Then, in adding, so as to accomplish what he intends, 'but that we act,' he says, 'or speak or think well, is ours.' He has forgotten what he had, as it were, corrected above, where, when he had said: 'Therefore in a good will and work is the praise of man,' he added and said: 'Nay, both of man and of God, who gave the very capacity of the will and work.' Why has he not, even in these examples, remembered this, so that at least at their close he might say: 'That we can do, say, think every good thing, is of Him who bestowed this power, who assists this power; but that we act well, or speak, or think, is both ours and His'? He did not say this, but, unless I am mistaken, I seem to myself to see what he feared.
For when he wished to show why it is ours, 'because,' he says, 'we can turn all these things also to evil.' That, therefore, he feared, lest he should say 'it is both ours and God's,' lest it should be answered him: If, in that we act, speak, think well, it is therefore both ours and God's, because He bestowed this power upon us, then also in that we act, speak, think evil, it is both ours and God's, because He bestowed the power for both; and thus — which be far from us — as we are praised with God in good works, so we should be blamed with Him in evil ones. For that capacity which He gave makes us able for good as much as for evil. Concerning this capacity Pelagius, in his first book in defence of free choice, speaks thus:
'We have,' he says, 'the capacity for either side, implanted by God, as it were, so to speak, a certain fruitful and fertile root, which brings forth and bears diverse things from the will of man, and which is able, at the choice of its own cultivator, either to shine with the flower of virtues or to bristle with the thorns of vices.' Here, not observing what he says, he sets up one and the same root of goods and evils, contrary to evangelical truth and apostolic teaching. For the Lord says that neither can a good tree bring forth evil fruits, nor a bad tree good ones; and the Apostle Paul, when he says that covetousness is the root of all evils, admonishes us assuredly to understand that love is the root of all goods.
Whence, if the two trees, the good and the bad, are two men, the good and the bad, what is a good man but one of good will, that is, a tree of a good root? And what is a bad man but one of bad will, that is, a tree of a bad root? For the fruits of these roots and trees are deeds, words, thoughts, which good things proceed from a good will, and evil things from an evil one. But a man makes a tree good, when he receives the grace of God; for he does not make himself good out of evil by his own self, but out of Him and through Him and in Him who is always good. Nor only that the tree may be good, but also that it may bring forth good fruits, it is necessary that it be assisted by the same grace, without which it can do nothing good.
For He Himself cooperates with the fruit in good trees, who both outwardly waters and tends by any minister whatever, and by Himself gives the increase inwardly. But a man makes a bad tree, when he makes himself bad, when he falls away from the unchangeable good; for from that falling away is the origin of the evil will. Which falling away does not begin any evil nature, but corrupts that which was created good; and when the fault has been healed, no evil remains, because the fault was indeed in the nature, but the fault was not the nature. That capacity, therefore, is not, as this man supposes, one and the same root of goods and evils; for love, the root of goods, is one thing, and covetousness, the root of evils, is another, and they differ from each other as much as virtue and vice.
But clearly that capacity is capable of either root, because a man not only can have love, by which he may be a good tree, but can also have covetousness, by which he may be a bad tree. But the covetousness of man, which is a fault, has man for its author, or man's deceiver, not man's creator; for it is itself the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the ambition of the world, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And who does not know that Scripture is wont to call by the name of 'world' those by whom this world is inhabited? But love, which is virtue, is to us from God, not from ourselves — Scripture being witness, which says: 'Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God, for God is love.'
According to this love, that saying is better understood: 'He who is born of God sins not,' and 'because he cannot sin' — because love, according to which he is born of God, does not act perversely nor think evil. When, therefore, a man sins, he sins not according to love, but according to covetousness, according to which he is not born of God, since that capacity, as has been said, is capable of either root. Since, then, Scripture says: 'Love is of God,' or, what is more, 'God is love,' when the Apostle John most openly cries out:
'Behold what manner of love the Father hath given us, that we should be called, and should be, the sons of God' — how does this man, hearing that God is love, still to this day contend that of those three we have from God only the capacity, but that we have the good will and the good action from ourselves? As though indeed a good will were anything else than love, which Scripture cries out to us to be from God, and given by the Father, that we might be His sons. But perhaps our preceding merits brought it about that it should be given to us — as this man thinks concerning the grace of God in that book which he wrote to a holy virgin, of which he also made mention in the letter which he sent to Rome. For there, having interposed the testimony of the Apostle James, in which he says:
'Be subject to God, but resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' he subjoins and says: 'He shows how we ought to resist the devil, namely, if we are subject to God, and by doing His divine will merit His grace, and more easily resist the wicked spirit by the aid of the Holy Spirit.' Behold with how truthful a heart he condemned, in the ecclesiastical judgment of Palestine, those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits! Or do we still doubt that he holds this and most openly preaches it? How then was that confession truthful in the episcopal examination? Or perhaps he had already written this book, in which he most openly says that grace is given according to our merits — a thing which in the Eastern synod he condemned without any refusal?
Let him then confess that he once held this view, but now holds it no longer, so that we might most openly rejoice over his correction. But now, when among other things this too had been objected against him, he answered: 'Whether these are the views of Caelestius, let those see who say that they are Caelestius's; but I never held them thus, and I anathematize those who hold them thus.' How did he never hold them thus, if he had previously composed this book? Or how does he anathematize those who hold them thus, if he composed this book afterward?
But lest perchance he answer that he here said 'by doing God's divine will we merit grace' in the sense that grace is added to the faithful and to those living piously, by which they may resist the tempter strongly, although they had nevertheless received grace even at the first, in order to do God's will — lest, therefore, he answer thus, receive other words of his on this matter. 'He who runs,' he says, 'to the Lord and desires to be ruled by Him, that is, who suspends his own will upon His will, who by cleaving to Him continually becomes, according to the Apostle, one spirit with Him — this he effects by nothing but the liberty of choice.' See how great a thing he has said is effected by nothing but the liberty of choice; and by this he supposes that we cleave to God without the help of God.
For this is what 'by nothing but the liberty of choice' means: that when we have cleaved to Him without His helping, then indeed, because we have cleaved, we may merit even to be helped. For he goes on and says: 'And whoever uses this well' — that is, whoever uses the liberty of choice well — 'so,' he says, 'delivers himself wholly to God, and mortifies all his own will, that he may be able to say with the Apostle: I live, yet now not I, but Christ liveth in me; and he places his heart in the hand of God, that God may incline it whithersoever He wills.' A great help of divine grace, indeed, that God Himself should incline our heart whithersoever He wills!
But this so great a help, as this man dotes, we then merit, when without any help, by nothing but the liberty of choice, we run to the Lord, desire to be ruled by Him, suspend our will upon His will, and by cleaving to Him continually are made one spirit with Him. These, forsooth, such enormous goods, we effect, according to this man, by nothing but the liberty of choice, so that by these preceding merits we may so obtain His grace that He may incline our heart whithersoever He wills. How then is it grace, if it is not given freely? How is it grace, if it is repaid as a debt? How does the Apostle speak truly: 'Not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God;'
'not of works, lest perchance any man be lifted up'; and again, 'But if of grace,' he says, 'then no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace'? How, I say, is this true, if such great works precede which make for us the merit of obtaining grace, so that it is not given to us gratuitously, but repaid as a debt? Is it then that, in order that we may arrive at the help of God, we run to God without the help of God? And that, cleaving to God, we may be helped by God, do we, unhelped by God, cleave to God? What greater or what like thing could grace itself bestow on man, if already, without it, he could be made one spirit with the Lord by nothing but the liberty of choice?
But I could wish that this man would say whether that Assyrian king, whose bed the holy woman Esther abhorred, when he was sitting on the throne of his kingdom and was clothed with all the raiment of his splendour, all glittering with gold and precious stones, and was exceedingly terrible; and having lifted up his face inflamed with brightness, he looked upon her as a bull in the onset of the fury of his indignation;
and the queen was afraid, and her colour was changed through faintness, and she leaned upon the head of her delicate maid who went before her — I could wish, therefore, that this man would tell us whether that king had already run to the Lord, and desired to be ruled by Him, and had suspended his own will upon His will, and by cleaving to Him continually had been made one spirit with Him by nothing but the liberty of choice; whether he had delivered himself wholly to God, and had mortified all his own will, and had placed his heart in the hand of God. I think that a man does not merely dote, but is mad, whoever thinks these things concerning that king, such as he then was; and yet God turned and transformed his indignation into gentleness.
But who does not see that it is a far greater thing to turn and transfer indignation from its opposite into gentleness, than to incline a heart, preoccupied by neither affection but midway between the two, in some direction? Let them therefore read and understand, let them behold and confess, that not by law and teaching sounding forth from without, but by an inward and hidden, wondrous and ineffable power, God works in the hearts of men not only true revelations, but also good wills. Let Pelagius therefore now cease both to deceive himself and others by disputing against the grace of God.
The grace of God must be proclaimed not merely on account of one of those three things—that is, on account of the possibility of a good will and of a good work—but also on account of the good will itself and the good working toward us; for he defines that possibility as availing for both alternatives. And yet our sins are not on that account to be ascribed to God, just as, on account of that same possibility, he wishes to ascribe to Him our good works. Nor is the help of divine grace to be commended only because it aids our natural possibility. Let him cease to say: 'That we are able to do, say, or think any good thing is His who granted this power and who aids this power; but that we do, or speak, or think well is our own.' Let him cease, I say, to say such things.
For God has not only granted and aids our power, but also works in us both to will and to work—not because we do not will or do not act, but because without His help we neither will anything good nor do it. For how can it be said, 'That we are able to act well is God's, but that we do act is our own,' when the Apostle says that he prays to God on behalf of those to whom he was writing, that they may do no evil and may do what is good? For he does not say, 'We pray that you may be able to do no evil,' but 'that you may do no evil'; nor 'that you may be able to do good,' but 'that you may do good.' Since concerning those of whom it is written:
'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God'—assuredly, that they may do what is good, they are led by Him who is good. How does Pelagius say, 'That we are able to speak well is God's, but that we speak well is our own,' when the Lord says, 'It is the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you'? For He does not say, 'It is not you who have given yourselves the power of speaking well,' but He says, 'It is not you that speak'; nor does He say, 'It is the Spirit of your Father who gives you, or has given you, the power of speaking well,' but He says, 'who speaketh in you'—not signifying the advance of a possibility, but expressing the effect of a co-operation. How does the puffed-up asserter of free choice say:
'That we are able to think well is God's, but that we do think well is our own'? To him the humble preacher of grace replies: 'Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.' For he does not say 'to be able to think,' but 'to think.' Let even Pelagius openly confess this grace of God, which is manifest in the divine oracles, and let him not cloak with a most shameless shame the fact that he so long held a contrary opinion, but let him lay it open with a most wholesome grief, so that holy Church may not be troubled by his stubborn obstinacy, but may rejoice at his truthful correction.
Let him distinguish knowledge and love, as they are to be distinguished, for 'knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth'—and knowledge does not puff up when charity edifies. And although both are the gift of God, yet one the lesser, the other the greater, let him not here exalt our righteousness above the praise of Him who justifies us, so as to ascribe the lesser of these two to the divine help but claim the greater for the human will; and if he grants that we receive charity by the grace of God, let him not so think as though any good merits of ours preceded it. For what good merits could we then have, when we did not love God? For that we might receive the love by which we should love, we were loved while we did not yet have it.
This the Apostle John most plainly declares: 'Not that we loved God, but that He loved us'; and elsewhere he says, 'Let us love, because He first loved us.' Excellently and most truly indeed. For we should have nothing whereby to love Him, unless we received this from Him, when He first loved us. But what good should we do, unless we loved? Or how do we not do good, if we love? For although God's commandment sometimes seems to be fulfilled not by those who love but by those who fear, yet where there is no love, no work is reckoned good, nor is it rightly called a good work, because 'whatsoever is not of faith is sin,' and faith 'worketh by love.'
And therefore let him who wishes to confess truly so confess the grace of God—by which the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us—that he doubts not that nothing good at all pertaining to piety and true righteousness can be done without it. Not as this man does, who, when he says 'that grace is given for this reason, that what is commanded by God may be more easily fulfilled,' shows plainly enough what he thinks of it, namely, that even without it, though with less ease, what is divinely commanded can nevertheless be done. For in his book to a consecrated virgin, which I have also mentioned above, when he says: 'Let us merit the divine grace and more easily resist the wicked spirit by the help of the Holy Spirit.'
He assuredly indicates what he thinks. For why else did he insert this word, namely 'more easily'? Was the sense not complete—'that we may resist the wicked spirit by the help of the Holy Spirit'? But how great a detriment he has done by this addition, who does not perceive? Wishing, of course, it to be believed that the powers of nature are so great—which by extolling he casts down headlong—that even without the help of the Holy Spirit, though with less ease, yet in some way the wicked spirit is resisted. Likewise in the first book On Free Will he says, 'But since we have within us a free choice so strong and so firm against sinning, which the Creator has generally implanted in human nature, we are again fortified, by His inestimable kindness, with His daily help.'
What need is there of this help, if free choice is so strong and so firm against sinning? But here too he wishes it to be understood that the help is for this, that what he thinks can be done apart from grace, though with less ease, may be done more easily through grace. Likewise in the same book, in another place, he says, 'that what men are bidden to do by free choice they may be able to fulfill more easily through grace.' Take away 'more easily,' and the sense is not only full but even sound, if it be so put: 'that what men are bidden to do by free choice they may be able to fulfill through grace.' But when 'more easily' is added, it is suggested by a silent implication that the accomplishment of a good work can come to pass even without the grace of God. This sense he refutes who says:
'Without me ye can do nothing.' Let him amend all these things, lest, if human weakness has erred in the profundity of great matters, there be added to this error even a diabolical falsehood or animosity—whether by denying what he held, or by defending what he wrongly held—since he has come to know, by the plain truth here recalled, that he ought not to have held it. For this grace, indeed, by which we are justified—that is, by which the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us—in the writings of Pelagius and Caelestius, whatever I was able to read, nowhere did I find them confessing it as it ought to be confessed; utterly never did I perceive them acknowledging, as they ought to be acknowledged, the children of promise, concerning whom the Apostle says:
'Not they who are the children of the flesh are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned for the seed.' For what God promises, we do not accomplish by choice or by nature, but He Himself accomplishes it by grace.
For, to say nothing meanwhile of the little works of Caelestius or of his pamphlets which he brought forward in the ecclesiastical proceedings—all of which, together with other letters we deemed necessary, we have taken care to send you, so that, all these being diligently examined, you may perceive that he places the grace of God, by which we are helped either to turn away from evil or to do good beyond the natural choice of the will, in nothing but law and teaching, so that he even asserts that prayers themselves are necessary only for this, that it may be shown to a man what he should desire and love—to pass over these matters for the present, then: Pelagius himself has recently sent both a letter and a book of his faith to Rome, writing to Pope Innocent of blessed memory, whom he did not know to be dead.
In this letter, then, he says that there are 'two things concerning which men try to defame him: one, that he denies to little children the sacrament of baptism and promises the kingdom of heaven to some without the redemption of Christ; the other, that he so says a man can avoid sin as to exclude the help of God and trust so entirely in free choice that he repudiates the assistance of grace.' But concerning the baptism of infants, although he concedes that it must be given to them, how perversely he thinks against the Christian and catholic truth, this is not the place to discuss more diligently; for now what we have undertaken concerning the help of grace must be carried through. Wherefore let us see what he here answers even to that which he has proposed.
For, to pass over his invidious complaints about his enemies, when he comes to the matter, he speaks thus. 'Behold,' he says, 'let this letter clear me before your Blessedness, in which we say purely and simply that we have an entire free choice to sin and not to sin, which in all good works is always aided by the divine help.' You certainly perceive, according to the understanding which the Lord has given you, that these words of his do not suffice to settle the question. For we still ask by what help he says free choice is aided, lest perchance, as he is wont, he wishes law and teaching to be understood. For if you ask why he said 'always,' he could answer, because it is written: 'And in His law will he meditate day and night.'
Then, when he had interposed certain remarks about the condition of man and his natural possibility for sinning and for not sinning, he added, saying: 'This power of free choice we say to be generally in all—in Christians, Jews, and Gentiles. In all there is free choice equally by nature, but in Christians alone is it aided by grace.' Again we ask: by what grace? And he could still answer: by Christian law and teaching. Then, whatever grace he means, he says that grace is given to them according to merits—although he has already condemned, by that famous acquittal of his in Palestine, as I have recalled above, those who say this. For these are his words:
'In them,' he says, 'the good of their condition is naked and unarmed'—he speaks of those who are not Christians—then, weaving in the rest, 'but in these,' he says, 'who belong to Christ, it is fortified by the help of Christ.' You see that it is still uncertain by what help, according to what we said above. But he goes on further concerning those who are not Christians, and says: 'They are therefore to be judged and condemned, because, though they have free choice through which they could come to faith and merit the grace of God, they misuse the liberty granted them. But these are to be rewarded, who, using free choice well, merit the grace of the Lord and keep His commandments.'
Surely it is manifest that he says grace is given according to merits—whatever grace, or of whatever kind, he may mean, which nevertheless he does not openly express. For when he says that those are to be rewarded who use free choice well, and therefore merit the grace of the Lord, he confesses that it is rendered to them as a debt. Where then is that saying of the Apostle: 'Being justified freely by His grace'? Where is that also: 'By grace ye are saved'? And lest they should think it by works, he added: 'through faith.' Again, lest they should think that faith itself was to be attributed to them apart from the grace of God, he says, 'And this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God.' Assuredly, then, that from which everything begins which we are said to receive by merit, we receive without merit—that is, faith itself. Or if it is denied to be given, what is the meaning of what is said:
'According as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith'? But if it is so said to be given as to be rendered to merits, not bestowed, what is the meaning of what he again says: 'Unto you it is given for Christ's sake not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for Him'? For he has testified that both are given—both that one believes in Christ and that one suffers for Christ. But these men so attach faith to free choice that grace seems, forsooth, to be rendered to faith not as gratuitous but as owed; and by this it is now no longer grace, because unless it is gratuitous it is not grace. But from this letter Pelagius wishes the reader to pass to the book of his faith, of which he made mention to you, in which he discussed many things about which he was not questioned.
But let us look at those very things concerning which we are dealing with them. For when he had ended, as extensively as he wished, his disputation from the unity of the Trinity down to the resurrection of the flesh—which no one asked of him—he says, 'And we hold one baptism, which we say ought to be celebrated with the same sacramental words in infants as in adults.' This indeed you have said you heard even from him when present; but what does it profit that he says the sacrament of baptism is celebrated with the same words in little children as in adults, when it is the reality, not the words alone, that we seek from him?
It is more that he replied to you as you questioned him with your own mouth, as you write, 'that infants receive baptism unto the remission of sins.' For here too he did not say 'in the words of the remission of sins,' but he confessed that they are baptized unto that very remission; and yet, if you should ask of him what sin is believed to be remitted to them, he would contend that they have anything. Who would believe that under this seemingly manifest confession a contrary meaning lay hidden, had not Caelestius disclosed it? He, in his little book which he brought forward in the ecclesiastical proceedings at Rome, confessed that 'little children too are baptized unto the remission of sins,' and yet denied that 'they have any original sin.'
But now let us attend not to the baptism of infants, but rather to the help of grace, to what Pelagius thought even in the book of his faith which he sent to Rome. 'Free choice,' he says, 'we so confess as to say that we always need the help of God.' Behold, again we ask by what help he confesses that we have need, and again we find it ambiguous, since he can answer that he means Christian law or teaching, by which that natural possibility is aided. But we require in their confession that grace of which the Apostle says: 'For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.'