Letters 177.1–178.3

From two councils, of the province of Carthage and of Numidia, we have sent Your Holiness letters signed by no small number of bishops, against the enemies of the grace of Christ, who trust in their own strength and in a way say to our Creator, “You made us men, but we have made ourselves righteous.” They call human nature free so that they may not seek a liberator, and sound so that they may judge the Savior superfluous; for they say it is so strong that, by the powers it received once for all at the origin of its creation, it can through free choice, with no further help from the grace of him who created it, tame and extinguish all desires and overcome temptations. Many of them rise up against us and say to our soul, “There is no salvation for him in his God.” The household of Christ, which says, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” and to which its Lord says, “I am your salvation,” waits with anxious heart, in fear and trembling, for the Lord's help, through the love also of Your Reverence.

For we have heard that in the city of Rome, where he lived for a long time, there are some who favor him for various reasons: some, it is said, because he persuaded them of such things; more, because they do not believe he holds such views, especially since it is boasted that church proceedings took place in the East, where he is living, by which he is thought to have been cleared. If the bishops there pronounced him Catholic, it must be believed that this happened for no other reason than that he said he confessed the grace of God, and said that a person can live righteously by his own effort and will, in such a way as not to deny that he is helped in this by the grace of God. For on hearing these words the Catholic bishops could understand no other grace of God than the one they were accustomed to read in God's books and preach to God's peoples: namely, that of which the apostle says, “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain”; without doubt the grace by which we are justified from iniquity and saved from weakness, not that by which we were created with our own will. For if those bishops had understood that he meant by grace that which we have even in common with the ungodly, with whom we are human beings, while denying the grace by which we are Christians and sons of God, who of the Catholic priests, we will not say, would have listened to him patiently, but would have tolerated him before their eyes? So the judges are not to be blamed, for they heard the word “grace” in the church's usual sense, not knowing what men of this kind are accustomed to spread, either in the books of their teaching or in the ears of their followers.

It is not a question of Pelagius alone, for he has perhaps been corrected already (would that it were so!), but of so many people with whom everything everywhere is now full: arguing talkatively, dragging weak and untaught souls along as if convinced, and wearying the strong and steadfast in faith by their very contentiousness. So either he should be summoned to Rome by Your Reverence and carefully questioned as to what grace he means when he confesses (if indeed he now confesses it) that people are helped not to sin and to live righteously; or this should be taken up with him by letter. And when he is found to mean the grace that the church's and apostles' truth teaches, then he should be acquitted without any scruple on the church's part, without any hiding place of ambiguity; then truly we should rejoice at his clearing.

For whether he says that grace is free choice, or that grace is the forgiveness of sins, or that grace is the commandment of the law, he says nothing of what belongs, through the supply of the Holy Spirit, to overcoming desire and temptations: the Spirit whom he poured out most richly upon us who ascended into heaven, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men. For this is why we pray that we may overcome the temptation to sin, that the Spirit of God, whose pledge we have received, may help our weakness. And whoever prays, saying, “Lead us not into temptation,” certainly does not pray to be a human being, which he is by nature; nor does he pray to have free choice, which he already received when that very nature was created; nor does he pray for the forgiveness of sins, because that is said earlier, “Forgive us our debts”; nor does he pray to receive the commandment; but plainly he prays to do the commandment. For if he is led into temptation, that is, if he gives way in temptation, he certainly commits sin, which is against the commandment. So he prays not to sin, that is, not to do anything evil, as the apostle prays for the Corinthians, saying, “But we pray to the Lord that you do nothing evil.” Hence it is clear enough that for not sinning, that is, for not doing evil, although there is no doubt that the choice of the will exists, yet its power does not suffice unless its weakness is helped. Prayer itself, then, is the clearest testimony to grace; let him confess this, and we shall rejoice in him, whether he has been right or has been set right.

Law and grace must be distinguished. Law knows how to command, grace how to help. Law would not command unless there were a will, nor would grace help if the will were enough. We are commanded to have understanding, where it is said, “Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding,” and yet we pray to have understanding, where it is said, “Give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments.” We are commanded to have wisdom, where it is said, “You fools, be wise at last,” and yet prayer is made that we may have wisdom, where it is said, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given him.” We are commanded to have self-control, where it is said: … and yet prayer is made that we may have self-control, where it is said, “When I knew that no one can be continent unless God gives it, and this itself was a mark of wisdom, to know whose gift it was, I went to the Lord and besought him.” Finally, not to go through everything at too great length, we are commanded not to do evil, where it is said, “Turn away from evil,” and yet prayer is made that we may not do evil, where it is said, “But we pray to the Lord that you do nothing evil.” We are commanded to do good, where it is said, “Turn away from evil and do good,” and yet prayer is made that we may do good, where it is said, “We do not cease praying and asking for you”; and among the other things he prays for them, he says, “that you may walk worthily of God, pleasing him in all things, in every good work and word.” So just as we recognize the will when these things are commanded, let him too recognize grace when they are asked for.

We have sent Your Reverence a book which was given to us by some devout and honorable young men, servants of God, whose names we do not keep silent; for they are called Timasius and James, who (as we have heard, you also deign to know them) at the exhortation of Pelagius himself abandoned the hopes they had in the world and now serve God in continence. When at last, with the Lord's inspiration, through our efforts such as they were, they had become free of that error, they brought forward this book, saying it was Pelagius's, and urgently asked that it be answered. This was done; the answer was written back to them; they wrote back giving thanks. We have sent both, the work answered and the answer, and, so as not to burden you too much, we have marked the places which we ask you not to mind examining: how, when the question was put to him that he denied the grace of God, he answered in such a way as to say that it is nothing but the nature in which God created us.

But if he denies that this book is his, or that those passages are in the book, we do not dispute it; let him anathematize them and confess most openly that grace which Christian teaching shows and preaches to be proper to Christians: which is not nature, but that by which nature is saved and helped, not by teaching sounding in the ears or by some visible aid, as one plants in a way and waters from outside, but by the supply of the Spirit and hidden mercy, as God does, who gives the growth. For although, in a sense not to be rejected, the grace of God is said to be that by which we were created, so that we should not be nothing, nor be something in such a way as a corpse that does not live, a tree that does not perceive, or a beast that does not understand, but human beings, who exist and live and perceive and understand and are able to give thanks to our Creator for so great a benefit (and so this too can rightly be called grace, because it was given not for the merits of any preceding works but by God's free goodness), yet there is another grace, by which, predestined, we are called, justified, and glorified, so that we can say, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all.”

It was about this grace that the question turned when those whom Pelagius seriously offended and disturbed said to him that he was attacking it by his arguments, in which he asserted that human nature suffices of itself through free choice not only for doing but also for perfecting the divine commandments. The apostles' teaching calls by this name the grace by which we are saved and justified by faith in Christ. Of this it is written: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain.” Of this it is written: “You who are justified by the law are cut off from Christ; you have fallen from grace.” Of this it is written: “But if by grace, then no longer by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Of this it is written: “To one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt; but to one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness”; and much else, which you yourself can better remember, understand more wisely, and preach more brilliantly. But that grace by which we were created human beings, though we understand that it may rightly be called so, it would still be surprising if we read it so called in any of the writings of the law, the prophets, the Gospels, or the apostles.

So when the question was raised against him about this grace, best known to faithful Catholic Christians, that he should stop attacking it, how is it that, when he himself raised this objection against himself in his book, as if from an opponent, so as to clear himself by answering, he replied nothing else than that the nature of created man reflects the grace of the Creator, and that he therefore says that righteousness can be fulfilled without sin through free choice with the help of divine grace, because God has given this to man by the very capacity of nature? To him it is rightly answered: “Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed; then Christ died in vain.” For even if he had not died for our offenses and risen for our justification, nor, when he ascended on high, leading captivity captive, given gifts to men, this capacity of nature which he defends would still have been in human beings.

Or was God's commandment perhaps lacking, and was that why Christ died? No, this too already existed, holy and just and good; already it had been said, “You shall not covet”; already it had been said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” in which word the apostle says the whole law is fulfilled. And since no one loves himself unless he loves God, the Lord says that the whole law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, which had already been given to men by God. Or had the eternal reward of righteousness not yet been promised? He himself does not say this, for he stated in his writings that the kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament. If, then, the capacity of nature through free choice already existed for doing and perfecting righteousness, if the holy, just, and good commandment of God's law already existed, if the eternal reward had already been promised, then Christ died in vain.

So righteousness comes neither through the law nor through the capacity of nature, but from faith and the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, the one mediator between God and men. Had he not died in the fullness of time for our offenses and risen for our justification, surely the faith of the ancients would have been emptied, and ours too. And once faith is emptied, what righteousness remains to man, since the righteous lives by faith? For ever since sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and so passed to all men, in whom all sinned, without doubt no one has been freed, or is freed, from the body of this death, where another law wars against the law of the mind, by his own capacity, which, being lost, needs a redeemer, and, being wounded, a savior; but by the grace of God through faith in the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who, being God, made man, and, remaining God, being made man, himself remade what he had made.

But I think he is unaware that the faith of Christ, which later came to be revealed, was hidden in the times of our fathers, and yet through it they too were freed by the grace of God: all who in all the ages of the human race could be freed by the hidden, yet not blameworthy, judgment of God. Hence the apostle says, “Having the same spirit of faith” (certainly the same as they had), “as it is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we too believe, and therefore we also speak.” Hence the Mediator himself says, “Abraham longed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad”; hence Melchizedek, bringing forth the sacrament of the Lord's table, knew how to prefigure his eternal priesthood.

And then the law was given in writing, which the apostle says came in so that the offense might abound, and of which he says: “For if the inheritance is from the law, it is no longer from the promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Why then the law? It was set forth for the sake of transgression, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? By no means. For if a law had been given that could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law. But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise might be given from faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.” Is it not shown clearly enough that this was done through the law: that sin might be recognized and increased by transgression (“for where there is no law, there is no transgression”), and so, against the victory of sin, refuge might be taken in the divine grace that is in the promises; and that thus the law is not against the promises of God, because through it comes knowledge of sin and from transgression of the law an abundance of sin, so that the promises of God, which is the grace of God, may be sought for deliverance, and righteousness may begin to exist in man, not his own but God's, that is, given by God's gift?

Even now some, as was said then of the Jews, being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For they too think they are justified through the law, with free choice sufficing them for keeping it, that is, by their own righteousness produced from human nature, not given by divine grace, which is why it is called the righteousness of God. Hence it is also written: “For through the law comes knowledge of sin; but now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, attested by the law and the prophets.” When he says, “has been manifested,” he shows that it existed then too, but like that rain which Gideon obtained, then hidden as in the fleece, now manifest as on the threshing floor. So, since the law without grace could be not the death of sin but its power (for so it was said: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law”), just as many now flee from the face of reigning sin to grace, lying open as on the threshing floor, so few fled to it then, hidden as in the fleece. This distribution of times belongs to the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, of which it was said: “How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways!”

Therefore, if both before the time of the law and in the time of the law itself the righteous fathers, living by faith, were justified not by the capacity of a nature that is weak, needy, corrupted, and sold under sin, but by the grace of God through faith, and now that same grace, coming into the open, justifies as revealed, then let Pelagius anathematize his writings in which, if not from obstinacy then from ignorance, he argues against it by defending the capacity of nature to overcome sins and fulfill the commandments; or, if he denies that they are his, or says that writings he denies are his were inserted among his own by his enemies, let him nevertheless anathematize and condemn them at the fatherly exhortation and by the authority of Your Holiness. If he is willing, let him learn to remove a scandal burdensome to himself and pernicious to the church, a scandal which his hearers and those who love him perversely do not cease to spread everywhere. For if they learn that this book, which they either think or know to be his, has been anathematized and condemned by him himself on the authority of Catholic bishops, and above all of Your Holiness, which we have no doubt carries greater weight with him, we do not think they will dare any longer, by speaking against the grace of God revealed through the passion and resurrection of Christ, to trouble faithful and simply Christian hearts; rather, with the help of the Lord's mercy, through your prayers burning with love and piety as you strive together with us, they will trust, not in their own strength but in that same grace, not only to be blessed forever but also to be righteous and holy. For this reason we have thought it better to direct to Your Blessedness a letter written by one of us to Pelagius himself, who had sent him, through an Eastern deacon who is a citizen of Hippo, certain writings as a kind of self-defense; judging it better, and asking, that you yourself be so good as to send it to him; for so he will be less disdainful of reading it, paying more attention in it to the one who sent it than to the one who wrote it.

As for what they say, that a person can be without sin and keep God's commandments easily if he wishes: although this seems more tolerable to say when it is said to be by the help of grace (grace revealed and given through the incarnation of God's only-begotten Son), yet, since one may not unreasonably ask where and when it is brought about in us by that same grace that we are without any sin at all (whether in this life, when the flesh lusts against the spirit, or in that life, when the saying that is written shall come to pass, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin”), it must be treated more carefully, because of certain others who have held wrongly and committed to writing that even in this life a person can be without sin, not from the beginning of his birth but by conversion from sins to righteousness and from a reprobate life to a good one. For this is how they understood what is written of Zechariah and Elizabeth, that they walked in all the ordinances of the Lord without complaint. They took “without complaint” to mean “without sin,” not denying, but even, as is found in other places in their writings, devoutly confessing the help of the grace of our Lord, not through man's natural spirit but through the sovereign Spirit of God. They seem to have paid too little attention to the fact that Zechariah was certainly a priest; and all priests at that time were obliged by God's law first to offer sacrifice for their own sins, then for the people's. So, just as we are now convicted by the sacrifice of prayer of not being without sin, since we have been commanded to say, “Forgive us our debts,” so then too the priests were convicted by the sacrifices of animal victims of not being without sin, since they were commanded to offer for their own sins.

If the case is this, that through the Savior's grace we make progress in this life, as desire wanes and love grows, but are made perfect in that life, when desire is extinguished and love completed, then surely what is written, “Whoever is born of God does not sin,” was said with respect to love itself, which alone does not sin. For to the birth that is from God belongs love, which is to be increased and perfected, not desire, which is to be diminished and consumed; yet as long as desire is in our members, it wars by a law of its own against the law of the mind. But one born of God, neither obeying its desires nor presenting his members to sin as weapons of iniquity, can say, “It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me.”

But however this question stands, since, though no one is found in this life without sin, it is still said that this can come about by the help of the grace and Spirit of God (and that it may come about we must strive and pray), anyone mistaken in this is mistaken tolerably; and it is not diabolical impiety but human error to assert what must be worked for and desired, even if one cannot show what he asserts; for he believes possible what it is certainly praiseworthy to want. For us it is enough that no believer is found in God's church, at whatever stage of progress and excellence in righteousness, who would dare to say that the petition of the Lord's Prayer, “Forgive us our debts,” is not necessary for him, and say that he has no sin, lest he deceive himself and the truth not be in him, even though he already lives without complaint. For what brings complaint is not any sin of human temptation whatever, but grave sin.

As for the other things charged against him, Your Blessedness will without doubt judge of them according to how you find them defended in the proceedings. The most gentle kindness of your heart will surely pardon us for having sent Your Holiness a letter perhaps longer than you would wish. For we are not pouring back our little stream to swell your abundant fountain; but in this not small temptation of the times, from which may he deliver us to whom we say, “Lead us not into temptation,” we wish you to confirm whether our stream too, small as it is, flows from the same head of waters as your abundant one, and to console us by your reply about our common share in the one grace.

When our honorable son Palladius was sailing from our shore, by asking a favor he rather conferred one, since he gave me the opportunity to commend not only him to your kindness but also myself to your prayers, most blessed lord and brother venerable in the love of Christ. As I do this, Your Holiness will certainly do what we both presume of you. How things stand with us, since I know your love is concerned for us as ours is for you, Your Holiness will hear from the bearer I have mentioned. Yet I will say briefly what is most necessary. A certain new heresy, hostile to the grace of Christ, is trying to rise up against the church of Christ, though it has not yet been clearly separated from the church: the heresy of men who dare to attribute so much power to human weakness that they maintain that only this belongs to the grace of God: that we were created with free choice and the possibility of not sinning, and received God's commandments to be fulfilled by us; but that for keeping and fulfilling these commandments we need no divine help. The forgiveness of sins, they say, is indeed necessary for us, because we cannot make undone the evil we have done in the past; but for guarding against future sins, overcoming them, and conquering all temptations by strength, the human will suffices by its natural capacity, without any further help from the grace of God. Nor, they say, do little children need the grace of the Savior, by which they are freed from perdition through his baptism, because they have contracted no contagion of condemnation from Adam.

How hostile these things are to the grace of God, which has been granted to the human race through Jesus Christ our Lord, and how they strive to overthrow the foundations of the whole Christian faith, Your Reverence sees together with us. Nor ought we to be silent before you, so that with pastoral care you may beware of men of this kind, whom we would rather see healed within the church than cut off from it, and this is what we wish and pray for. For already, when we were writing this, we had learned that in the church of Carthage a decree of a council of bishops had been drawn up against them, to be sent by letter to the holy and venerable Pope Innocent; and we too, from the council of Numidia, had already written likewise to the same apostolic see.

For all of us who have hope in Christ ought to resist this pestilent impiety and condemn and anathematize it with one accord. It contradicts even our prayers. It does grant that we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” but grants it in such a way as to assert that a person, in this corruptible body which weighs down the soul, can by his own powers reach such righteousness that it is not even necessary for him to say, “Forgive us our debts.” And what follows, “Lead us not into temptation,” they do not take as if God should be asked to help us overcome the temptations of sins, but that no human mishap should strike and afflict us bodily; since to overcome the temptations of sins is, they hold, so placed in our power by the capacity of nature that we should consider it vain to ask for it in prayer. We cannot gather in one short letter all, or most, of the arguments of so great an impiety, especially since, as I wrote this, the bearers, about to sail, would not let me linger longer. But I think I have not been burdensome to your holy mind in not being able to keep silent about so great an evil, which must be avoided with all vigilance, with the Lord's help.