Works 2

Concerning the remnants of the Pelagian heresy sprouting up again in Gaul, and concerning the complaints of such men against the doctrine of predestination and grace, set forth in the works of Augustine, especially in the book On Rebuke and Grace. To the most blessed lord pope, ineffably wonderful, incomparably to be honored, the most excellent patron, Augustine—from Prosper. Though unknown to you by face, yet to some extent already, if you recall, known to you in mind and conversation; for through my holy brother the deacon Leontius I sent letters and received them. Now too I dare to write to your Blessedness, not only out of zeal for greeting, as then, but also out of affection for that faith by which the Church lives.

For since your most vigilant diligence keeps watch on behalf of all the members of the body of Christ, and fights with the power of truth against the snares of heretical doctrines, I judged that I had no reason whatever to fear that I might be burdensome or troublesome to you in a matter that pertains to the salvation of many, and thereby also to your piety: since I should rather believe myself to be guilty in the future, if I did not refer to the special patron of the faith those things which I understand to be exceedingly destructive.

Many therefore of the servants of Christ who reside in the city of Marseilles think that whatever you have disputed in your holy writings against the Pelagian heretics concerning the calling of the elect according to the purpose of God is contrary to the opinion of the Fathers and to the sense of the Church. And although for some time they preferred to blame their own slowness rather than to censure what they had not understood, and some of them wished to ask of your Blessedness a clearer and more open exposition on this matter, it came about, by the dispensation of God's mercy, that—since certain men within Africa had raised similar objections—you issued the book On Rebuke and Grace, full of divine authority.

When this had been brought to our notice by an unexpected opportunity, we thought that all the complaints of those resisting would be put to rest, because to all the questions concerning which your Sanctity ought to have been consulted, an answer was there given so fully and completely, as though you had taken special pains to settle the matters that were in disorder among us. But when this book of your Blessedness had been reviewed, just as those who before followed the holy and apostolic authority of your teaching were made much more intelligent and better instructed, so those who were hindered by the obscurity of their own persuasion withdrew more averse than they had been.

Their so abrupt dissent is first to be feared on their own account, lest the spirit of Pelagian impiety should delude men so distinguished and so excellent in the pursuit of every virtue; and next, lest the simpler folk, among whom there is great reverence for these men out of regard for their probity, should reckon it safest for themselves to hold what they hear those men assert—men whose authority they follow without judgment. For this is their definition and profession: that indeed every man sinned when Adam sinned, and that no one is saved by his own works, but by the grace of God through regeneration; that nevertheless to all men without exception the propitiation which is in the sacrament of the blood of Christ is set forth;

so that whoever shall have been willing to come to faith and to baptism may be able to be saved. But those who are going to believe, and those who are going to remain in that faith which is thereafter to be aided by the grace of God, God foreknew before the foundation of the world, and predestined into His kingdom those whom, being freely called, He foresaw would be worthy of election and would depart from this life with a good end. And therefore every man is admonished by the divine ordinances to believe and to hope, so that no one may despair of laying hold of eternal life, since a reward is prepared for voluntary devotion.

But this purpose of God's calling, by which, either before the beginning of the world, or in the very creation of the human race, a distinction is said to have been made between those to be chosen and those to be rejected—so that, according as it pleased the Creator, some were created vessels of honor, others vessels of dishonor—they say takes away from the fallen the care of rising again, and brings to the saints an occasion of lukewarmness; on the ground that in either case the labor is superfluous, if neither the rejected man can by any industry enter in, nor the elect by any negligence fall away. For in whatever manner they conduct themselves, nothing other than what God has determined can befall them; and under an uncertain hope the course cannot be steadfast, since, if the choice of the One who predestines holds otherwise, the intention of the one striving is in vain.

And so, they say, all industry is removed and the virtues are taken away, if God's appointment forestalls human wills; and under this name of predestination a certain fatal necessity is introduced; or else the Lord is called the Creator of diverse natures, if no one can be anything other than what he was made. And, to set forth more briefly and fully what they think: whatever in this book your Sanctity has objected to yourself from the sense of those who contradict, whatever also in the books against Julian you have, under this question, most powerfully overthrown when he raised it—all this is clamorously asserted by these holy men with the utmost contentiousness.

And when we bring forward against them the writings of your Blessedness, furnished with the strongest and innumerable testimonies of the divine Scriptures, and, according to the form of your disputations, ourselves also add something by which they may be confuted, they defend their obstinacy by appeal to antiquity, and they affirm that the things which are brought forth from the Epistle of the Apostle Paul writing to the Romans, for the manifestation of the divine grace that forestalls the merits of the elect, were never so understood by any of the churchmen as they are now taken. And when we demand that they themselves expound those passages according to the sense of those whom they choose, they profess that they have found nothing that pleases them, and they require that there be silence about those things whose depth no one has ever reached.

At last their whole stubbornness descends to this: that they declare our faith to be contrary to the edification of the hearers, and so, even if it be true, it ought not to be put forth; because things that are harmful are handed down so as not to be received, and things that cannot be understood are passed over in silence without any danger. But some of these depart so little from the Pelagian paths that, although they are compelled to confess that grace of Christ which forestalls all human merits—lest, if it be rendered to merits, grace be named in vain—

they wish to refer this grace to that condition of every man, in which the grace of the Creator establishes him—who as yet merits nothing prior, because he does not yet exist—as a being of free will and rational, so that through the discernment of good and evil he may be able to direct his will both to the knowledge of God and to obedience to His commandments, and to attain to that grace by which we are reborn in Christ, namely by his natural faculty, by asking, seeking, knocking: so that he therefore receives, therefore finds, therefore enters in, because, having used the good of his nature well, he has, by the help of the initial grace, deserved to attain to that saving grace.

But the purpose of the grace that calls they define altogether in this way: that God has appointed to receive no one into His kingdom save through the sacrament of regeneration, and that to this gift of salvation all men universally are called, whether by the natural law, or by the written law, or by the gospel preaching: so that both those who are willing may become sons of God, and those who have been unwilling to be faithful may be without excuse; because the justice of God consists in this, that those who have not believed should perish; and His goodness appears in this, that He repels no one from life, but indifferently wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Here now they bring forward testimonies by which the exhortation of the divine Scriptures incites the wills of men to obedience—men who out of free will either do what is commanded, or neglect it: and they think it follows that, just as the transgressor is said not to have obeyed because he was unwilling, so neither should it be doubted that the believer was devout for this reason, because he was willing; and that everyone has as much faculty for good as for evil; and with equal momentum the soul moves itself either to vices or to virtues—the soul which, when it desires good things, the grace of God cherishes, and which, when it pursues evil things, a just condemnation receives.

And when, among these things, the multitude of innumerable little children is objected to them—children who, except for original sin, under which all men alike are born in the condemnation of the first man, have as yet no wills of their own, no proper actions, and are not separated apart without the judgment of God, so that, being taken away from the use of this life before the discernment of good and evil, some through regeneration are received among the heirs of the heavenly kingdom, others without baptism pass over among the debtors of perpetual death—they say that such are lost, and such are saved, as the divine knowledge has foreseen they would prove to be in their later years, if they had been preserved to the active age.

Nor do they consider that they are subjecting the grace of God—which they want to be the companion, not the forerunner, of human merits—even to those wills which, according to their own fancy, they do not deny to be forestalled by it. But to such a degree do they subject the election of God to whatever fictitious merits, that, since they invent things past which do not exist, they invent things future which are not going to be; and, by a new kind of absurdity among them, both things not to be done are foreknown, and things foreknown are not done. This foreknowledge of God concerning human merits, according to which they hold that the grace of the One who calls operates, they think they assert for themselves much more reasonably when one comes to the consideration of those nations which either in past ages were left to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv,15),

or even now still perish in the impiety of their ancient ignorance, and no illumination either of the Law or of the Gospel has flashed upon them; while nevertheless, in so far as a door has been opened to the preachers and a way made, the people of the nations which sat in darkness and in the shadow of death has seen a great light (Isa. ix,2; Matt. iv,16); and those who once were not a people are now the people of God; and those on whom He once had not had mercy He now has mercy (Hosea ii,24, and Rom. ix,25): they say that they were foreseen by the Lord as about to believe, and that to each nation the times and the ministries of teachers were so dispensed, as the readiness of good wills was going to arise.

Nor, they say, does this waver, that God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii,4): seeing that they are without excuse who could have been instructed by natural intelligence in the worship of the one true God, and have not heard the Gospel for this reason, that they were not going to receive it. But that for the whole human race our Lord Jesus Christ died, and that absolutely no one is excepted from the redemption of His blood, even if he should pass through this whole life with a mind utterly estranged from Him, because the sacrament of the divine mercy pertains to all men: by which very many are not renewed for this reason, that they are foreknown as not going to have the will to be renewed.

And so, as far as pertains to God, eternal life is prepared for all; but as far as pertains to the freedom of the will, it is laid hold of by those who have believed in God of their own accord, and have received the help of grace by the merit of their belief. But into this preaching of such a grace, these men by whose contradiction we are offended, although they formerly held better views, have for this very reason chiefly betaken themselves; because if they were to profess that all good merits are forestalled by it, and that it is given by grace itself that they can exist, they would of necessity concede that God, according to the purpose and counsel of His own will, by a hidden judgment and a manifest work, fashions one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor (Rom. ix,21);

for no one is justified except by grace, and no one is born except in transgression. But they shrink from confessing this, and they dread to ascribe the merits of the saints to the divine work; nor do they acquiesce that the predestined number of the elect can neither be increased nor diminished, lest the incitements of those exhorting should have no place among the unbelieving and negligent, and the imposition of industry and labor should be superfluous, whose zeal would have to be frustrated if election ceased. For only thus, they say, can each one be called to correction or to advancement, if he knows that by his own diligence he can be good, and that his liberty is for this reason to be aided by God's help, if he has chosen what God commands.

And thus, since in those who have received the season of free will there are two things that effect human salvation—namely the grace of God and the obedience of man—they want obedience to be prior to grace, so that the beginning of salvation is to be believed to stand from him who is saved, not from Him who saves; and that the will of man begets for itself the aid of divine grace, rather than that grace subjects to itself the human will. And since, by the revelation of God's mercy and the instruction of your Blessedness, we have come to know that this is most perverse, we can indeed be steadfast in not believing it, but we are not a match for the authority of those who hold such views: because they far surpass us both in the merits of their life, and some of them, having lately attained the highest honor of the priesthood, stand pre-eminent;

nor does anyone easily dare, except a few intrepid lovers of perfect grace, to oppose the disputations of men so superior. From which there has arisen, not only to those who hear them, but even to those who are heard, a danger that has grown with their dignities; while reverence for them either restrains many in useless silence, or leads them into careless assent; and it seems most wholesome to those very men that scarcely anything is reproved by the contradiction of any. Wherefore, since in these remnants of Pelagian depravity no slight fiber of venom is nourished, if the beginning of salvation is wrongly placed in man; if to the divine will the human will is impiously preferred, so that one is helped for this reason because he willed, not wills for this reason because he is helped;

if the originally evil man is wrongly believed to begin the reception of good not from the supreme Good, but from himself; if God is pleased from any other source than from that which He Himself has given: grant to us in this cause, most blessed pope, best of fathers, as far as you can with the Lord's help, the diligence of your piety, that those things which in these questions are more obscure and more difficult to grasp, you may deign to open up with the clearest expositions. And first, since very many do not think that the Christian faith is violated by this dissension, may you make plain how much danger there is in their persuasion; then how, through this prevenient and cooperating grace, free will is not hindered;

then, whether the foreknowledge of God so abides according to His purpose that the very things which are purposed are to be understood as foreknown; or whether these are varied through the kinds of causes and the species of persons—so that, because the callings are diverse, in those who are saved though they are going to do nothing, the purpose of God alone seems to exist; but in those who are going to do some good, the purpose can stand through foreknowledge—or rather whether uniformly, although foreknowledge cannot be divided from purpose by any distinction of time, foreknowledge nevertheless is in a certain order supported by purpose; and just as there is nothing of whatever affairs which the divine knowledge has not forestalled, so there is nothing of good which has not flowed down into our participation with God as its author.

Lastly, in what way, through this preaching of God's purpose, by which those who are foreordained to eternal life become believers, none of those who are to be exhorted is hindered, nor do they have any occasion for negligence, if they should despair of being predestined. May you also—we beseech you, patiently bearing with our foolishness—demonstrate how that is to be resolved: that when the opinions of earlier writers on this matter are reconsidered, there is found, of nearly all, an equal and a single sentence, by which they received the purpose and predestination of God according to foreknowledge; so that for this reason God made some vessels of honor, others of dishonor, because He foresaw the end of each one, and foreknew, under that very help of grace, in what will and action each one was going to be.

When all these things have been unraveled, and many more besides—things pertaining to this cause which with a deeper insight you can see better—have been shaken out, we believe and hope that not only is our slenderness to be strengthened by the support of your disputations, but also that those very men, whom—illustrious in merits and honors though they are—the fog of this opinion obscures, will receive the most purified light of grace: for of one of them, a man of pre-eminent authority and of spiritual pursuits, the holy Hilary, bishop of Arles, let your Blessedness know that in all other things he is an admirer and follower of your teaching, and that concerning this matter which he draws into complaint, he has for some time now been wishing to convey his own sense to your Sanctity by letters.

But since it is uncertain whether he is going to do this, or with what end he is going to do it, and the weariness of us all, by the providence of God's grace in this present age, finds breathing-space in the vigor of your charity and knowledge: add learning to the humble, add rebuke to the proud. It is necessary and useful even to write again the things that have been written, lest that be esteemed of little weight which is not frequently argued. For men think that to be sound which does not pain; nor do they feel the wound when the skin is drawn over it; but let them understand that it will come to the surgeon's knife, whatever has a persistent swelling.

May the grace of God and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ crown you at all times, and, as you walk from strength to strength, glorify you for ever, most blessed lord pope, ineffably wonderful, incomparably to be honored, most excellent patron.