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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 101

Letter CI.
Consolatory.
This is my first letter to you, and I could have prayed that its subject were a brighter one. Had it been so, things would have fallen out as I desire, for it is my wish that the life of all those who are purposed to live in true religion should be happily spent. But the Lord, Who ordains our course in accordance with His ineffable wisdom, has arranged that all these things should come about for the advantage of our souls, whereby He has, on the one hand, made your life sorrowful, and on the other, roused the sympathy of one who, like myself, is united to you in godly love. Therefore on my learning from my brothers what has befallen you it has seemed to me that I could not but give you such comfort as I can. Had it indeed been possible to me to travel to the place in which you are now living I would have made every effort to do so. But my bad health and the present business which occupies me have caused this very journey, which I have undertaken, to be injurious to the interests of my Church. I have, therefore, determined to address your excellency in writing, to remind you that these afflictions are not sent by the Lord, Who rules us, to the servants of God to no purpose, but as a test of the genuineness of our love to the divine Creator. Just as athletes win crowns by their struggles in the arena, so are Christians brought to perfection by the trial of their temptations, if only we learn to accept what is sent us by the Lord with becoming patience, with all thanksgiving. All things are ordained by the Lord’s love. We must not accept anything that befalls us as grievous, even if, for the present, it affects our weakness. We are ignorant, peradventure, of the reasons why each thing that happens to us is sent to us as a blessing by the Lord but we ought to be convinced that all that happens to us is for our good, either for the reward of our patience, or for the soul which we have received, lest, by lingering too long in this life, it be filled with the wickedness to be found in this world. If the hope of Christians is limited to this life, it might rightly have been reckoned a bitter lot to be prematurely parted from the body; but if, to them that love God, the sundering of the soul from these bodily fetters is the beginning of our real life, why do we grieve like them which have no hope? Be comforted then, and do not fall under your troubles, but show that you are superior to them and can rise above them.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 372.
* ↑ To the title has been added “to the wife of Arinthæus,” but no manuscript known to the Ben. Ed. contained it.
* ↑ 1 Thess. iv. 12.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 35

Chapter 35.—The Same Continued.
“What, then, is the meaning of that which the same apostle says: ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day;’ if these are not recompenses paid to the worthy, but gifts, bestowed on the unworthy?” He who says this, does not consider that the crown could not have been given to the man who is worthy of it, unless grace had been first bestowed on him whilst unworthy of it. He says indeed: “I have fought a good fight;” but then he also says: “Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He says too: “I have finished my course;” but he says again: “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” He says, moreover: “I have kept the faith;” but then it is he too who says again: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep my deposit against that day”—that is, “my commendation;” for some copies have not the word depositum, but commendatum, which yields a plainer sense. Now, what do we commend to God’s keeping, except the things which we pray Him to preserve for us, and amongst these our very faith? For what else did the Lord procure for the Apostle Peter by His prayer for him, of which He said, “I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not,” than that God would preserve his faith, that it should not fail by giving way to temptation? Therefore, blessed Paul, thou great preacher of grace, I will say it without fear of any man (for who will be less angry with me for so saying than thyself, who hast told us what to say, and taught us what to teach?)—I will, I repeat, say it, and fear no man for the assertion: Their own crown is recompensed to their merits; but thy merits are the gifts of God!

## Footnotes

* ↑ 2 Tim. iv. 7.
* ↑ 2 Tim. iv. 7.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 57.
* ↑ Rom. ix. 16.
* ↑ 2 Tim. i. 12. St. Paul’s phrase, τῆν παραθήκην μου, has been taken in two senses, as (1) what God had entrusted to him; and (2) what the apostle had entrusted to God’s keeping. St. Augustin, it will be seen, here takes the latter sense.
* ↑ There seems to be a corruption in the text here: “Quid aliud apostolo Petro Dominus commendavit orando.” Another reading inserts de before the word apostolo. Our version is rather of the apparent sense than of the words of the passage.
* ↑ Luke xxii. 32.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 41

Chapter 41.—Augustin Indulgently Shows that the Judges Acted Incautiously in Their Official Conduct of the Case of Pelagius.
Why, then (some one will say), did the judges approve of this? I confess that I hardly even now understand why they did. It is, however, not to be wondered at, if some brief word or phrase too easily escaped their attention and ear; or if, because they thought it capable of being somehow interpreted in a correct sense, from seeming to have from the accused himself such clear confessions of truth on the subject, they decided it to be hardly worth while to excite a discussion about a word. The same feeling might have occurred to ourselves also, if we had sat with them at the trial. For if, instead of the term worthy, the word predestinated had been used, or some such word, my mind would certainly not have entertained any doubt, much less have been disquieted by it; and yet if it were asserted, that he who is justified by the election of grace is called worthy, through no antecedent merits of good indeed, but by destination, just as he is called “elect,” it would be really difficult to determine whether he might be so designated at all, or at least without some offence to an intelligent view of the subject.
As for myself, indeed, I might readily pass on from the discussion on this word, were it not that the treatise which called forth my reply, and in which he says that there is no God’s grace at all except our own nature gratuitously created with free will, made me suspicious and anxious about the actual meaning of Pelagius—whether he had procured the introduction of the term into the argument without any accurate intention as to its sense, or else as a carefully drawn dogmatic expression. The last remaining statements had such an effect on the judges, that they deemed them worthy of condemnation, without waiting for Pelagius’ answer.

## Footnotes

* ↑ We have preferred the reading gratis creatam to the obscure gratiam creaturam.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 33

Chapter 33.—Discussion of the Eleventh Item Continued.
What, then, is the reason why, as I said just now, I felt anxious on the subject of this head of his doctrine? It is occasioned by what Pelagius says in these words: “That God gives to the man who has proved himself worthy to receive them, all graces, even as He conferred them on the Apostle Paul.” Now, I should not have felt any anxiety about this answer of Pelagius, if it were not closely connected with the cause which we are bound to guard with the utmost care—even that God’s grace may never be attacked, while we are silent or dissembling in respect of so great an evil. As, therefore, he does not say, that God gives to whom He will, but that “God gives to the man who has proved himself worthy to receive them, all these graces,” I could not help being suspicious, when I read such words. For the very name of grace, and the thing that is meant by it, is taken away, if it is not bestowed gratuitously, but he only receives it who is worthy of it. Will anybody say that I do the apostle wrong, because I do not admit him to have been worthy of grace? Nay, I should indeed rather do him wrong, and bring on myself a punishment, if I refused to believe what he himself says. Well, now, has he not pointedly so defined grace as to show that it is so called because it is bestowed gratuitously? These are his own very words: “And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace.” In accordance with this, he says again: “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” Whosoever, therefore, is worthy, to him it is due; and if it is thus due to him, it ceases to be grace; for grace is given, but a debt is paid. Grace, therefore, is given to those who are unworthy, that a debt may be paid to them when they become worthy. He, however, who has bestowed on the unworthy the gifts which they possessed not before, does Himself take care that they shall have whatever things He means to recompense to them when they become worthy.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. xi. 6.
* ↑ Rom. iv. 4.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 38

Chapter 38 [XV.]—The Same Continued.
Bishop John narrated all this in the hearing of Pelagius; but he, of course, might respectfully say: “Your holiness is in error; you do not accurately remember the facts. It was not in reference to the passages of Scripture which you have quoted that I uttered the words: ‘This is what I also believe.’ Because this is not my opinion of them. I do not understand them to say, that God’s grace so co-operates with man, that his abstinence from sin is due, not to ‘him that willeth, nor to him that runneth, but to God that showeth mercy.’”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. ix. 16.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 40

Chapter 40 [XVII.]—The Same Continued.
Since, then, Pelagius was present when these passages of the Scriptures were discussed, and by his silence acknowledged having said that he entertained the same view of their meaning, how happens it, that, after reconsidering the apostle’s testimony, as he had just done, and finding that he said: “I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am,” he did not perceive that it was improper for him to say, respecting the question of the abundance of the graces which the said apostle received, that he had shown himself “worthy to receive them,” when the apostle himself not only confessed, but added a reason to prove, that he was unworthy of them—and by this very fact set forth grace as grace indeed? If he could not for some reason or other consider or recollect the narrative of his holiness the bishop John, which he had heard some time before, he might surely have respected his own very recent answer at the synod, and remembered how he anathematized, but a short while before, the opinions which had been alleged against him out of Cœlestius. Now among these it was objected to him that Cœlestius had said: “That the grace of God is bestowed according to our merits.” If, then, Pelagius truthfully anathematized this, why does he say that all those graces were conferred on the apostle because he deserved them? Is the phrase “worthy to receive” of different meaning from the expression “to receive according to merit”? Can he by any disputatious subtlety show that a man is worthy who has no merit? But neither Cœlestius, nor any other, all of whose opinions he anathematized, has any intention to allow him to throw clouds over the phrase, and to conceal himself behind them. He presses home the matter, and plainly says: “And this grace has been placed in my will, according as I have been either worthy or unworthy of it.” If, then, a statement, wherein it is declared that “God’s grace is given in proportion to our deserts, to such as are worthy,” was rightly and truly condemned by Pelagius, how could his heart permit him to think, or his mouth to utter, such a sentence as this: “We say that God gives to the person who has proved himself worthy to receive them, all graces?” Who that carefully considers all this can help feeling some anxiety about his answer or defence?

## Footnotes

* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 9, 10.
* ↑ See above, 30 (xiv.).
* ↑ See above, 32.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 37

Chapter 37—The Same Continued. John, Bishop of Jerusalem, and His Examination.
With great propriety, as the proceedings show, did John, the holy overseer of the Church of Jerusalem, employ the authority of this same passage of the apostle, as he himself told our brethren the bishops who were his assessors at that trial, on their asking him what proceedings had taken place before him previous to the trial. He told them that “on the occasion in question, whilst some were whispering, and remarking on Pelagius’ statement, that ‘without God’s grace man was able to attain perfection’ (that is, as he had previously expressed it, ‘man was able to be without sin’), he censured the statement, and reminded them besides, that even the Apostle Paul, after so many labours—not indeed in his own strength, but by the grace of God—said: ‘I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me;’ and again: ‘It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy;’ and again: ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour but in vain who build it.’ And,” he added, “we quoted several other like passages out of the Holy Scriptures. When, however, they did not receive the quotations which we made out of the Holy Scriptures, but continued their murmuring noise, Pelagius said: ‘This is what I also believe; let him be anathema, who declares that a man is able, without God’s help, to arrive at the perfection of all virtues.’”

## Footnotes

* ↑ In a conference held at Jerusalem at the end of July in the year 415, as described by Orosius in his Apology.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 10.
* ↑ Rom. ix. 16.
* ↑ Ps. cxxvii. 1.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 39

Chapter 39 [XVI.]—The Same Continued. Heros and Lazarus; Orosius.
Now there are some expositions of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans which are said to have been written by Pelagius himself,—in which he asserts, that the passage: “Not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” was “not said in Paul’s own person; but that he therein employed the language of questioning and refutation, as if such a statement ought not to be made.” No safe conclusion, therefore, can be drawn, although the bishop John plainly acknowledged the passage in question as conveying the mind of the apostle, and mentioned it for the very purpose of hindering Pelagius from thinking that any man can avoid sin without God’s grace, and declared that Pelagius said in answer: “This is what I also believe,” and did not, upon hearing all this, repudiate his admission by replying: “This is not my belief.” He ought, indeed, either to deny altogether, or unhesitatingly to correct and amend this perverse exposition, in which he would have it, that the apostle must not be regarded as entertaining the sentiment, but rather as refuting it. Now, whatever Bishop John said of our brethren who were absent—whether our brother bishops Heros and Lazarus, or the presbyter Orosius, or any others whose names are not there registered,—I am sure that he did not mean it to operate to their prejudice. For, had they been present, they might possibly (I am far from saying it absolutely) have convicted him of untruth; at any rate they might perhaps have reminded him of something he had forgotten, or something in which he might have been deceived by the Latin interpreter—not, to be sure, for the purpose of misleading him by untruth, but at least, owing to some difficulty occasioned by a foreign language, only imperfectly understood; especially as the question was not treated in the Proceedings, which were drawn up for the useful purpose of preventing deceit on the part of evil men, and of preserving a record to assist the memory of good men. If, however, any man shall be disposed by this mention of our brethren to introduce any question or doubt on the subject, and summon them before the Episcopal judgment, they will not be wanting to themselves, as occasion shall serve. Why need we here pursue the point, when not even the judges themselves, after the narrative of our brother bishop, were inclined to pronounce any definite sentence in consequence of it?

## Footnotes

* ↑ See the treatise De Peccatorum Meritis, iii. 1.
* ↑ Rom. ix. 16.
* ↑ Avitus, perhaps, Passerius, and Dominus ex duce, whose names do not occur in the Acts of the Synod of Diospolis, but are mentioned by Orosius Apol. 3.
* ↑ Augustin here refers to the Proceedings of the conference at Jerusalem before its bishop John, which sat previous to the Council of Diospolis. See above, 37 (xiv.).
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 34

Chapter 34.—The Same Continued. On the Works of Unbelievers; Faith is the Initial Principle from Which Good Works Have Their Beginning; Faith is the Gift of God’s Grace.
He will perhaps say to this: “It was not because of his works, but in consequence of his faith, that I said the apostle was worthy of having all those great graces bestowed upon him. His faith deserved this distinction, but not his works, which were not previously good.” Well, then, are we to suppose that faith does not work? Surely faith does work in a very real way, for it “worketh by love.” Preach up, however, as much as you like, the works of unbelieving men, we still know how true and invincible is the statement of this same apostle: “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” The very reason, indeed, why he so often declares that righteousness is imputed to us, not out of our works, but our faith, whereas faith rather works through love, is that no man should think that he arrives at faith itself through the merit of his works; for it is faith which is the beginning whence good works first proceed; since (as has already been stated) whatsoever comes not from faith is sin. Accordingly, it is said to the Church, in the Song of Songs: “Thou shalt come and pass by from the beginning of faith.” Although, therefore, faith procures the grace of producing good works, we certainly do not deserve by any faith that we should have faith itself; but, in its bestowal upon us, in order that we may follow the Lord by its help, “His mercy has prevented us.” Was it we ourselves that gave it to us? Did we ourselves make ourselves faithful? I must by all means say here, emphatically: “It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” And indeed nothing else than this is pressed upon us in the apostle’s teaching, when he says: “For I declare, through the grace that is given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Whence, too, arises the well-known challenge: “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” inasmuch as we have received even that which is the spring from which everything we have of good in our actions takes its beginning.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gal. v. 6.
* ↑ Rom. xiv. 23.
* ↑ Cant. iv. 8.
* ↑ Ps. lix. 10.
* ↑ Ps. c. 3.
* ↑ Rom. xii. 3.
* ↑ 1 Cor. iv. 7.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Proceedings of Pelagius/Chapter 4

Chapter 4 [II.]—The Same Continued.
If Pelagius, as he possibly might, were to say in reply to this, that that very thing was what he meant by “the knowledge of the law, without which a man is unable to be free from sins,” which is communicated by the teaching of faith to converts and to babes in Christ, and in which candidates for baptism are catechetically instructed with a view to their knowing the creed, certainly this is not what is usually meant when any one is said to have a knowledge of the law. This phrase is only applied to such persons as are skilled in the law. But if he persists in describing the knowledge of the law by the words in question, which, however few in number, are great in weight, and are used to designate all who are faithfully baptized according to the prescribed rule of the Churches; and if he maintains that it was of this that he said, “No one is without sin, but the man who has acquired the knowledge of the law,”—a knowledge which must needs be conveyed to believers before they attain to the actual remission of sins,—even in such case there would crowd around him a countless multitude, not indeed of angry disputants, but of crying baptized infants, who would exclaim,—not, to be sure, in words, but in the very truthfulness of innocence,—“What is it, O what is it that you have written: ‘He only can be without sin who has acquired a knowledge of the law?’ See here are we, a large flock of lambs, without sin, and yet we have no knowledge of the law.” Now surely they with their silent tongue would compel him to silence, or, perhaps, even to confess that he was corrected of his great perverseness; or else (if you will), that he had already for some time entertained the opinion which he acknowledged before his ecclesiastical examiners, but that he had failed before to express his opinion in words of sufficient care,—that his faith, therefore, should be approved, but this book revised and amended. For, as the Scripture says: “There is that slippeth in his speech, but not in his heart.” Now if he would only admit this, or were already saying it, who would not most readily forgive those words which he had committed to writing with too great heedlessness and neglect, especially on his declining to defend the opinion which the said words contain, and affirming that to be his proper view which the truth approves? This we must suppose would have been in the minds of the pious judges themselves, if they could only have duly understood the contents of his Latin book, thoroughly interpreted to them, as they understood his reply to the synod, which was spoken in Greek, and therefore quite intelligible to them, and adjudged it as not alien from the Church. Let us go on to consider the other cases.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ecclus. xix. 16.