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Letter
CXXXIII. To Ctesiphon.
Ctesiphon had written to Jerome for his opinion on two
points in the teaching of Pelagius, (1) his quietism and (2) his denial
of original sin. Jerome now refutes these two doctrines and points out
that Pelagius has drawn them partly from the philosophers and partly
from the heretics. He censures Rufinus, who had died 5 years before,
for attributing to Sixtus bishop of Rome a book which is really the
work of Xystus a Pythagorean, and for passing off as the composition of
the martyr Pamphilus a panegyric of Origen really due to his friend
Eusebius. In both these assertions, however, Jerome is more wrong than
right. (See Prolegomena to the works of Rufinus.) The letter concludes
with a promise to deal more fully with the heresy of Pelagius at some
future time, a promise afterwards redeemed by the publication of a
‘dialogue against the Pelagians.’ The date of the letter is
415 a.d.
1. In acquainting me with the new controversy which has
taken the place of the old you are wrong in thinking that you have
acted rashly, for your conduct has been prompted by zeal and
friendship. Already before the arrival of your letter many in the East
have been deceived into a pride which apes humility and have said with
the devil: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God; I will be like the Most High.”3772
Can there be greater presumption than
to claim not likeness to God but equality with Him, and so to compress
into a few words the poisonous doctrines of all the heretics which in
their turn flow from the statements of the philosophers, particularly
of Pythagoras and Zeno the founder of the Stoic school? For those
states of feeling which the Greeks call πάθη and which we may describe as
“passions,” relating to the present or the future such as
vexation and gladness, hope and fear,—these, they tell us, it is
possible to root out of our minds; in fact all vice may be destroyed
root and branch in man by meditation on virtue and constant practice of
it. The position which they thus take up is vehemently assailed by the
Peripatetics who trace themselves to Aristotle, and by the new
Academics of whom Cicero is a disciple; and these overthrow not the
facts of their opponents—for they have no facts—but the
shadows and wishes which do duty for them. To maintain such a doctrine
is to take man’s nature from him, to forget that he is
constituted of body as well as soul, to substitute mere wishes for
sound teaching.3773
| 3773 Cf. Letter
LXXIX. § 9. | For the
apostle says:—“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver
me from the body of this death?”3774
But as I cannot say all that I wish
in a short letter I will briefly touch on the points that you must
avoid. Virgil writes:—
Thus mortals fear and hope, rejoice and grieve,
And shut in darkness have no sight of heaven.3775
| 3775 Virgil,
Æneid, vi. 733, 734. |
For who can escape these feelings? Must we not all clap
our hands when we are joyful, and shrink at the approach of sorrow?
Must not hope always animate us and fear put us in terror? So in one of
his Satires the poet Horace, whose words are so weighty, writes:
From faults no mortal is completely free;
He that has fewest is the perfect man.3776
| 3776 Horace, Sat. I.
iii. 68, 69. |
2. Well does one of our own writers3777
| 3777 Tertullian,
against Hermogenes, c. ix. | say: “the philosophers are the
patriarchs of the heretics.”
It is they who have stained with their perverse doctrine the
spotlessness of the Church, not knowing that of human weakness it is
said: “Why is earth and ashes proud?”3778
So likewise the apostle: “I
see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and
bringing me into captivity”;3779
and
again, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I
would not that I do.”3780
Now if Paul
does what he wills not, what becomes of the assertion that a man may be
without sin if he will? Given the will, how is it to have its way when
the apostle tells us that he has no power to do what he wishes?
Moreover if we ask them who the persons are whom they regard as sinless
they seek to veil the truth by a new subterfuge. They do not, they say,
profess that men are or have been without sin; all that they maintain
is that it is possible for them to be so. Remarkable teachers truly,
who maintain that a thing may be which on their own shewing, never has
been; whereas the scripture says:—“The thing which shall
be, it is that which hath been already of old time.”3781
I need not go through the lives of the saints or call
attention to the moles and spots which mark the fairest skins. Many of
our writers, it is true, unwisely, take this course; however, a few
sentences of scripture will dispose alike of the heretics and the
philosophers. What says the chosen vessel? “God had concluded all
in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all;”3782
and in another place, “all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”3783
The preacher also who is the
mouthpiece of the Divine Wisdom freely protests and says: “there
is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not:”3784
and again, “if thy people sin
against thee, for there is no man that sinneth not:”3785
and “who can say, I have made
my heart clean?”3786
and
“none is clean from stain, not even if his life on earth has been
but for one day.” David insists on the same thing when he says:
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother
conceive me;”3787
and in
another psalm, “in thy sight shall no man living be
justified.”3788
This last
passage they try to explain away from motives of reverence, arguing
that the meaning is that no man is perfect in comparison with God. Yet
the scripture does not say: “in comparison with thee shall no man
living be justified” but “in thy sight shall no man living
be justified.” And when it says “in thy sight” it
means that those who seem holy to men to God in his fuller knowledge
are by no means holy. For “man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looketh on the heart.”3789
But if in the sight of God who sees
all things and to whom the secrets of the heart lie open3790
| 3790 Ps. xliv. 21; Heb. iv. 13. | no man is just; then these heretics
instead of adding to man’s dignity, clearly take away from
God’s power. I might bring together many other passages of
scripture of the same import; but were I to do so, I should exceed the
limits I will not say of a letter but of a volume.
3. It is with no new doctrines that in their
self-applauding perfidy they deceive the simple and untaught. They
cannot, however, deceive theologians who meditate in the law of the
Lord day and night.3791
Let those
blush then for their leaders and companions who say that a man may be
“without sin” if he will, or, as the Greeks term it αναμάρτητος
, “sinless.” As such a statement sounds intolerable to the
Eastern churches, they profess indeed only to say that a man may be
“without sin” and do not presume to allege that he may be
“sinless” as well. As if, forsooth, “sinless”
and “without sin” had different meanings; whereas the only
difference between them is that Latin requires two words to express
what Greek gives in one. If you adopt “without sin” and
reject “sinless,” then condemn the preachers of
sinlessness. But this you cannot do. You know3792
| 3792 Jerome here
addresses Pelagius. | very well what it is that you teach
your pupils in private; and that while you say one thing with your lips
you engrave another on your heart. To us, ignorant outsiders you speak
in parables; but to your own followers you avow your secret meaning.
And for this you claim the authority of scripture which says: “to
the multitudes Jesus spake in parables;” but to his own disciples
He said: “it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.”3793
But to return; I will shortly set forth the names of
your leaders and companions to shew you who those are of whose
fellowship you make your boast. Manichæus says of his
elect—whom he places among Plato’s orbits in
heaven—that they are free from all sin, and cannot sin even if
they will. To so great heights have they attained in virtue that they
laugh at the works of the flesh. Then there is Priscillian in Spain
whose infamy makes him as bad as Manichæus, and whose disciples
profess a high esteem for you. These are rash enough to claim for
themselves the twofold credit of
perfection and wisdom. Yet they shut themselves up alone with women and
justify their sinful embraces by quoting the lines:
The almighty father takes the earth to wife;
Pouring upon her fertilizing rain,
That from her womb new harvest he may reap.3794
| 3794 Virgil, Georg.
ii. 325–327. |
These heretics have affinities with Gnosticism which may
be traced to the impious teaching of Basilides.3795
| 3795 See note on
Letter LXXV. § 3. | It is from him that you derive the
assertion that without knowledge of the law it is impossible to avoid
sin. But why do I speak of Priscillian who has been condemned by the
whole world and put to death by the secular sword?3796
| 3796 He was condemned
by a council at Saragossa in 380–381 a.d. and was put to death by Maximus at Trêves in 385
a.d. at the instigation of the Spanish
bishops. Martin of Tours tried to save his life in vain. | Evagrius3797
| 3797 According to
Sozomen (H. E. vi. c. 30) Evagrius was in his youth befriended by
Gregory of Nyssa, who left him in Constantinople to assist Nectarius in
dealing with theological questions. Being in danger, both as to his
chastity and as to his personal safety on account of an acquaintance he
had formed with a lady of rank, he withdrew to Jerusalem, where he was
nursed through a severe illness by Melanium. The rest of his life he
spent as an ascetic in the Egyptian desert. See also Pallad. Hist.
Laus., § lxxxvi. | of Ibera in Pontus who sends letters
to virgins and monks and among others to her whose name bears witness
to the blackness of her perfidy,3798
| 3798 Viz.,
Melanium, who having sided with Rufinus in his controversy with Jerome,
incurred the latter’s displeasure. The name means
‘black.’ See Letter IV. § 2. | has
published a book of maxims on apathy, or, as we should say, impassivity
or imperturbability; a state in which the mind ceases to be agitated
and—to speak simply—becomes either a stone or a God. His
work is widely read, in the East in Greek and in the West in a Latin
translation made by his disciple Rufinus.3799
| 3799 Viz., Rufinus of
Aquileia, Jerome’s former friend. | He has also written a book which
professes to be about monks and includes in it many not monks at all
whom he declares to have been Origenists, and who have certainly been
condemned by the bishops. I mean Ammonius, Eusebius, Euthymius,3800
| 3800 These three were
known as ‘the long brothers.’ Their expulsion from Egypt by
Theophilus was one of the causes which led to the downfall of John of
Chrysostom. | Evagrius himself, Horus,3801
| 3801 A contemporary
Egyptian monk of great celebrity. | Isidorus,3802
| 3802 See Letter XCII.
and note. | and many others whom it would be
tedious to enumerate. He is careful, however, to do as the physicians,
of whom Lucretius says:3803
| 3803 Lucretius, i.
935–937. |
To children bitter wormwood still they give
In cups with juice of sweetest honey smeared.
That is to say, he has set in the forefront of his book John,3804
| 3804 Viz., John of
Lycopolis, an Egyptian hermit of the latter half of the fourth century.
His reputation for sanctity was only second to that of Antony. The book
about monks here spoken of does not occur in the list of the writings
of Evagrius in the Dict. of Chr. Biog., taken from Socrates, Gennadius
and Palladius. Rufinus’ History of the Monks bears a close
affinity to the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius, who was closely allied
to Evagrius; and it is possible that Jerome may have attributed
Palladius’ work to Evagrius. See Prolegomena to Rufinus, and
comp. Ruf. Hist. Mon. i. with Pall. Hist. Laus., xliii. | an undoubted Catholic and saint, by his
means to introduce to the church the heretics mentioned farther on. But
who can adequately characterize the rashness or madness which has led
him to ascribe a book of the Pythagorean philosopher Xystus,3805
| 3805 In his references
(here and in his comm. on Jeremiah, book iv., ch. 22) to the Gnomes of
Sixtus or Xystus, Jerome is both inaccurate and unfair. For Rufinus
merely states that the author was traditionally identified with Sixtus,
bishop of Rome and martyr; and he does not endorse the statement. In
its present form the book is so strongly Christian in tone and language
that it is strange to find it described as Christless and heathen. Of
its origin nothing certain is known, but probably it is “the
production of an early Christian philosopher working up heathen
material with a leaven of the Gospel” (Dict. Chr. Biog. s. v.
Xystus). | a heathen who knew nothing of Christ, to
Sixtus3806
| 3806 It is not clear
which Sixtus is meant. Sixtus I. is not known to have been a martyr and
Sixtus II. can hardly be intended. For though his claim to the title is
undisputed he can scarcely have written what Origen already quotes as
well known. | a martyr and bishop of the Roman
church? In this work the subject of perfection is discussed at length
in the light of the Pythagorean doctrine which makes man equal with God
and of one substance with Him. Thus many not knowing that its author
was a philosopher and supposing that they are reading the words of a
martyr, drink of the golden cup of Babylon. Moreover in its pages there
is no mention of prophets, patriarchs, apostles, or of Christ; so that
according to Rufinus3807
| 3807 Jerome elsewhere
twits Rufinus with the same mistake (see Comm. on Jer., book iv., ch.
22). He was not, however, alone in making it, for even Augustine was
for a time similarly deceived (see his Retractations, ii. 42). | there has
been a bishop and a martyr who had nothing to do with Christ. Such is
the book from which you and your followers quote passages against the
church. In the same way he played fast and loose with the name of the
holy martyr Pamphilus ascribing to him the first of the six books in
defence of Origen written by Eusebius of Cæsarea3808
| 3808 Cf. Against
Rufinus, i. 8, 9. There is now no doubt that Jerome was wrong and
Rufinus right as to the authorship of the book. See the article
entitled Eusebius in the Dict. of Christian Biog. and the prolegomena
to his works as issued in this series. | who is admitted by every body to have
been an Arian. His object in doing so was of course to commend to Latin
ears Origen’s four wonderful books about First Principles.
Would you have me name another of your masters in
heresy? Much of your teaching is traceable to Origen. For, to give one
instance only, when he comments on the psalmist’s words:
“My reins also instruct me in the night season,”3809
he maintains that when a holy man like
yourself has reached perfection, he is free even at night from human
infirmity and is not tempted by evil thoughts. You need not blush to
avow yourself a follower of these men; it is of no use to disclaim
their names when you adopt their blasphemies. Moreover, your teaching
corresponds to Jovinian’s
second position.3810
| 3810 See Against
Jovinian, book ii. 1. His second position is that “persons
baptized with water and the spirit cannot be tempted of the
devil.” | You must,
therefore, take the answer which I have given to him as equally
applicable to yourself. Where men’s opinions are the same their
destinies can hardly be different.
4. Such being the state of the case, what object is
served by “silly women laden with sins, carried about with every
wind of doctrine, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth?”3811
Or how is the
cause helped by the men who dance attendance upon these, men with
itching ears3812
who know neither how to hear nor
how to speak? They confound old mire with new cement and, as Ezekiel
says, daub a wall with untempered mortar; so that, when the truth comes
in a shower, they are brought to nought.3813
It was with the help of the harlot
Helena that Simon Magus founded his sect.3814
| 3814 This legendary
companion and disciple of Simon Magus is said to have been identified
by him with Helen of Troy. According to Justin Martyr she had been a
prostitute at Tyre. | Bands of women accompanied Nicolas of
Antioch that deviser of all uncleanness.3815
| 3815 Cf. Epiphanius,
Adv. Hær. lib. i. tom. ii, p. 76, ed. Migne. | Marcion sent a woman before him to Rome
to prepare men’s minds to fall into his snares.3816
| 3816 Jerome is alone
in speaking of this emissary. It has been suggested that he may have
had in mind the gnostic Marcellina, who came to Rome during the
episcopate of Anicetus. | Apelles possessed in Philumena an
associate in his false doctrines.3817
| 3817 Apelles, the
most famous of the disciples of Marcion, lived and taught mainly at
Rome. Philumena was a clairvoyante whose revelations he regarded as
inspired. |
Montanus, that mouthpiece of an unclean spirit, used two rich and high
born ladies Prisca and Maximilla first to bribe and then to pervert
many churches.3818
Leaving
ancient history I will pass to times nearer to our own. Arius intent on
leading the world astray began by misleading the Emperor’s
sister.3819
| 3819 Constantia,
sister of Constantine the Great. | The resources of Lucilla helped
Donatus to defile with his polluting baptism many unhappy persons
throughout Africa.3820
| 3820 Lucilla, a
wealthy lady of Carthage, having been condemned by its bishop
Cæcilianus, is said to have procured his deposition by bribing his
fellow-bishops. | In Spain the
blind woman Agape led the blind man Elpidius into the ditch.3821
| 3821 Agape, a Spanish
lady, was a disciple of the gnostic Marcus of Memphis (cf. Letter LXXV.
§ 3). She was thus one of the links between the gnosticism of the
East and the Priscillianism of Spain. Elpidius was a rhetorician who
spread in Spain the Zoroastrian opinions which culminated in
Priscillianism. | He was followed by Priscillian, an
enthusiastic votary of Zoroaster and a magian before he became a
bishop. A woman named Galla seconded his efforts and left a gadabout
sister to perpetuate a second heresy of a kindred form.3822
| 3822 Of these
sisters nothing further is known. | Now also the mystery of iniquity is
working.3823
Men and women in turn lay
snares for each other till we cannot but recall the prophet’s
words: “the partridge hath cried aloud, she hath gathered young
which she hath not brought forth, she getteth riches and not by right;
in the midst of her days she shall leave them, and at her end she shall
be a fool.”3824
5. The better to deceive men they have added to the
maxim given above3825
| 3825 Viz., “A
man may be without sin.” See for this and the other statements of
Pelagius, Aug. de Gestis Pelagii, esp. c. 2 and 6. Jerome’s
Anti-Pelagian Dialogue takes these words as containing the essence of
Pelagianism. | the saving
clause “but not without the grace of God;” and this may at
the first blush take in some readers. However, when it is carefully
sifted and considered, it can deceive nobody. For while they
acknowledge the grace of God, they tell us that our acts do not depend
upon His help. Rather, they understand by the grace of God free will
and the commandments of the Law. They quote Isaiah’s words:
“God hath given the law to aid men,”3826
and say that we ought to thank Him
for having created us such that of our own free will we can choose the
good and avoid the evil. Nor do they see that in alleging this the
devil uses their lips to hiss out an intolerable blasphemy. For if
God’s grace is limited to this that He has formed us with wills
of our own, and if we are to rest content with free will, not seeking
the divine aid lest this should be impaired, we should cease to pray;
for we cannot entreat God’s mercy to give us daily what is
already in our hands having been given to us once for all. Those who
think thus make prayer impossible and boast that free will makes them
not merely controllers of themselves but as powerful as God. For they
need no external help. Away with fasting, away with every form of
self-restraint! For why need I strive to win by toil what has once for
all been placed within my reach? The argument that I am using is not
mine; it is that put forward by a disciple of Pelagius, or rather one
who is the teacher and commander of his whole army.3827
| 3827 Celestius is
meant, after Pelagius the principal champion of free will. | This man, who is the opposite of
Paul for he is a vessel of perdition, roams through thickets—not,
as his partisans say, of syllogisms, but of solecisms, and theorizes
thus: “If I do nothing without the help of God and if all that I
do is His act, I cease to labour and the crown that I shall win will
belong not to me but to the grace of God. It is idle for Him to have
given me the power of choice if I cannot use it without His constant
help. For will that requires external support ceases to be will. God
has given me freedom of choice, but
what becomes of this if I cannot do as I wish?” Accordingly he
propounds the following dilemma: “Either once for all I use the
power which is given to me, and so preserve the freedom of my will; or
I need the help of another, in which case the freedom of my will is
wholly abrogated.”
6. Surely the man who says this is no ordinary
blasphemer; the poison of his heresy is no common poison. Since our
wills are free, they argue, we are no longer dependent upon God; and
they forget the Apostle’s words “what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as
if thou hadst not received it?”3828
A nice return, truly, does a man
make to God when to assert the freedom of his will he rebels against
Him! For our parts we gladly embrace this freedom, but we never forget
to thank the Giver; knowing that we are powerless unless He continually
preserves in us His own gift. As the apostle says, “it is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth
mercy.”3829
To will and
to run are mine, but they will cease to be mine unless God brings me
His continual aid. For the same apostle says “it is God which
worketh in you both to will and to do.”3830
And in the Gospel the Saviour says:
“my Father worketh hitherto and I work.”3831
He is always a giver, always a
bestower. It is not enough for me that he has given me grace once; He
must give it me always. I seek that I may obtain, and when I have
obtained I seek again. I am covetous of God’s bounty; and as He
is never slack in giving, so I am never weary in receiving. The more I
drink, the more I thirst. For I have read the song of the psalmist:
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.”3832
Every good thing that we have is a
tasting of the Lord. When I fancy myself to have finished the book of
virtue, I shall then only be at the beginning. For “the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,”3833
and this fear is in its turn cast
out by love.3834
Men are only perfect so far as
they know themselves to be imperfect. “So likewise ye,”
Christ says, “when ye shall have done all those things which are
commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that
which was our duty to do.”3835
If he
is unprofitable who has done all, what must we say of him who has
failed to do so? This is why the Apostle declares that he has attained
in part and apprehended in part, that he is not yet perfect, and that
forgetting those things which are behind he reaches forth unto those
things which are before.3836
Now he who
always forgets the past and longs for the future shews that he is not
content with the present.
They are for ever objecting to us that we destroy free
will. Nay, we reply, it is you who destroy it; for you use it amiss and
disown the bounty of its Giver. Which really destroys freedom? the man
who thanks God always and traces back his own tiny rill to its source
in Him? or the man who says: “come not near to me, for I am
holy;3837
I have no need of Thee. Thou hast
given me once for all freedom of choice to do as I wish. Why then dost
Thou interfere again to prevent me from doing anything unless Thou
Thyself first makest Thy gifts effective in me?” To such an one I
would say: “your profession of belief in God’s grace is
insincere. For you explain this of the state in which man has been
created and you do not look for God to help him in his actions. To do
this, you argue, would be to surrender human freedom. Thus disdaining
the aid of God you have to look to men for help.”
7. Listen, only listen, to the blasphemer.
“Suppose,” he avers, “that I want to bend my finger
or to move my hand, to sit, to stand, to walk, to run to and fro, to
spit or to blow my nose, to perform the offices of nature; must the
help of God be always indispensable to me?” Thankless, nay
blasphemous wretch, hear the apostle’s declaration:
“whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all
to the glory of God.”3838
Hear also
the words of James: “go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow
we will go into such a city and continue there a year, and buy, and
sell, and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow:
for what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little
time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord
will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your
boastings; all such rejoicing is evil.”3839
You fancy that a wrong is inflicted
on you and your freedom of choice is destroyed if you are forced to
fall back on God as the moving cause of all your actions, if you are
made dependent on His Will, and if you have to echo the
psalmist’s words: “mine eyes are ever toward the Lord: for
it is he that shall pluck my feet out of the net.”3840
And so you presume rashly to maintain
that each individual is governed by his own choice. But if he is
governed by his own choice, what becomes of God’s help? If he
does not need Christ to rule him, why does Jeremiah write: “the
way of man is not in himself”3841
and
“the Lord directeth his steps.”3842
You say that the
commandments of God are easy, and yet you cannot produce any one who
has fulfilled them all. Answer me this: are they easy or are they
difficult? If they are easy, then produce some one who has fulfilled
them all. Explain also the words of the psalmist: “thou dost
cause toil by thy law,”3843
and
“because of the words of thy lips I have kept hard ways.”3844
And make plain our Lord’s
sayings in the gospel: “enter ye in at the strait gate;”3845
and “love your enemies;”
and “pray for them which persecute you.”3846
If on the other hand the commandments
are difficult and if no man has kept them all, how have you presumed to
say that they are easy? Do not you see that you contradict yourself?
For either they are easy and countless numbers have kept them; or they
are difficult and you have been too hasty in calling them easy.
8. It is a common argument with your party to say that
God’s commandments are either possible or impossible. So far as
they are the former you admit that they are rightly laid upon us; but
so far as they are the latter you allege that blame attaches not to us
who have received them but to God who has imposed them on us. What! has
God commanded me to be what He is,3847
| 3847 ἀυταρκής,
self-determined. | to put
no difference between myself and my creator, to be greater than the
greatest of the angels, to have a power which no angels possess?
Sinlessness is made a characteristic of Christ, “who did no sin
neither was guile found in his mouth.”3848
But if I am sinless as well as He,
how is sinlessness any longer His distinguishing mark? for if this
distinction exists, your theory becomes fatal to itself.
You assert that a man may be without sin if he will; and
then, as though awakening from a deep sleep, you try to deceive the
unwary by adding the saving clause “yet not without the grace of
God.” For if by his own efforts a man can keep himself without
sin, what need has he of God’s grace? If on the other hand he can
do nothing without this, what is the use of saying that he can do what
he cannot do? It is argued that a man may be without sin and perfect if
he only wills it. What Christian is there who does not wish to be
sinless or who would reject perfection if, as you say, it is to be had
for the wishing, and if the will is sure to be followed by the power?
There is no Christian who does not wish to be sinless; wishing to be
so, therefore, they all will be so. Whether you like it or not you will
be caught in this dilemma, that you can produce nobody or hardly
anybody who is without sin, yet have to admit that everybody may be
sinless if he likes. God’s commandments, it is argued, are
possible to keep. Who denies it? But how this truth is to be understood
the chosen vessel thus most clearly explains: “what the law could
not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh;”3849
and again:
“by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be
justified.”3850
And to shew
that it is not only the law of Moses that is meant or all those
precepts which collectively are termed the law, the same apostle
writes: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I
see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 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.”3851
Other words of his further explain his
meaning: “we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal,
sold under sin. For that which I do I know3852
not: for what I would that do I not,
but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I
consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do
it: but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my
flesh) dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me: but how
to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I
would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me.”3853
9. But you will demur to this and say that I follow the
teaching3854
| 3854 This is the well
known dualism of Manes (Manichæus), who held that the physical
world and the human body are essentially evil. | of the Manichæans and
others who make war against the church’s doctrine in the interest
of their belief that there are two natures diverse from one another and
that there is an evil nature which can in no wise be changed. But it is
not against me that you must make this imputation but against the
apostle who knows well that God is one thing and man another, that the
flesh is weak and the spirit strong.3855
“The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the
flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot
do the things that ye would.”3856
But from
me you will never hear that any nature is essentially evil. Let us
learn then from him who tells us so in what sense the flesh is weak.
Ask him why he has said: “the
good that I would, I do not; the evil which I would not, that I
do.”3857
What necessity fetters his
will? What compulsion commands him to do what he dislikes? And why must
he do not what he wishes but what he dislikes and does not wish? He
will answer you thus: “nay, but, O man, who art thou that
repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed
it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the
clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto
dishonour?”3858
Bring a yet
graver charge against God and ask Him why, when Esau and Jacob were
still in the womb, He said: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated.”3859
Accuse Him of
injustice because, when Achan the son of Carmi stole part of the spoil
of Jericho, He butchered so many thousands for the fault of one.3860
Ask Him why for the sin of the sons of
Eli the people were well-nigh annihilated and the ark captured.3861
And why, when David sinned by
numbering the people, so many thousands lost their lives.3862
Or lastly make your own the favorite
cavil of your associate Porphyry, and ask how God can be described as
pitiful and of great mercy when from Adam to Moses and from Moses to
the coming of Christ He has suffered all nations to die in ignorance of
the Law and of His commandments.3863
| 3863 This objection
is dealt with at length by Augustine (Letter CXI. §§
8–15. See Vol. I. Series I. of this Library). | For
Britain, that province so fertile in despots, the Scottish tribes, and
all the barbarians round about as far as the ocean were alike without
knowledge of Moses and the prophets. Why should Christ’s coming
have been delayed to the last times? Why should He not have come before
so vast a number had perished? Of this last question the blessed
apostle in writing to the Romans most wisely disposes by admitting that
he does not know and that only God does. Do you too, then, condescend
to remain ignorant of that into which you inquire. Leave to God His
power over what is His own; He does not need you to justify His
actions. I am the hapless being against whom you ought to direct your
insults, I who am for ever reading the words: “by grace ye are
saved,”3864
and
“blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered.”3865
Yet, to lay
bare my own weakness, I know that I wish to do many things which I
ought to do and yet cannot. For while my spirit is strong and leads me
to life my flesh is weak and draws me to death. And I have the warning
of the Lord in my ears: “watch and pray that ye enter not into
temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak.”3866
10. It is in vain that you misrepresent me and try to
convince the ignorant that I condemn free will. Let him who condemns it
be himself condemned. We have been created endowed with free will;
still it is not this which distinguishes us from the brutes. For human
free will, as I have said before, depends upon the help of God and
needs His aid moment by moment, a thing which you and yours do not
choose to admit. Your position is that, if a man once has free will, he
no longer needs the help of God. It is true that freedom of the will
brings with it freedom of decision. Still man does not act immediately
on his free will, but requires God’s aid who Himself needs no
aid. You yourself boast that a man’s righteousness may be perfect
and equal to God’s; yet you confess that you are a sinner. Answer
me this, then; do you or do you not wish to be free from sin? If you
do, why on your principle do you not carry out your desire? And if you
do not, do you not prove yourself a despiser of God’s
commandments? If you are a despiser, then you are a sinner. And if you
are a sinner, then the scripture says: “unto the wicked God
saith, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou
shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction
and castest my words behind thee.”3867
So long as you are unwilling to do
what God commands, so long do you cast His words behind you. And yet
like a new apostle you lay down for the world what to do and what not
to do. However, your words and your thoughts by no means correspond.
For when you say that you are a sinner—yet that a man may be
without sin if he will, you wish it to be understood that you are a
saint and free from all sin. It is only out of humility3868
that you call yourself a sinner; to
give you a chance of praising others while you depreciate yourself.
11. Another of your arguments is also intolerable, one
which runs thus: “To be sinless is one thing, to be able to be so
is another. The first is not in our power, the second generally is. For
though none ever has been sinless, yet, if a man wills to be so, he can
be so.” What sort of reasoning, I ask, is this? that a man can be
what a man never has been! that a thing is possible which according to
your own admission, no man has yet achieved! You are predicating of man
a quality which, for aught you know, he may never possess! and you are
assigning to any chance person a grace which you cannot shew to have marked patriarchs, prophets, or
apostles. Listen to the Church’s words, plain as they may seem to
you or crude or ignorant. And speak what you think; preach publicly
what secretly you tell your disciples. You profess to have freedom of
choice; why do you not speak your thoughts freely? Your secret chambers
hear one doctrine, the crowd around the platform hear another. The
uneducated throng, I suppose, is not able to digest your esoteric
teaching. Satisfied with the milk-diet of an infant it cannot take
solid food.3869
I have written nothing yet, and still you menace me with
the thunders of a reply; hoping, I suppose, that I may be scared by
your terrors and may not venture to open my mouth. You fail to see that
my purpose in writing is to force you to answer and to commit yourself
plainly to doctrines which at present you maintain or ignore, as time,
place, and person require. One kind of freedom I must deny to you, the
freedom to deny what you have once written. An open avowal on your part
of the opinions that you hold will be a victory for the church. For
either the language of your reply will correspond to mine, in which
case I shall count you no longer as opponents but as friends; or else
you will gainsay my doctrine, in which case the making known of your
opinion to all the churches will be a triumph for me. To have brought
your tenets to light is to have overcome them. Blasphemy is written on
the face of them, and a doctrine, which in its very statement is
blasphemous, needs no refutation. You threaten me with a reply, but
this nobody can escape except the man who does not write at all. How do
you know what I am going to say that you talk of a reply? Perhaps I
shall take your view and then you will have sharpened your wits to no
purpose. Eunomians, Arians, Macedonians—all these, unlike in
name, alike in impiety, give me no trouble. For they say what they
think. Yours is the only heresy which blushes openly to maintain what
secretly it does not fear to teach. But the frenzy of the disciples
exposes the silence of the masters; for what they have heard from them
in the closet they preach upon the housetop. If their auditors like
what they say, their masters get the credit; and if they dislike it,
only the disciples are blamed, the masters go free. In this way your
heresy has grown and you have deceived many; especially those who
cleave to women and are assured that they cannot sin. You are always
teaching, you are always denying; you deserve to have the
prophet’s words applied to you: “give to them glory, O
Lord, when they are in travail and in the throes of labour. Give them,
O Lord; what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry
breasts.”3870
My temper
rises and I cannot check my words. The limits of a letter do not admit
of a lengthy discussion. I assail nobody by name here. It is only
against the teacher of perverse doctrine that I have spoken. If
resentment shall induce him to reply, he will but betray himself like a
mouse which always leaves traces of its presence; and, when it comes to
blows in earnest, will receive more serious wounds.
12. From my youth up until now I have spent many years
in writing various works and have always tried to teach my hearers the
doctrine that I have been taught publicly in church. I have not
followed the philosophers in their discussions but have preferred to
acquiesce in the plain words of the apostles. For I have known that it
is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent,”3871
and “the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.”3872
This being
the case, I challenge my opponents thoroughly to sift all my past
writings and, if they can find anything that is faulty in them, to
bring it to light. One of two things must happen. Either my works will
be found edifying and I shall confute the false charges brought against
me; or they will be found blameworthy and I shall confess my error. For
I would sooner correct an error than persevere in an opinion proved to
be wrong. And as for you, illustrious doctor, go you and do likewise:
either defend the statements that you have made, and support your
clever theories with corresponding eloquence, and do not when the whim
takes you disown your own words; or if, as a man may do, you have made
a mistake, confess it frankly and restore harmony where there has been
disagreement. Recall to mind how even the soldiers did not rend the
coat of the Saviour.3873
When you
see brothers at strife you laugh; and are glad that some are called by
your name and others by that of Christ. Better would it be to imitate
Jonah and say: “If it is for my sake that this great tempest is
upon you, take me up and cast me forth into the sea.”3874
He in his humility was thrown into
the deep that he might rise again in glory to be a type of the Lord.3875
But you are lifted up in your pride
to the stars, only that of you too Jesus may say: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall
from heaven.”3876
13. It is true that in the holy scriptures many are
called righteous, as Zacharias and Elizabeth, Job, Jehosaphat, Josiah,
and many others who are mentioned in the sacred writings. Of this fact
I shall, if God gives me grace, give a full explanation in the work
which I have promised3877
| 3877 The
Anti-Pelagian Dialogue, to which this letter is a kind of prelude. | ; in this
letter it must suffice to say that they are called righteous, not
because they are faultless but because their faults are eclipsed by
their virtues.3878
| 3878 Cf. Letter
CXXIII. § 3. | In fact
Zacharias is punished with dumbness,3879
Job is
condemned out of his own mouth,3880
and
Jehoshaphat and Josiah who are beyond a doubt described as righteous
are narrated to have done things displeasing to the Lord. The first
leagued himself with the ungodly Ahab and brought upon himself the
rebuke of Micaiah;3881
and the
second—though forbidden by the word of the Lord spoken by
Jeremiah—went against Pharaoh-Nechoh, king of Egypt, and was
slain by him.3882
Yet they
are both called righteous. Of the rest this is not the time to write;
for you have asked me not for a treatise but for a letter. For a
complete refutation I require leisure and then I hope to destroy all
their cavils by the help of Christ. For this purpose I shall rely on
the holy scriptures in which God every day speaks to those who believe.
And this is the warning which I would give through you to all who are
assembled within your holy and illustrious house, that they should not
allow one or at the most three mannikins to taint them with the dregs
of so many heresies and with the infamy—to say the
least—attaching to them. A place once famous for virtue and
holiness must not be defiled by the presumption of the devil and by
unclean associations. And let those who supply money to such men know
that they are adding to the ranks of the heretics, raising up enemies
to Christ and fostering his avowed opponents. It is idle for them to
profess one thing with their lips when by their actions they are proved
to think another.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
