Caelestius and charged him with heterodox views. A formal
39. Simpl. 1.q.2.21–22 (CCL 44:53–56); my trans. 40. On this, see F. Refoulé, "Datation du premier concile de Carthage contre les Pélagiens et du Libellus fidei de Rufin," Revue des études augustiniennes 9 (1963): 41–49.