Against Two Letters of the Pelagians

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.18 · 1.19–1.41 · 1.42–2.14 · 2.15–3.5 · 3.6–3.17 · 3.18–4.3 · 4.4–4.16 · 4.17–4.27 · 4.28–4.34

1. 1.1Augustine greets Pope Boniface, recalls Alypius's visit to him, and explains why he now writes.
2. 1.2Augustine explains that the Pelagians, though condemned, keep writing, and that as a bishop he must answer them.
3. 1.3Augustine explains that he answers two Pelagian letters, one by Julian sent to Rome and one by eighteen bishops sent to Thessalonica, and submits his reply to Boniface.
4. 1.4Augustine quotes Julian's charge that Catholics are Manichees who deny free choice, and compares it with Jovinian's slander.
5. 1.5Augustine answers that free choice was not lost by Adam's sin, but the freedom to live righteously was, and it is restored only by grace.
6. 1.6Augustine argues from Scripture that believing in Christ, and so receiving him, is itself a gift of God's grace.
7. 1.7Augustine explains that people are not forced to sin but sin by their own will, and that a good will comes only by unmerited grace.
8. 1.8Augustine recalls that Pelagius at the Palestinian synod condemned the view that grace is given according to merit, yet later taught it.
9. 1.9Augustine answers Julian's charge that he denies that marriage is instituted by God, showing from Scripture that present marriages are God's work.
10. 1.10Augustine answers Julian's charge that Catholics call sexual union devilish, saying that procreation would have involved bodily union even in paradise, but perhaps without shameful lust.
11. 1.11Augustine explains that Catholics do not call marital union devilish, but hold that infants inherit original sin and need Christ's redemption.
12. 1.12Augustine answers that the Old Testament saints were freed from sin not by their own strength or by the law but by the blood of Christ.
13. 1.13Augustine answers Julian's charge that Catholics call the apostles slaves of lust, and begins examining Romans 7, first showing from Paul that the law reveals sin but only grace removes it.
14. 1.14Augustine notes that the Pelagians do not object to Romans 7:7–13 being read of Paul's past, and explains how it can describe his life before grace.
15. 1.15Augustine explains that Paul could be outwardly blameless under the law while inwardly sinful, as his own words to the Ephesians and Titus show.
16. 1.16Augustine interprets 'sin revived' in Romans 7 as original sin, hidden since birth, becoming apparent through the commandment.
17. 1.17Augustine argues that 'I am carnal, sold under sin' can be said by Paul himself, with respect to his still mortal body.
18. 1.18Augustine explains that Paul 'does' evil only in the movement of desire, not by consent, since under grace it is no longer he who works it.
19. 1.19Augustine explains that 'to accomplish the good' means not even to desire evil, which Paul could not yet do though he did not consent to evil desire.
20. 1.20Augustine interprets Paul's 'taking me captive' as referring to his flesh, not his mind or consent.
21. 1.21Augustine concludes from Romans 7:24–8:2 that the one condemned is he who consents to the flesh's concupiscence, not the believer who resists it.
22. 1.22Augustine admits that he once read Romans 7 as describing a man under the law, but explains why he changed his mind.
23. 1.23Augustine interprets 'the body of this death' and Paul's 'I do not know' as the believer's groaning and refusal of consent.
24. 1.24Augustine concludes that in Romans 7 Paul speaks for himself and all believers under grace, and that the apostles resisted concupiscence without consenting to it.
25. 1.25Augustine rejects Julian's charge that Catholics say Christ was not free from sin.
26. 1.26Augustine answers Julian's charge that Catholics say baptism only 'shaves' sins, affirming that baptism forgives all sins.
27. 1.27Augustine explains that concupiscence remaining after baptism is called sin only because it came from sin and inclines to sin, and that its guilt is forgiven in baptism.
28. 1.28Augustine explains that daily sins after baptism are cleansed by the Lord's Prayer and almsgiving, and that many believers are without crime but none without sin.
29. 1.29Augustine turns to Julian's own statement of faith, beginning with his claim that free choice could not perish by Adam's sin.
30. 1.30Augustine accepts Julian's statement that marriage is from God but rejects his inference that infants contract no sin.
31. 1.31Augustine answers that God made the sexual organs without shame, and that their disobedience came as a punishment for the first sin.
32. 1.32Augustine explains that Adam and Eve made loincloths, not tunics, because after their disobedience they felt the disobedience of their sexual members.
33. 1.33Augustine argues that the universal shame about intercourse shows an evil resulting from sin, which chaste marriage uses well for procreation.
34. 1.34Augustine sets the Pelagians four possibilities for sexual life in paradise and argues that the first two are unworthy of paradise.
35. 1.35Augustine argues that even on the Pelagians' preferred view, present concupiscence, which resists the will, differs from paradise and shows the punishment of the first sin.
36. 1.36Augustine answers Julian that God does not compel the will, but that God's grace helps a man even to will the good.
37. 1.37Augustine argues from Paul's conversion and John 6:44 that grace does not merely help a good will already present but first makes the unwilling willing.
38. 1.38Augustine proves from Chronicles, Ezekiel, and the story of Esther that God works directly on human wills.
39. 1.39Augustine answers that the Old Testament saints were saved only by faith in Christ the Mediator, not by nature or the law, as Pelagius taught.
40. 1.40Augustine argues that the Pelagian view of infant baptism denies original sin, since Scripture ties salvation and life to baptism and the Eucharist.
41. 1.41Augustine agrees that baptism removes all sins but insists that the Pelagians deny that it frees infants from inherited guilt.
42. 1.42Augustine dismisses Julian's closing demand for a hearing, anathematizes both Manichees and Pelagians, and says the condemned Pelagians should repent.
43. 2.1Augustine turns to the letter of the Pelagian bishops to Thessalonica and explains that their condemnation of the Manichees does not make them orthodox.
44. 2.2Augustine sets out point by point how the Catholic faith refutes both Manichees and Pelagians on creation, concupiscence, free choice, and sin.
45. 2.3Augustine shows that Manichees and Pelagians both attack grace, baptism, and Christ's flesh, though in opposite ways.
46. 2.4Augustine argues that opposing the Manichees does not make the Pelagians right, since both errors are contrary to the truth.
47. 2.5Augustine defends the Roman clergy and Pope Zosimus against the charge of changing their judgment, explaining that Zosimus never approved Caelestius's doctrine but gave him time to correct himself.
48. 2.6Augustine quotes Pope Innocent's letter to the Council of Carthage and shows that Caelestius, by professing agreement with it, bound himself to accept original sin.
49. 2.7Augustine quotes Innocent's letter to the Numidian bishops denying eternal life to unbaptized infants and presses Caelestius with the dilemma it raises.
50. 2.8Augustine argues that the Roman church was consistent under Innocent and Zosimus, and that the Pelagians, not the Roman clergy, have abandoned the faith.
51. 2.9Augustine briefly answers the charges of the Pelagian bishops' letter on free choice, marriage, original sin, and fate.
52. 2.10Augustine shows that the Pelagians call his doctrine 'fate' because he denies that grace is given according to merit, a view Pelagius himself condemned in Palestine.
53. 2.11Augustine argues from infant baptism, where no merit can be claimed, that unmerited grace is neither fate nor respect of persons.
54. 2.12Augustine explains how grace differs from astrological fate and turns the charge back on the Pelagians.
55. 2.13Augustine uses the parable of the workers in the vineyard to show that God's free choice to call some is not respect of persons, since no one is wronged.
56. 2.14Augustine imagines twins of a prostitute, one baptized and one not, to show that only God's grace or just wrath can explain their different fates.
57. 2.15Augustine explains that Paul, in Romans 9, leaves the mystery of God's choice unresolved, and that grace alone distinguishes the saved from the lump of perdition, not foreseen works.
58. 2.16Augustine argues that the unbaptized twin, who had no future works to be foreseen, silently refutes the Pelagian denial of original sin.
59. 2.17Augustine turns to the Pelagian claim that the desire for good begins from man himself, noting Pelagius's view that grace only makes the good easier.
60. 2.18Augustine argues from John 15:5, Philippians 1:6, and 2 Corinthians 3:5 that even the beginning of the desire for good comes from God.
61. 2.19Augustine interprets 'it belongs to man to prepare the heart' as meaning that man prepares his heart with God's help, not without it.
62. 2.20Augustine shows from Scripture that even when man opens his mouth or prepares his will, he does so with God's help.
63. 2.21Augustine argues that the desire for good is love, which is wholly from God, whose mercy both goes before and follows us.
64. 2.22Augustine argues that 'called according to purpose' refers to God's purpose, not man's, and that even a good purpose and zeal for virtue begin from grace.
65. 2.23Augustine concludes Book 2: every command of God is matched by his gift, and the change from evil to good both begins and ends by grace.
66. 3.1Augustine explains that Book 3 continues his answer to the charges in the Pelagian bishops' letter.
67. 3.2Augustine answers the charge about the Old Testament law: the law makes people hearers of righteousness, but only grace makes them doers.
68. 3.3Augustine shows from Paul that the law revealed and increased transgression, and that only those who receive the Spirit of grace are children of the free woman.
69. 3.4Augustine answers the charge that baptism leaves people partly sons of the devil, distinguishing 'sons of the world' from 'sons of the devil' and explaining that unbelief is what makes the latter.
70. 3.5Augustine explains that baptism forgives all sins but does not remove the weakness that remains, which will be removed only in the final regeneration at the resurrection.
71. 3.6Augustine answers the charge that he denies the Holy Spirit's work in the Old Testament, arguing that the Old Testament saints were heirs of the New Covenant.
72. 3.7Augustine argues that the covenant with Abraham, which the later law could not annul, is the New Covenant hidden in prophecy.
73. 3.8Augustine holds that all the righteous before Christ, from Noah through John the Baptist, were children of the promise and belong to the heavenly Jerusalem.
74. 3.9Augustine describes those who belong to the Old Covenant of slavery: those who trust in the letter of the law and keep it from fear or desire, not love.
75. 3.10Augustine explains that the ritual laws of the Old Testament were signs now fulfilled, but its moral precepts, above all the Ten Commandments apart from the literal Sabbath, bind Christians.
76. 3.11Augustine explains that the righteous of old, including Moses, were saved by the same faith in Christ as Christians, while those who obeyed the law from fear belong to the Old Covenant.
77. 3.12Augustine distinguishes the common sense of 'Old Testament' (the Hebrew Scriptures) from Paul's sense (the covenant of slavery), and concludes that the ancient righteous belong to the New Covenant.
78. 3.13Augustine explains why the covenant of Moses is called 'old' and the covenant with Abraham 'new', and affirms that the Holy Spirit gave virtue to the Old Testament saints.
79. 3.14Augustine answers the charge that he calls the saints only relatively good, explaining that right faith, not moral achievement alone, distinguishes the righteous, and illustrating this with two contrasting men.
80. 3.15Augustine argues that the saints, though righteous by faith, confessed that they were not yet perfect, and that their one hope was Christ the advocate.
81. 3.16Augustine answers the charge that he attributes sin to Christ, explaining that Paul calls Christ 'sin' because he took the likeness of sinful flesh and became a sacrifice for sin.
82. 3.17Augustine explains that sinlessness and perfect wisdom after the resurrection are not new commandments to be fulfilled but the reward for keeping the commandments now.
83. 3.18Augustine uses Paul's thorn in the flesh to show that even the apostle lacked angelic perfection and needed a remedy against pride.
84. 3.19Augustine explains that present righteousness is 'perfect' only in knowing and confessing its imperfection, as Paul does in Philippians 3.
85. 3.20Augustine distinguishes the righteousness 'from the law', a man's own, from the righteousness of God given by the Spirit of grace, which alone fulfills the law.
86. 3.21Augustine argues that righteousness and love of God will be perfected only when God is seen, and that Paul in Philippians 3 confesses he has not yet attained it.
87. 3.22Augustine reads Philippians 3 as directed against those who trust in the righteousness of the law, and shows that Paul, still on the way, pressed on toward a perfection he had not yet reached.
88. 3.23Augustine distinguishes the small righteousness of faith in this life, which merits, from the full righteousness of the resurrection, which is its reward.
89. 3.24Augustine explains that the Pelagians hide their three errors behind praise of creation, marriage, law, free choice, and the saints, and answers each briefly.
90. 3.25Augustine shows that the Catholic teaching on creation, marriage, the law, free choice, and the saints refutes Manichees and Pelagians at the same time.
91. 3.26Augustine refuses to let the obscure question of the soul's origin undermine the clear doctrine of original sin and infant baptism.
92. 4.1Augustine begins Book 4 by grouping the Pelagians' own statements under the five heads of praise of creation, marriage, law, free choice, and the saints.
93. 4.2Augustine summarizes the Pelagian bishops' statements under his five heads and shows the three errors they are meant to support.
94. 4.3Augustine sets out the Catholic position on creation, marriage and concupiscence, the law, free choice, and the saints as avoiding both Manichaean and Pelagian errors.
95. 4.4Augustine pictures the infant, silently rebuking both Manichees, who condemn its body, and Pelagians, who deny it needs redemption, and answers each from Scripture.
96. 4.5Augustine argues that the Pelagians' correct statements against the Manichees are made useless by their denial of original sin.
97. 4.6Augustine argues that the Pelagian claim that only death, not sin, passed from Adam makes infants suffer undeserved punishment, a prerogative that belongs to Christ alone.
98. 4.7Augustine interprets Romans 5:12 'in whom all sinned' as meaning that all sinned in Adam, citing 'holy Hilary'.
99. 4.8Augustine argues from Romans 5 that universal reconciliation through Christ presupposes universal sin inherited from Adam, including in infants.
100. 4.9Augustine argues that the Pelagians use the true praise of marriage to support the false claim that infants are born without sin.
101. 4.10Augustine argues that the Old Testament saints received eternal life not through the law but through faith in Christ, a faith that is itself God's gift.
102. 4.11Augustine argues that the Pelagians reduce grace to knowledge of the law, whereas true grace is the inspiration of love, as the story of Elisha's staff illustrates.
103. 4.12Augustine accepts Isaiah 1:19–20 as proof of free choice against the Manichees but insists that the good will itself is prepared by God.
104. 4.13Augustine argues that the Pelagian formula that grace 'helps the good purpose' is acceptable only if that purpose is itself admitted to come from grace.
105. 4.14Augustine lists Scriptures the Pelagians ignore, above all Ezekiel 36, where God says he acts not for Israel's merits but for his own name's sake.
106. 4.15Augustine argues from Ezekiel 36 and Psalm 95 that God himself makes people good and sets their wills free, so that no merit precedes his grace.
107. 4.16Augustine leaves unsolved why God makes some his sheep and not others, but insists that there is no injustice with God, since wrath is due and mercy is free.
108. 4.17Augustine argues that the church, though cleansed in baptism, still prays daily for forgiveness and will be wholly without spot or wrinkle only in glory.
109. 4.18Augustine affirms that the Holy Spirit made the ancient saints good and that they were truly righteous, yet all confessed their sins, and full righteousness is the reward of the life to come.
110. 4.19Augustine sums up: the Pelagians use praise of five goods to lead people into three errors, which he has now answered.
111. 4.20Augustine announces that, besides Scripture, he will cite earlier Catholic writers to show that the doctrine he defends is ancient, while ranking them below the canonical books.
112. 4.21Augustine cites Cyprian's On Works and Alms to show that Cyprian taught inherited wounds from Adam, sins after baptism, and humanity's loss of paradise.
113. 4.22Augustine cites Cyprian's On Mortality and On Patience, which speak of paradise lost and of the whole human race bound by the sentence passed on Adam.
114. 4.23Augustine cites Cyprian's synodal letter to Fidus, which approved baptizing infants before the eighth day because they contract Adam's sin, though not sins of their own.
115. 4.24Augustine argues that Cyprian's words on paradise restored and infant baptism prove that he taught original sin, without condemning creation or marriage.
116. 4.25Augustine quotes Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer, the Testimonies, and On Patience to show that Cyprian ascribed every good to God's grace.
117. 4.26Augustine argues from Cyprian that even avoiding grave sin and converting persecutors depend on grace sought in prayer, without denying free choice.
118. 4.27Augustine quotes Cyprian repeatedly to show that he held no one to be without sin in this life and taught daily prayer for forgiveness.
119. 4.28Augustine argues that Cyprian, while praising the saints, taught that no one is sinless in this life and that perfect righteousness, peace, and joy belong to the kingdom to come.
120. 4.29Augustine cites several works of Ambrose, whom Pelagius praised, to show that Ambrose taught original sin while honoring creation and marriage.
121. 4.30Augustine cites Ambrose to show that even the beginning of good thoughts and prayer comes from God's grace, and that the law alone cannot convert the heart.
122. 4.31Augustine cites Ambrose to show that no one is perfectly sinless in this life and that full purity and the vision of God belong to the life to come.
123. 4.32Augustine concludes that Cyprian and Ambrose show the faith he defends to be ancient, continuous, and Catholic.
124. 4.33Augustine shows that Catholic teachers praise all five goods, unlike the Manichees, yet affirm original sin, prevenient grace, and the saints' need of forgiveness.
125. 4.34Augustine rejects the demand for a general synod, arguing that most heresies are condemned without one, and closes by commending the church to Christ, the Shepherd of shepherds.