Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.28–4.34

Let the Pelagians say, if they dare, that this man of God was perverted by the error of the Manichees, because he so praises the saints as yet to confess that no one in this life reaches such perfection of righteousness as to have no sin at all, confirming his statement by the clear truth and divine authority of canonical testimonies. For does he deny that all sins are forgiven in baptism, because he confesses that frailty and weakness remain, from which he says we sin after baptism and have an unceasing conflict with carnal vices until the end of this life? Or did he not remember what the apostle had said about the spotless church, because he warned that no one ought so to flatter himself about a pure and spotless heart that, relying on his innocence, he thinks no medicine need be applied to his wounds? I suppose that the new heretics grant this Catholic man knowledge that the Holy Spirit helped good minds even in ancient times; indeed also, what they themselves do not want, that men could not have good minds except through the Holy Spirit. I suppose that Cyprian knew that all the prophets and apostles, or any saints who have pleased the Lord at any time, were righteous not in comparison with criminals, as these men slander us for saying, but by the rule of virtues, as they boast of saying; yet he says: "No one can be without sin, and whoever says he is blameless is either proud or foolish." And for no other reason does he understand what is written, "Who will boast that he has a chaste heart, or who will boast that he is clean from sins?" I suppose that Cyprian did not need to be taught by these men what he knew very well: that in the time to come there is a reward of good works and a punishment of evil ones; but that no one can fulfill there the commandments which he despised here. And yet even of the apostle Paul himself, certainly no despiser of the divine commandments, he understands and asserts that he said, "To me to live is Christ and to die is gain", for no other reason than that he counted it the greatest gain, after this life, to be no longer held by the snares of the world, no longer to be liable to any sins and vices of the flesh. The most blessed Cyprian perceived, then, and saw clearly in the truth of the divine Scriptures, that even the life of the apostles themselves, however good, holy, and righteous, endured some bonds of worldly snares and was liable to some sins and vices of the flesh; and that therefore they desired death, so as to be free of these evils and to arrive at that perfect righteousness which would not suffer these things and would no longer be something to be done under command but something to be received as reward. For when what we pray for in saying "Your kingdom come" has come, it is not that there will be no righteousness in that kingdom of God, since the apostle says: "For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." These three, indeed, are commanded among the other divine precepts. Here righteousness is commanded us when it is said, "Do righteousness"; peace is commanded when it is said, "Have peace among yourselves"; joy is commanded when it is said, "Rejoice in the Lord always." Let the Pelagians, then, deny that these will exist in the kingdom of God, where we shall live without end; or let them go so far in madness, if they please, as to contend that righteousness, peace, and joy will be there such as they are here for the righteous. But if they will both exist and not be such, surely here their exercise is to be attended to as a command, there their perfection is to be hoped for as a reward, where, held by no worldly snares and liable to no sins and vices of the flesh (on account of which the apostle, as Cyprian took this testimony, said that to die was gain for him), we may love God perfectly, whose contemplation will be face to face; and may love our neighbor perfectly too, when, the thoughts of the heart being made manifest, no suspicion of any evil can trouble anyone about anyone.

But now, to refute these men more fully, let us add to the most glorious martyr Cyprian the most blessed Ambrose, since Pelagius too so praised him as to say that not even his enemies could find anything to criticize in his books. Since, then, the Pelagians say that there is no original sin with which infants are born, and charge Catholics, who resist them on behalf of the most ancient and firm faith of the church, with the crime of the Manichaean heresy, let Ambrose answer them on this matter, a Catholic man of God, praised even by Pelagius himself for the truth of his faith. Expounding the prophet Isaiah, he says: "Therefore Christ is spotless, because he was not stained even by the usual condition of being born." And in another place in the same work, speaking of the apostle Peter: "He himself offered," he says, "what he had before thought to be a sin, asking that not only his feet but also his head be washed for him, because he had at once understood that by the washing of the feet, of those who fell in the first man, the filth of guilty descent is abolished." Likewise in the same work: "It was kept, then," he says, "that no one born of a man and a woman, that is, through that union of bodies, should be seen to be free of offense; but he who is free of offense is free also of conception of this kind." Likewise, writing against the Novatians: "All of us human beings," he says, "are born under sin, whose very origin is in fault, as you have read, David saying: 'See, in iniquities I was conceived, and in offenses my mother bore me.'" Likewise in the Apology of the Prophet David: "Before we are born," he says, "we are stained by contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of our very origin; we are conceived in iniquity." Likewise, speaking of the Lord: "For it was fitting," he says, "that he who was not to have the sin of bodily fall should feel no natural contagion of generation. Rightly, then, did David tearfully lament in himself the very defilements of nature, and that stain began in man before life." Likewise in On Noah's Ark: "Through the one Lord Jesus," he says, "salvation is declared as coming to the nations, who alone could be righteous when every generation was going astray, precisely because, born of a virgin, he was not held at all by the privilege of guilty generation. 'See,' he says, 'in iniquities I was conceived, and in offenses my mother bore me', says he who was thought righteous above others. Whom, then, should I now call righteous, except one free of these bonds, whom the bonds of common nature do not hold?" See, a holy man, most approved in the Catholic faith even by the testimony of Pelagius, refutes with such clarity the Pelagians who deny original sin; and yet he does not, with the Manichees, either deny that God is the maker of those who are born or accuse marriage, which God instituted and blessed.

The Pelagians say that merit begins from man through free choice, and that God, following, repays it with the aid of grace. Here too let the venerable Ambrose refute them, saying in his Exposition of the Prophet Isaiah: "Because human care without divine help is too weak to heal, it seeks God as helper." Likewise in the book entitled On Flight from the World: "Frequent," he says, "is our talk of fleeing this world; and would that the disposition were as cautious and careful as the talk is easy! But what is worse, the enticement of earthly desires often creeps in, and the outpouring of vanities takes hold of the mind, so that what you strive to avoid, this you think of and turn over in your mind. This is difficult for a man to guard against, and impossible to put off. Finally the prophet testifies that it is a matter of wish rather than of accomplishment, saying: 'Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to avarice.' For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power; poured over us unexpectedly, they confuse the mind and spirit and draw them elsewhere than you had proposed; they call back to worldly things, insert things of this world, thrust in things of pleasure, weave in enticements; and at the very time when we are preparing to lift up the mind, empty thoughts being inserted, we are for the most part cast down to earthly things. And who is so blessed as always to ascend in his heart? But how can this be done without divine help? In no way at all. Finally, above, the same Scripture says: 'Blessed is the man whose help is from you, O Lord; ascents are in his heart.'" What can be said more plainly and sufficiently? But lest the Pelagians perhaps answer that by the very fact that divine help is asked for, man's merit goes before, saying that this itself is merit, because by praying one becomes worthy that divine grace should come to his help, let them attend to what this same holy man says in the Exposition of Isaiah: "And to pray to God," he says, "is a spiritual grace. For no one says 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit." Hence also, expounding the gospel according to Luke: "You see, certainly," he says, "that everywhere the power of the Lord cooperates with human efforts, so that no one can build without the Lord, no one guard without the Lord, no one begin anything without the Lord." Does so great a man as Ambrose, because he says these things and commends the grace of God with grateful piety, as befits a son of the promise, therefore destroy free choice? Or does he want that grace to be understood which the Pelagians, by different turns of speech, will have seen only as the law, namely that God is believed to help us not to do what we have come to know, but to come to know what we should do? If they think this man of God holds this, let them hear what he said about the law itself. In the book On Flight from the World he says: "The law could stop the mouths of all; it could not convert the mind." Likewise in another place in the same book: "The law," he says, "condemns the deed; it does not take away the malice." Let them see that a faithful and Catholic man agrees with the apostle, who says: "But we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God; because no flesh will be justified by the law in his sight." For from this apostolic meaning Ambrose took and wrote those things.

Now, since the Pelagians say that there are or have been righteous men in this life who lived without any sin, so much so that the future life, which is to be hoped for as a reward, cannot be more advanced and more perfect, let Ambrose answer and refute them on this point too. For, expounding the prophet Isaiah, on account of what is written there, "I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have despised me", he undertook to discuss the generations which are from God, and in that discussion he recalled the testimony of John, where he says, "He who is born of God does not sin." And treating this most difficult question, he says: "Since there is no one in this world who is free from sin, since John himself says, 'If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar', if those born of God do not sin, and we understand this of those who are in this world, we must reckon them to be the countless who have obtained the grace of God through the regeneration of the washing. But yet, since the prophet says: 'All things wait for you to give them food in due season; when you give it to them they will gather it; when you open your hand all things will be filled with goodness; but when you turn away your face they will be troubled. You will take away their spirit and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth', these can be seen as said not of any time whatever but of the future, when there will be a new earth and a new heaven. They will be troubled, then, so as to take a beginning, and when you open your hand all things will be filled with goodness, which is not easily the case in this age. For what does Scripture say of this age? 'There is none who does good, there is not even one.' If, then, there are different generations, and this entry into this life is a receiver of offenses, so much so that even he who begot is despised, while the other generation does not receive sins, let us see whether our regeneration is not after the course of this life, of which it was said, 'In the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his glory.' For just as the regeneration of the washing is spoken of, through which, the filth of sins wiped away, we are renewed, so there seems to be spoken of a regeneration through which, purified from every stain of bodily compactness, we are regenerated with clean sense of soul into eternal life; because the quality of that regeneration is in some way purer than that of this washing, so that no suspicion of sins may fall not only on its acts but not even on our very thoughts." Likewise in another place in the same work: "We see," he says, "that it is impossible that anyone should be perfectly spotless while placed in the body, since even Paul calls himself imperfect. For he says thus: 'Not that I have already received or am already perfect.' And yet a little after he says: 'As many of us, then, as are perfect'; unless perhaps because there is one perfection in this world and another after, that perfection of which he says to the Corinthians, 'When what is perfect has come', and elsewhere, 'until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.' So, just as the apostle says that many placed in this world are perfect together with him, who, if you look to true perfection, could not be perfect, since he himself said, 'Now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know as I also have been known', so also they are spotless in this world and will be spotless in the kingdom of God; though certainly, if you examine more minutely, no one can be spotless, because no one is without sin." Likewise in the same: "You see," he says, "that while we live this life, we ought to cleanse ourselves and seek God and begin from the cleansing of our soul and as it were lay the foundations of virtue, so that after this life we may deserve to obtain the perfection of purification." And likewise in the same: "Weighed down, however," he says, "and groaning, who would not say: 'Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?' So with the same teacher we resolve all the varieties of interpretation. For if everyone is wretched who recognizes that he is entangled in the troubles of the body, then certainly every body is wretched; for I would not call him happy who, confused by certain darknesses of his mind, does not know his own condition. This too comes to the understanding not absurdly: for if a man who knows himself is wretched, surely all are wretched, since each either recognizes his weakness through wisdom or does not know it through folly." Likewise in the book On the Good of Death: "Let death, then, work in us," he says, "so that life too may work; a good life after death, that is, a good life after victory, a good life when the contest is finished, so that now the law of the flesh no longer knows how to fight against the law of the mind, so that now we have no struggle with the body of death." Again in the same: "Therefore," he says, "since the righteous have this reward, that they see the face of God and that light which enlightens every man, let us from now on put on such zeal that our soul may draw near to God, our prayer draw near, our desire cleave to him, that we be not separated from him. And placed here, let us be joined to God by meditating, reading, seeking; let us know him as we can. For here we know in part, because here all things are imperfect, there perfect; here little children, there grown strong. 'Now we see,' he says, 'through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face.' Then, with unveiled face, it will be granted to behold the glory of God, whom now souls wrapped in the compacted flesh of this body and overshadowed by certain stains and filth of this flesh cannot see clearly. 'For who,' he says, 'will see my face and live?' And rightly; for if our eyes cannot bear the rays of the sun, and if anyone gazes long facing the sun he is said commonly to be blinded; if a creature cannot look upon a creature without harm and injury to itself, how can one, covered with the cast-off skin of this body, see without danger to himself the flashing face of the eternal Creator? For who is justified in the sight of God, when not even an infant of one day can be clean from sin, and no one can boast of the integrity and chastity of his heart?"

It would be too long if I wished to recall all that holy Ambrose said and wrote against this heresy of the Pelagians, which arose so long after: not answering them, indeed, but proclaiming the Catholic faith and building people up in it. But neither could I, nor ought I to, recall all those things which Cyprian, most glorious in the Lord, set down in his letters, by which it may be shown how this faith which we hold is the true and truly Christian and Catholic faith, handed down of old through the holy Scriptures, and so retained and kept by our fathers up to this time, when these men tried to tear it up, and to be retained and kept henceforth by God's favor. For that it was so handed down to Cyprian and by Cyprian, these and similar testimonies brought forward from his writings testify; and that it was so kept up to our times, the things Ambrose wrote about these matters before these men began to bubble up show, as does the fact that Catholic ears everywhere shuddered at their profane novelties; and that it is so to be kept hereafter, the condemnation of some of them and the correction of others has declared wholesomely enough. For whatever they dare to mutter against the sound faith of Cyprian and Ambrose, I do not think they will break out into such great fury as to dare to call these memorable and remembered men of God Manichees.

What is it, then, that with raging blindness of mind they now boast that throughout the whole West a dogma no less foolish than impious has been taken up, when, by the Lord's mercy and his merciful governing of his church, the Catholic faith has kept such watch that, like the dogma of the Manichees, so also the dogma of these men, no less foolish than impious, was not taken up? See, holy and learned men, Catholics as the fame of the whole church attests, praise with due and fitting commendations the creature of God, and marriage instituted by him, and the law given by him through holy Moses, and free choice implanted in the nature of man, and the holy patriarchs and prophets; all five of which the Manichees condemn, partly by denying, partly also by detesting them. From this it appears that these Catholic teachers are far removed from the views of the Manichees. And yet they assert original sin; they assert that the grace of God goes before every merit, over free choice, so as to give truly free divine help; they assert that the saints lived righteously in this flesh in such a way that the help of prayer, by which daily sins are forgiven, was necessary for them; and that perfect righteousness, which cannot have sin, will be in another life the reward of those who have lived righteously here.

What is it, then, that they say: "A signature was extorted from simple bishops sitting in their own places without the gathering of a synod"? Was a written statement extorted from the most blessed men Cyprian and Ambrose, most excellent in the Catholic faith, before these men and against these men, who overturn their impious dogmas with such clarity that we can scarcely find anything clearer to say against them? Or was the gathering of a synod needed so that an open ruin might be condemned? As though no heresy had ever been condemned except by the gathering of a synod; when rather very few are found for whose condemnation such a necessity arose, and there are many, incomparably more, which deserved to be censured and condemned where they arose, and from there could become known through the other lands as things to be avoided. But the pride of these men, which exalts itself so much against God that it wishes to glory not in him but rather in free choice, is understood to be grasping at this glory too, that a synod of East and West be gathered on their account. For since, the Lord resisting them, they cannot pervert the Catholic world, they try at least to disturb it; whereas rather, by pastoral vigilance and diligence, after the competent and sufficient judgment already passed on them, these wolves must be crushed wherever they appear, whether so that they may be healed and changed, or so that they may be avoided for the safety and soundness of others; with the help of the Shepherd of shepherds, who seeks the lost sheep even among little children, who makes sheep holy and righteous freely, and who, though they have been sanctified and justified, yet in this frailty and weakness, because of the daily sins without which one does not live here even when one lives well, both providently teaches them to ask for daily forgiveness and mercifully hears them when they ask.