Either all sinned in that sin, because there was done in a general way by all what all who were to be born were destined to inherit; or it remains for them to say that all sinned in that death. But how this can be understood I do not clearly see. For men die in sin; they do not sin in death. For it is sin that goes before and death that follows, not death that goes before and sin that follows. Indeed, sin is the sting of death, that is, the sting by whose pricking death comes to be, not the sting with which death pricks; just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death, because by that cup death was brought about, not because the cup was made by death or given by death.
But if for this reason sin cannot be understood in those words of the Apostle 'in which all have sinned'—because in the Greek, from which the Epistle was translated, the word 'sin' is placed in the feminine gender—then it remains that all are understood to have sinned in that first man, because all were in him when he sinned, from whom sin is contracted by being born, and which is not loosed except by being reborn. For thus also holy Hilary understood what is written: 'in which all have sinned'; for he says: 'in which, that is, in Adam, all have sinned.' Then he added: 'it is manifest that all sinned in Adam as it were in a lump; for he himself, being corrupted through sin, all whom he begot were born under sin.'
Writing this, Hilary reminded us without ambiguity how 'in which all have sinned' is to be understood. But why does the same Apostle say that we are reconciled to God through Christ, except because we had been made enemies? And what is this except sin? Whence the prophet also says: 'Your sins separate between you and God.' Because of this separation, therefore, a Mediator was sent to take away the sin of the world, through which, as enemies, we were separated, so that, being reconciled, from enemies we might be made sons. Of this indeed the Apostle was speaking; from this it came about that he inserted what he said, that through one man sin entered in. For these are his preceding words:
'But God,' he says, 'commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved in His life; and not only so, but we also glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.' Then he adds: 'Therefore, as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.' Why do the Pelagians shuffle and evade?
If reconciliation through Christ is necessary for all, then sin, by which we were enemies, passed through all, so that we had need to be reconciled. This reconciliation is in the laver of regeneration and in the flesh and blood of Christ, without which not even little ones can have life in themselves. For as there was one unto death because of sin, so there is one unto life because of righteousness, because, 'as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.'
'As through one man's offence judgment came upon all men to condemnation, so also through one man's justification the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.' Who, against these apostolic words, has grown so deaf through the hardness of an unspeakable impiety, that, hearing them, he still contends that death passed into us through Adam without sin—unless he be an assailant of the grace of God, an enemy of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, if he shall persist in this obstinacy? But let it suffice to have said these things against that serpentine cunning of theirs, by which they wish to corrupt simple minds and turn them away from the chastity of the catholic faith, under the guise as it were of praising the creature.
Furthermore, as to the praise of marriage, what does it profit them that, against the Manichaeans—who ascribe marriage not to the true and good God but to the prince of darkness—these men oppose them with words of true piety, saying: 'that the Lord in the Gospel speaks: He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: Increase and multiply and fill the earth; therefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder'? What does it profit them thus to seduce by means of the true toward the false?
For they say this in order that infants may be believed to be born free from all guilt, and thus have no need to be reconciled to God through Christ, since they have no original sin—on account of which reconciliation is necessary for all through the One who came into the world without sin, just as the enmities of all were made through the one through whom sin entered into the world. This is what is believed in the catholic sense, for the saving of the nature of men, with the praise of marriage kept safe; because the praise of marriage is the lawful union of the sexes, not the wicked defence of vices. And through this, when these men, by praising marriage, wish to draw men over from the Manichaeans to themselves, they desire to change their disease for them, not to heal it.
Again, in the praise of the law, what does it profit them that against the Manichaeans they speak the truth, when from this they wish to lead over to that which they falsely hold against catholics? For they say: 'We confess that the old Law also, according to the Apostle, is just and holy and good, which was able to confer eternal life upon those who kept its commandments and lived righteously by faith, such as the prophets and patriarchs and all the saints.' By these most craftily placed words they praise the law against grace. For it was not that law, holy and just and good though it was, but the faith which is in Christ, that was able to confer eternal life upon all those men of God.
For this faith works through love, not according to the letter which kills, but according to the spirit which gives life; to which grace of God the law, by terrifying on account of transgression, leads as a schoolmaster, so that thus there may be conferred upon man what the law itself could not confer. For to those words of theirs, in which they say 'that the law was able to confer eternal life upon the prophets and patriarchs and all the saints who kept its commandments,' the Apostle replies: 'If righteousness be by the law, then Christ died in vain. If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. If they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect. But because in the law no one is justified before God, it is manifest that the just shall live by faith;'
'The law, however, is not of faith; but the man that does them shall live in them.' This testimony, cited by the Apostle from the law, is understood either as referring to temporal life—for fear of losing which men performed the works of the law, not out of faith, because transgressors of the law were commanded by that same law to be put to death by the people—or, if it is to be understood more deeply, that it was written concerning eternal life, 'he that does them shall live in them,' then the command of the law was so expressed that the weakness of man, failing in itself to do what the law commands, might rather seek help from the grace of God by faith, by whose mercy even faith itself is granted. For thus indeed faith is possessed, 'as God has apportioned to each one the measure of faith.'
For if men have it not from themselves, but receive the spirit of power and of love and of self-control—whence the same teacher of the Gentiles says: 'For we have not received the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control'—then assuredly the spirit of faith is also received, of which he says: 'having the same spirit of faith.' Truly, then, the law says: 'He that does them shall live in them.' But in order that one may do them and live in them, it is not the law which commands this, but faith which is necessary, which obtains this. And yet this very faith, that it may deserve to receive these things, is itself given freely. Nowhere, however, do these enemies of grace contrive more hidden snares for more vehemently attacking that same grace, than where they praise the law, which is without doubt to be praised.
For by various modes of speech and diversity of words they wish, in all their disputations, that grace should be understood as the law: namely, that we should have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, whereby we may know the things that are to be done—not the inspiration of love, that we may do with holy love the things we know, which is properly grace. For the knowledge of the law without love puffs up, does not edify, according to the same Apostle, who says most plainly: 'Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.' This sentence is similar to that in which it is said: 'The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.'
For as 'knowledge puffs up,' so is 'the letter kills'; and as 'love edifies,' so is 'the spirit gives life'; because 'the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.' The knowledge of the law, therefore, makes a proud transgressor, but through the gift of love it delights one to be a doer of the law. We do not, then, make void the law through faith, but we establish the law, which by terrifying leads to faith. For this reason indeed the law works wrath, that to him who is terrified and turned toward fulfilling the righteousness of the law, the mercy of God may bestow grace through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the wisdom of God, of whom it is written:
'He carries law and mercy upon His tongue'—the law by which He may terrify, the mercy by which He may succour; the law through a servant, the mercy through Himself; the law as it were in the staff which Elisha sent to raise up the widow's son, and he did not rise again—for if a law had been given which could give life, righteousness would indeed be wholly by the law—but the mercy as it were in Elisha himself, who, bearing the figure of Christ, was joined to the dead boy to be brought to life, by the signification of a great sacrament, as of the New Testament. Likewise, as to what they praise against the Manichaeans, namely free will, adducing the prophetic testimony: 'If you are willing and hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the earth;'
'but if you are unwilling and do not hearken to me, the sword shall devour you'—what does this profit them? Seeing that they do not so much defend free will against the Manichaeans as exalt it against catholics. For they wish it to be so understood, what was said, 'If you are willing and hearken to me,' as though in the preceding will itself there were the merit of the grace that follows, and thus grace would no longer be grace, which is not gratuitous when it is rendered as a debt. But if they so understood what was said, 'If you are willing,' as to confess that He also prepares that good will itself, of whom it is written:
'The will is prepared by the Lord'—then catholics might use this testimony and not only conquer the old heresy of the Manichaeans, but also not found the new heresy of the Pelagians. What does it profit them that, in the praise of free will itself, they say that 'grace helps the good purpose of each one'? This would be received without scruple as catholically said, if they did not place merit in the good purpose—to which merit a reward would then be rendered according to debt, not according to grace—but understood and confessed that even the good purpose itself, which the grace that follows assists, could not have been in man unless grace went before.
For how can there be a good purpose of man without the Lord first showing mercy, since that very good will is what is prepared by the Lord? But as for the fact that, when they had said 'grace also helps the good purpose of each one,' they soon added 'yet does not infuse zeal for virtue into one who resists'—this might well be understood, if it were not said by these men, whose meaning is known. For to one who resists, the grace of God itself first procures the hearing of the divine calling, and then in him, now no longer resisting, zeal for virtue is kindled. But truly, in all things which each one does according to God, His mercy goes before him—which these men refuse, because they wish to be not catholics but Pelagians.
For it greatly delights their proud impiety that even what they are compelled to confess was given by the Lord should seem not to have been granted to them as a gift, but rendered as a debt—so that, namely, the sons of perdition and not of promise may be believed to have made themselves good, and God to have rendered a due reward for that work of theirs to men now already made good by themselves. For so has that swelling itself stopped up the ears of their heart, that they do not hear: 'For what hast thou that thou didst not receive?'; they do not hear: 'Without me you can do nothing'; they do not hear: 'Love is of God'; they do not hear: 'God has apportioned the measure of faith'; they do not hear: 'The Spirit breathes where it wills,' and: 'As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God'; they do not hear:
'No one can come to me unless it be given him by my Father'; they do not hear what Ezra writes: 'Blessed be the Lord of our fathers, who has put these things into the heart of the king, to glorify His house which is in Jerusalem'; they do not hear what the Lord says through Jeremiah: 'And I will put my fear in their heart, that they depart not from me, and I will visit them to make them good'; and above all that word through the prophet Ezekiel, where God plainly shows that He is provoked by no good merits of men to make them good, that is, obedient to His commandments, but rather that He renders these good things to them for evil, doing this for His own sake, not for theirs. For He says: 'Thus says the Lord:'
'I do this not for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations, wherever you went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the nations, and which you profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord Adonai, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. And I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all lands, and bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses; and I will cleanse you, and give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you; and the heart of stone shall be taken away out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.'
'And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my justifications and to observe and do my judgments.' And after a little, through the same prophet: 'Not for your sakes do I do this, says the Lord God, be it known to you. Be confounded and ashamed for your ways, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God: In the day that I shall cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also cause the cities to be inhabited, and the wastes shall be built, and the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate before the eyes of every passer-by; and they shall say:'
'That desolate land has become like the garden of pleasure, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities have become fortified; and the nations, whosoever shall be left round about you, shall know that I the Lord have built up what was destroyed, and planted what was laid waste; I the Lord have spoken and done it. Thus says the Lord: Yet for this I will be sought by the house of Israel, that I may do it for them: I will multiply them as sheep, even men; as holy sheep, as the sheep of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall those desolate cities be filled with flocks of men, and they shall know that I am the Lord.' What has remained to the dead skin, whereby it may be puffed up and disdain, when it glories, 'to glory in the Lord'?
What has remained to it, since—whatever it may say it has done, so that, by man's merit going before, arising from man, God may subsequently do that of which man is worthy—it shall be answered, cried out against, contradicted: 'I do it, but for my holy name's sake, not for your sakes do I do it, says the Lord God'? Nothing so overturns the Pelagians who say 'that the grace of God is given according to our merits'—which indeed Pelagius himself condemned, though not by correcting himself, but by fearing the Eastern judges—nothing so overturns this presumption of those who say: 'We do it, that we may deserve those with whom the Lord may do it.' There answers you not Pelagius, but the Lord Himself: 'I do it, and not for your sakes, but for my holy name's sake.'
For what good can you do out of a heart that is not good? But in order that you may have a good heart: 'I will give you,' He says, 'a new heart, and a new spirit will I give you.' Can you say: 'We first walked in His justifications, and observed His judgment, and did so that we might be worthy that He should give us His grace'? For what good would you do, being evil men, and how would you do these good things, unless you were good? But that men may be good, who makes them, save He who said: 'And I will visit them, that I may make them good'? and who said: 'And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my justifications and to observe and do my judgments'? Do you then not yet awake? Do you not yet hear:
'I will cause you to walk, I will cause you to observe,' and finally: 'I will cause you to do'? Why do you still puff yourselves up? We indeed walk—it is true—we observe, we do; but it is He who causes us to walk, to observe, to do. This is the grace of God which makes us good; this is His mercy going before us. What do the desolate and waste and ruined places deserve? Which nevertheless shall be built up and tilled and fortified. Are these things given according to the merits of their desolation, waste, and ruin? God forbid. For these merits are evil, but these gifts are good. Good things, then, are rendered to evil ones; therefore they are gratuitous, not owed, and for that reason grace. 'I,' says the Lord, 'I the Lord.' Does not this voice restrain you, O human pride, who say:
'I act, that I may deserve to be built and planted by the Lord'? Do you not hear, 'Not for your sakes do I act; I the Lord have built up what was destroyed, planted what was laid waste; I the Lord have spoken and done it—yet not for your sakes, but for my holy name's sake'? Who multiplies men as sheep, as holy sheep, as the sheep of Jerusalem? Who causes those desolate cities to be full of flocks of men, but He who follows and says: 'And they shall know that I am the Lord'? But with what human sheep does He fill the cities, as He has promised—whether those He finds or those He makes? Let us question the psalm. Behold, it answers; let us hear:
'O come, let us worship and fall down before Him, and weep before the Lord who made us; for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.' He, therefore, makes the sheep with which He fills the desolate cities. What wonder? Seeing that to that one only sheep, that is, to the Church, whose members are all the human sheep, it is said: 'For I am the Lord who makes you.' Why do you set before me free will, which will not be free for doing righteousness unless you are a sheep? He, therefore, who makes men to be sheep, He it is who sets free human wills unto the obedience of piety. But why does He make these men to be sheep and not those, He with whom there is no respect of persons?
This is the very question which the blessed Apostle, to those who propose it more curiously than capably, addresses thus: 'O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it: Why hast Thou made me thus?' This is the very question which pertains to that height, which the same Apostle, wishing to gaze upon, in a manner shuddered and cried out: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things; to Him be glory for ever and ever.'
Let them not, therefore, dare to scrutinize this unsearchable question, who, defending merit before grace and therefore now against grace, wish to give to God first, that it may be recompensed to them—to give first, forsooth, something out of free will, that grace may be a repayment for a reward—but let them wisely understand or faithfully believe that even what they think they gave first, they received from Him from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. But why one man should receive and another not receive, when both do not deserve to receive, and whichever of them receives, receives undeservedly—let them measure their own strength, and let them not search out things too strong for them. Let it suffice them to know that there is no iniquity with God.
For when the Apostle had found no merits by which Jacob might precede his twin brother in the sight of God, he says: 'What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For He says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I will be merciful. So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.' Let His gratuitous compassion, therefore, be welcome to us, even though this deep question remains unresolved. Which, nevertheless, is thus far resolved, insofar as the same Apostle resolves it, saying:
'But what if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath which are fitted for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto glory?' For wrath is not rendered except as a debt, lest there be iniquity with God; but mercy, even when it is bestowed undeservedly, is no iniquity with God. And from this the vessels of mercy understand how gratuitous is the mercy bestowed on them, seeing that to the vessels of wrath, with whom they share a common cause of perdition and a common lump, a due and just wrath is repaid. And now let these things suffice against those who by the liberty of free will wish to destroy the bounty of grace.
But as to the fact that, by the praise of the saints, they refuse to have us hunger and thirst after righteousness with the affection of that publican, but rather, with the vanity of that Pharisee, belch as if sated and full—what does it profit them that against the Manichaeans, who destroy baptism, these men say that 'men are perfectly renewed by baptism,' and to this they adduce the testimony of the Apostle, who testifies that through the laver of water the Church is made holy and immaculate from among the Gentiles, when with a proud and perverse mind they put forth their disputations against the prayers of the Church herself?
For they say this in order that it may be believed that the Church, after holy baptism—in which there is made the remission of all sins—no longer thereafter has sin, whereas against them she, from the rising of the sun to its setting, cries out to God with all her members: 'Forgive us our debts.' What of the fact that, even concerning themselves, if they be questioned in this cause, they find not what to answer? For if they say that they have no sin, John replies to them that they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them;
but if they confess their sins, since they wish to be members of the body of Christ, how shall that body, that is, the Church, in this present time be perfectly—as these men suppose—without spot or wrinkle, whose members do not falsely confess that they have sins? Wherefore both in baptism all sins are remitted, and through that same laver of water in the word the Church is presented to Christ without spot or wrinkle; because, unless she were baptized, she would say fruitlessly: 'Forgive us our debts,' until she be brought to glory, where in her there shall be more perfectly no spot or wrinkle at all.
'And it must be confessed that the Holy Spirit,' even 'in ancient times,' not only 'helped good minds'—which even these men refuse—but also made them good, which they refuse. 'That all the prophets and apostles, or the saints, both those of the Gospel and the ancients, to whom God bears witness, were just, not in comparison with the wicked but by the rule of virtues,' is not doubtful. This is contrary to the Manichaeans, who blaspheme the patriarchs and prophets; but it is also contrary to the Pelagians, seeing that all of them, being questioned about themselves while they lived in this body, would answer with one most harmonious voice: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'
'But in the time to come' it is not to be denied 'that there is a reward for good works as well as for evil, and that no one is bidden to perfect there the commandments which he has despised here'; but the fullness of perfect righteousness, where sin can no longer be, which is here hungered and thirsted for by the saints, is here hoped for in the precept, there received in the reward; alms and prayers obtaining it, so that whatever of the commandments shall here have been less than fulfilled may be made unpunished through the pardon of sins.
Since these things are so, let the Pelagians cease, by the most insidious praises of these five things—that is, 'the praise of the creature, the praise of marriage, the praise of the law, the praise of free will, the praise of the saints'—to pretend that they wish to rescue men as it were from the toils of the Manichaeans, in order that they may entangle them in their own nets: that is, that they may deny original sin and begrudge to little ones the aid of Christ the physician; and that they may say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, so that grace is no longer grace; and that they may say that the saints in this life had no sin, so that the prayer is made void which He handed down to the saints who had no sin, and through whom, when the saints pray, every sin is forgiven.
To these three evils they seduce incautious and unlearned men by the fraudulent praise of those five good things. Concerning all which I consider that I have sufficiently replied to their most cruel and most impious and most proud vanity.
But since they say that 'their enemies have received our sayings out of hatred for the truth, and that throughout the entire West a dogma no less foolish than impious has been accepted, and they complain that from simple bishops, sitting in their own places without the convening of a synod, a subscription for confirming this was extorted'—whereas rather the Church of Christ, both Western and Eastern, has shuddered at their profane novelties of speech—I consider it to pertain to our care not only to bring forward against them the holy canonical Scriptures as witnesses, which we have already done sufficiently, but also to produce some documents from the writings of the saints who, before us, treated of those Scriptures with most celebrated fame and immense glory; not that to the canonical books there should be added by us the authority of any disputant.