文集 第 3 章 第 1/2 段

To his most beloved brother in Christ, and deservedly venerable, RUFINUS, PROSPER says eternal salvation. PROLOGUE. I have received, through a common friend, tokens of your brotherly solicitude toward me, and I have recognized with gladness the care of your most sincere charity. And lest any malicious rumors—in so far as they cannot withdraw themselves from your ears—should bring you any dread or anxiety, I have taken care, as far as was permitted by a letter's discourse, to free you from every scruple: striving to disclose everything to you with the fullest truth, so that, since you could not hear in their entirety the things that are disseminated by our adversaries, you might be able through me myself to learn whatever is carried about, and reported, concerning us for the sake of empty envy.

But first the nature of the question, from which these things arise, must be made known to your Sanctity: that the falsehood of those who speak against us may be more plainly revealed to you, and you may see with what darkness they attempt to overshadow what a light. CHAPTER I. The Pelagian heresy, then, by what dogma it set out to destroy the catholic faith, and with what poisons of impieties it wished to seize the inward parts of the Church and the very vital organs of the body of Christ, are more well known than to need the labor of a narration. Yet of these there is one blasphemy, the most wicked and most subtle seed of the others, by which they say that the grace of God is given according to the merits of men.

For when they first wished to attribute so great a soundness [other reading: sanctity] to human nature, that through free will alone it could attain the kingdom of God—on the ground that it was so fully aided by the very support of its own creation that, having naturally a rational understanding, it would easily choose the good and avoid the evil; and that, where in either direction the works of the will were free, it was not the faculty for good that was lacking to those who are evil, but the zeal. When therefore, as I said, they wished the whole righteousness of man to subsist from natural rectitude and possibility, and sound doctrine spurned this definition;

the view condemned by the catholics, and afterwards colored over with many varieties of heretical fraud, they preserved within themselves by this device: that they professed God's grace to be necessary to man for beginning, for advancing, and for persevering in the good. CHAPTER II. But in this profession, by what guile the vessels of wrath were contriving to creep in, the very grace of God revealed to the vessels of mercy.

For it was understood, and most wholesomely perceived, that they confess only so much concerning grace—namely that it is a kind of mistress to free will, and that it displays itself, through exhortations, through the law, through teaching, through the contemplation of creatures, through miracles, and through outward terrors, to free will's judgment, by which each one, according to the motion of his own will, if he shall have sought, finds; if he shall have asked, receives; if he shall have knocked, enters in. Namely because the calling of grace itself does this first about us, that it admonishes the judgment of our faculty;

and that grace is nothing other than the law, than a prophet, than a teacher, whose zeal toward all men throughout the whole world is common and general, so that those who are willing may believe, and those who have believed may receive justification by the merit of faith and of good will: and thus the grace of God is bestowed according to the merit of men: and in this manner grace is not grace; for if it is rendered to merits, and is not itself the creator of good things, it is named grace in vain. CHAPTER III. But these cunning shifts, by which the sons of darkness wished to transfigure themselves into the likeness of the sons of light, when the judgments of the Eastern bishops, and the authority of the apostolic see, and the vigilance of the African councils had detected them:

the most blessed Augustine also, assuredly in this age a chief portion of the Lord's priests, abundantly and beautifully demolished them in the disputations of many volumes: inasmuch as, among the many gifts of God with which the Spirit of truth most abundantly filled him, he had also this power of knowledge and wisdom out of the love of God, that he might overthrow with the unconquered sword of the word not only this heresy still palpitating in its dismemberment, but also many heresies before it.

Against him—as he shines resplendent, amid so many palms of contests, amid so many crowns of triumphs, to the illumination of the Church, and to the glory of Christ, by which he himself was made illustrious—certain of our own men (which concerning them is much to be lamented) speak ill with hidden, but not unknown, whisperings; and, in proportion as they have found among some persons ears amenable and opportune to themselves, they defame his writings by which the error of the Pelagians is assailed; saying that he utterly removes free will, and under the name of grace preaches a fatal necessity. Adding also that he wishes two masses of the human race, and two natures, to be believed: so that, namely, to a man of such great piety the impiety of pagans and Manichaeans may be ascribed.

If these things are true, why are they themselves so negligent—not to say so impious—that they do not repel so abrupt a destruction from the Church, do not resist such insane preachings, nor at least confront with some writings the man from whom such doctrine emanates? For with great glory of their own they would have taken counsel for the human race, if they had recalled Augustine from error. Unless perhaps, as modest men and new censors, they honorably and mercifully spare an old man of such great prior merits, and rest easy because no one anywhere receives his books;

and would that they were ignorant—nay rather, let them know—that not only the Roman and African Church, and throughout all parts of the world all the sons of the promise, agree with this man's teaching, just as in the whole faith, so in the confession of grace: but that even in these very places, in which complaint is stirred up against him, there are, God being favorable, very many who are imbued by his most wholesome disputations unto the reception of the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, and who daily, in the members of the body of Christ, in so far as he himself multiplies them, are increased. If we are rightly reproved, why are we not steadfastly censured? If we are not to be censured, why are we bitten by hidden detraction? CHAPTER IV.

But who does not know why these people grumble privately, in their bad temper, yet hold their peace publicly when it comes to a deliberate decision? For wishing to glory in their own righteousness rather than in the grace of God, they take it ill that we resist the claims which, amid many conferences, they advanced against a man of most excellent authority. Nor do they doubt that, if they should stir up any question from this matter, in whatever gathering of priests, in whatever congregation of peoples, they would have a hundred volumes of the most blessed Augustine set against them.

When these volumes begin to make manifest to the hearts of their hearers the most powerful truth of the Christian faith, and from the fountains of the divine word to flood the souls of those present, what believer, what godly person, having recognized and had commended to him the causes of his own salvation, would be willing to take in the bitterness of that smoke-filled vanity? For my part, I even hope this concerning the riches of God's mercy: that those whom He now allows to be deceived by their own free judgment and to wander from the way of humility, He will not utterly nor forever defraud of understanding;

but that this very man, advanced into the more remote places of error, is for this reason recalled by Him more slowly, so that the work of His grace may be celebrated with greater glory, when He shall have subdued to Himself even the hearts of His adversaries—those in whom danger arose from a zeal for virtues, and peril from uprightness of character. Not because anyone ought to lack these things, but because the use of them is most wretched when they are thought to have proceeded from natural capacity, or to have come indeed from the bounty of grace, yet preceded by some merit either of good work or of good will. CHAP. V. They assert these things, indeed, by certain testimonies of the holy Scriptures, but ones not reasonably applied.

For in defense of any definition, those things must be brought forward which do not yield to another sense from which the definition seems to dissent, and which do not desert the rule to which they have been fitted. They say, then, that it was said to those using free will: 'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you: take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls: for my yoke is sweet, and my burden light' (Matt. 11:28).

This, they hold, pertains to all men who labor in the uncertainty of this life and are laden with sins, so that those who are willing to imitate the gentleness and humility of the Savior, and to take up the yoke of His commandments, may find rest for their souls in the hope of eternal life; but those who refuse to do these things lack salvation by their own fault—a salvation which, had they been willing, they could have obtained. But let them hear also what was said by the Lord to those using free will: 'Without me you can do nothing' (John 15:5); and, 'No one comes to me, unless the Father who sent me draw him' (John 6:44); and, 'No one can come to me unless it be given him by my Father' (Ibid. 66); and, 'As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills' (John 5:21);

and, 'No one knows the Son, but the Father, neither does anyone know the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall be pleased to reveal Him' (Luke 10:22). Since all these things are unchangeable, and cannot by any interpretation be twisted to another meaning, who would doubt that free will then obeys the exhortation of Him who calls, when in it the grace of God has begotten the disposition of believing and obeying? Otherwise it would suffice that a man be admonished, and that a new will not also be created in him, as it is written: 'The will is prepared by the Lord' (Prov. 8:35, according to the Septuagint); and as the Apostle says: 'For it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will' (Phil. 2:13).

For what good will is there, except that which God Himself has wrought in them, so that what He had granted to will, He might also grant to accomplish? CHAP. VI. They say also, to demonstrate the capacity of free will, that there exists a great proof in the centurion Cornelius: in that, before the reception of grace, fearing and praying to God, he was intent with spontaneous zeal upon almsgiving, fasting, and prayer (Acts 10:2); and that on this account, praised by divine testimony, he received the gift of regeneration. Nor do they understand that all that preparation of Cornelius was bestowed through the grace of God (See the Synod of Orange below).

For indeed, when holy Peter was taught through a vision of every kind of animal concerning the baptizing of Cornelius, and likewise concerning all the nations, and when he, according to the Jewish observance, refused the unclean and indiscriminate food, a voice came to him three times, saying, 'What God has cleansed, do not you call common' (Acts 10:15). By this it is sufficiently and openly shown that all the good works which preceded in Cornelius had been begun by the grace of God for his own cleansing: so that to him to whom the Lord had already imparted this gift, the Apostle would not hesitate to confer the sacrament, lest the beginning of the new and not-yet-revealed calling should waver, unless it were established, by the very signs of his preceding endeavors, that God was at work in those taken up. For not all have faith (2 Thess. 3:2);

nor do all believe the Gospel (Rom. 10:16). But those who believe are led by the Spirit of God; those who do not believe turn away by their free will. Our conversion to God, therefore, is not from ourselves, but from God: as the Apostle says, 'By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; and not of works, lest anyone should glory' (Eph. 2:8). CHAP. VII. Let human weakness acknowledge itself, and the condemned succession of all the generations in the first man; and when the dead are made alive, when the blind are enlightened, when the ungodly are justified, let them confess as their life, and light, and righteousness, Jesus Christ; and let him who glories, glory in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31), not in himself:

he who, while he was ungodly, and blind, and dead, received freely from his deliverer righteousness, and light, and life. For he was not acting justly, and his righteousness was increased; nor was he walking toward God, and his course was confirmed; nor was he loving God, and his charity was kindled; but while he was without faith, and therefore ungodly, he received the Spirit of faith, and was made just: 'For the just lives by faith' (Rom. 1:17); and, 'Without faith no one can please God' (Heb. 11:6); and, 'Whatever is not of faith is sin' (Rom. 14:23): so that he may understand that the righteousness of the unfaithful is not righteousness, because nature without grace is unclean. CHAP. VIII.

For having lost his natural innocence, man, an exile and lost, walking without a way, was entering into deeper errors; but he was sought, and found, and brought back, and led into the way which is the truth and the life; and he was set afire with love toward God, who first loved him when he did not love: as the blessed apostle John says, 'Not as though we had loved God, but because He first loved us' (1 John 4:10); and again, 'Let us therefore love God, because God first loved us' (1 John 4:19); and the same says, 'Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God; for God is charity' (1 John 4:7-8).

With this the blessed Paul agrees, saying, 'In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through love' (Gal. 5:6). Whence is this faith joined to charity to be had, except whence he himself shows it to be received, saying, 'For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him' (Phil. 1:29)? And this surely could not be done without great charity. And again, 'The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit who is given to us' (Rom. 5:5). Without which charity the Apostle testifies that however great a faith, however great a knowledge, what virtues, what zeal, what labors a man may have, they profit nothing (1 Cor. 13:3).

For surely many praiseworthy and admirable things can be found in a man which, without the marrow of charity, have indeed a likeness of godliness, but do not have its truth. CHAP. IX. For this so great and so ineffable good, then, no one was found worthy; but whoever has been chosen by God has been made worthy; as the Apostle says (Col. 1:12), 'Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.' And the same to Timothy (2 Tim. 1:8): 'Labor,' he says, 'with the Gospel according to the power of God, who has freed us and called us with a holy calling:'

'not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time.' And to Titus (Tit. 3:3): 'We ourselves also,' he says, 'were once foolish and unbelieving, erring and serving various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another: but when the goodness and kindness of our Savior appeared, not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to His mercy He saved us.' The grace of God, therefore, whomever it justifies, makes them not better out of the good, but good out of the evil; afterward, through advancement, it will make them better out of the good; not with free will taken away, but set free:

which, so long as it was alone without God, was dead to righteousness, and lived to sin; but where the mercy of Christ enlightened it, it was rescued from the kingdom of the devil, and was made the kingdom of God; in which, that it may be able to remain, it does not suffice for itself even with that capacity, unless it receives perseverance from that source whence it received diligence (perhaps: righteousness). CHAP. X. For even the most ardent faith of holy Peter himself would have failed in temptations, had not the Lord prayed for him: as the Evangelist makes clear, saying (Luke 22:31-32): 'And Jesus said to Peter, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not: and you, being once converted, confirm your brethren;'

and, 'Pray, that you enter not into temptation' (Ibid. 40). And in order that it might more fully be proved that free will can do nothing without grace: he to whom it had been said, 'Confirm your brethren, and pray that you enter not into temptation,' and who had answered—surely out of free will—'Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death' (Ibid. 33), to this same one it is foretold that, before the cock crows, he will three times deny the Lord. And what else is this, than that he will fail in faith? Certainly the Lord had prayed for him, that his faith should not fail: and surely He had not prayed in vain, since His working was one with Him for whom He prayed. But lest he, who had promised great things concerning himself, should seem to stand by free will, he is permitted to be endangered;

so that Him He might look upon and restore the troubled and failing one—Him, without whom no one stands, no one persists. CHAP. XI. Now from this confession of the grace of God certain ones shrink back for this reason: lest, when they have confessed it to be such as it is proclaimed by the divine word, and such as it is recognized in the work of His power, they should also have to confess this—that out of the whole number of men born throughout all the ages, the number of the people predestined to eternal life, and elected according to the purpose of the calling God, is fixed and definite before God. And to deny this is indeed as impious as to oppose grace itself.

For neither is it remote from common observation, for how many ages, how innumerable thousands of men, abandoned to their own errors and impieties, have perished without any knowledge of the true God. As also in the Acts of the Apostles the words of Paul and Barnabas declare, saying to the Lycaonians (Acts 14:15): 'Men, brethren, why do you these things? We also are mortals, men like yourselves, preaching to you to turn from these vain things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them; who in past generations let all nations walk in their own ways.'

'And yet He did not leave Himself without testimony, doing them good, giving rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.' Whereas surely, if either natural understanding or the use of God's benefits could have sufficed for them to lay hold of eternal life, in our time too rational contemplation, and the temperateness of the air, and the abundance of fruits and of foods would save us: because, namely, by using nature better, we would worship our Creator for His daily gifts. CHAP. XII. But far be from the minds of the godly, and of those redeemed by the blood of Christ, a persuasion exceedingly foolish and pernicious. Human nature is not set free apart from the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim.

2:5); without Him there is salvation for no one (Acts 4:12). As He Himself made us, and not we ourselves (Ps. 99:3); so He Himself remakes us, and not we ourselves. And lest the faculty of man should seem, even after his restoration, to repay through works of righteousness the price of this reparation, the riches of God's goodness poured themselves out upon the very beginnings of certain little ones; in whom neither a preceding nor a following devotion is chosen; not obedience, not discernment, not will. For I speak of those who, as soon as they are born, are reborn, and, snatched from this life, are assigned to eternal blessedness;

while nevertheless an innumerable multitude of infants, of the same nature, of the same condition, departs without regeneration—concerning whom it cannot be doubted that it has no part in the city of God. CHAP. XIII. And where is that objection which is always brought against us, as though contrary, by those who do not understand—that God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4)? Are they not among all the men who, from past generations down to this time, have perished without the knowledge of God?

And if to those of greater age (which is not rightly said) the evil works which they had committed by free will were a hindrance, as though they were freed by the grace not of the evil but of the good—between the saved little ones and the unsaved little ones, what distinction of merits could there be? What introduced these into the kingdom of God? What excluded those from the kingdom of God? Indeed, if you consider merit, not one part deserved to be saved, but both deserved to be condemned: because, all having been laid low in Adam's transgression, unless merciful grace took up some, blameless justice would remain over all. But what the cause or reason of this distinction may be, in the secret counsel of God, is both inquired into above the capacity of human knowledge, and not known without diminution of faith:

let us only confess that no one perishes undeservedly, that no one is freed by merit, and that the Lord's all-powerful goodness saves all, and instructs all in the knowledge of the truth—all whom He wills to become saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For unless He Himself calls, teaches, and saves, no one comes, no one is instructed, no one is saved. Because, although the teachers are commanded to preach indiscriminately to all men, and to scatter the seed of the word everywhere; yet neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:7). CHAP. XIV.

Hence, when the apostles began to preach the Gospel to the nations, Scripture records, concerning a certain part of those who had heard, saying, 'And the Gentiles hearing it were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were preordained to eternal life believed' (Acts 13:48). And elsewhere, when many women were hearing Paul teaching: 'A certain woman,' it says, 'named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, one that worshipped God, did hear: whose heart the Lord opened to attend to those things which were said by Paul' (Acts 16:14).

And again, at that very time when the preaching of the Gospel was being sent to all the nations, the apostles are forbidden to go to certain places by Him who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: while surely many in that place were held back and turned away by the delay of the Gospel, destined to die without the knowledge of the truth and without the consecration of regeneration. Let Scripture then tell what was done: 'And passing through Phrygia and the region of Galatia,' it says, 'they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. And when they had come into Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them' (Ibid.).

And what wonder is it, if amid the very beginnings of evangelical preaching the apostles could not go except where the Spirit of God had willed them to go; since we see very many nations only now first beginning to become partakers of Christian grace, while others have not yet caught even a scent of this good thing? CHAP. XV. Or is it to be said that human wills oppose the will of God, and that the manners of these men are so savage and so intractable, that they do not hear the Gospel for this reason—because their impious hearts are not open to the preaching? And who has changed those hearts, except He who fashioned their hearts one by one (Ps. 33:15)?

Who has softened the hardness of this stubbornness into the disposition of obedience, except He who is able of stones to raise up children to Abraham (Matt. 3:9)? And who shall give to the preachers an undaunted and unharmed constancy, except He who said to Paul, 'Do not fear, but speak, and do not be silent; because I am with you, and no one shall be set against you to hurt you, for I have much people in this city' (Acts 18:9)? But I think no one would dare to say that any nation of the world, any region of the earth, is to be passed over, in which the tabernacles of the Church are not to be enlarged, since God says to the Son, 'Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession' (Ps. 2:8);

and again, 'All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be turned to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in His sight' (Ps. 22:27): the Lord Himself also saying, 'This Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come' (Matt. 24:14). Whatever nations, therefore, have not yet heard, shall hear the Gospel, and as many of them as are preordained to eternal life shall believe (Acts 13:48). For no others shall come into the fellowship of Christ's inheritance than those who were chosen before the foundation of the world, and predestined and foreknown, according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). CHAP. XVI.

Let us therefore confess the works of the Lord, and glorify His mercies, nor let us bear it impatiently that we do not know which or how many are the vessels of election. For in former ages too, when concerning the people of one nation it was said, 'In Judah God is known, in Israel His name is great' (Ps. 76:1), the future election of the Gentiles lay hidden; and afterward there became known what before had not been revealed: as the Apostle says, 'That which in other generations was not known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit—namely, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and co-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus' (Eph. 3:5-6).

And in the Acts of the Apostles, 'They of the circumcision who believed,' it says, 'who had come with Peter, were astonished, because that on the nations also the grace of the Holy Spirit was poured out' (Acts 10:45). For if the Lord hid and deferred this counsel of His calling as long as He willed, and revealed it when He willed, and this ignorance did no harm to His saints, why do we believe it harmful to our hope, if it is concealed in what number and in which men the vessels of mercy are prepared unto glory? Since nevertheless it stands fast that all the good shall enter the kingdom of heaven, the grace of God granting this to them, and that none of the evil shall enter, their own wickedness deserving this. CHAP. XVII.