On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.1–1.19

How much we rejoice over your bodily and above all your spiritual well-being, most sincere brothers beloved of God, Albina, Pinianus, and Melania, we cannot express, and so we leave it to you to consider and believe, so that we may now rather speak of the matters on which you consulted us. For since the bearer was in haste, we have dictated these things, as best we could, as much as God deigned to grant, amid our occupations, which are much more crowded at Carthage than anywhere else.

You wrote to me that you had urged Pelagius to condemn in writing whatever was alleged against him, and that he had said in your hearing: 'I anathematize whoever thinks or says that the grace of God, by which Christ came into this world to save sinners, is not necessary not only for every hour or every moment, but also for every one of our acts; and let those who try to take it away receive eternal punishment.' Whoever hears these words and does not know his meaning, which he has expressed clearly enough in his books (not those which he says were stolen from him before he had corrected them, or which he denies altogether are his, but those which he mentions in the letter he sent to Rome), thinks that he holds exactly what the truth holds. But whoever notices what he says more openly in them ought to hold even these words suspect. For although he places the grace of God, by which Christ came into the world to save sinners, in the forgiveness of sins alone, he can fit these words to that meaning by saying that it is necessary for every hour, every moment, and every act in this sense: that by always keeping in memory and recalling that our sins have been forgiven, we may sin no more, aided not by any supply of strength but by the powers of our own will, which recalls in every act what has been granted to it by the forgiveness of sins. Again, since they are accustomed to tell us that Christ gave us help for not sinning in this, that by living righteously himself and teaching righteously he left an example, they can also fit these words to this, saying that grace of this kind is necessary to us for every moment and every act, namely, that in all our conduct we should look to the example of the Lord's conduct. But your faith sees clearly how far such a confession is to be distinguished from the confession of the grace that is in question; and yet it can be concealed by the ambiguity of their words.

But what wonder? For Pelagius himself, although in the episcopal proceedings he condemned without any objection those who say that the grace and help of God is not given for individual acts but consists in free choice or in the law and teaching (where we thought all his evasions on this matter had been used up), and although he also condemned those who teach that the grace of God is given according to our merits, is nevertheless shown in the books he published in defense of free choice, which he mentions in the letter he sent to Rome, to hold nothing other than what he seemed to have condemned. For he places the grace and help of God, by which we are helped not to sin, either in nature and free choice or in the law and teaching; so that, when God helps a man to turn away from evil and do good, he is believed to help by revealing and showing what ought to be done, not also by cooperating and inspiring love, so that he may do what he has come to know he should do.

For he sets up and distinguishes three things by which he says the divine commandments are fulfilled: capacity, will, and action; capacity, by which a man can be righteous; will, by which he wills to be righteous; action, by which he is righteous. Of these three he confesses that the first, capacity, is given by the Creator of nature and is not in our power, but that we have it even if we do not want it; but the other two, will and action, he asserts are ours, and he attributes them to us in such a way as to contend that they are from us alone. Accordingly, he maintains that the grace of God helps not those two which he wants to be entirely ours, will and action, but the one that is not in our power and is ours from God, capacity; as though the things that are ours, will and action, were so strong for turning away from evil and doing good that they need no divine help, while what is ours from God, capacity, were so weak that it is always helped by the aid of grace.

But lest anyone perhaps say that we either do not understand rightly what he says or with malicious intent twist into another sense what was not so said, now hear his own words. 'We,' he says, 'distinguish these three things thus, and divide them as if arranged in a definite order. In the first place we set being able, in the second willing, in the third being. Being able we place in nature, willing in choice, being in effect. The first, being able, belongs properly to God, who conferred it on his creature; but the other two, willing and being, are to be referred to man, because they come down from the source of choice. Therefore in will and good work the praise is man's, or rather both man's and God's, who gave the capacity for that very will and work and who always helps that very capacity by the aid of his grace. But that a man is able to will and accomplish good is of God alone. So that one can exist even if these two do not, but these cannot exist without that one. And so I am free not to have either a good will or an action, but I can in no way not have the capacity for good: it is in me even if I do not want it, and nature never in this respect admits any rest from it. Let some examples make this meaning clearer for us. That we can see with our eyes is not ours; but that we see well or badly is ours. That we can speak is God's; but that we speak well or badly is ours. And to embrace everything in general: that we can do, say, and think every good thing is his who gave this being able and who helps this being able; but that we act or speak or think well is ours, because we can also turn all these things to evil. Hence, and this must often be repeated because of your slander, when we say that a man can be without sin, we also praise God by confessing the capacity we have received, who bestowed this being able on us; and there is no occasion there for praising man, where the cause of God alone is being treated; for the discussion is not about willing or about being, but only about what can be.'

See, the whole teaching of Pelagius is carefully expressed in exactly these words in his third book in defense of free choice, in which he has taken care to distinguish these three things, the first being able, the second willing, the third being, that is, capacity, will, and action, with such subtlety that whenever we read or hear him confess the help of divine grace for turning away from evil and doing good, whether he places it in the law and teaching or anywhere else, we may know what he means and not err by understanding him otherwise than he thinks. For we must know that he does not believe that either our will or our action is helped by divine aid, but only the capacity for will and work, which alone of these three he affirms we have from God; as though what God himself placed in nature were weak, while the other two, which he wanted to be ours, were so firm and strong and self-sufficient that they need no help from him; and therefore he does not help us to will, he does not help us to act, but only helps us to be able to will and act. On the contrary, the apostle says, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.' And so that they might know that they are divinely helped not only in being able to work (for this they had already received in nature and in teaching) but also in actually working, he does not say, 'For it is God who works in you being able,' as though they already had both willing and working through themselves and did not need his help in these two; but he says, 'For it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish,' or, as is read in other and especially Greek manuscripts, 'both to will and to work.' See whether the apostle did not foresee by the Holy Spirit so long beforehand the future adversaries of the grace of God, and said that God works in us these two things, willing and working, which this man wanted to be ours in such a way as though they were not helped by the aid of divine grace.

Nor let Pelagius deceive the unwary and simple, or even himself, by the fact that after saying, 'Therefore in will and good work the praise is man's,' he as it were corrected himself and added, 'or rather both man's and God's.' For he did not say this because he wanted it understood, according to sound teaching, that God works in us both willing and working; but he shows clearly enough why he said it by immediately adding, 'who gave the capacity for that very will and work.' And it is clear from his earlier words that he places this capacity in nature. But so as not to seem to have said nothing about grace, he added, 'and who always helps that very capacity by the aid of his grace.' He does not say 'that very will' or 'that very working' (had he said this, he would not seem to depart from the apostle's teaching), but he says 'that very capacity,' that is, the one of the three which he placed in nature, he 'always helps by the aid of his grace.' So in will and action the praise is not both God's and man's for this reason, that man wills in such a way that God nevertheless inspires the ardor of love in his will, and man works in such a way that God nevertheless cooperates (and without his help what is man?); but he added God to this praise for this reason, that unless there were the nature in which he created us, by which we could will and act, we would neither will nor act.

As for his confessing that this natural capacity is helped by the grace of God, it is not clear here either what grace he means or how far he thinks nature is helped by it; but, as can be understood from other passages where he speaks more plainly, he wants nothing else to be understood than the law and teaching by which natural capacity is helped. For in one place he says: 'Here the most ignorant of men think that we do injury to divine grace because we say that it in no way accomplishes holiness in us without our will; as though God had commanded something to his grace and did not also supply the aid of his grace to those to whom he gave commands, so that what men are commanded to do through free choice they might more easily fulfill through grace.' And, as if about to explain what grace he means, he went on to add: 'which we confess to be, not, as you think, in the law only, but also in the help of God.' Who would not want him here to show what grace he wants understood? For this above all we ought to expect from him, since he says that he confesses grace not in the law only. But while we are held in this expectation, see what he added: 'For God helps us,' he says, 'through his teaching and revelation, when he opens the eyes of our heart; when he shows us future things, so that we may not be taken up with present ones; when he lays bare the snares of the devil; when he illumines us with the manifold and ineffable gift of heavenly grace.' Then, concluding his statement as if with an acquittal, he says: 'Does he who says this seem to you to deny grace? Or does he confess both the free choice of man and the grace of God?' In all this he has not departed from commending the law and teaching, carefully impressing that this is the helping grace, and following out what he had proposed when he said, 'but also in the help of God.' In short, he thought the help of God should be conveyed in many ways, by mentioning teaching, revelation, the opening of the eyes of the heart, the showing of future things, the laying bare of the devil's snares, and illumination by the manifold and ineffable gift of heavenly grace, all of it certainly to this end, that we may learn the divine commands and promises. This, then, is to place the grace of God in law and teaching.

From this it appears that he confesses the grace by which God shows and reveals what we ought to do, not that by which he gives and helps us to do it; whereas the knowledge of the law, if the help of grace is lacking, avails rather to bring about transgression of the commandment. 'For where there is no law,' says the apostle, 'there is no transgression either,' and, 'I would not have known covetousness if the law had not said, You shall not covet.' And so the law and grace are so different that the law not only does no good but even does very great harm unless grace helps; and the usefulness of the law is shown in this, that those whom it makes guilty of transgression it compels to flee to grace to be set free and to be helped to overcome evil desires. For it commands rather than helps; it shows that there is a disease, it does not heal it; indeed, what is not healed is rather increased by it, so that the medicine of grace may be sought more attentively and anxiously, because 'the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.' 'For if a law had been given that could give life, righteousness would indeed be from the law.' Yet how far the law does help, he adds and says: 'But Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise might be given by faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.' 'Therefore the law,' he says, 'was our pedagogue in Christ Jesus.' This very thing, then, is useful to the proud: to be shut up more tightly and more plainly under sin, so that they may not presume to do righteousness by the supposedly proper powers of free choice, but that 'every mouth may be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God; because by the law no flesh will be justified in his sight; for through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.' How then is it manifested apart from the law, if it is witnessed by the law? It is not, then, manifested apart from the law, but it is righteousness apart from the law, because it is the righteousness of God, that is, righteousness that is ours not from the law but from God: not that which is feared by knowing it when he commands, but that which is held by loving it when he gives; so that 'he who glories may glory in the Lord.'

Why is it, then, that this man counts as grace, by which we are helped to do righteousness, the law and teaching, which, however much it helps, helps only to this end, that grace may be sought? For no one can fulfill the law through the law; for 'love is the fulfillment of the law,' and 'the love of God has been poured out in our hearts' not through the law but 'through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.' Accordingly, grace is pointed out by the law, so that the law may be fulfilled by grace. What does it help Pelagius to say the same thing in different words, so as not to be understood to place in law and teaching the grace by which he asserts the capacity of nature is helped? As far as I judge, he fears to be understood because he condemned those who say that the grace and help of God is not given for individual acts but consists in free choice or in the law and teaching; and yet he thinks he escapes notice when he turns over the meaning of law and teaching in one expression after another.

In another place too, after asserting at length that a good will is produced in us not by the help of God but from ourselves, he raised against himself a question from the apostle's letter, and said: 'And how will that saying of the apostle stand: For it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish?' Then, to solve, as it were, this objection, which he saw was strongly opposed to his teaching, he went on to add: 'He works in us to will what is good, to will what is holy, when, as we are given over to earthly desires and, like dumb animals, love only present things, he kindles us by the greatness of future glory and the promise of rewards; when by the revelation of wisdom he rouses a stupefied will to the desire for God; when he urges on us' (which you elsewhere do not fear to deny) 'everything that is good.' What could be plainer than that he calls grace, by which God works in us to will what is good, nothing but the law and teaching? For in the law and teaching of the holy Scriptures the greatness of future glory and rewards is promised; to teaching also belongs the revealing of wisdom; to teaching belongs the urging of everything that is good. And if there seems to be some difference between teaching and urging, or rather exhorting, this too is included under the general heading of teaching, which is contained in any words or writings; for the holy Scriptures both teach and exhort, and there can also be human activity in teaching and exhorting. But we want these people at some time to confess that grace by which the greatness of future glory is not only promised but also believed and hoped for; by which wisdom is not only revealed but also loved; by which everything that is good is not only urged but also persuaded. For not all have faith who hear the Lord promising the kingdom of heaven through the Scriptures; nor are all persuaded, whoever are urged, to come to him who says, 'Come to me, all you who labor.' But whose the faith is, and who are persuaded to come to him, he himself showed clearly enough when he said, 'No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,' and a little later, speaking of those who did not believe, 'I told you that no one can come to me unless it has been given him by my Father.' This grace Pelagius ought to confess, if he wants not only to be called but also to be a Christian.

And what shall I say of the revelation of wisdom? For no one would easily hope to attain in this life to the greatness of the revelations of the apostle Paul; and what else must we believe was usually revealed to him in them but what belonged to wisdom? And yet he says: 'Lest I be exalted by the greatness of my revelations, there was given me a goad in my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me. Concerning this I asked the Lord three times to take it away from me, and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness.' Without doubt, if there had already been in the apostle at that time the highest love, to which nothing was to be added, and which could not be puffed up at all, would an angel of Satan have been needed, by whose buffeting the elation that could arise from the greatness of the revelations might be kept down? And what is elation but being puffed up? And it is most truly said of love: 'Love is not jealous, is not puffed up.' This love, then, was still growing day by day even in so great an apostle, as long as his inner man was being renewed day by day, to be made perfect without doubt where it could no longer be puffed up. But at that time his mind was still at the point where it could be puffed up by the greatness of the revelation, until it should be filled with the solid building of love; for he had not yet reached and grasped that toward which he was running as he advanced.

And so to him who did not want to endure the trouble by which his elation was to be restrained, before there was in him the last and highest perfection of love, it is most rightly said: 'My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness': in weakness, that is, not, as that man thinks, of the flesh only, but of both flesh and mind, because the mind too, in comparison with that highest perfection, was weak when it could be exalted. Therefore the goad of the flesh, an angel of Satan, was understood to have been given to it, although in comparison with the carnal or natural men, who do not yet perceive the things of the Spirit of God, the mind was very strong. Therefore, if power is made perfect in weakness, whoever does not confess himself weak is not made perfect. And this grace, by which power is made perfect in weakness, leads those who are predestined and called according to purpose to the highest perfection and glorification. By this grace it is brought about not only that we know what is to be done but also that we do what we know, not only that we believe what is to be loved but also that we love what we believe.

If this grace is to be called teaching, let it certainly be called so in such a way that God is believed to pour it in more deeply and inwardly with ineffable sweetness, not only through those who plant and water outwardly but also through himself, who secretly supplies his own increase, so that he not only shows the truth but also imparts love. For so God teaches those who are called according to purpose, giving them at once both to know what they should do and to do what they know. Hence the apostle speaks thus to the Thessalonians: 'Concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.' And to prove that they had been taught by God, he added: 'For indeed you do this toward all the brothers in all Macedonia,' as though this were the surest sign that you have learned from God, if you have done what you have learned. In this way all who are called according to purpose are, as is written in the Prophets, 'taught by God.' But he who knows what ought to be done and does not do it has not yet learned from God according to grace, but according to the law, not according to the Spirit but according to the letter; although many seem to do what the law commands from fear of punishment, not from love of righteousness, which the apostle calls 'his own righteousness, which is from the law,' as though it were commanded, not given. But if it is given, it is not called our righteousness but God's, because it becomes ours in such a way that it is ours from God. For he says: 'that I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through the faith of Jesus, the righteousness from God.' So great, then, is the difference between the law and grace that, though the law is undoubtedly from God, the righteousness that is from the law is not from God, but the righteousness that is completed through grace is from God. For the righteousness called 'from the law' is that which is done because of the curse of the law; the righteousness called 'from God' is that which is given through the kindness of grace, so that the commandment is not terrible but sweet, as is prayed in the psalm: 'You are sweet, O Lord, and in your sweetness teach me your righteousness'; that is, so that I may not be forced slavishly by fear of punishment to be under the law, but may delight in free love to be with the law. For he who does the commandment freely does it as a free man. And whoever learns in this way does absolutely whatever he has learned should be done.

Of this manner of teaching the Lord also says, 'Everyone who has heard from my Father and learned comes to me.' Of whoever does not come, then, it is not rightly said, 'He has indeed heard and learned that he ought to come, but he will not do what he has learned'; this is not rightly said at all of the manner of teaching by which God teaches through grace. For if, as the Truth says, 'everyone who has learned comes,' whoever does not come has certainly not learned. And who does not see that a person both comes and does not come by the choice of the will? But this choice can be alone if he does not come; but it cannot be other than helped if he comes, and helped in such a way that he not only knows what is to be done but also does what he knows. And therefore, when God teaches not through the letter of the law but through the grace of the Spirit, he so teaches that what each person has learned he not only sees by knowing it, but also desires by willing it and accomplishes by doing it. And by this divine manner of teaching the will itself and the working itself are helped, not only the natural capacity for willing and working. For if only our being able were helped by this grace, the Lord would have said, 'Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned can come to me.' But he did not say so; he said, 'Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me.' Pelagius places being able to come in nature, or even, as he has lately begun to say, in grace, whatever he means by it, by which, as he says, the capacity itself is helped; but coming is already a matter of will and work. And it does not follow that whoever can come also comes, unless he has willed it and done it. But everyone who has learned from the Father not only can come but comes. Here there is at once the advance of capacity, the affection of will, and the effect of action.

What, then, do his examples mean, except that they have indeed made his meaning clearer to us, as he promised? Not so that we should agree with them, but so that we may know more plainly and openly what he himself thought. 'That we can see with our eyes,' he says, 'is not ours; but that we see well or badly, this is ours.' Let the psalm answer him, where it is said to God, 'Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity.' Although this was said of the eyes of the mind, it is certainly from there that seeing well or badly proceeds into these eyes of the flesh; not in the sense in which those who look with healthy eyes are said to see well and those with bleary eyes badly, but seeing well so as to give help, seeing badly so as to lust. For although through these outer eyes are seen both the poor man who is helped and the woman who is lusted after, yet it is from the inner eyes that mercy or lust proceeds to seeing badly or well. Why, then, is it said to God, 'Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity'? Why is something asked that belongs to our own power, if God does not help the will?

'That we can speak,' he says, 'is God's; but that we speak well or badly is ours.' This is not what he teaches who speaks well: 'For it is not you,' he says, 'who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.' 'And to embrace everything in general,' he says, 'that we can do, say, and think every good thing is his who gave this being able and who helps this being able.' See, here too he repeats his earlier meaning, that of those three, capacity, will, and action, only capacity is helped. Then, adding a clause to complete what he intends, he says, 'but that we act or speak or think well is ours.' He has forgotten what he had earlier as it were corrected, where, after saying, 'Therefore in will and good work the praise is man's,' he added, 'or rather both man's and God's, who gave the capacity for that very will and work.' Why did he not remember this in these examples too, so as at least to say at their end: 'that we can do, say, and think every good thing is his who gave this being able and who helps this being able; but that we act or speak or think well is both ours and his'? He did not say this; but, unless I am mistaken, I think I see what he feared.

For when he wanted to show why it is ours, he said, 'because we can also turn all these things to evil.' This, then, is what he feared, and why he did not say 'it is both ours and God's': lest it be answered to him, 'If what we do, say, and think well is both ours and God's because he gave us this being able, then what we do, say, and think badly is also both ours and God's, because he gave that being able for both'; and so (far be it!) just as we are praised together with God in good works, so we would be blamed together with him in evil ones. For that capacity which he gave makes us able to do evil as well as good.

Of this capacity Pelagius speaks thus in his first book in defense of free choice: 'We have,' he says, 'the capacity for either side implanted by God, like a kind of fruitful and fertile root, so to speak, which according to the will of man brings forth and bears different things, and which can, at the choice of its own cultivator, either shine with the flower of virtues or bristle with the thorns of vices.' Here, not noticing what he says, he makes one and the same root of good and evil things, contrary to the truth of the Gospel and the teaching of the apostle. For the Lord says that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit; and the apostle Paul, when he says that covetousness is the root of all evils, certainly gives us to understand that love is the root of all goods. Hence, if the two trees, the good and the bad, are two men, a good one and a bad one, what is a good man but one of good will, that is, a tree of good root? And what is a bad man but one of bad will, that is, a tree of bad root? For the fruits of these roots and trees are deeds, words, and thoughts, which proceed good from a good will and bad from a bad one.