For it does not follow that he who has the gift of knowledge, by which he may know what he ought to do, has also the gift of love, that he may do it. Those books too, or writings, which he mentions in the same letter which he sent to Pope Innocent of holy memory as his own, I have read—except one letter, which he says he sent, a brief one, to the holy bishop Constantius—and nowhere have I been able to find that he confesses this grace, by which not only the natural possibility of will and action (which he says we have even if we neither will nor do good), but the very will and action itself is aided by the ministration of the Holy Spirit.
'Let them read,' he says, 'that letter which we wrote to the holy man Paulinus the bishop about twelve years ago, which in perhaps three hundred lines confesses nothing else than the grace and help of God, and that we can do absolutely nothing good without God.' This letter, then, I have read, and found that through almost the whole of it he dwells on nothing but the faculty and possibility of nature, and there almost sets up the grace of God only in that; but the Christian grace he touches with such brevity, by the mere mention of the name, that he seems to have done nothing but fear to be silent about it.
Yet whether he wishes it to be understood in the remission of sins, or also in the teaching of Christ (where there is also the example of His life, as he does in several places of his little works), or whether he believes some help of doing well to be joined to nature and teaching through the inspiration of a most ardent and most luminous charity—this does not appear at all. 'Let them also read,' he says, 'the letter to the holy bishop Constantius, where indeed briefly, but plainly, I joined the grace and help of God to the free choice of man.' This letter, as I said above, I have not read; but if it is not unlike the rest, which he mentions as known to me, neither does it itself contain what we seek.
'Let them read also,' he says, 'the letter which we composed in the East to the sacred virgin of Christ, Demetrias, and they will find that we so praise the nature of man as always to add the help of God's grace.' This one indeed I have read, and it had almost persuaded me that he confesses that grace concerning which is the question—although in many places of that work he seemed to contradict himself; but when there came into my hands other things also, which he composed later and more amply, I saw how he could even there name grace under an ambiguous generality, hiding what he thought, yet by the word of grace breaking the ill-will and turning aside the offense. For in the very beginning of it, where he says:
'Let us toil at the work set before us, and not distrust the mediocrity of our talent, which we believe to be aided both by the faith of the mother and by the merit of the virgin'—here he had seemed to me to confess the grace by which we are aided to do something, and I had not noticed that he could have placed this in the mere revelation of teaching. Likewise in the same work, in another place, he says, 'But if even without God men show what sort they were made by God, see what Christians can do, whose nature has been restored for the better through Christ, and who are aided also by the help of divine grace.' By 'nature restored for the better' he wishes the remission of sins to be understood, which he sufficiently demonstrated in another place of this very book, where he says:
'Even those who by long habit of sinning have in a manner grown hardened can be restored through penitence.' But the help of divine grace he can here too place in the revelation of teaching. Likewise elsewhere in the same letter he says, 'For if even before the law, as we have said, and much before the coming of our Lord and Saviour, certain men are reported to have lived justly and holily, how much more, after the illumination of His coming, must we be believed able to do this—we who have been restored through the grace of Christ and reborn into a better man, who, expiated and cleansed by His blood and incited by His example to a more perfect righteousness, ought to be better than those who lived before the law!'
See how here too, though indeed in other words, yet he sets the help of grace in the remission of sins and in the example of Christ. Then he subjoins and says: 'Better even than they were under the law, the Apostle saying: Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. And since concerning this,' he says, 'we have spoken sufficiently, as I think, let us now form the perfect virgin, who, kindled always from both, may by the sanctity of her morals bear witness to the good of both nature and grace.'
And in these words you ought to observe that he wished to conclude what he was saying in such a way that we should understand the good of nature to be that which we received when we were created, but the good of grace to be that which we behold when we look upon the example of Christ—as though, for this reason, sin was not remitted to those who were or are under the law, because they either had not, or do not believe in, the example of Christ. But that this is his opinion, other words of his also show—not in this book, but in the third book On Free Will, where, speaking to him against whom he disputes, since that man had cited the words of the Apostle who says, 'Not what I will, do I,' and, 'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind,' and the rest that is said there, this man answered and said:
'For this, which you desire to understand of the Apostle, all ecclesiastical men assert that he said in the person of a sinner and of one as yet placed under the law, who, by excessive habit of vices, was held as it were by a certain necessity of sinning, and although he desired the good in will, was yet, by custom, cast headlong into evil. But in the person of one man,' he says, 'he designates the people as yet sinning under the old law, whom he says must be freed from this evil of custom through Christ, who first, to those who believe in Him, forgives all sins through baptism, then by the imitation of Himself incites them to perfect holiness and conquers the habit of vices by the example of virtues.'
Behold how he wishes it to be understood that those who sin under the law are aided, so that, being justified through the grace of Christ, they may be freed—as though the law alone did not suffice for them because of their excessive habit of sinning, unless there be added, not the inspiration of charity by Christ through the Holy Spirit, but the example of His virtue to be beheld and imitated in the evangelical teaching. And certainly here was the greatest occasion for expressing what grace he meant, where the Apostle so concluded the very passage on which he answers, that he said: 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.'
Since this man sets this grace not in the help of His virtue, but in the example of imitating Him, what more ought we to hope from him, wherever he recalls the name of grace under an ambiguous generality? Likewise in the same book to the sacred virgin, whence we have already discoursed above, where he says: 'Let us be subject to God, and by doing His will let us merit the divine grace and more easily resist the wicked spirit by the help of the Holy Spirit.' In which words of his it is certainly manifest that he thus wishes us to be aided by the grace of the Holy Spirit—not because without it we cannot, even by the mere possibility of nature, resist the tempter, but that we may resist more easily.
Yet whatever and however slight this help may be, it is credible that he places it in this, that knowledge is added to us by the Spirit revealing through teaching, which we either cannot have, or can have only with difficulty, through nature. These are the things which, in the book he wrote to the virgin of Christ, I have been able to observe where he seems to confess grace. And of what sort these things are, you assuredly perceive. 'Let them read also,' he says, 'my recent little work, which we were compelled lately to publish On Free Will, and they will recognize how unjustly they have been eager to defame us with a denial of grace, seeing that through almost the whole text of that work we perfectly and entirely confess both free choice and grace.' There are four books of this work.
And these I have read, and from them have taken those things which I proposed to treat and discuss, and, as I could, I have handled them thoroughly, before we came to these letters of his which were sent to Rome. But in these four books also, whatever he seems to say on behalf of the grace by which we are aided to turn away from evil and to do good, he says in such a way that in no wise does he depart from the ambiguity of words, which he could so expound to his disciples that they should believe there is no help of grace
by which the possibility of nature is aided, except in law and teaching—so that he even opines that prayers themselves (as he most openly affirms in his writings) are to be employed for nothing else than that teaching may be opened to us even by divine revelation, not that the mind of man may be aided, so that what he has learned ought to be done he may accomplish also by love and action. For from that most manifest dogma of his he does not withdraw at all, where he sets up those three things—possibility, will, action—and says that possibility alone is always aided by the divine help, but reckons that will and action need no help of God.
But the help itself, by which he asserts the natural possibility to be aided, he sets in law and teaching, which he confesses is also revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, on account of which he grants that prayer too is necessary. But he judges that this help of law and teaching existed even in prophetic times, while the help of grace which is properly called grace consists in the example of Christ—which nonetheless you perceive to pertain to teaching, that evangelical teaching which is preached to us, so that, forsooth, the way being shown by which we ought to walk, we may now, by the powers of free choice, needing no help of another, suffice for ourselves,
lest we fail on the way—although he contends that even the way itself can be found by nature alone, but more easily if grace aids. This, then, according to my capacity, I have been able to understand in the writings of Pelagius, when he names grace. But you see that those who hold such things, being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own, are far from that righteousness which is to us from God, not from ourselves, which they ought to have observed and acknowledged in the Scriptures, above all in the holy canonical ones. But because they read them according to their own sense, they assuredly do not discern in them even the things that are plain.
Would then that at least in the writings of catholic men, by whom they do not doubt that these Scriptures were rightly understood, they would not carelessly attend to what should be thought concerning the help of divine grace, nor pass it by out of excessive love for their own opinion! For this very Pelagius, in that very recent little work of his by whose recollection he defends himself—that is, in the third book On Free Will—hear how he praises the holy Ambrose. 'Blessed Ambrose the bishop,' he says, 'in whose books especially the Roman faith shines forth, who among the Latins stood out as a certain beautiful flower of writers, whose faith and most pure understanding in the Scriptures not even an enemy has dared to reprehend.'
Behold with what and how great praises he proclaims a man however holy and learned, yet by no means to be compared to the authority of canonical Scripture. Whom he therefore so commends because he seems to himself to use him in a certain passage of his books as a witness by which to prove that a man can be without sin. Concerning which the question is not now; but the question is about the help of grace, by which we are aided to not sinning and to living justly. Let him then hear that venerable prelate saying and teaching, in the second book of his exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, that the Lord co-operates even with our wills.
'You certainly see,' he says, 'that everywhere the Lord's power co-operates with human endeavors, so that no one can build without the Lord, no one guard without the Lord, no one begin anything without the Lord. And therefore, according to the Apostle, whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.' You see how holy Ambrose took away, by these words, even that which men are accustomed to say—'we begin and God completes'—saying that no one even begins anything without God. Likewise in the sixth book of the same work, when he was treating of those two debtors of the one creditor, 'according to men,' he says, 'perhaps he offended more who had owed more;'
'But through the mercy of the Lord the case is changed, so that he who owed more may love more—provided, however, that he obtains grace.' Behold, most plainly does the Catholic teacher proclaim that even that very love, by which each one loves the more, belongs to the benefit of grace. Finally, that repentance itself, which the will beyond all doubt performs, is—by the Lord's mercy and help—brought about so that it may be performed: this the blessed Ambrose declares in the ninth book of the same work, speaking thus: 'Good are the tears that wash away guilt. In short, those whom Jesus looks upon weep. Peter denied the first time and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked upon him; he denied a second time and did not weep, because the Lord had not yet looked upon him; he denied a third time also, Jesus looked upon him, and he wept most bitterly.'
Let these men read the Gospel and see that the Lord Jesus was then within, when He was being heard by the chief priests, but that the apostle Peter was outside and below in the courtyard among the servants, now sitting, now standing by the fire, just as is shown by the most truthful and most harmonious account of the evangelists. Hence it cannot be said that the Lord looked upon him with bodily eyes, admonishing him visibly. And therefore what is written there, 'The Lord looked upon him,' was done within, was done in the mind, was done in the will. The Lord came to his aid mercifully in a hidden way; He touched his heart, He recalled his memory, He visited Peter's inner man with His grace, He moved and drew forth the affection of the inner man even unto outward tears.
Behold how God is present to help our wills and actions! Behold how He works in us both to will and to work! Again in the same book the same holy Ambrose says: 'For if Peter fell—he who said, 'Even if others shall be scandalized, yet will I not be scandalized'—who else may rightly presume of himself? Finally David, because he had said, 'I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved for ever,' confesses that his own boasting had done him harm, saying, 'Thou didst turn away Thy face, and I was troubled.'' Let this man hear so great a teacher; let him imitate the believer whose doctrine and faith he has praised; let him humbly hear and faithfully imitate; let him not presume of himself obstinately, lest he perish.
Why does Pelagius wish to be drowned in that sea from which Peter was delivered by the Rock? Let him hear the same high priest of God saying likewise in the sixth book of the same work: 'But why they did not receive Him the evangelist himself has recorded, saying, 'because His face was of one going to Jerusalem.' But the disciples were eager that He be received within Samaria. Yet God calls those whom He deigns to call, and makes religious whomever He wills.' O the understanding of the man of God, drawn from that very fountain of the grace of God! 'God,' he says, 'calls those whom He deigns to call, and makes religious whomever He wills.' See whether this is not that prophetic saying: 'I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have been merciful'; and that apostolic saying:
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igiturnonuolentisnequecurrentis, sedmiserentisestdei, qui, utdicitetiamnostrorumtemporumhomoeius, \'quemdignaturuocatetquemuultreligiosumfacit\'. numquidaliquisdicereaudebitnondumessereligiosum, (quicurritaddominumetabeoseregicupitetuoluntatemsuamexeiusuoluntatesuspenditetquieiadhaerendoiugiterunussecundumapostolumcumeofitspiritus\'? athoctotumtammagnumreligiosihominisopusPelagius \'non\' dicit (efficinisiarbitriilibertate\'.
'Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy'—who, as even a man of His in our own times says, 'calls whom He deigns and makes religious whomever He wills.' Will anyone dare to say that a man is not yet religious who runs to the Lord and desires to be ruled by Him, and suspends his own will upon His will, and who, by cleaving to Him, becomes continually, according to the apostle, 'one spirit with Him'? Yet Pelagius says that this whole so great work of the religious man is 'brought about by nothing except the liberty of choice.'
But on the contrary the blessed Ambrose, so excellently praised by Pelagius's own mouth, says: 'The Lord God calls whom He deigns and makes religious whomever He wills.' Therefore, that a man should run to the Lord, and desire to be ruled by Him, and suspend his own will upon His will, and by cleaving to Him become continually, according to the apostle, one spirit with Him—God makes religious whomever He wills; and yet no one does all this except one who is religious. Wherefore, unless it be brought about by God that he do this, who does it?
But because this question—where the freedom of the will and the grace of God are disputed—is so difficult to distinguish, that when free will is defended, the grace of God seems to be denied, and when the grace of God is asserted, free will is thought to be taken away, Pelagius can so wrap himself in the recesses of this obscurity as to say that he agrees even with those things which we have set down as written by holy Ambrose, and proclaim that he too holds them and always has held them, and thus attempt to expound each point in such a way that they may be believed to accord even with his own opinion. Wherefore, as far as concerns this question of divine grace and help, attend to those three things which he has most plainly distinguished:
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posse, uelle, esse, idestpossibilitatem, uoluntatem, actionem. siergoconsenseritnobisnonsolampossibilitateminhomine, etiamsinecuelitnecagatbene, sedipsamquoqueuoluntatemetactionem, idestutbeneuelimusetbeneagamus.
the power to be able, the will, and the being—that is, possibility, will, and action. If therefore he agrees with us that not only the possibility is in man (even if he neither wills nor acts well), but also the will itself and the action—that is, that we may will well and act well—
which are not in man except when he wills well and acts well—if, as I said, he agrees that the will itself and the action too are divinely helped, and so helped that without that help we can will and do nothing good, and that this is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, in which He makes us righteous by His own, not our, righteousness, so that this may be our true righteousness which comes to us from Him—then, as I judge, no controversy about the help of the grace of God will remain between us.
But as for that on account of which he so praised holy Ambrose—namely, because he found in his writings, from the praises of Zacharias and Elizabeth, that a man can be in this life without sin—although it is not to be denied that this can be, if God wills it, with whom all things are possible, let him nevertheless consider more carefully in what sense it was said. For it was said, as it seems to me, according to a certain manner of life among men that is commendable and praiseworthy, which no man could justly call into a complaint of accusation and reproach. And Zacharias and his wife are therefore said to have had this in the sight of God, because in it they deceived no men by any dissimulation, but just as they appeared to men, so were they known to the eyes of God.
But this was not said according to that perfection of righteousness in which we shall live truly and in every way immaculate and perfect. For the apostle Paul too said that according to the righteousness which is of the law he had been without blame—in which law Zacharias also lived without blame; yet the apostle reckoned this righteousness as dung and loss in comparison with the righteousness which we hope for, and for which we ought now to hunger and thirst, that we may one day be satisfied with it in the reality which is now in faith, as long as the just man lives by faith.
Let him hear, finally, that same venerable bishop, when he was expounding the prophet Isaiah, saying that no one in this world is without sin—where no one can say that he said 'in this world' as though in the love of this world. For he was speaking of the apostle, who said, 'Our conversation is in heaven.' Expounding this sense, then, the said bishop says: 'The apostle says that there are many perfect ones with him still placed in this world, who, if you look to true perfection, could not be perfect, because he himself said, 'We see now through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.''
'So they are both immaculate in this world and shall be immaculate in the kingdom of God, since assuredly, if you examine more minutely, no one can be immaculate, because no one is without sin.' That testimony, then, of holy Ambrose, which Pelagius uses on behalf of his opinion, was either spoken according to a certain manner—commendable indeed, but not more minutely examined—or else, if that holy and humble man supposed Zacharias and Elizabeth to have possessed the highest and in every way perfect righteousness, to which nothing further could now be added, then assuredly, by examining his own opinion more minutely, he corrected it.
Let this man indeed attend that, in that very passage from which he took this Ambrosian testimony which pleased him, he also said this: that 'from the beginning to be immaculate is impossible for human nature'—where the venerable Ambrose testifies that that natural possibility, which Pelagius will not faithfully acknowledge to be vitiated by sin and therefore boastfully exalts, is enfeebled and infirm; without doubt against this man's wish, but not against apostolic truth, where it is read: 'We too were once by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.'
For it is the very nature, vitiated and condemned through the sin of the first man—a sin which came from his free choice—to which divine grace alone comes to the rescue through the Mediator of God and men and the almighty Physician. Concerning His help toward our justification, whereby 'God works together all things for good to them that love Him,' whom He first loved, granting them that He might be loved by them—since we have now been discussing this for a long while—let us next begin, as far as the Lord shall help us, to treat also of sin, which 'entered into the world through one man together with death, and so passed upon all men,' against those who have burst forth more openly into an error contrary to this truth—which things will seem sufficient to set forth.