Augustine in His Own Words
justice of God" (Rom 10:2–3). The Apostle makes clear the meaning of "justice of God" in this passage by adding immediately: "For the end of the law is Christ, to justice for everyone who believes" (Rom 10:4). . . .
(7.7) Therefore, however great the zeal with which the author of this book you sent is inflamed against those who base a defense plea for their sins on the infirmity of human nature, with an equal and more burning zeal must we be inflamed so that the cross of Christ not be made void.58
Pelagius's On Nature
Augustine's tactic of quoting opponents has, as we have seen, made it possible for scholars to reconstruct lost works by Manichees and Donatists. In the same way, we can assemble fragments of Pelagius's lost treatise On Nature.59 The work dates, it seems, from his time in Rome, likely between 405 and 410. Augustine quotes this work in a scattered fashion so that it is not possible to reconstruct the entire text. Still, certain key themes emerge:
(i) The Possibility of Sinlessness
Pelagius was, at heart, a moral theologian. He insisted that we can only be held morally responsible for our misdeeds if we are really and truly free. Without such freedom, we cannot fairly be judged culpable. So he argued at length that sinlessness must exist, at least as a theoretical possibility. From Pelagius, On Nature, as quoted in Augustine, On Nature and Grace:
(7.8) It is one thing to ask whether something can be (what has to do only with its possibility), and it is another thing to ask whether it is. . . . Here we are treating only possibility . . . I say that it is possible for a person to be without sin. And what do you say? "That it is impossible for a human being to be without sin." I am not saying that there is a human being without sin, nor do you say that there is not a human being without sin. We are disputing about what is possible and impossible, not about what is and is not. . . . [Scripture says:] "There is no just person on earth" (Eccl 7:21), and, "There is no one who does good" (Ps 13:3). By [such] passages, it can be shown how some human beings were at a given time, not whether they could not have been something else. For this reason, they were justly found to be guilty. But if they were as they were because they could not have been otherwise, then they would be free from any blame. . . .
(42.49) All right, suppose I grant that the Apostle [Paul] teaches us that all have
58. Nat. et gr. 1.1–7.7 (BA 21:244–54); trans. Mourant and Collinge, FOTC 86:22–26. 59. For a gathering of the fragments of Pelagius's De natura, see PL 48:598–606.