Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.15–3.5

For us, in the case of these two twins, who beyond doubt had one and the same condition, the difficulty of the question why one died thus and the other thus, the apostle, as it were, solved by not solving it. For when he himself too had put forward something of the kind about two twins, of whom, "not from works", because they had not yet done anything good or evil, "but from him who calls", it was said, "The elder will serve the younger", and "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated"; and when he had brought the dread of this depth so far as to say, "So then he has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills", he at once perceived what this would stir up and set against himself the words of an objector, to be restrained by apostolic authority. For he says: "You will say then to me: Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?" And he answered the one saying this: "O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me thus?' Or does the potter not have power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?" Then, following up so great and hidden a secret, he opened it as far as he judged it should be opened to men, saying: "But if God, willing to show his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath, fitted for perdition, and in order to make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he prepared for glory." This is not only the help of God's grace, but also its lesson: help, namely, in the vessels of mercy, but in the vessels of wrath a lesson. For in them he shows his wrath and makes known his power, because his goodness is so powerful that he uses well even evil things; and in them he makes known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, since what the justice of the one who punishes exacts from the vessels of wrath, the grace of the one who sets free remits to the vessels of mercy. Nor would the benefit that is given freely to some be apparent, unless God, by condemning others from the same lump, equally guilty, with just punishment, showed what was due to both. "For who distinguishes you?" says the same apostle to a man glorying as if of himself and of his own good. "For who distinguishes you?" From the vessels of wrath, of course, from the lump of perdition, which through one man sent all into condemnation. "Who distinguishes you?" And, as if he had answered, "My faith distinguishes me, my purpose, my merit", he says: "For what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?", that is, as if that by which you are distinguished were your own. So he distinguishes you who bestows that by which you are distinguished, removing the punishment that is due, bestowing the grace that is not due. He distinguishes, who, when darkness was over the abyss, said, "Let there be light", and there was light, and divided, that is, distinguished, between the light and the darkness. For when there was darkness alone, he found nothing to distinguish; but by making light he distinguished, so that it may be said to the justified ungodly: "For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord"; and so let him who glories glory not in himself but in the Lord. He distinguishes, who, of those not yet born and who had done nothing good or evil, "so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not from works but from him" who calls, said, "The elder will serve the younger", and commending this very thing afterward through the prophet said, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." For he spoke of election where God does not find something made by another for him to choose, but himself makes what he may find, as it is written of the remnant of Israel: "A remnant has come about through the election of grace. But if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace." For this reason you are surely foolish: when the Truth says, "not from works, but from him who calls it was said", you say that Jacob was loved from future works which God foreknew he would do, and so you contradict the apostle who says "not from works", as though he could not have said "not from works, but from future works". But he says "not from works" in order to commend grace; "but if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace." For grace goes before, not due but free, so that good works may come about through it; lest, if good works went before, grace should be paid as if to works, and so grace be no longer grace.

But so that every hiding place of your fog might be taken from you, I proposed such twins, who were neither helped by the merits of their parents and both died at the very beginning of infancy, one baptized, the other without baptism, lest you should say that God foreknew their future works, as you say of Jacob and Esau against the apostle. For how did he foreknow as future those works which, since they were to die in infancy, he rather foreknew, because his foreknowledge cannot be deceived, would not come about? Or what does it profit those who are snatched from this life "lest wickedness change their understanding or deceit beguile their soul", if even sin that was not done, said, or thought is punished as though it had been committed? But if it is most absurd, most senseless, most insane that any human beings should be condemned for those sins whose guilt, as you say, they could not contract from their parents, and which they could not only not commit but not even think, then that unbaptized twin brother of the baptized one returns to you and silently asks you why he was separated from his brother's happiness, why he was punished with that unhappiness, so that, while the other was adopted among the sons of God, he himself did not receive the sacrament necessary, as you admit, for all ages, if, just as there is no fortune or fate or respect of persons with God, so there is no gift of grace without merits and no original sin. To this infant you utterly lower your tongue and voice; to him who does not speak you have nothing to say.

Now let us see, as we can, that very thing which they want to precede in man, so that he may be held worthy of the help of grace, and so that grace may not be granted to his merit as undue but paid back as due, and so grace be no longer grace; let us nevertheless see what it is. "Under the name of grace," they say, "they assert fate, so that they say that, unless God has breathed into an unwilling and resisting man the desire for good, and that imperfect, he can neither turn away from evil nor lay hold of good." We have already shown how empty their talk about fate and grace is. Now what we must attend to is whether God breathes into an unwilling and resisting man the desire for good, so that he is no longer resisting, no longer unwilling, but consenting to the good and willing the good. For these men want the desire for good in man to begin from man himself, so that the grace of accomplishing may also follow as the merit of this beginning. If, that is, they want even this; for Pelagius says that what is good is fulfilled "more easily" if grace helps. By this addition, that is, by adding "more easily", he certainly signifies that he holds that, even if the help of grace is lacking, the good can be fulfilled, though with more difficulty, through free choice. But let us not prescribe what these men think on this matter from that author of the heresy (let us allow them, with their free choice, to be free even of Pelagius himself), and let us rather attend to these words of theirs which they set down in this letter to which we are replying.

For they thought fit to charge us with saying that God breathes into an unwilling and resisting man the desire, not of any good whatever, but even of imperfect good. Perhaps, then, they themselves preserve a place for grace at least in this way: they think that without it a man can have the desire of good, but of imperfect good, while of the perfect good he can have it not merely more easily through grace, but not at all except through it. But even so they say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, which Pelagius in the East, fearing to be condemned, condemned in ecclesiastical proceedings. For if the desire for good begins from us without the grace of God, that very beginning will be a merit, to which the help of grace comes as if by debt; and so the grace of God will not be given freely, but will be given according to our merit. But the Lord, to answer the future Pelagius, did not say, "Without me you can do anything only with difficulty", but said, "Without me you can do nothing." And to answer these future men too, in that very same gospel saying, he did not say, "Without me you can accomplish nothing", but "do". For if he had said "accomplish", these men could say that God's help is necessary not for beginning the good, which is from us, but for accomplishing it. But let them hear the apostle too. For when the Lord says, "Without me you can do nothing", in this one word he includes beginning and end; but the apostle, as an expounder of the Lord's saying, distinguished both more openly, saying: "Since he who began a good work in you will accomplish it until the day of Christ Jesus." But in the holy Scriptures, in the same apostle, we find more on the point of which we are speaking. For we are speaking now of the desire for good, and if they want it to begin from us and be accomplished by the Lord, let them see what they answer to the apostle when he says: "Not that we are sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." He says "to think anything", certainly anything good; and to think is less than to desire. For we think everything we desire, yet we do not desire everything we think, since sometimes we think even what we do not desire. Since, then, to think is less than to desire (for a man can think of a good which he does not yet desire, and by advancing afterward desire what earlier he thought of without desiring it), how is it that for what is less, that is, for thinking something good, we are not sufficient as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, while for what is more, that is, for desiring something good, we are sufficient from free choice without divine help? For here too the apostle does not say, "Not that we are sufficient to think what is perfect as from ourselves", but he says "to think anything", to which the contrary is "nothing". Hence that saying of the Lord: "Without me you can do nothing."

But evidently, by not understanding well what is written, "It belongs to man to prepare the heart, and from the Lord is the answer of the tongue", they are deceived into thinking that to prepare the heart, that is, to begin the good, belongs to man without the help of God's grace. Far be it that the children of the promise should understand it so, as though, when they hear the Lord saying, "Without me you can do nothing", they would refute him by saying, "See, without you we can prepare the heart"; or, when they hear from the apostle Paul, "Not that we are sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God", as though they would refute him too by saying, "See, we are sufficient from ourselves to prepare the heart, and therefore also to think something good." For who can prepare the heart for good without a good thought? Far be it that anyone should understand it so, except proud defenders of their own choice and deserters of the Catholic faith. For it is written, "It belongs to man to prepare the heart, and from the Lord is the answer of the tongue", for this reason: because man prepares the heart, yet not without the help of God, who so touches the heart that man prepares the heart. But in the answer of the tongue, that is, in the divine tongue answering the prepared heart, man has no part of the work, but the whole is from the Lord God.

For just as it is said, "It belongs to man to prepare the heart, and from the Lord is the answer of the tongue", so also it is said, "Open your mouth, and I will fill it." For although we cannot open the mouth except with the help of him without whom we can do nothing, yet we open it with his help and by our own work, but the Lord fills it without our work. For what is it to prepare the heart and to open the mouth but to prepare the will? And yet in the same Scriptures we read, "The will is prepared by the Lord", and "You will open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise." See, God admonishes us to prepare the will in what we read, "It belongs to man to prepare the heart", and yet, that man may do this, God helps, because "the will is prepared by the Lord". And he says "Open your mouth" by commanding in such a way that no one can do it unless he himself does it by helping, to whom it is said, "You will open my lips." Or are these men so foolish as to contend that the mouth is one thing and the lips another, and say with wonderful vanity that man opens the mouth, God the man's lips? But God restrains them even from this absurdity, where he says to Moses his servant: "I will open your mouth and instruct you in what you ought to say." So in that saying where it is said, "Open your mouth, and I will fill it", one of the two seems to belong to man and the other to God; but in this one, where it is said, "I will open your mouth and instruct you", both belong to God. Why is this, except that in one of these he works together with the man who acts, and the other he does alone?

Therefore God does many good things in man which man does not do; but man does none which God does not cause man to do. Accordingly, the desire for good would not be from the Lord to man if it were not good; but if it is good, it is ours only from him who is supremely and unchangeably good. For what is the desire for good but love, of which the apostle John speaks without ambiguity, saying, "Love is from God"? Nor is its beginning from us and its perfection from God; but if love is from God, the whole of it is ours from God. For may God turn away this madness, that in his gifts we make ourselves first and him second, since "his mercy will go before me", and he is the one to whom it is faithfully and truly sung: "For you went before him with blessings of sweetness." And what is more fittingly understood here than that very desire for good of which we are speaking? For the good begins to be desired when it has begun to grow sweet; but when the good is done from fear of punishment, not from love of righteousness, the good is not yet done well, nor is it done in the heart which seems to be done in the work, since the man would rather not do it if he could with impunity. So the blessing of sweetness is the grace of God, by which it comes about in us that what he commands us delights us and we desire it, that is, love it. And in this, if God does not go before us, it is not only not accomplished, but not even begun from us. For if without him we can do nothing, surely we can neither begin nor accomplish, since, that we may begin, it is said, "His mercy will go before me", and, that we may accomplish, it is said, "His mercy will follow me."

What is it, then, that in what follows, where they recall what they themselves hold, they say that they confess "also that grace helps the good purpose of each person, but does not implant the zeal for virtue in one who resists"? For they say this as if a man had a good purpose and zeal for virtue from himself without the help of God, by which preceding merit he would be worthy to be helped by God's grace following. For perhaps they think that the apostle said, "We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to purpose", in such a way that he wanted the purpose of man to be understood, a purpose which, as a good merit, the mercy of God who calls would follow; not knowing that "who are called according to purpose" was said so that the purpose of God, not of man, would be understood, by which he chose before the foundation of the world those whom "he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son". For not all who are called are called according to purpose, since "many are called, few are chosen". Those, then, are called according to purpose who were chosen before the foundation of the world. Of this purpose of God was said also what I have already mentioned about the twins Esau and Jacob: "so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not from works but from him who calls, it was said to her that the elder will serve the younger." This purpose of God is mentioned also in that place where he writes to Timothy: "Labor with the gospel according to the power of God, who saves us and calls us with his holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before eternal ages, but has now been made manifest through the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ." This, then, is the purpose of God, of which it is said, "All things work together for good for those who are called according to purpose." But the good purpose of man is indeed helped by grace following, yet it would not itself exist unless grace went before. Also man's zeal which is called good, although, when it has begun to exist, it is helped by grace, yet does not begin without grace, but is breathed in by him of whom the apostle says: "But thanks be to God, who gave the same zeal for you in the heart of Titus." If God gives it that each should have zeal for others, who else will give it that he should have it for himself?

Since this is so, I see nothing commanded to man by the Lord in the holy Scriptures for the purpose of proving free choice which is not found either to be given by his goodness or to be asked for, in order to show the help of grace; nor does a man at all begin to be changed from evil to good through the beginning of faith unless the undeserved and free mercy of God works this in him. Recalling his own thought about this, someone says, as we read in the Psalms: "Will God forget to be merciful, or will he shut up his compassion in his anger? And I said: Now I have begun; this change is of the right hand of the Most High." So when he had said, "Now I have begun", he did not say, "This change is of my choice", but "of the right hand of the Most High". Let the grace of God, then, be so thought of that from the beginning of his good change to the end of its completion he who glories may glory in the Lord; because, just as no one can accomplish good without the Lord, so no one can begin it without the Lord. But let this be the end of this book, so that the reader's attention may be refreshed and restored for what follows.

There still follow the things which they slanderously charge against us; they do not yet begin to set out what they themselves hold. But so that the length of the volumes might not give offense, we have divided these very charges into two books; the former of these being finished, which is the second book of this whole work, we now begin the other, and join it as the third to the first and second.

They say that we say that the law of the Old Testament was given not in order to justify those who obey it, but to become the cause of greater sin. They entirely fail to understand what we say about the law, because we say what the apostle says, whom they do not understand. For who would say that those who are obedient to the law are not justified, when, unless they were justified, they could not be obedient? But we say that by the law it comes about that what God wills to be done is heard, but by grace that the law is obeyed. "For not the hearers of the law," says the apostle, "are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified." The law, then, makes hearers of righteousness, grace makes doers. "For what was impossible for the law," says the same apostle, "in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." See what we say; let them pray that they may at some time understand, not quarrel so that they never understand. For it is impossible to fulfill the law through the flesh, that is, through carnal presumption, by which the proud, "ignorant of the righteousness of God" (that is, the righteousness which is from God to man so that he may be righteous), "and wishing to establish their own", as though the law could be fulfilled through their choice unhelped by God, "have not submitted to the righteousness of God". Therefore the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh, that is, according to man ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish his own, but walk according to the Spirit. And who walks according to the Spirit but whoever is led by the Spirit of God? "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." So "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Nor is the letter evil because it kills, but it convicts the evil of transgression. "For the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did what is good, then," he says, "become death to me? Far from it. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death for me through what is good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment." See what "the letter kills" means. "For the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law"; for by prohibiting it increases the desires of sin, and so kills, unless grace gives life by coming to help.

See what we say; see the source from which they charge us with saying that the law was given to be the cause of greater sin, not hearing the apostle say: "For the law works wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression either"; and: "The law was added because of transgression, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made"; and: "If a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would certainly be from the law. But the Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise might be given from faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe." Hence it is that the Old Testament, from Mount Sinai, where the law was given, bears children for slavery; this is Hagar. "But we," he says, "are not children of the maidservant, but of the free woman." So those are not children of the free woman who received the law of the letter, by which they could be shown to be not only sinners but transgressors besides, but those who received the Spirit of grace, by whom the law itself, holy and just and good, can be fulfilled. See what we say; let them pay attention and not contend, let them be enlightened and not slander.

"They assert also," they say, "that baptism does not truly make men new, that is, does not give full forgiveness of sins; but they contend that men become sons of God in part, but in part remain sons of the world, that is, of the devil." They lie, they lay snares, they shuffle; we do not say this. For we say that all men who are sons of the devil are also sons of the world, but not that all sons of the world are also sons of the devil. For far be it that we should say that the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and others of this kind were sons of the devil when they begot children through marriage, or those believers who until now and still hereafter beget. Yet we cannot contradict the Lord when he says: "The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage." Some, then, are sons of this world and yet are not sons of the devil; for although the devil is the author and prince of all sins, yet not every sin makes men sons of the devil. For even the sons of God sin, since, if they say they have no sin, they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them; but they sin in the condition in which they are still sons of this world; but in so far as they are sons of God by grace, they certainly do not sin, because "everyone who is born of God does not sin". But unbelief makes men sons of the devil, and this is called sin in the proper sense, as if it were the only one, if what kind of sin is not specified, just as when "the apostle" is said, if it is not specified which apostle, only Paul is understood, because he is better known through more letters and labored more than all of them. Hence, when the Lord said of the Holy Spirit, "He will convict the world of sin", he wished unbelief to be understood. For when he explained this he said, "Of sin, because they did not believe in me"; and where he says, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin." For it is not that they had no sin before; but he wished that very unbelief to be understood by which they did not believe him even when he was present and speaking, belonging as they did to him of whom the apostle says, "according to the prince of the power of the air, who now works in the sons of unbelief". Those, then, in whom there is no faith are sons of the devil, because they do not have in the inner man that for which whatever is committed through human weakness or ignorance, or through any evil will at all, might be forgiven them. But those are sons of God who, if they say they have no sin, surely deceive themselves and the truth is not in them; and certainly, as follows, when they confess their sins (which the sons of the devil do not do, or do not do according to the faith that is proper to the sons of God), "he is faithful and just to forgive them their sins and to cleanse them from all iniquity". But so that what we say may be more fully understood, let Jesus himself be heard, who was certainly speaking to sons of God when he said: "If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" For if they were not sons of God, he would not say to them, "your Father who is in heaven". And yet he says that they are evil and know how to give good things to their children. Are they evil from the same source from which they are sons of God? Far from it; but they are evil from the fact that they are still sons of the world, though already made sons of God by the pledge of the Holy Spirit.

Baptism, then, washes away all sins, absolutely all, of deeds, words, and thoughts, whether original or added, whether committed in ignorance or knowingly; but it does not take away the weakness which the regenerate man resists when he fights the good fight, but to which he consents when, being a man, he is overtaken in some fault; rejoicing on account of the former in giving thanks, but groaning on account of the latter in offering prayers; saying in the one case, "What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me?", in the other, "Forgive us our debts"; saying on account of the former, "I will love you, O Lord, my strength", on account of the latter, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak"; saying on account of the former, "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the snare", on account of the latter, "My eye is troubled with anger"; and innumerable things of which the divine Scriptures are full, which are said by the sons of God from faith with alternating voices, either exulting over God's good things or grieving over our own evils, as long as they are still sons also of this world, because of the weakness of this life. Yet God distinguishes them from the sons of the devil not only by the washing of regeneration but also by the uprightness of that faith which works through love, because the righteous lives by faith. But this weakness, with which we contend until the death of the body, with failure and progress alternating, and it matters greatly which prevails in us, will be consumed by another regeneration, of which the Lord says: "In the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his majesty, you also will sit on twelve thrones", and so on. For in this place, as no one doubts, he calls the final resurrection "regeneration", which the apostle Paul too calls both adoption and redemption, saying: "But we ourselves also, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body." Have we not been regenerated, adopted, redeemed through the holy washing? And yet there remains a regeneration, adoption, redemption, which is to come at the end and which we must now wait for patiently, so that then we may no longer be sons of this world in any part. Whoever, then, detracts from baptism what we now receive through it corrupts faith; but whoever attributes to it already now what we shall indeed receive through it, but afterward, cuts off hope. For if anyone asks me whether we have been saved through baptism, I cannot deny it, since the apostle says: "He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." But if he asks whether through that same washing he has already saved us in absolutely every way, I shall answer: it is not so. For the same apostle likewise says: "For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." The salvation of man, then, has been accomplished in baptism, because what he contracted of sin from his parents has been forgiven, and also whatever he himself sinned personally before baptism; but his salvation will afterward be so great that he cannot sin at all.