Letter II.
[The 215th of Augustin’s Epistles.]
To my very dear lord and most honoured brother among the members of Christ, Valentinus, and to the brethren that are with you, Augustin sends greeting in the Lord.
1. That Cresconius and Felix, and another Felix, the servants of God, who came to us from your brotherhood, have spent Easter with us is known to your Love.2937
| 2937 The phrase of Christian salutation, vestra caritas which may be rendered “your loving or beloved selves;” it is a parallel phrase with the more familiar one to modern ears, “Your Honour.”
|
We have detained them somewhile longer in order that they might return to you better
instructed against the new Pelagian
heretics, into whose error every one falls who supposes that it is according to any human merits that the
grace of
God is given to us, which alone
delivers a man through
Jesus Christ our
Lord. But he, too, is no less in error who thinks that, when the
Lord shall come to
judgment, a man is not judged according to his works who has been able to use
throughout his
life free choice of will. For only
infants, who have not yet done any works of their own, either good or bad, will be
condemned on account of original
sin alone, when they have not been
delivered by the Saviour’s
grace in the laver of
regeneration. As for all others who, in the use of their free will, have added to original
sin,
sins of their own commission, but who have not been
delivered by
God’s
grace from the
power of
darkness and removed into the
kingdom of
Christ, they will
receive
judgment according to the
deserts not of their original
sin only, but also of the acts of their own will. The good, indeed, shall receive their
reward according to the merits of their own good-will, but then they received this very good-will through the
grace of
God; and thus is accomplished that sentence of Scripture, “Indignation and
wrath,
tribulation and
anguish, upon every
soul of man that doeth
evil, of the
Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but
glory, honour, and
peace to every
man that worketh good; to the
Jew first, and also to the Gentile.”
2938
2. Touching the very difficult question of will and grace, I have felt no need of treating it further in this letter, having given them another letter also when they were about to return in greater haste. I have written a book likewise for you,2939
| 2939 The following treatise is here referred to,—On Grace and Free Will.
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and if you, by the
Lord’s help, read it, and have a
lively understanding of it, I think that no further
dissension on this subject will arise among you. They take with them other documents besides, which, as we supposed, ought to be sent to you, in order that from these you may ascertain what means the catholic
Church has
adopted for repelling, in
God’s
mercy, the
poison of the Pelagian
heresy. For the letters to Pope
Innocent,
Bishop of
Rome, from the
Council of the
province of Carthage, and from the
Council of Numidia, and one written with exceeding care by five
bishops, and what he wrote back to these three; our letter also to Pope Zosimus about the African
Council, and his answer addressed to all
bishops throughout the
world; and a brief constitution, which we drew up against the error itself at a later plenary
Council of all Africa; and the above-mentioned book of mine, which I have just written for you,—all these we have both read over with them,
while they were with us, and have now despatched by their
hands to you.
2940
| 2940 See Epp. 175–177, and 181–183.
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3. Furthermore, we have read to them the work of the most blessed martyr Cyprian on the Lord’s Prayer, and have pointed out to them how He taught that all things pertaining to our morals, which constitute right living, must be sought from our Father which is in heaven, lest, by presuming on free will, we fall from divine grace. From the same treatise we have also shown them how the same glorious martyr has taught us that it behoves us to pray even for our enemies
who have not yet believed in Christ, that they may believe; which would of course be all in vain unless the Church believed that even the evil and unbelieving wills of men might, by the grace of God, be converted to good. This book of St. Cyprian, however, we have not sent you, because they told us that you possessed it among yourselves already. My letter, also, which had been sent to Sixtus, presbyter of the Church at Rome2941
and which they brought with them to us, we read over with them, and pointed out how that it had been written in opposition to those who say that
God’s
grace is bestowed according to our merits,—that is to say, in opposition to the same Pelagians.
4. As far, then, as lay in our power, we have used our influence with them, as both your brethren and our own, with a view to their persevering in the soundness of the catholic faith, which neither denies free will whether for an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God’s grace, whether that it may be changed from evil to good, or that it may persevere in the pursuit of good, or that it may attain to eternal good
when there is no further fear of failure. To yourselves, too, my most dearly beloved, I also, in this letter, give the same exhortation which the apostle addresses to us all, “not to think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”2942
5. Mark well the counsel which the Holy Ghost gives us by Solomon: “Make straight paths for thy feet, and order thy ways aright. Turn not aside to the right hand nor to the left, but turn away thy foot from the evil way; for the Lord knoweth the ways on the right hand, but those on the left are perverse. He will make thy ways straight, and will direct thy steps in peace.”2943
Now consider, my
brethren, that in these words of Holy Scripture, if there were no free will, it would not be said, “Make straight paths for thy
feet, and order thy ways; turn not aside to the right
hand, nor to the left.” Nor yet, were this possible for us to achieve without the
grace of
God, would it be afterwards added, “He will make thy ways straight, and will direct thy steps in
peace.”
6. Decline, therefore, neither to the right hand nor to the left, although the paths on the right hand are praised, and those on the left hand are blamed. This is why he added, “Turn away thy foot from the evil way,”—that is, from the left-hand path. This he makes manifest in the following words, saying, “For the Lord knoweth the ways on the right hand; but those on the left are perverse.” In those ways we ought surely to walk which the Lord knows; and it is of
these that we read in the Psalm, “The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish;”2944
for this way, which is on the left
hand, the
Lord does not know. As He will also say at last to such as are placed on His left
hand at the day of
judgment: “I know you not.”
2945
Now what is that which He knows not, who knows all things, both good and
evil, in man? But what is the meaning of the words, “I know you not,” unless it be that you are now such as I never made you? Precisely as that passage runs, which is spoken of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that “He knew no
sin.”
2946
How knew it not, except that He had never made it? And, therefore, how is to be understood the passage, “The ways which are on the right
hand the
Lord knoweth,” except in the sense that He made those ways Himself,—even “the paths of the
righteous,” which no doubt are “those good works that
God,” as the
apostle tells us, “hath before
ordained that we should
walk in them”?
2947
Whereas the left-
hand ways—those
perverse paths of the
unrighteous—He truly knows nothing of, because He never made them for man, but man made them for himself. Wherefore He says, “The
perverse ways of the
wicked I utterly
abhor; they are on the left
hand.”
7. But the reply is made: Why did He say, “Turn not aside to the right hand, nor to the left,” when he clearly ought rather to have said, Keep to the right hand, and turn not off to the left, if the right-hand paths are good? Why, do we think, except this, that the paths on the right hand are so good that it is not good to turn off from them, even to the right? For that man, indeed, is to be understood as declining to the right who chooses to attribute to himself, and
not to God, even those good works which appertain to right-hand ways. Hence it was that after saying, “For the Lord knoweth the ways on the right hand, but those on the left hand are perverse,” as if the objection were raised to Him, Wherefore, then, do you not wish us to turn aside to the right? He immediately added as follows: “He will Himself make thy paths straight, and will direct thy ways in peace.” Understand, therefore, the precept, “Make straight paths for thy feet, and order thy ways
aright,” in such a sense as to know that whenever you do all this, it is the Lord God who enables you to do it. Then you will not turn off to the right, although you are walking in right-hand paths, not trusting in your own strength; and He will Himself be your strength, who will make straight paths for your feet, and will direct your ways in peace.
8. Wherefore, most dearly beloved, whosoever says, My will suffices for me to perform good works, declines to the right. But, on the other hand, they who think that a good way of life should be forsaken, when they hear God’s grace so preached as to lead to the supposition and belief that it of itself makes men’s wills from evil to good, and it even of itself keeps them what it has made them; and who, as the result of this opinion, go on to say, “Let us do evil
that good may come,”2948
—these persons decline to the left. This is the reason why he said to you, “Turn not aside to the right
hand, nor to the left;” in other words, do not uphold free will in such
wise as to attribute good works to it without the
grace of
God, nor so
defend and maintain
grace as if, by reason of it, you may
love evil works in
security and
safety,—which may
God’s
grace itself avert from you! Now it was the words of such as these which the
apostle had in view when he said, “What
shall we say, then? Shall we continue in
sin that
grace may abound?”
2949
And to this cavil of erring men, who know nothing about the
grace of
God, he returned such an answer as he ought in these words: “
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to
sin,
live any longer therein?” Nothing could have been said more succinctly, and yet to the point. For what more useful
gift does the
grace of
God confer upon us, in this present
evil world, than our dying unto
sin? Hence he shows himself ungrateful to
grace itself who chooses to
live in
sin by reason of
that whereby we
die unto
sin. May
God, however, who is
rich in
mercy, grant you both to think soundly and wisely, and to continue perseveringly and progressively to the end in every good determination and purpose. For yourselves, for us, for all who
love you, and for those who
hate you,
pray that this
gift may be attained,—
pray earnestly and vigilantly in
brotherly peace. Live unto God. If I deserve any favour at your hands, let brother Florus come to me.
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