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THE WORKS
AUKELIUS AUGUSTINE
BISHOP OF HIPPO.
A NEW TRANSLATION.
REV. MARCUS DODS, M.A.
VOL. IV.
THE ANTI-PELAGIAN WOEKS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE.
VOLUME I.
EDINBUEGH:
T. & T. CLAEK, 38, GEOEGE STEEET.
MDCCCLXXII.
PRINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB,
FOB
T. & T. CLAKK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON, .... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
DUBLIN, .... JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO.
NEW YORK, . . . C. SCRIBNER AND CO.
THE
ANTI-PELAGIAN WORKS
SAINT AUGUSTINE,
BISHOP OF HIPPO.
CranSlatett &d
PETER HOLMES, D.D., F.R.A.S.,
DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN TO THE EIGHT HON. THE COUNTESS OF ROTHES ;
AND CURATE OF PENNYCROSS, PLYMOUTH.
VOLUME I.
EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
MDCCCLXXII.
5$ OS
v ..o'>i
DEDICATION.
TO THE EIGHT REVEREND THE LOED BISHOP OF EXETEE.
My dear Lord,
I gladly avail myself of your permission to dedicate this volume to you. In the course of a professional life of nearly the third of a century, which has not "been idly spent,
I have never failed to find pleasure in theological pursuits.
In the intervals of most pressing labour, these have often tended to refresh and comfort one's wearied spirit. If this confession of my own experience should have any weight with any one in our sacred calling to combine the hard work which we owe to others while ministering to their wants, with
" that diligent attendance to reading " which we require for ourselves, to inform our minds and refresh our spirits, I shall have accomplished my only purpose in making it. Your
Lordship, I am sure, will entirely approve of such a combination of employments in your clergy. I well remember your recommendation of theological study to us at the opening of
Bishop Phillpott's Library at Truro ; and how you counselled us the more earnestly to pursue it, from the danger there is, in these busy times, of merging the acquisition of sacred learning in the active labours of our holy vocation. That the divine blessing may crown the work which you are so diligently prosecuting in the several functions of your high office, is the earnest wish, my dear Lord, of your faithful servant,
PETER HOLMES.
Mannamead, Plymouth,
March 10, 1872.
PREFACE.
Contents.— § 1. The Latin titles of the treatises contained in this volume ; on the Preface of the Benedictine Edition. §2. JY'otlce of Pelaglus and his opinions. §3. Of Ccelestlus and his doctrine, In seven propositions. §4. On Augustine as compared, with other doctors of the Church ; his estimate of Pelaglus and Cailestius. § 5. The different fortunes of these two men at first. § 6. St. Jerome differs from St. Augustine as to the origin of Pelaglanism ; East and West, their doctrinal characteristics—how agreeing, how varying. § 7. On the conduct of Augustine and Pelaglus; partisanship of their followers and critics. § S. Paramount influence of St.
Augustine in ancient and modern times, and in various parts of Chr dom. § 9. Reason of this influence ; Augustine true to Scripture and liuman experience ; in favourable contrast to Pelaglus as to the scientific depth and accuracy of his doctrine. § 10. Rationalism and Revelation ; Pelaglus' views isolated and incoherent ; Augustine an excellent guide in
Scripture knowledge. § 11. Popularity and permanence of Pelaglanism ; consentient with mans naturalftellngs; elevating influence of Divine Grace, its idtlmate triumph in everlasting glory. § 12. Original text from which this translation is made; works useful in the Pelagian controversy.
1. ri^HE reader has in this volume, translated for the first _L time in English, five of the fifteen treatises of St.
Augustine on the Pelagian heresy. They are here arranged in the same order (the chronological one) in which they are placed in the tenth volume of the Benedictine edition, and are therefore St. Augustine's earliest contributions to the great controversy. These are their Latin titles :
Dc peccatorum mcritis ct rcmissione, ct dc oaptismo parvulorum ad Marccllinum ; libri tres, scripti anno Christ! 412. De Spiritu ct httcra ad eumclem ; liber unus, scriptus sub finem anni 412. De natura ct gratia contra Pelagium, ad Timasium ct
Jacob urn ; liber unus, scriptus anno Christi 415.
4 I
PREFACE.
De jperfectione justitice hominis ; [Epistola sen] liber ad Eutropium et Paulum, scriptus circiter finem anni 415. De gcstis Pclagii ad Aurelium ejpiscopum ; liber unus, scriptus sub initium anni 417.
The Benedictine editors have enriched their edition with prefaces ("Admonitiones") and critical and explanatory notes, and, above all, with the appropriate extracts from St. Augustine's Retractations} in which we have the author's own final revision and correction of his works. All these have been reproduced in a translated form in this volume ; and they will, it is believed, afford the reader sufficient guidance for an intelligent apprehension of at least the special arguments of the several treatises. The Benedictine editors, however, prefixed to this detailed information an elaborate and lengthy preface, in which they reviewed the general history of the
Pelagian discussions and their authors, with especial reference to the part which St. Augustine played throughout it. This historical introduction it was at first intended to present to the reader in English at the head of this volume. In consideration, however, of the length of the document, we have so far changed our purpose as to substitute a shorter statement of certain facts and features of the Pelagian controversy, which it is hoped may contribute to a better understanding of the general subject.
2. The Pelagian heresy is so designated after Pelagius, a
British monk. (Augustine calls him Brito, so do Prosper and
Gennadius ; by Orosius he is called Britannicus noster, and by
Mercator described as gente Britannus. This wide epithet is somewhat restricted by Jerome, who says of him, Habct progeniem Scotiai gentis de Britannorum vicinia ; leaving it uncertain, however, whether he deemed Scotland his native country, or Ireland. His monastic character is often referred to both by Augustine and other writers, and Pope Zosimus. describes him as Laicum virum ad honam frugem longa erga Deum servitude nitentem. It is, after all, quite uncertain what part of
"Britain" gave him birth; among other conjectures, he has
1 It is satisfactory to observe how brief and scanty are his " Retractations " on the topics treated in the present volume.
PREFACE. XI been made a native of Wales, attached to a monastery at
Bangor, and gifted with the Welsh name of Morgan, of which his usual designation of Pelagius is supposed to be simply the
Greek version, Ilekayios) It was at the beginning of the fifth century that he became conspicuous. He then resided at Rome, known by many as an honourable and earnest man, seeking in a corrupt age to reform the morals of society. (In the present volume the reader will not fail to observe the eulogistic lansniacje which Augustine often uses of Pelagius ; see pages 98, 132, 134, 409.) Sundry theological treatises are even attributed to him ; among them one On the Trinity, of unquestionable orthodoxy, and showing great ability. Unfavourable reports, however, afterwards began to be circulated, charging him with opening, in fact, entirely new ground in the fields of heresy. During the previous centuries of Christian opinion the speculations of active thinkers had been occupied on Theology properly so called, or the doctrine of God as to His nature and personal attributes, including Christology, which treated of Christ's divine and human natures. This was objective divinity. With Pelagius, however, a fresh class of subjects was forced on men's attention : in his peculiar system of doctrine he deals with what is subjective in man, and reviews the whole of his relation to God. His heresy turns mainly upon two points—the assumed incorruptness of human nature, and the denial of all supernatural influence upon the human will.
3. He had an early associate in Ccelestius, a native of Campania, according to some, or as others say, of Ireland or of
Scotland. This man, who is said to have been highly connected, began life as an advocate, but, influenced by the advice and example of Pelagius, soon became a monk. He excelled his master in boldness and energy ; and thus early precipitated the new doctrine into a formal dogmatism, from which the caution and subtler management of Pelagius mio-ht have saved it. In the year a.d. 412 (Pelagius having just left him at Carthage to go to Palestine), Ccelestius was accused before the bishop Aurelius of holding and teaching the following opinions
1. Adam was created mortal, and must have died, even if
Xll PREFACE.
he had not sinned ; 2. Adam's sin injured himself only, and not mankind; 3. Infants are born in the state of Adam before he fell ; 4. Mankind neither died in Adam, nor rose again in
Christ ; 5. The Law, no less than the Gospel, brings men to the kingdom of heaven; 6. There were sinless men before the coming of Christ.
1 What Ccelestius thus boldly propounded, he had the courage to maintain. On his refusal to retract, he was excommunicated. He threatened, or perhaps actually though ineffectually made, an appeal to Eome, and afterwards quitted Carthage for Ephesus.
4. Augustine, who had for some time been occupied in the Donatist controversy, had as yet taken no personal part in the proceedings against Ccelestius. Soon, however, was his attention directed to the new opinions, and he wrote the first two treatises contained in this volume, in the year when
Coelestius was excommunicated. At first he treated Pelagius, as has been said, with deference and forbearance, hoping by courtesy to recall him from danger. But as the heresy developed, Augustine's opposition was more directly and vigorously exhibited. The gospel was being fatally tampered with, in its essential facts of human sin and divine grace ; so, in the fulness of his own absolute loyalty to the entire volume of evangelical truth, he concentrated his best efforts in opposition to the now formidable heresy. It is perhaps not too much to say, that St. Augustine, the greatest doctor of the
Catholic Church, effected his greatness mainly by his labours against Pelagianism. Other Christian w rriters besides Augustine have achieved results of decisive influence on the Church and its deposit of the Christian faith. St. Athanasius, " alone against the world," has often been referred to as a splendid instance of what constancy, aided by God's grace and a profound knowledge of theology, could accomplish ; St. Cyril of
Alexandria, and St. Leo of Eome, might be also quoted as signal proofs of the efficacy of catholic truth in opposition to popular heresy : these men, under God, saved the Creed from the ravages of Arianism, and the subtler injuries of Nestorius and Eutyches. Then, again, in the curious learning of the
1 Marius Mercator mentions a seventh opinion broached by Ccelestius, to tho effect that "infants, though they be unbaptized, have everlasting life."
PEEFACE. Xlll primitive Irenaeus ; in the critical skill, and wide knowledge, and indomitable labours of Origen ; in the catechetical teaching of the elder Cyril ; in the chaste descriptive power of
Basil ; in the simplicity and self-denial of Ambrose ; in the fervid eloquence of the " golden-mouthed " Chrysostom ; in the great learning of Jerome ; in the scholastic accuracy of Damascene ; and in the varied sacred gifts of other Christian worthies, from the impetuous Tertullian and the gentle Cyprian, with all the Gregories of manifold endowments, down to the latest period of patristic wisdom, graced by our own Anselm and the unrivalled preacher Bernard,—in all these converginglines of diverse yet compatible accomplishments, the Church of Christ has found, from age to age, ample reinforcements against the attacks of heretical hostility. And in our great
Bishop of Hippo one may trace, operating on various occasions in his various works, the manifold characteristics which we have just enumerated of his brother saints,—with this difference, that in no one of them are found combined the many traits which constitute his greatness. We have here to do only with his anti-Pelagian writings. Upon the whole, perhaps, these exhibit most of his wonderful resources of Christian character. In many respects, one is reminded by him of the great apostle, whom he reverenced, and whose profound doctrines he republished and vindicated. He has himself, in several of his works, especially in his Confessions, admitted us to a view of the sharp convulsions and bitter conflicts through which he passed, before his regeneration, into the
Christian life, animated by the free and sovereign grace of
God, and adorned with his unna^cnncr energies in works of faith and love. From the depths of his own consciousness he instinctively felt the dangers of Pelagianism, and he put forth his strength, as God enabled him, to meet the evil ; and the reader has in this volume samples in great variety of the earnestness of his conflict with the new heresy and its leaders. These leaders he has himself characterized : " Ille [nempe
Ccelestius] apertior, iste [scilicet Pelagius] occultior fuit; ille pertinacior, iste mendacior ; vel certe ille liberior, hie astutior z" and illustrations of the general correctness of this estimate will
1 De Peccato originali, [xii.] 13. In the second volume of this series.
XIV PREFACE.
be forthcoming, especially in the fourth treatise of this volume, where Ccelestius is dealt with, and in the fifth, which relates to the subterfuges and pretexts practised by Pelagius in his proceedings in Palestine.
5. The difference in the characters of the two leaders in this heresy contributed to different results in their earlier proceedings. We have seen the disastrous issue to Ccelestius at
Carthage, from his outspoken and unyielding conduct. The more reserved Pelagius, resorting to a dexterous management of sundry favourable circumstances, obtained a friendly hearing on two public occasions—at Jerusalem, in the summer of
A.D. 415, and again at the end of that year, in a council of fourteen bishops, at Diospolis, the ancient Lydda. In the last treatise of this volume, the reader has a characteristic narrative of these events from St. Augustine's own pen. The holy man's disappointment at the untoward results of these two inquiries is apparent ; but he struggles to maintain his respect for the bishops concerned in the affair, and comforts himself and all Catholics with the assurance, which he thinks is warranted by the proceedings, that the acquittal obtained by Pelagius, through the concealment of his real opinions, amounted in fact to a condemnation of them. This volume terminates with these transactions in Palestine ; so that any remarks on the decline and fall of Pelagianism proper must be postponed to a subsequent volume.
6. St. Jerome as well as St. Augustine engaged in this controversy, and experienced in the East some loss and much danger from the rougher followers of Pelagius.
1 It is not without interest that one observes the difference of view entertained by these eminent men on the general question of the Pelagian heresy. Augustine had but an imperfect acquaintance with either the language or the writings of the Greek Fathers, and had treated the Pelagian opinions as unheard-of novelties. Jerome, however, who had acquired a competent knowledge of the Christian literature of Greece during his long residence in the East, traced these heretical opinions to the school of Origen, for whose memory he entertained but scant respect. There is, no doubt, extravagance in Jerome's censure, but withal a founda-
1 See the last page of tins volume.
PREFACE. XV tion of truth. For from the beginning there was a tendency at least to divergent views between the Eastern and the Western sections of Christendom, on the relation of the human will to the srrace of God in the matter of man's conversion and salvation. On the general question, indeed, there was always substantial agreement in the Catholic Church ;—man, as he is born into the world, is not in his originally perfect state ; in order to be able to live according to his original nature and to do good, he requires an inward change by the almighty power of God. But this general agreement did not hinder specific differences of opinion, which having been developed with considerable regularity, in East and West respectively, admit of some classification. The chief writers of the "West, especially
Tertullian and Cyprian in the third century, and Hilary of
Poitiers and (notably) Ambrose in the fourth century, prominently state the doctrine of man's corruption, and the consequent necessity of a change of his nature by divine grace ; whilst the Alexandrian Fathers (especially Clement), and other
Orientals (for instance, Chrysostom), laid great stress upon human freedom, and on the indispensable co-operation of this freedom with the grace of God. By the fifth century these tendencies were ready to culminate ; they were at length precipitated to a decisive controversy. In the Pelagian system, the liberty which had been claimed for man was pushed to the heretical extreme of independence of God's help ; while
Augustine, in resisting this heresy, found it hard to keep clear of the other extreme, of the absorption of human responsibility into the divine sovereignty. Our author, no doubt, moves about on the confines of a deep insoluble mystery here ; but, upon the whole, it must be apparent to the careful reader how earnestly he tries to maintain and vindicate man's responsibility even amidst the endowments of God's grace.
7. Much has been written on the conduct of the two leading opponents in this controversy. Sides (as usual) have been taken, and extreme opinions of praise and of blame have been freely bestowed on both Augustine and Pelagius. It is impossible, even were it desirable, in this limited space to enter upon a question which; after all, hardly rises above the dignity of mere personalities. The orthodox bishop and the
XVI PEEFACE.
heretical monk have had their share of censure as to their mode of conducting the. controversy. Augustine has been taxed with intolerance, Pelagius with duplicity. We are perhaps not in a position to form an impartial judgment on the case. To begin with, the evidence comes all from one side ; and then the critics pass their sentence according to the suggestions of modern prejudice, rather than by the test of ancient contemporary facts, motives, and principles of action. A good deal of obloquy has been cast on Augustine, as if he were responsible for the Rescriptof Honorius and its penalties ; but this is (to say the least) a conclusion which outruns the premises. We need say nothing of the peril which seriously threatened true religion when the half-informed bishops of
Palestine, and the vacillating Pope, all gave their hasty and illgrounded approval to Pelagius, as a justification of Augustine. He deeply felt the seriousness of the crisis, and he unsheathed
" the sword of the Spirit," and dealt with it trenchant blows, every one of which struck home with admirable precision ; but it is not proved that he ever wielded the civil sword of pains and penalties. Of all theological writers in ancient, medieval, or earlier modern times, it may be fairly maintained that St. Augustine has shown himself the most considerate, courteous, and charitable towards opponents. The reader will trace with some interest the progress of his criticism on
Pelagius. From the forbearance and love which he gave him
1 he passes slowly and painfully on to censure and at first, condemnation, but only as he detects stronger and stronger proofs of insincerity and bad faith.
8. But whatever estimate we may form on the score of their personal conduct, there can be no doubt of the bishop's
1 For some time Augustine abstained from mentioning the name of Pelogius, to save him as much as he could from exposure, and to avoid the irritation which might urge him to heresy from obstinacy. Augustine recognised fairly enough the motive which influenced Pelagius at first. The latter dreaded the Antinomianism of the day, and concentrated his teaching in a doctrine which was meant as a protest against it. " We Avould rather not do injustice to our friends," says Augustine, as he praises their "strong and active minds;" and he goes on to commend Pelagius anonymously for "the zeal which he entertains against those who find a defence for their sins in the infirmity of human nature." See the third treatise of this volume, On Nature and Grace, ch. 6, 7.
PREFACE. xv }{ superiority over the monk, when we come to gauge the value of their principles and doctrines, whether tested by Scripture or by the great facts of human nature. Concerning the test of Scripture, our assertion will be denied by no°one. No ancient Christian writer approaches near St. Augustine in his general influence on the opinions and belief of the Catholic Church, in its custody and interpretation of Holy Scripture; and there can be no mistake either as to the Church's uniform guardianship of the Augustinian doctrine, taken as a whole, or as to its invariable resistance to the Pelagian system,' whenever and however it has been reproduced in the revolutions of human thought. There cannot be found in all ecclesiastical history a more remarkable fact than the deference shown to the great Bishop of Hippo throughout Christendom, on all points of salient interest connected with his name' Whatever basis of doctrine exists in common between the great sections of Catholicism and Protestantism, was laid at first by the genius and piety of St. Augustine. In the conflicts of the early centuries he was usually the champion of Scripture truth against dangerous errors. In the Middle A*es his influence was paramount with .the eminent men who built up the scholastic system. In the modern Latin Church he enjoys greater consideration than either Ambrose, or Hilary or Jerome, or even Gregory the Great ; and lastly, and perhaps most strangely, he stands nearest to evangelical Protestantism, and led the van of the great movement in the sixteenth century, which culminated in the Eeformation How unique the influence which directed the minds of Anselm and Bernard, and Aquinas, and Bonaventure, with no less power than it swayed the thoughts of Luther, and Melancthon, and Zumgle, and Calvin !
9 The key to this wonderful influence is Augustine's knowledge of Holy Scripture, and its profound suitableness to the facts and experience of our entire nature. Perhaps to no one, not excepting St. Paul himself, has it been ever given so wholly and so deeply to suffer the manifold experiences of the human heart, whether of sorrow and anguish from the tyranny of sin, or of spiritual joy from the precious consolations of the grace ot God. Augustine speaks with authority here ; he has
XV111 PREFACE.
traversed all the ground of inspired writ, and shown us how true is its portraiture of man's life. And, to pass on to our last point, he has threaded the mazes of human consciousness ; and in building up his doctrinal system, has been, in the main, as true to the philosophy of fact, as he is to the statements of revelation. He appears in as favourable a contrast to his opponent in his philosophy as in his Scripture exegesis. We cannot; however, in the limits of this Preface, illustrate this criticism with all the adducible proofs ; but we may quote one or two weak points which radically compromise
Pelagius as to the scientific bearings of his doctrine. By science we mean accurate knowledge, which stands the test of the widest induction of facts. Now, it has been frequently remarked that Pelagius is scientifically defective in the very centre of his doctrine,—on the freedom of the will. His theory, especially in the hands of his vigorous followers,
1 ignored the influence of habit on human volition, and the development of habits from action,
Coelestius and Julianus, isolating human acts, making man's power of choice (his liberum arhitrium) a mere natural faculty, of physical, not moral operation. How defective this view is,—how it impoverishes the moral nature of man, strips it of the very elements of its composition, and drops out of consideration the many facts of human life, which interlace themselves in our experience as the very web and woof of moral virtue,—is
2 Acts are manifest to the students of Aristotle and Butler.
not mere insulated atoms, merely done, and then done with ; but they have a relation to the will, and an influence upon subsequent acts : and so acts generate habits, and habits produce character, the formal cause of man's moral condition. The same defect runs through the Pelagian system. Passing from the subject of human freedom, and the effect of action upon conduct and habit, we come to Pelagius' view of sin.
According to him, Adam's transgression consisted in an isolated
1 "We make this qualification, because Pelagius himself seems to have recognised to some extent the power of habit and its effect upon the will, in his
Letter to Demetrias, 8. See Dr. Philip Schaff 's History of the Christian Church, vol. iii. p. 804.
2 Aristotle, Ethic. Nicom. ii. 2, 3, 6 ; Butler, Analogy, i. 5.
PREFACE. x {x act of disobedience to God's command ; and our sin now consists in the mere repetition and imitation of his offence. There was no " original sin/' and consequently no hereditary guilt. Adam stood alone in his transgression, and transmitted no evil taint to his posterity, much less any tendency or predisposition to wrong-doing: there was no doubt a bad example, but against this Pelagius complacently set the happier examples of good and prudent men. Isolation, then, is the principle of Pelagius and his school; organization is the principle of true philosophy, as tested by the experience and observation of mankind
10. \Ve have said enough, and we hope not unfairly said it, to show that Pelagius was radically at fault in his deductions, whether tested by divine revelation or human experience. How superior to him in all essential points his great opponent was, will be manifest to the reader of this volume. Not a statement of Scripture, nor a fact of nature, does Augustine find it necessary to soften, or repudiate, or ignore. Hence his writings are valuable in illustrating the harmony between revelation and true philosophy ; we have seen how much of his far-seeing and eminent knowledge was owing to his own deep convictions and discoveries of sin and grace; perhaps we shall not be wrong in saying, that even to his opponents is due something of his excellence. There can be no doubt that in Pelagius and Ccelestius, and his still more able follower Julianus, of whom we shall hear in a future volume, he had very able opponents—men of earnest character, acute in observation and reasoning, impressed with the truth of their convictions, and deeming it a fit occupation to rationalize the meaning of Scripture in its bearings on human experience. There is a remarkable peculiarity in this respect in the opinions of Pelagius. He accepted the mysteries of theology, properly so called, with the most exemplary orthodoxv. Nothing could be better than his exposition of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. But again we find him hemmed in with a perverse isolation. The doctrine of. the Trinity, according to him, stands alone ; it sheds no influence on man and his eternal interests; but in the blessed Scripture, as read by Augustine, there is revealed to man a most intimate relation
XX PREFACE.
between himself and God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy-
Ghost, as his Creator, his Bedeemer, and his Sanctifier. In
Pelagianism, then, we see a disjointed and unconnected theory, —a creed which stands apart from practical life, and is not allowed to shape man's conduct,—a system, in short, which falls to pieces for want of the coherence of the true " analogy of the faith" which worketh by love. By exposing, therefore, this incompatibility in the doctrine of his opponents, Augustine shows how irreconcilable are the deductions of their Bationalism with the statements of Bevelation. But
Bationalism is not confined to any one period. "We live to see a bolder Bationalism, which, unlike Belagius', is absolutely uncompromising in its aims, and (as must be admitted) more consistent in its method. To institute the supremacy of
Beason, it destroys more or less the mysteries of Beligion.
All the miraculous element of the gospel is discarded ; God's personal relation to man in the procedures of grace, and man's to God in the discipline of repentance, faith, and love, are abolished : nay, the Divine Personality itself merges into an impalpable, uninfluential Pantheism ; while man's individual responsibility is absorbed into a mythical personification of this, is to recur to the good old paths of gospel faith—" stare the race. The only sure escape from such a desolation as super antiquas vias" Our directory for life's journey through these is furnished to us in Holy Scripture ; and if an interpreter is wanted who shall be able by competent knowledge and ample experience to explain to us any difficulties of direction, we know none more suited for the purpose than our St.
Augustine.
But Bationalism is not always so exaggerated as this : in its ordinary development, indeed, it stops short of open warfare with Bevelation, and (at whatever cost of logical consistency) it will accommodate its discussions to the form of
Scripture. This adaptation gives it double force : there is its own intrinsic principle of uncontrolled liberty in will and action, and there is " the form of godliness," which has weight with unreflective Christians. Hence Pelagianism was undoubtedly popular : it offered dignity to human nature, and flattered its capacity ; and this it did without virulence and
PREFACE. XXI with sincerity, under the form of religion. This acquiescence of matter and manner gave it strength in men's sympathies, and has secured for it durability, seeing that there is plenty of it still amongst us ; as indeed there always has been, and ever will be, so long as the fatal ambition of Eden (Gen. iii.
5, 6) shall seduce men into a temper of rivalry with God.
Writers like Paley (in his Evidences) have treated of the triumph of Christianity over difficulties of every kind. Of all the stumblingblocks to the holy religion of our blessed Saviour, not one has proved so influential as its doctrine of Grace ; the prejudice against it, by what St. Paul calls " the natural man"
(1 Cor. ii. 14), is ineradicable—and, it may be added, inevitable : for in his independence and self-sufficiency he cannot admit that in himself he is nothing, but requires external help to rescue him from sin, and through imparted holiness to elevate him to the perfection of the blessed. How great, then, is the benefit which Augustine has accomplished for the gospel, in probing the grounds of this natural prejudice against it, and showing its ultimate untenableness—the moment it is tested on the deeper principles of the divine appreciation
!No, the ultimate effect of the doctrine and operation of grace is not to depreciate the true dignity of man. If there be the humbling process first, it is only that out of the humility should emerge the exaltation at last (1 Pet. v. 6). I know nothing in the whole range of practical or theoretical divinity more beautiful than Augustine's analysis of the procedures of grace, in raising man from the depths of his sinful prostration to the heights of his last and eternal elevation in the presence and fellowship of God. The most ambitious, who thinks " man was not made for meanness," might be well content with the noble prospect. But his ambition must submit to the conditions ; and his capacity both for the attainment and the fruition of such a destiny is given to him and trained by God Himself. " It is so contrived," says Augustine, " in the discipline of the present life, that the holy Church shall arrive at last at that condition of unspotted purity which all holy men desire ; and that it may in the world to come, and in a state unmixed with all soil of evil men, and undisturbed by any law of sin resisting the law of the mind, lead the purest
XX11 PREFACE.
life in a divine eternity. . . . But in whatever place and at what time soever the love which animates the good shall reach that state of absolute perfection which shall admit of no increase, it is certainly not ' shed abroad in our hearts ' by any energies either of the nature or the volition that are within us, but ' by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Pom. v. 5), and which both helps our infirmity and cooperates with our strength" {On Nature and Grace, pp. 299 and 307).
This translation has been made from the (Antwerp)
Benedictine edition of the works of St. Augustine, tenth volume, compared with the beautiful reprint by Gaume. Although left to his own resources in making his version, the Translator has gladly availed himself of the learned aid within his reach. He may mention the Kirchengeschichte both of Gieseler and
ISTeander [Clark's transl. vol. iv.] ; Wigger's Versuch einer pragonatischen Darstcllung des Augustinismus unci Pclagianismus
[1st part] ; Shedd's Christian Doctrine ; Cunningham's Historical Theology ; Short's Bampton Lectures for 1846 [Lect. vii.];
Professor Bright's History of the Church from A.D. 313 to A.D.
451 ; Bishop Forbes* Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles
[vol. i.] ; Canon Eobertson's History of the Christian Church, vol. i. pp. 376-392 ; and especially Professor Mozley's
Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, ch. iii.
iv. vi. ; and Dr. Philip Schaff's excellent History of the Christian Church [Clark, Edinburgh 1869], vol. iii. pp. 783-1028; of which work Dr. Dorner's is by no means exaggerated commendation : " It is," says he, " on account of the beauty of its descriptions, the lucid arrangement of its materials, and the moderation of its decisions, a very praiseworthy work"
(Dorner's History of Protestant Theology [Clark's translation], vol. ii. p. 449, note 2). This portion of Dr. Schaff's work is an expansion of his able and interesting article on the Pelagian
Controversy, in the American Bibliothcca Sacra of May 1848.
PETER HOLMES.
CONTENTS.
torum Meritis, etc., ...... 1
PAGE Extract from Augustine's "Retractations" on the Be Peecci-
TREATISE I.
Infants, ....... 3-154
On tue Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of et L'dtera, ....... 155, 156
Extract from Augustine's "Retractations" on the De Spiritu
On the Spirit and the Letter, ..... 157-232
TREATISE II.
TREATISE III.
Introductory jSTote, ...... 233, 234
On Nature and Grace,—
Extract from the " Retractations," .... 235 The Treatise itself, ...... 236-303
TREATISE IV.
Preface to the Treatise, ...... 309-312 The Treatise itself, ...... 313-356
On the Perfection of Man's Righteousness,
1 Or, On Mail's Perfect Righteousness.
XXIV CONTEXTS.
TREATISE V.
Preface to the Treatise, ...... 357359
PAGE On the Proceedings of Pelagius,
Extract from the " Retractations, .... 360
The Treatise itself, . . . . . .361-431
1 Or, Oa the Proceedings in the case of Felagius.
EXTEACT FROM
AUGUSTINE'S "KETRACTATIONS,"
Book II. Chap. 23,
ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE,
"DE PECCATOEUM MEEITIS ET EEMISSIONE."
A necessity arose which compelled me to write against the new heresy of Pelagius. Our previous opposition to it was confined to sermons and conversations, as occasion suggested, and according to our respective abilities and duties ; but it had not yet assumed the shape of a controversy in writing. Certain questions were then submitted to me [by our brethren] at Carthage, to which I was to send them back answers in writing : I accordingly wrote first of all three books, under the title, "Dc Peccatorum Meritis et
Eemissione " [" On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins "], in which I mainly discussed the baptism of infants because of original sin, and the grace of God by which we are justified, that is, made righteous ; but [I remarked] no man in this life can so keep the commandments which prescribe holiness of life, as to be beyond the necessity of using this prayer for his sins : " Forgive us our trespasses." * It is in direct opposition to these principles that they have devised their new heresy. Now throughout these three books I thought it right not to mention any of their names, hoping and desiring that by such reserve they might the more readily be set right ; nay more, in the third book (which is really a letter, but reckoned
1 See Matt. vi. 12.
4 A
2 EXTRACT FROM AUGUSTINE S RETRACTATIONS.
amongst the books, because I wished to connect it with the two previous ones) I actually quoted Pelagius' name with considerable commendation, because his conduct and life were made a good deal of by many persons ; and those statements of his which I refuted, he had himself adduced in his writings, not indeed in his own name, but had quoted them as the words of other persons. However, when he was afterwards confirmed in heresy, he defended them with most persistent animosity. Coelestius, indeed, a disciple of his, had already been excommunicated for similar opinions at Carthage, in a council of bishops, at which I was not present. In a certain passage of my second book I used these words : " Upon some there will be bestowed this blessing at the last day, that they shall not perceive the actual suffering of death in the sudden-
1—reserving ness of the change which shall happen to them," the passage for a more careful consideration of the subject for they will either die, or else by a most rapid transition from this life to death, and then from death to eternal life, as in the twinkling of an eye, they will not undergo the feeling of mortality. This work of mine begins with this sentence : " However absorbing and intense the anxieties and annoyances!*
1 See Book ii. ch. 50.
A TEEATISE
ON THE
MERITS AND FOEGIVENESS OF SINS, AND THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS,
By AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, Bishop of Hippo;
IN THREE BOOKS,
ADDRESSED TO MABCELLINUS, A.D. 412.
BOOK I.
I WHICH HE REFUTES THOSE WHO MAINTAIN, THAT ADAM MUST HAVE HIED EVEN IF HE HAD NEVER SINNED ; AND THAT NOTHING OF HIS SIN HAS BEEN TRANSMITTED TO HIS POSTERITY BY NATURAL DESCENT. HE ALSO SHOWS, THAT DEATH HAS NOT ACCRUED TO MAN BY ANY NECESSITY OF HIS NATURE, BUT AS THE PENALTY OF SIN ; HE THEN PROCEEDS TO PROVE THAT IN ADAM'S SIN HIS ENTIRE OFFSPRING IS IMPLICATED, SHOWING THAT INFANTS ARE BAPTIZED FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF RECEIVING THE REMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN.
Chap. 1.—Introductory, in the shape of an inscription to his friend
Marcellinus. rTOWEVER absorbing and intense the anxieties and annoyLA
^ ances in the whirl and warmth of which we are engaged ith sinful men
1 who forsake the law of God,—[evils] indeed 'hich we may well ascribe even to the fault of the sin 'hich is inherent in us all,—I am unwilling, and, to say the rath, unable, any longer to remain a debtor, my dearest Mar-
1 This is probably an allusion to the Donatists, who were then fiercely assailg the Catholics.
ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
cellinus, to that zealous affection of yours, which only enhances my own grateful and pleasant estimate of yourself. I am under the impulse [of a twofold emotion] : on the one hand, there is that very love which makes us unchangeably one in the one hope of a change for the better ; on the other hand, there is the fear of offending God in yourself, who has endowed you with so earnest a desire, in gratifying which
I shall be only serving Him who implanted it in you. And so strongly has this impulse led and attracted me to solve, to the best of my humble ability, the questions which you submitted to me in writing, that my mind has gradually admitted this inquiry to an importance transcending that of all others ; [and it will now give me no rest] until I accomplish something, which shall make it manifest that I have yielded, if not a sufficient, yet at any rate an obedient, compliance with your own kind wish and the desire of those to whom these questions are a source of anxiety.
Chap. 2. [n.]—If Adam had not sinned, he would never have died.
They who say that Adam was so formed that he would even without any demerit of sin have died, not as the penalty of sin, but from the necessity of his being, endeavour indeed to refer that passage in the law, which says : " On the day ye
1 not to the death of the body, eat thereof ye shall surely die," but to that death of the soul which takes place in sin. It is the unbelievers who have died this death, to whom the Lord
2 Now pointed when He said, " Let the dead bury their dead."
what will be their answer, when [we adduce the place where} we read that God, when reproving and sentencing the first man after his sin, said to him, " Dust thou art, and unto dust
3 For it was not in respect of his soul that shalt thou return V' he was " dust," but clearly by reason of his body, and it was by the death of the self-same body that he was destined to "return to dust." Still, although it was by reason of his body that hej was dust, and although he bare about the natural body in which he was created, he would, if he had not sinned, have been changed into a spiritual body, and would have passed into the incorruptible state, which is promised to the faithful
1 Gen. ii. 17. 2 Matt. viii. 22 ; Luke ix. 60. 3 Gen. iii. 19.
CHAP. III.] MORTALITY, AND SUBJECTION TO DEATH. 5.
and the saints, without the peril of death. And of this issue we not only are conscious in ourselves of having an earnest desire, but we learn it from the apostle's intimation, when he says : " For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven ; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be
1 Therefore, if Adam had not sinned,;
swallowed up of life."
he would not have been divested of his body, but would havej been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption, that his mortal [body] might have been absorbed by life ; that is, that he might have passed from his natural body to the spiritual body.
Chap. 3. [in.] It is one thing to be mortal, another thing to be subject to death.
Enoch and Elijah still alive, in Paradise.
Nor was there any reason to fear that if he had happened to live on here longer in his natural body, he would have been oppressed with old age, and have gradually, by reason of the senility, arrived at death. For if God granted to the clothes and the shoes of the Israelites that " they waxed not
2 what wonder if for obedience it had old" during forty years, been by the power of the same [God] allowed to man, that his natural and mortal body should have in it a certain condition, in which he might grow full of years without decrepitude, and, whenever God pleased, pass from mortality to immortality without the medium of death ? For even as this very flesh of ours, which we now possess, is not therefore invulnerable, because there happens to be no occasion on which it receives a wound ; so also was it not therefore immortal, because there arose no necessity for its dying. Such a condition, whilst still in their natural and mortal body, I suppose, was granted even to those who were translated hence without death.3 For Enoch and Elijah were not reduced to the decrepitude of old age by their long life. But yet I do not believe that they were then changed into that spiritual kind of body, such as is promised in the resurrection, and which the Lord was the first to receive ; only they probably do not need those ali-
1 2 Cor. v. 2-4. 2 Deut. xxix. 5. 3 Gen. v. 24 ; 2 Kings ii. 11.
6 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
ments, which by their use minister refreshment to the body ; ever since their translation, however, they so live, as to enjoy such a sufficiency as was provided during the forty days in which Elijah lived on the cruse of water and the cake with-
1 or else, if there be any need of such out substantial food j sustenance^' they are, it may be, sustained in Paradise in some such way as Adam was, before he brought on himself expulsion therefrom by sinning. And he, as I suppose, was supplied with sustenance against decay from the fruit of the various trees, and from the tree of life with security against the decrepitude of age.
Chap. 4. [iv.] Death accrues to the body owing to sin.
But in addition to the passage where God in punishment
2—a passays, " Dust thou art, unto dust shalt thou return," sage which I cannot understand how any one can apply except to the death of the body,—there are other testimonies likewise, from which it most fully appears that by reason of sin the human race has brought upon itself not spiritual death merely, but the death of the body also. The apostle says to the Eomans :
If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If therefore the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken
3 I your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."
apprehend that a sentence which is so clear and open as this only requires to be read and not expounded. The body, says he, is dead, not through earthly frailty, as being made of the dust of the ground, but because of sin ; what more do we want ? And he is most careful in his words : he does not say [the body] is mortal, but dead.
Chap. 5. [v.] The words, mortale (capable of dying), mortuum (dead), and morituras (likely to die) ; mail's righteousness, obedience. Now previous to the change into the incorruptible state which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, the body may have been mortal (capable of dying), although not likely to die; just as our body in its present state may, so to speak, be capable of sickness, although not likely to suffer
1 1 Kings xix. 8. 2 Gen. iii. 19. 3 Rom. viii. 10, 11.
CHAP. VI.] WHY POSSIBLE DEATH BECAME ACTUAL. 7 sickness. For whose is the flesh which is incapable of sickness, even if from some accident it die before it ever experienced an illness ? ( In like manner was man's body then mortal, but this mortality was to have been superseded by an eternal incorruption, if man had persevered in righteousness, that is to say, obedience. But mortality only itself actually experienced death on account of sin ; I for the change which is to take place in the resurrection will, in truth, not only not have death incidental to it, which has happened through sin, but it will be even free from mortality, [or the very possibility of death,] which the natural body had before it sinned. He does not say : " He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your dead bodies" (although he had pre-
1 ); but his words are: "He
viously said, "the body is dead"
2 so that they are not shall also quicken your mortal bodies;" only no longer dead, but no longer mortal [or capable of dying], since the natural shall by the resurrection become spiritual, and this mortal body shall put on immortality, and mortality shall be absorbed in life.
Chap. 6. [vi.] How it is that the body is dead because of sin. One wonders that anything is required clearer than the proof we have given. But we must perhaps be content to hear this clear illustration gainsaid by the position, that we must understand "the dead body" here
3 in the sense of the passage where it is said, " Mortify your members which are upon the earth."
4 Now it is because of righteousness and not because of sin that the body is in this sense mortified ; for it is to do the works of righteousness that we mortify our bodies which are upon the earth. Unless they suppose that the phrase, " because of sin," is added, not with the view of our understanding that sin has been actually committed, but in order that sin may not be committed—as if it were said,
" The body indeed is dead, in order to prevent the commission of sin." "What then does he mean in the next clause by adding the words, "because of righteousness," to the statement which he has just made, " The spirit is life ?" 5 For it would
1 Rom. viii. 10. 2 Rom. viii. 11.
3 In Rom. viii. 10. * Col. iii. 5. 5 Rom. viii. 10.
8 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
have been enough simply to have mentioned the life of the spirit, to have secured its being understood " in order to prevent the commission of sin ;" we should thus understand the two propositions to point to one thing—even that " the body is dead," and " the spirit is life," for the one common purpose of " preventing the commission of sin." So likewise if he had merely meant to say, " because of righteousness," in the sense of " for the purpose of doing righteousness," the two clauses might possibly be referred to this one purpose—to the effect, that " the body is dead," and " the spirit is life," " for the purpose of doing righteousness." But as the passage actually stands, it declares that " the body is dead because of sin," and
" the spirit is life because of righteousness," attributing different merits to different things—the demerit of sin to the death of the body, and the merit of righteousness to the life of the spirit. Wherefore if, as no one can doubt, " the spirit is life because of righteousness," that is, by the merit, or as the desert, of righteousness ; how ought we, or can we, understand by the statement, " The body is dead because of sin," anything else than that the body is dead owing to the fault or demerit of sin, unless indeed we try to pervert or wrest the plainest sense of Scripture to our own arbitrary will ? But besides this, additional light is afforded by the words which follow. For it is by the present tense that he defines the influence [of the twofold condition], when he says, that on the one hand " the body is dead because of sin," since, whilst the body is unrenovated by the resurrection, there remains in it the desert of sin, that is, the necessity of dying ; and on the other hand, that " the spirit is life because of righteousness," since, notwithstanding the fact of our being still burdened
1 we have, by the renewal which is begun in our inner man, new aspirations with "the body of this death,"
2 after the righteousness of faith. ] Yet, lest man in his ignorance should fail to entertain any hope of the resurrection of the body, he says that the very body which he had just declared to be "dead because of sin" in this world, will in the next world be made alive " because of righteousness,"—and that not only in such a way as to become alive from the dead, but immortal after
1 Eom. vii. 24. 2 Respiramus.
CHAP. VII.] SPIRITUAL LIFE AN EARNEST OF BODILY. 9 its mortality, [that is to say, not only recovering from actual death, but becoming free from all possibility of dying.]
Chap. 7. [vn.] The life of the body the object of hope, the life of the spirit being a prelude to it; Adam's spirit extinct by the death of unbelief Although I am much afraid that so clear a matter may rather be obscured by exposition, I must yet request your attention to the luminous statement of the apostle. " If
Christ," says he, " be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness." * Now this is said, that men may not suppose that they derive no benefit, or at best but scant benefit, from the grace of Christ, from the fact that they must needs die in the body. For they are bound to remember that, although their body still sustains that desert of sin, which is irrevocably bound to the condition of death, yet their spirit has already begun to live because of the righteousness of faith, although it had actually become extinct by the death, as it were, of unbelief. No small gift, therefore, he [as good as] says, must you suppose to have been conferred upon you, by the circumstance that Christ is in you; inasmuch as in your body, which is dead because of sin, your spirit is even now alive because of righteousness ; so that on this very account you should not despair of the life even of your body. " For if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit
2 How is it that fumes of controversy
that dwelleth in you."
still darken so clear a light ? fhe apostle distinctly tells you, that although the body is dead because of sin within you, yet even your mortal bodies shall be made alive because of righteousness, by reason of which even now your spirit is life, —the whole of which process is to be perfected by the grace of Christ, in other words, by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. I
Well, do men still gainsay ? He goes on to tell us how this comes to pass, how that life converts death into itself by mortifying it, [that is, that the spirit of life, by mortifying the body, renders it spiritual and full of life.] " Therefore, brethren," says he, " we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh ; for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye
1 Rom. viii. 10. s Ver. 11.
10 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
1 What else does this mean but this : If ye live the way live."
of death, ye shall wholly die ; but if by living the way of life ye mortify and slay death, ye shall wholly live ?
Chap. 8. [viii.] When to the like purport he says : " By man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead,"
2 in what other sense can the passage be understood than of the death of the body ; for having in view the mention of this, he proceeded to speak of the resurrection of the body, and affirmed it in a most earnest and solemn discourse ? In these words, addressed to the Corinthians : " By man came death, and by man came also the resurrection of the dead ; for as in Adam a—what other meaning is indeed conveyed than in the verse in which he all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," says to the Eomans, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin?" 4 Now they will have it, that the death here meant is the death, not of the body, but of the soul, on the pretence that another thing is spoken of to the Corinthians, where they are quite unable to understand the death of the soul, because the subject there treated is the resurrection of the body, which is the antithesis of the death of the body. The reason, moreover, why only death is here mentioned as caused by man, and not sin also, is because the point of the discourse is not about righteousness, which is the antithesis of sin, but about the resurrection of the body, which is contrasted with the death of the body.
Chap. 9. [ix.] Sin passes on to all men by natural descent, and not merely by imitation. You tell me in your letter, that they endeavour to twist into some new sense the passage of the apostle, in which he says : " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by
5 yet you have not informed me what they suppose to sin;" be the meaning of these words. But so far as I have discovered from others, they think that the death which is here mentioned is not the death of the body, which they will not
1 Rom. viii. 12. 2 1 Cor. xv. 21. 3 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22.
4 Rom. v. 12. 6 Rom. v. 12.
CHAP. X.] SIN BY BIRTH, NOT BY IMITATION. 11 allow Adam to have deserved, but that of the soul, which takes place in actual sin ; and that this actual sin has not been transmitted by natural descent from the first man to other persons, but by imitation [of his conduct]. Hence, likewise, they refuse to believe that in infants original sin is remitted through baptism, for they contend that no such original sin exists at all in people by their birth. But if the apostle had wished to assert that sin entered into the world, not by natural descent, but by imitation, he would have mentioned as the first offender, not Adam indeed, but the devil, of whom it
1 that " he sinneth from the beginning ;" of whom is written, also we read in the Book of Wisdom : " Nevertheless through
2 Now, forasmuch as this death came upon men from the devil, not the devil's envy death entered into the world."
because they were propagated by him, but because they imitated his example, it is immediately added : " And they that do hold of his side do imitate him."
3 Accordingly, the apostle, when mentioning sin and death together, which had passed by natural descent from one upon all men, set him down as the introducer thereof from whom the propagation of the human race took its beginning .
Chap. 10. Grace operates internally j it is infused into infants latently in their baptism ; the contagion of original sin ; slowness of understanding objected to the Catholics by the Pelagians. Now all they are imitators of Adam who by disobedience transgress the commandment of God ; but [Adam considered as] an example to those who sin, because they choose, is one thing; and [the same Adam considered as] the original from whom all spring, with their birth in sin, is another thing.
All His saints, indeed, imitate Christ in the pursuit of righteousness ; whence the same apostle, whom we have already quoted, says : " Be ye followers of me, as I am also
4 But besides this imitation, His grace works of Christ."
within us our illumination and justification, by that operation concerning which the same great preacher of His [name] says
" Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase."
5 For by His grace He
1 1 John iii. 8. 2 Wisd. ii. 24. 3 Ver. 25.
4 1 Cor. xi. 1. 6 1 Cor. iii. 7.
12 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
engrafts into His body even baptized infants, who certainly have not yet become able to imitate any one. As therefore He, in whom all are made alive, besides offering Himself as an example of righteousness to those who follow Him, gives also to those who believe on Him the hidden grace of His Holy Spirit, which He secretly infuses even into infants ; so likewise he, in whom all die, besides being an example for imitation to those who wilfully transgress the commandment of the Lord, depraved in his own person all who come of his stock by the hidden corruption of his own carnal concupiscence. It is entirely on this account, and for no other reason, that the apostle says : " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men ; and in this [sin] all have sinned."
1 Now if I were to say this, they would raise an objection, and loudly insist that
I was incorrect both in expression and in sentiment ; for [if couched] in such words as these, they would attribute no importance to the opinion of an ordinary man, but in an apostle they simply refuse to admit such an opinion to be possible.
Since, however, these are actually the words of the apostle, to whose authority and doctrine they submit, they charge us with slowness of understanding, while they endeavour to wrest to some unintelligible sense words which were written in a clear and obvious purport. " By one man," says he, " sin entered into the world, and death by sin." This indicates propagation, not imitation ; for if imitation were meant, he would mention the devil as the object of the imitation. But, as no one doubts, [the apostle] refers to that first man who is called Adam : " And so," says he, " death passed upon all men."
Chap. 11. [x.] Distinction between actual and original sin. In Adam we were all one man. 2 In Christ alone are we justified.
Again, in the clause which follows, "And in this [sin]
3 all have sinned," how cautiously, rightly, and unambiguously is the statement expressed ! For if you understand that sin to be meant which by one man entered into the world, and in
1 Kom. v. 12.
2 See below, Book in. c. vii. ; also in the De Nuptiis, c. v. ; also Ejnst. 186, and Serm. 165.
3 Such is Augustine's reading ; but see below.
CHAP. XII.] ORIGINAL SIN; ACTUAL SIN. 13 which all have sinned, it is surely clear enough, that the sins which are peculiar to every man, which they themselves commit and which belong simply to them, mean one thing ; and that the one sin, in and by which all have sinned, means another thing, since all were included in that one [primeval] man. If, however, it be not the sin, but this first man that is understood [in this clause, so that it be read] " in whom
[not, in which] " all have sinned," what again can be plainer than even this clear statement ? "VVe read, indeed, of those being justified in Christ who believe in Him, by reason of the secret communion and inspiration of that spiritual grace which makes every one who cleaves to the Lord " one spirit " with Him,
1 although His saints also follow His example ; can I find, however, any similar statement made of those, who have followed in the steps of His saints ? Can any man be said to be justified in Paul or in Peter, or in any one whatever of those excellent men whose authority stands high among the people of God ? We are no doubt said to be blessed in Abraham, according to the passage in which the words are addressed to him, "In thee shall all nations be blessed" for Christ's sake, who is his seed according to the flesh ; which is still more clearly expressed in the parallel passage : " In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." I do not believe that any one can find it anywhere stated in the Holy Scriptures, that a man has ever sinned or still sins " in the devil," although all wicked and impious men " imitate " Mm. The apostle, however, has declared concerning the first man, that " in him all have sinned ;" a but notwithstanding there is still a contest about the propagation of sin ; and men oppose to it I know not what nebulous theory of " imitation." 4
Chap. 12. The law could not talce away sin.
Observe also what follows. Having said that "all have
1 1 Cor. vi. 17.
2 GaL iii. 8 ; comp. Gen. xii. 3, xviii. 18, xxii. 18.
3 Rom. v. 12.
4 This was the Pelagian term, expressive of their dogma that original sin stands in the following [or imitation] of Adam, instead of being the fault and corruption of the nature of every man who is naturally engendered of Adam's offspring ; which doctrine is expressed by Augustine's word, propagatio.
14 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
sinned in it [or, in him]/' he at once added, " Tor until the law, sin was in the world."
1 This means that sin could not be taken away even by the law, which entered that sin might
2 whether it be the law of nature, under which every man when arrived at years of discretion only the more abound, proceeds to add his own sins to original sin, or that very law which Moses gave to the people. " For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
3 But sin is not imputed where there is no law." 4 Now what means the phrase " is not imputed" but " is ignored" or " is not reckoned as sin ? " Although the Lord God does not Himself regard it, as if it had never been, since it is written : " As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law."
Chap. 13. [xi.] Meaning of the apostle's phrase "the reign of death." The saints of old had no relation to the letter of the law, but to the grace of Christ ivho was to come.
" Nevertheless," says he, " death reigned from Adam even unto Moses,"
6—that is to say, from the first man even to the very law which was promulged by the divine authority, because even it was unable to abolish the reign of death. Now death must be understood "to reign," whenever the guilt of
7 so dominates in men that it prevents their attainment sin of that eternal life which is the only true life, and drags them down even to the second death which is penally eternal.
This reign of death is only destroyed in any man by the
Saviour's grace, which wrought even in the saints of the olden time, all of whom, though previous to the coming of
Christ in the flesh, yet lived in relation to His assisting grace, not to the letter of the law, which only knew how to command, but not to help them. In the Old Testament, indeed, that was hidden (owing to the perfectly just dispensation of that period) which is now revealed in the New Testament.
Therefore " death reigned from Adam unto Moses," in all
1 Rom. v. 13. 2 Rom. v. 20. 3 Gal. iii. 21, 22. 4 Rom. v. 13. 5 Rom. ii. 12. 6 Rom. v. 14.
7 licatus peccatz.
CHAP. XIV.] THE EEIGN OF DEATH. 15 who were not assisted by the grace of Christ, that in them the kingdom of death might be destroyed. " Even in those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgres-
1 [continues the apostle, meaning] those who had not sion/' sinned of their own individual will, as Adam did, but had drawn from him the original sin ;
' who is the figure of him that was to come," 2 because in him was constituted the form of condemnation to his future progeny, who should spring from liim by natural descent ; so that from him alone all men were born to a condemnation, from which there is no deliverance but in the Saviour's grace. I am quite aware, indeed, that several Latin copies of the Scriptures read the passage thus
"Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them who have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; 3 but even this version is referred by those who so read it to the very same purport, for they understand those who have sinned in him to have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression ; so that they are created in his likeness, not only as men born of his manhood, but as sinners born of a sinner, destined to die as he was doomed to die, and under condemnation because he was under condemnation. However, the r*>£ Greek copies from which the Latin version was made, have all, without exception or nearly so, the reading which I first adduced.
Chap. 14.
" But," says he, " not as the offence so also is the free gift. For if, through the offence of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by One Man,
Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." 4 [Much more, are his words,] not many more, as to prevalence of number, for there are not more persons justified than condemned ; but it runs, hath much more abounded; inasmuch as, while Adam produced sinners from his one sin, Christ has by His grace procured free forgiveness even for the sins which men have of their own accord added by actual transgression to the original sin in which they were born. This he states more clearly still in the sequel.
1 Eom. v. 14. 2 Eom. v. 14.
3 Comp. Epist. 157, n. 19. 4 Eom. v. 15.
16 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I.
Chap. 15. [xn.] The one sin common to all men. Original sin sufficesfor condemnation. Degrees of condemnation.
But observe more attentively what he says, that " through the offence of one, many are dead." For why should it be on account of the sin of one, and not rather on account of their own sins [that many are dead], if this passage is to be understood as supporting the principle of imitation, and not communication hy natural descent ? But mark what follows u And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift ; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift