Liber Apologeticus

The Apologetic Book of Paulus Orosius, Presbyter. It is not from any possibility or presumption of mine, most blessed priests, but from a most pressing and almost extreme necessity, as you yourselves recognize, that I now appear to do what I do. Indeed, I have been compelled to do this by injury, not only as a defender of my own faith but also as one who exposes the perfidy of another. For just as I ought to strive for my own purification on account of conscience—and by conscience I mean not my own but that of another—so too am I forced to point out with my finger the wolves caught among the flock of sheep, on account of faith and zeal—and by zeal I mean not my own but that of Christ. But neither do I, being the least of all, presume anything out of rashness: necessity compels me to reveal the injury I have suffered. Let it be clear to all who have done it. For it is both the will and the ordinance of God that evil, which was endured through patience, should be necessarily exposed, and that through the contention of their fury, as they receive the fitting reward for their error, there should be not only a denunciation of the worst doctrines but also a revelation of the persons who must be corrected.

For the fathers, both those who have already rested as martyrs and confessors—Cyprianus, Hilarius, and Ambrosius—and those for whom it is still necessary to remain in the flesh at this time, who are the columns and foundations of the Catholic Church, Aurelius Augustinus and Hieronymus, have already published many most approved writings against this nefarious heresy, without designating the names of the heretics. And yet this abomination of most venomous dogmas also has its living dead and its dead living. For Origenes, Priscillianus, and Iouinianus, long dead in themselves, live in these men, and not only live but also speak. Now, however, Pelagius and Caelestius, if they persist in this as living dead, behold, against the Church—which is wretched—and, what is far more wretched, within the Church, they openly hiss like impious serpents, licking with vibrating, infected tongues their mouths, while they besiege the holy and most fortified see into which they have subtly crept, and they terrify all the faithful, lest we fly to that once most secure refuge in Sion. For the stench of their mouth, spread far and wide, turns the odor of life into death for all for whom the odor of life was life.

Against this serpent and its suffocating breath, those most blessed men whom we recalled above certainly prepare many and manifold ointments of the Scriptures, and, with the offering of prayer, they burn the most fragrant incense to refresh the burning hearts of the peoples. But this is not enough—to contend with an almost uncertain author and to temper the air infected with pestilential breath by setting contraries against contraries—unless the serpents themselves are dragged into the open and trampled underfoot. Those who, for the sake of protecting only the head, expose the rest of the body to mutilation and injury, consider it no loss if that part of themselves alone is free from danger which holds in itself manifold and venomous tongues, even if all the limbs are cut off: it seems to us sufficient to satisfy the stench by tempering it, but not to move them from their inner chambers? —as if there were any end to the foul exhalation unless the author is ended—and does not the testimony of Solomon occur in the midst of these things? One builds, another destroys; which of them will make progress except through labor?

There stands also the most monstrous Goliath, swollen with carnal power, prideful, confident that he can do everything by himself through head and hand, and moreover clad over his whole body in much bronze, having behind him his armor-bearer, who, even if he himself does not fight, nevertheless supplies all the supports of bronze and iron. And it is not surprising if, foreseeing this place fittingly, Scripture declares where it says: The Philistines stood on the mountain on this side. For the assailant of heresy is expelled from the Church, and the heretic is found to be nurtured in the bosom of the Church, and because of this, through the Holy Spirit, Israel is declared to stand on one side, the enemy on the other. And this happens often. For even King David, a pious father, is driven from Jerusalem, having laid aside his royal attire, by his impious son; whereupon Absalom the tyrant immediately enters. Therefore Goliath stands—alas!—on this side, that is, in the Church, and not only stands, but also challenges, and at the same time for many days reproaches holy Israel with manifest fear.

No, I beg you, most blessed priests, let no one think that I am boasting under the pretext of the figure of Goliath in the name of David: you wished me to be a participant in your contest, so that I might come as a helper, not an author. For I was hiding in Bethlehem, an unknown, poor stranger—why do I speak thus, wretched me, perhaps again to be marked for boastfulness? Since indeed David himself, both such a man and from that place, came forth—I was hiding, then, in Bethlehem, entrusted by father Augustine to learn the fear of the Lord, sitting at the feet of Jerome. From there I was summoned to Jerusalem by those summoning us, and I came; then into your assembly, with Bishop John commanding, I ascended together with you. Immediately from my littleness you all demanded that if I knew of anything done in Africa concerning this heresy which Pelagius and Caelestius sowed, I should faithfully and simply indicate it. I set forth to your crown briefly as I could, that Caelestius, already creeping toward the honor of the presbyterate, was at Carthage, before many bishops judging, exposed, heard, convicted, confessed, and detested, and fled from the Church out of Africa;

But concerning the book of Pelagius, the blessed Augustine, with the disciples of Pelagius himself informing and requesting, responded most fully; and there is also in my hands a letter of the aforementioned bishop, which he had recently composed for Sicily, in which he repelled many questions of the heretics; and you ordered that I read it there, and I did read it. To this, Bishop John requested that Pelagius be brought in. And both out of reverence for his paternity and for the utility of the action, since you believed he would be more properly refuted by the bishop in his presence, permission was granted to bring him in. When Pelagius was brought in, you all asked him unanimously whether he acknowledged that he had taught those things to which Bishop Augustine had responded. He immediately replied: "But who is Augustine to me?" And when all cried out that he, blaspheming against the bishop from whose mouth the Lord had granted health to the unity of all Africa, should be expelled not only from that assembly but from the whole Church, Bishop John immediately ordered him—a layman, of course, sitting in a gathering of presbyters, a manifest heretic—to sit among the Catholics, and then said:

I am Augustine,' as if assuming the persona of the one present, so that he might more freely forgive from the authority of the one who was being harmed and soothe the minds of those in distress. To this we immediately said: 'If you assume the persona of Augustine, follow Augustine's opinion.' Then the same bishop said to all of us: 'These things which are read were said against others, but you think they were said to be suggested about Pelagius; if therefore you have anything to say against Pelagius himself, bring it forth.' Then I, with the others nodding in agreement, said: 'Pelagius told me that he teaches that a man can be without sin and easily keep the commandments of God, if he wishes.' Pelagius replied in our hearing: 'I cannot deny that I have both said this and do say it.' I immediately continued: 'This the African synod detested in Caelestius; this Bishop Augustine, as you have heard, abhorred in his writings; this he now condemns in his response in the very writings of Pelagius himself.

This also the blessed Hieronymus, whose eloquence the whole West awaits like dew upon the fleece—for many heretics with their dogmas have already been crushed by his attack—condemned in his letter, which he recently published to Ctesiphon, and likewise refutes in the book he is now writing, having set forth the dispute in the form of a dialogue. 'For this is to hold a slippery serpent by the hook, so that it cannot escape.' Moreover, Bishop John, hearing none of this, tried to demand of us that we confess ourselves to be accusers before him as judge. The answer was given very often by all: we are not accusers of this man, but we make known what your brothers, our fathers, have perceived and decreed concerning this heresy, which a layman now preaches to the common people, lest it disturb the Church, especially yours, to whose bosom we have fled, while you are unaware. But he, often under the pretense of teaching us, tried to lead us into some form of profession, saying that it had been said by the Lord to Abraham: 'Walk before me and be without blemish,' and that Zacharias and Elizabeth were declared both just before the Lord, walking in all the justifications of the Lord without complaint—which indeed, as was known to many of us, was brought forth by him as said by Origen—to which the answer was given by me: we are sons of the Catholic Church; do not demand of us, father, that we dare to be teachers over teachers, or judges over judges.

The fathers, whom the whole Church throughout the world approves, and to whose communion you rejoice to adhere, have decreed that these dogmas are damnable; it is fitting that we obey them, since they approve. Why do you ask children what they think, when you hear what the fathers decree?' To this he replied at length, and because of the inexperience of our interpreter, unknown to us—whom very often the foremost and religious men, the presbyters Passerius and Avitus, and Domnus the exarch, refuted as either translating wrongly, or suppressing much, or suggesting one thing for another—with our actions, as I said, either interpolated for the most part or passed over in silence, Bishop John said: 'If he said that man could do this without the help of God, it would be very wicked and damnable; but now, since he adds that man can be without sin, not without the help of God, what do you say? Or do you perhaps deny the help of God?' To this I replied: 'With witnesses and those testifying, even now to you and to the aforementioned men, anathema to him who denies the help of God. I certainly do not deny it, especially since, on the contrary, I have refuted heretics.

Then, when we cried out that, having understood the judge and the interpreter having been revealed, the heretic was a Latin, that we were Latins, that a heresy known more in Latin parts should be discussed by Latin judges, and that he was thrusting himself forward almost shamelessly to judge—since indeed we were not accusers—and he was both one and suspect, it was necessary for many to say: 'No one can be at once a heretic and an advocate and a judge.' And after many other things had been agitated, John the bishop delivered the final sentence, confirming at last our petition and intention, that brothers and letters be sent to the blessed Innocent, the Roman pope, all to follow what he should decree, but that the heretic Pelagius, with silence imposed upon him up to that point, should keep quiet, and that our men should cease from the insultation of the convicted and confessed John. We all consented to this sentence; after the celebration of thanksgivings, peace having been made and concluded, we departed with a prayer as a testimony of peace.

Now, however, when after forty-one days, on the first day of the Encænia, as was my custom when I was present, I had run to the service of Bishop John, I immediately received from him the mark of a false charge in place of a greeting of salutation. For he said to me: 'Why do you come to me, a man who has blasphemed?' unwilling, as I believe, to be understood: 'Do not touch me, for I am pure and without sin.' But I, conscious of nothing, asked: 'When, or before what hearer, or of what sort is that saying which can be ascribed to blasphemy?' The bishop replied: 'I heard you say that not even with God's help can a man be without sin.' I indeed, most blessed priests, as both you yourselves are witnesses and the whole brotherhood, and moreover the holy men who attend this testimony out of love of the truth, immediately testified, saying that a word of that kind, which the bishop now alleged to have been spoken by me, had never before proceeded from my mouth. Although, by repeatedly mulling over this absurdity of wretched falsehood through frequent exposition, I seem not so much to have proved myself as to have betrayed another.

I grant, then, that I said that saying, whatever it was: how did a Greek, ignorant of Latin, hear a Latin utterance? Or, if he did hear a sacrilegious word, why did he not at once refute the blasphemer, or, to act more gently, like a pious father admonish his incautious son to restrain the license of a dangerous speech? But on the contrary, after a very long period of forgetfulness, he himself on his own brought the accusation, he himself bore witness, he himself pronounced judgment, taking upon the authority of his own person the offices of all crimes, especially since he was diligently instructed by the reading of the Gospel, that our Lord Jesus was not condemned except on the testimony of the governor. On one side my brothers stood by me, on the other false brothers. Then, in the same assembly, on one side with me sat the presbyters Avitus and Vitalis, on the other side some unknown interpreter, and then men proven both to the world and to God, the presbyter Passerius and Domnus the ex-duce.

Both of them, in keeping with their experience and loyalty, deigned to serve as interpreters, having been summoned and brought along at the request of the bishop John himself, from your circle. He himself was also present among you, and in that circumstance it is no less astonishing that he heard than that he saw, how a word let slip passed by so many adversaries, colleagues, and listeners, and entered the ignorant ears of a knowledgeable hearer. But I, driven by the heat of truth, am sufficiently pressed: I exceed the bounds of my profession. It must rather be conceded that the interpreter erred in speaking than that the bishop feigned in hearing, and that now, in return for the reward he owes to the heretics, he seeks false witnesses to aid him—especially since no one should now be surprised that false witnesses are sought out and exist in Jerusalem among priests and elders: the blood of Stephen cried out this, the standards of the Lord’s cross signify this, and the injury now stirred up through them makes this manifest. But whether these things seem to have been rashly believed by the bishop, or maliciously fabricated, or ignorantly overheard, I entrust them to Christ as judge for decision.

Far be it from me ever, poor sinner that I am, unknown, to dare to summon a bishop, and especially the bishop of Jerusalem, to answer before other bishops. My simplicity and my tested character are enough for me before the most exalted Trinity of the omnipotent God and before all his catholic servants. I call God as witness upon my soul, most blessed priests—you who know these same things and bear witness along with me—that in that assembly of yours I uttered no blasphemy with my mouth, nor did I speak such words as were charged against me by Bishop John, namely, that even with the help of God a man cannot be without sin. I have also given satisfaction regarding the contention of opinion, unknown to us; I am unwilling to do so further, lest perhaps, though you have not heard it, you might think it was said by me, and thus labor under ambiguous testimony; and also for the common people and rumor, lest, not believing that a bishop could lie, they might sin through other innocent credulity. And who does not know the authors either in the accusation of Susanna or in the stoning of Naboth?

And, lest anyone be unaware, in Jerusalem there has never been a lack of either the financial support of silver or the scourges of soldiers for shedding Christian blood. Now, since I consider myself free from this whatever-it-is word—free by your faith, free by my own conscience—once the ambiguity of the word itself has been resolved, I will try to investigate how those who claim we responded in such a way seem themselves to have questioned. Perhaps through the manner of their questioning the secret of the doctrine will be laid bare, so that, striking their sender with reciprocal wounds, the darts sent back will more surely chastise him. For it is said that the response from us was: "Not even with the help of God can a man be without sin." If anyone thinks it should be said in such a way that, under the weakness of man, he affirms that God cannot, and suspects that something is impossible for the omnipotence of God in every creature—heavenly, earthly, and infernal—I would declare that such a one is not only a blasphemer by my judgment, to be detested with an anathema, but also, whether by the example of Nadab and Abihu, to be condemned by divine fire, or, according to the destruction of Dathan and Abiram, to be received alive into the earth by a chasm and plunged into the underworld.

Both sides, indeed, by the presumption of their heart, detracted from the power of God—whether those who offer a foreign fire, as if God needed it, or those who, resisting Moses, despaired of being able to be led into the promised land. God can do all things, and He can always do what He wills; as powerful in creating from nothing, so ready in perfecting what is made. For the power to be able, when He wills, is subject to Him. This the grace granted according to the Spirit confesses; this the law written according to the letter testifies; this the natural law in all things understands; this the most ordered motion of the world shows. For what pagan would dare to say this, to whom the distinct elements of the sky, earth, and sea are always in view? What Jew could suspect this, to whom the knowledge of the law handed down through Moses has come, however little, since he both recognizes and believes it written that the bare, parted depths of the Red Sea lay open and provided a safe path on foot through the sea?

earthly, and the divided Jordan flowed back into its source with reversed currents, or the mortal Elijah in his body was carried up by the fire of a flaming chariot and not harmed, or Habakkuk, laden with prepared food, so that he might bring a meal to a fasting righteous man among hungry beasts, as the common edition relates, was in a moment of the day transported from Judea to Babylon and immediately brought back? What Christian would admit this into his heart or even into the smallest atom of his thought, who knows that Lazarus, dead for four days, with his limbs stinking and his skin already flowing with liquid within itself, leaped forth at the devoted service of the Lord; who has read that a man blind from birth and already of mature age suddenly had his eyes restored or made to flourish; who has experienced that winds, waves, and storms, and mutually warring elements, once they heard the Lord’s rebuke, grew tame at his command; who believes that Peter, heavy with the burden of the flesh and destined to deny the Lord three times in succession, walked on the swelling waves with unsteady footsteps?

Therefore, I consider that all people—whether those endowed with exceptional faith and wisdom or those who are otherwise—venerate, believe, and confess this: that God can do all things. For this reason, He is universally called omnipotent by all creation, because He can do all things. And this is the God who alone says: "These things are impossible among men." And elsewhere He teaches, saying: "Without me you can do nothing." Therefore, He can do all things in man, who indeed can do all things. But why does earth and ashes grow proud, saying "man can," when God can? The apostle cries out: "By His grace I am what I am, and His grace was not lacking in me, but I labored more abundantly than all of them: not I, however, but the grace of God with me." Why, rash presumptuous one, do you fix your gaze on the fact that he said "with me"? Pay attention to the fact that he prefaced it with "not I." Therefore, between these two words—"not I" and "with me"—the grace of God stands in the middle, which truly both wills and accomplishes according to its good will, and yet according to the will of man. Hence, he who had said "not I" also trusted enough to say "with me.

In the will of man, therefore, the grace of divine power works, which also granted this very willing. Thus the conscience of man professes, so that it says, 'Not I'; the grace of God bestows, so that 'with me'. The apostle cries out: 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' For he remembered the Lord preaching: 'No one comes to me, unless the Father has drawn him'; and again elsewhere: 'I, however, am with you all days until the consummation of the age.' And in another place concerning the Holy Spirit he speaks thus: 'It is expedient for you that I go; for if I do not go, that comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.' Unhappy man, according to the truth of the judgment of God! The Father draws you, the Son is with you, and the Spirit is the comforter, and in this so great a circumstance of divine majesty you dare to say: 'By the grace of God indeed assisting, but by my own capability I am what I am'! For you now assert, after this correction allied to the ancient error: that man can be without sin with the help of God; although in your book, which you have marked with the title of Testimonies, this same sentence is written in this way: that man can be without sin and easily keep the commandments of God, if he wills.

There is no grace of God named there, no assistance mentioned, however often you speak of the grace of God. I have not denied it because I did not speak of it, but I am to be understood as having spoken of it because I did not deny it—as if the wife of Susanna were to be believed guilty of adultery because, when others accused her, she did not deny it, or as if the Lord Jesus approved the testimony of false witnesses because He was silent. But if among you not to have denied is to have spoken, and to have been silent is to have shouted, then David’s plea is in vain: “Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth and a door of restraint upon my lips.” In vain do I also confirm with witnesses and testimony that I did not say what I am accused of, if another could have heard what my speech did not utter. But I grant that you think what was never said should be taken as said. What are we to do about the fact that, when we find a diversity of meaning from the sense, the words do not cohere with discordant joints, and that the very page does not admit words at variance with each other? For you write that a man can be without sin and easily keep the commandments of God, if he wills; and, as the most blessed father Jerome explained concerning this same opinion in the letter he wrote to Ctesiphon, you finally add, as if waking from a very deep sleep: “not without the assistance of God.

In this, truth itself contradicts you and cries out against you. Why, with fastidious arrogance and nauseating shamefacedness, do you detain in your mouth the unnecessary help of God, when you consider everything easy for yourself? You honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me. There is no need for two in an operation which is easy for one, and the grace of the divinity inserts itself in vain where man confesses that he can easily do it, if he wills. You have said that the commandments are easy for one who wills, but I also assert that you say they are fulfilled with difficulty. Nevertheless, however you promise that it can be done by man, you reproach the Lord with envy, who, by adding his own help, attempts to claim for himself what man could have accomplished by his will alone. Either take away from man the ability if he wills and ascribe it to grace, or, because you attribute to man the ability when he wills, remove the feigned, flattering, and incoherent participation of grace, and openly profess blasphemy from the abundance of your heart.

But it is not my part to investigate these matters more broadly, especially since the most blessed fathers Augustine and Jerome have delivered to the Western provinces a most complete proof of the convicted heresy. I return to the question proposed above, to which I have come not roused by confidence in my own ability but moved by the injury. You say that a man can be without sin in this world with the help of God. You say, "Man can"; I say, God can. The three youths in the furnace, the raging flame within did not harm them. Which of them could do what was done contrary to nature: they themselves, or the fourth in their midst, like the Son of God? The leper cries out: "Lord, if you wish, you can cleanse me," manifesting the will by the possibility, confirming the possibility by the will. For He alone is the one for whom, when He wills, the ability subsists. The blind came to Him, praying to be enlightened; to them Jesus said: "Do you believe that I can do this?" The Lord Christ judges it worthy of the highest reward of faith if anyone believes that the Son of God can do this; and our Briton, as soon as he wishes, trusts that he himself can! To the faithful paralytic the Lord says: "Be steadfast, son.

Your sins have been forgiven you; and now a ninth teacher and minister of tables dares to presume upon the remission of sins from his own ability, rather than waiting to hear it from the Lord! Scribes who do not understand the truth murmur and say: "Who can forgive sins except God alone?"; and this man judges that those sins which he does not know God has forgiven have been abolished! Behold, inflated by the spirit of your flesh, as if over nothing, you boast, free in proud will, and say: "I am a sinner because I wish; I sin when I wish; but when I wish again, I can be without sin." What you say, "I sin when I wish," is true, because even what you have not done in deed, you have done in thought; but "when I wish, I do not sin" is harsh and difficult, and not always within everyone's reach, yet that it can sometimes happen is not in doubt; but truly, to be able to be without sin for one who has once sinned is impossible without the sole grace of baptism, where it is said from the person of the Lord: "Your sins are forgiven you." I am persuaded to believe this because I am permitted to hear: "I can therefore be without sin," in this corruption at least in which we live, I do not accept, I do not presume, I do not dare.

For if David prays to God, "I have sinned against you alone and done evil before you," and according to the Apocalypse of John, the dead are to be judged from those things which they have sinned before God, receiving according to their works from those things which are written in the books: why do I presume upon my own judgment concerning myself, if I know that I too am to be judged even by that same standard? Or, if those sacred books are never to be opened except at the judgment, and likewise the good and evil of our lives are taken up, about to provide the weight of the judgment's examination: how do we know that in this life and before death they have been abolished without examination, when we read that they are to be brought forth not only after death but even after the resurrection? I had the power to sin; I do not have the power to be freed from sin. To pray is mine; to be absolved is not mine. But where I have given myself over to sin, I have become a slave of the accuser, a defendant of the judge. I can, because of the preliminary intercessions of constant prayers, bear hope concerning a good judge; I cannot vindicate an innocent conscience without fear before the pronouncement of the sentence.

For the apostle says: Do not judge before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both illuminate the hidden things of darkness and reveal the plans of hearts; and then praise will be given to each one by God. Otherwise, if it is within man's power to make himself free from his own sin, then either Christ is not the judge, or He is in vain. But you say, 'I said that a man is without sin according to this sense: when a sinner has groaned, then he will be saved, that is, then he will begin to pertain to salvation.' Yet he will not immediately be without sin. For when the Lord entered the house of the believing Zacchaeus, He said: 'Today salvation has come to this house.' Was the entire household immediately without sin because one believed, into which, with the greater part of the house believing, the beginning of salvation then entered? For David also, when he had sinned, groaned; and although he deserved to hear that his offense was forgiven him, yet long afterward he atoned for that same sin with exile and much reproach, so that both punishment rendered in the present and remission promised in the future are clearly seen; and through this, God granted much mercy to the groaning sinner, so that the sin, which was worthy of death, might be purged by a temporary chastisement.

It is said to Ananias concerning Paul, who was making a complaint about his persecution with fear: I will show him how much he will suffer for my name, so that when Paul was loosed there where he had bound by persecuting Christ, he would soon, troubled by suffering for Christ even to death, arise glorified in resurrection. Thus it happens, because mercy and truth always go before the face of God, so that if in time a voluntary sacrifice is offered from one who groans, so that truth may be made in mercy, of a troubled spirit and a contrite heart, in the end mercy is preferred to judgment. The Lord Christ, who is to come in the glory of God the Father, is both believed and hoped to judge the living and the dead, from whose sight, as Scripture testifies, heaven and earth will flee; and yet there are men who, not even out of ignorance—not to say out of conscience—judge themselves to be subject to the coming judgment and tremble at the advent of the Lord and the illumination of his radiance, with the elements burning and the world perishing!

I fear for those of whom the Lord warns: for many will say on that day — men, that is, of that carnal arrogance by which they were seducing men, and not so much before God as still in their own eyes righteous — "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and perform great wonders in your name?" And then I will swear to them, and say: "I do not know you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity." It is said through the prophet David in the person of Christ: "Lord, who will dwell in your tabernacle, or who will rest on your holy mountain? He who enters without stain and works righteousness." This is truly to say: he who is able to be and is without sin. For the Lord Himself says of Himself: "The prince of this world came and found nothing of his own in me." For what is the devil's? Without doubt, sin. For from the beginning the devil is a liar, and the Lord, on the contrary, is truth, who speaks truth in his heart and has practiced no deceit in his tongue.

The great and mighty angel, as Scripture testifies, cries out in heaven: "Who is worthy to open the book and loose its seals?" And no one was able, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, to open the book, nor even to look upon it. John weeps much and mourns that among the whole multitude of rational creatures no one was found worthy to open the book so as to see it. One of the elders consoles the weeping John and says: "Do not weep, John. Behold, the lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, to open the book and loose its seals." Who, I ask, is this book, which no one was able to receive from the hand of the one who lives forever, except he who enters without stain and works righteousness? It is not enough that he is without stain, not enough that he is a lamb, unless he is also slain, unless he has crowned the purity of his life with the testimony of his passion, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God: and there is no doubt that they are the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Who, then, is this book? As I believe, it is the book of judgment. For the Father judges no one; but He has given all judgment to the Son. Alas! I am compelled to say what I have shuddered to think.

Behold now also Pelagius, who has dared to profess himself to be without stain and without sin, consequently deems himself worthy to receive the book and the judgment, and it is next that he should say to himself: 'I have the power to lay down my soul and to take it up again,' and prepares himself to be a future companion on the throne of Christ. Wretched man, who does not rather understand that he is preparing himself as a forerunner of the coming of Antichrist, who, when he is revealed, exalts himself above everything that is said or that is worshipped as God, in accordance with this man who already compares himself in equality with the only Son of God. The Lamb of God, the Son of God, in order to receive the book from the hand of the Father, bears the marks of the passion, judging no victory accomplished except in death and in resurrection; and this man affirms that a perfection of immaculate life can come to him while eating, drinking, and sleeping! Our Lord Jesus, after a fast of forty days, the devil tempted three times and three times was overcome, and left him, and did not leave him forever but for a time, about to return more fiercely even to the death of the cross to disturb the apostle; and our man, having indeed overcome, as it seems to him, the temptations with their author, trusts that he can no longer be tempted or disturbed!

that perfect lamb, that one who not only has no sins but also takes away the sins of the world, and who has seven horns and seven eyes, does not suffice to beat back the tempter so that he does not return; and this mutilated one of ours, smooth on the forehead, does not consider a defense on his head necessary for himself, he who presumes upon possibility in the flesh! Wretch, who according to the Gospel would perhaps more strongly not have sin if he were blind! But perhaps, because the seven eyes are seven spirits, he boasts that he abounds in all of them and that his inner man thrives with the gathered powers of sevenfold grace, especially he who glories in as many titles of his own doctrines. Whence it can happen that by his own judgment he deems himself filled with the spirit of wisdom, especially since he says that God’s commandments are easy; with the spirit of understanding he is most sufficient, whereby he foreknows and preaches that all sinners together with the impious are to be condemned to eternal fire;

rich in the spirit of counsel, by which he warns that evil should not even be thought of; powerful in the spirit of fortitude, by which he affirms that a man can be without sin; puffed up with the spirit of knowledge, by which he hopes that no one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law; overflowing with the spirit of piety, by which he teaches that an enemy should be loved like a friend, forgetting that he himself said that an enemy should not be trusted in any way; adorned with the spirit of the fear of God, by which, after much drunkenness, finally awakened, he adds that a man can be without sin only with the help of God; and through these steps of presumption, as I think, he does not shrink from ascending to the point of being carried away to say that, in the likeness of Christ, his own perfect power being full, the Holy Spirit descended upon him entirely and remained; although this was given by God the Father only to that one to whom he also gave the name which is above every name, who alone is without sin and enters without stain, with whom the very ointment of sanctification remains. We, however, run in the fragrance of his ointments and meanwhile, with the Lord leading, we catch the sweet breaths of life, the vital breezes blowing upon us.

But you say: "Why do you assail me with such great injury, why do you burden me with the envy of such an arrogant word? Do I, a slave, dare to compare myself to my Lord? Do I, earth and ashes, compare myself to the Word of God? Am I, subject to death, to be called equal to the conqueror of death?" Well indeed, O condemned wickedness, you humble yourself in words, giving testimony to God, but your meaning cries out otherwise in your pages. You say that a man can be without sin; I repeat it again and again. The man who can do this is Christ: either assume the name or lay down the presumption. God granted that to one only, and that not except to the firstborn among many brothers. Thus it is handed down by the Catholic faith, thus we hold. Certainly our Lord admonished the unbelievers: "I came in the name of my Father, and you did not receive me. Another will come in his own name; perhaps you will receive him." Either follow with us that one, whom we believe sinners, the one without sin and the same only-begotten, or, if you are that other, confess it.

It is the Lord Jesus himself, who, having conquered death and triumphed over the devil, ascending on high led captivity captive, gave gifts to men; from whose fullness we all have received; as the Apostle teaches: to each of us, however, grace is given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. And to the Romans the same teacher of the Gentiles writes: For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to all who are among you: not to think more than it is right to think, but to think with sobriety, and to each, as God has divided the measure of faith. Then to the Corinthians he proclaims: Now the divisions of graces are many, but the spirit is the same; and the divisions of operations are many, but the Lord is the same; and the divisions of ministries are many, but it is the same God who works all things in all; and after enumerations of very many graces and virtues he adds: But all these things one and the same spirit works, distributing to each as he wills.

Next, through the comparison of the members in the human body, he reveals that the body of the unity of the Church comes together in a single harmony of perfection from the diverse modes of works, proving that there is absolutely no member which does not need the help and joining of another, with the Lord himself established as the head, in whom are hidden all the senses and treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Hence he also gave us the sense by which we would know what the Word is in Christ Jesus, in whom is the whole fullness of divinity bodily; into whom, according to the testimony of John, the Holy Spirit descended and, remaining in him, declared him to be the Lord. Therefore, if no one has except he who asks from you, and no one receives except according to division and measure, and he who has received needs the help of another to guard it: what madness, I ask, promises to itself from the fullness, he who in singularity is not sufficient?

The evangelist testifies concerning the Lord: "But there was the true light, which illuminates every man coming into this world." The Lord indeed says to his apostles: "You are the light of this world." There, in the Lord alone, the light is whole, because it is true; here, in all the apostles, there is light indeed, but from the light which is whole. And since this is so in the apostles, in whose election the whole body of the Church has been taken up, what can we—we, I say, and each one of us—what can we appear to be after them, except, according to the apostle Peter, ignorant men believing only through faith in the evangelical and prophetic word, like a lamp shining in a dark place? We ourselves are persuaded, as if illuminated, that lamps prepared in good works are burning in our hands, lamps which, wearied by manifold temptations and always by their own failing and by external assault, are endangered. Whence also the Lord says in the Gospel: "And if the light itself which is in us is darkness, how great will the darkness itself be?

But I grant that this light, however small it may be, may persist with unflagging vigor until the end—that is, that it may not lose that gift which it has obtained by special grace. Otherwise, the fullness of light stands present in its entirety, and no darkness remains. By darkness, however, I mean the darkness of ignorance arising from the filth of sin. What if it is a fitting principle that as much light as has been lacking, so much darkness should remain? Moreover, it is extremely difficult for an obstacle not to involve darkness. It is necessary for a man, placed in a certain quantity of light and in the remnants of darkness, who wills the good and does not flee from evil, that both assistance should be present and sin should not be absent. But if this seems obscurely stated to anyone, let him take an example from human life. Two individuals have different gifts: one to be humble in silence, the other to be persuasive in teaching. If the one who cherishes silence is by chance called upon to give an account of the faith, do you think he will suffer no offense in speaking? Or if the one to whom teaching in instruction is entrusted is rebuked for arrogance, do you think he will assume no deceit in humility?

Or do you easily suppose that simplicity lacks scurrility, cheerfulness lacks harshness, patience lacks negligence, gentleness lacks sloth, learning lacks boastfulness, humility lacks envy, apart from that general darkness of all good works, the lust for vainglory? But if this is piously and holily understood, let each one of us take up a comparison, so that he may rather condemn himself in the preference of a better man than justify himself in the contempt of a lesser one. Thus finally will the members unite with one another, especially if, with one charity like a skin surrounding the bones and the sinews joined in need, a man conscious of himself understands that this very grace which he has is a gift, not a debt, and glories more in the Lord from what he has received than he grows angry from what he has not received. For we, who were by nature children of wrath on account of our sin, have been made children of mercy on account of the Lord’s clemency, worthy of nothing but condemnation. Let us not bring to the Lord a complaint about what we have not received, but let us repay grace for what we have received, glory to our sole creator and redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ alone, whom God placed as a propitiator in his own blood, so that in his name, before whom the knee of the celestial, the terrestrial, and the infernal is bent, whom every flesh sees judging in that foretold power, and to whom every tongue confesses.

Hence the Apostle says: "Therefore we strive, whether absent or present, to please Him. For we must all be revealed before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may render account of his own body's deeds, whether good or evil." And elsewhere: "For we shall all stand before the tribunal of God." The Apostle Paul also said that he himself would stand before the tribunal of God and render account of his body's deeds along with the rest. But on the contrary, Pelagius boldly dares to say: "I quickly complete the whole perfection in the flesh, so that I hope for nothing from the goodness of the judge." On that day of judgment, the righteous, hearing the glories of their own works, will still, as if ignorant, ask: "Lord, when did we see You and do these things to You?" And this most learned expert of ours recognizes on which day, at which hour, at which moment he will enter the final state, beyond which there is no other of most complete sanctity! Or perhaps he protests and speaks: "These reproaches of madness, not to say pride, would rightly be heaped upon me if I were to say that man can be without sin without assistance; but now I assert the assistance of God, for whom nothing is difficult. Or do you perhaps deny the assistance of God?

I concede for a little while to your calumny, so that, while I seem to uncover in myself what I wish to convict in you, we may both be found—I more purified in my own defense, and you more manifest in your own confusion. This has always been my faithful and undoubted opinion: that God supplies His assistance not only in His own body, which is the Church, to which He bestows the special gifts of His grace for the faith of believers, but also to all nations in this world, on account of His long-suffering and eternal clemency— not, as you assert along with your disciple Caelestius, whose hidden nature of impious dogmas has already been crushed before the African synod, that a single grace is contributed to all generally in natural good alone and in free will, but that He ministers it specifically every day, through times, through days, through moments, through atoms, both to all and to each. For Scripture says: "Who makes His sun rise over the good and the bad." But you perhaps respond:

Nature, once well composed, preserves its own order, and through this, God, having once established the courses of the elements, acts from what he has made. What, then, do you think about the part of that sentence which follows? 'It gives rain upon the just and the unjust.' Clearly, he who gives, gives when he wishes and gives where he wishes, either by dispensing an arranged order or by pouring forth his own generosity. And lest, in accordance with the madness of your impiety, you should also attempt to nullify this, hear the prophet testifying to this truth: 'He who summons the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth—the Lord is his name.' What, indeed, shall I say about the true hope of the human race, that everyone who plows plows in hope? But to hope is not a matter of one's own ability but of another's generosity. Moreover, when someone has sown and has hidden the cast seed in the lap of the earth, the cultivator has nothing further to do except to turn his eyes to the sky, to pray not to the earth to which he entrusted it but to God in whom he trusted, that his labors may be made fruitful either by the morning or the evening shower. And, to enjoy a spiritual testimony even for common uses, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the one who gives the increase is God.

How much, then, I rejoice in the help of God, measure by this: that I prove that even among the pagans assistance is administered in each individual matter, so that it might be clear to us whom we must avoid to the very end and whom we must invoke without ceasing. The Devil is asked by the Lord: "Where do you come from?" And he replied: "I go around the earth and traverse all that is under the heavens, and I am there." I ask you: is this concern of the Devil of good will or of evil? You must confess: it is entirely of evil. For this is also shown by his subsequent demand. This manifestation of the Devil occurred in the time of Job, that is, in the time of Moses. Certainly at that time there was no Judea, no Jerusalem, no Church throughout the world. Still all pagandom had no knowledge of God, and yet already the Devil was going around the earth, traversing all that is under the heavens, and was borne by the unceasing concern of his malice to seduce and destroy the human race.

Therefore, when you see that such great wickedness of the devil has pressed upon ignorant men for the purpose of destruction, do you believe that no grace of God was present for the purpose of preservation? Or do you perhaps think it was said in vain: The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the whole world and all who dwell in it? But so that you may prove more clearly that the help of God is present both in individual matters and for individual persons, the devil himself, while testifying about the whole, is questioned about one: “Have you noticed,” says God, “my servant Job, that there is no one like him on earth?” The Lord knows each one individually; the devil also knows him—the former by the power of his nature, the latter by the labor of his wickedness; the latter to tempt, the former to test. Job, with his adversary contradicting him, is praised by his Creator. The Lord wishes to judge the work of a man, which He Himself works in him; but even the devil confesses concerning the help. For he says: “Did you not fence in what is outside his house and inside his house?

When the enemy demands it, God despoils his servant through temptation, but does not strip him bare; he takes away his substance and gives him grace: "Behold," he says, "everything that he has I place in your hand, but do not touch him yourself." This is not enough. The envious one rages, tries to bring about death, but on the contrary, by the dispensation of God he is moved; grace is not taken away; the booty demanded is granted to the robber, and again a guardian is appointed for his booty. For it is said to him: "Behold, I hand him over to you, only guard his soul yourself." Let no one from this suppose that the devil labors only to seduce the soul while it is in the body, and not also to tear it from the body itself, were it not that the protection of a merciful God fortifies the wounded and weak man and always meets every effort of his snares. You have, I think, even among the pagans sufficient proof of cooperating grace: receive also a clear signification of that special gift which the Church bestows peculiarly upon its own body.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians: "I always give thanks to my God for you in the grace of God, which has been given to you in Christ Jesus: because in him you have been made rich in all things, in every word and in all knowledge, just as the testimony of Christ has been confirmed in you: so that you lack nothing in any grace." And again: "Therefore, justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: through whom we have access of faith in that grace, by which we stand and glory." Whence also the Apostle Peter admonishes, saying: "Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of souls." Concerning which salvation the prophets, who prophesied about the future grace of God toward us, inquired and searched. From which it has been most clearly declared that no man lacks the help of God, especially since both the tempter persists and weakness is present. The slander of the blind accuser, who says: "Perhaps you deny the help of God?" is confounded and emptied. But, since we have made mention of Job and in the earlier testimony it has been reviewed that the Lord says: "a man without fault, a true worshiper of God, abstaining himself from all evil" —

For we very often are accustomed to assert, in order to prove that a man can be without sin, that there was such a one—that is, that Job was called by the testimony of God a man without crime and truthful, and Zacharias is shown to have been approved without complaint in the Gospel. Did the Lord say of Job, "a man without crime"? Did he say "without sin"? For sin is conceived by thought, but crime is not shown except by an act. Moreover, being "without complaint" is ascribed to the knowledge and judgment of those for whom it is easy to observe gentleness on the face but to be ignorant of the wars of the heart. Whence also Paul confidently commands, saying: "For a bishop must be without crime"; and elsewhere he gives a general testimony to the Corinthians and asserts: "So that you lack in no grace, awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end without crime." Behold, Paul confirms by his testimony that some are without crime to the end, yet soon after, in the same epistle, he rebukes the same people, writing: "Now indeed there is fault among you, in that you have judgments among yourselves." Under one heading and with the same persons, behold "without crime," behold "fault": whence it is declared that one whom you see named "without crime" is not immediately asserted to be without fault.

For the Lord Jesus himself said: John came not eating nor drinking. And again it is written: His food was locusts and wild honey. Is it to be believed, from either one, that John did not eat or that the Lord was mistaken? But on the contrary, the truth is in both, because John did take some food for the substance of the flesh, and yet the Lord truly spoke concerning John, that he neither ate with others nor ate what others ate, proving that He and the holy Scriptures often reveal the hidden knowledge of God to men by manifesting His judgments. Therefore it is respectfully accepted that, whenever Scripture mentions a man as both just and without complaint, this is said according to the capacity of the time and according to human judgments, not according to that ultimate judgment of God, to which the conscience of all is subject and the tongue of all confesses. Finally, understand clearly that the justification of Job and the permission of his sufferings in the flesh were brought about by the providential plan of God to confound the arrogance of the devil, so that, while a man was praised for the honor of his Creator with the Lord Himself as witness, the angel, avoiding the mark of unfaithfulness, would be punished.

But again, lest He inflict a heavier blow on His servant while healing him, and through care for the flesh inflict a wound on the soul—that is, lest the blessed Job, having overcome such a great temptation and with all things doubled and restored, be lifted up into pride and fall into the judgment of the devil—he is warned by his own hidden things, so that even if he were praised from without for his righteousness, he would know that within he ought to be subject to Him by whom he was guarded. For the Lord says to him: "Who is this who hides counsel from me, keeping words in his heart, and thinks I am unaware? Gird your loins like a man. I will question, and you answer me. Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you know the knowledge." And after much teaching correction or correcting teaching, Job, answering the Lord, said: "Why am I judged, admonished and rebuked by the Lord, hearing such things when I am nothing?" Likewise Zacharias, a man without reproach, worthy of honor among men, worthy of the testimony of the Scriptures—whom, as I think, some inflation from this was already tickling, and he was beginning to believe fame more than conscience—is convicted by the rebuking angel of the mark of faithlessness and punished with temporary silence.

Hence also Paul says: “Therefore he who thinks he stands, let him see that he does not fall.” And as a pattern for men, he pronounces concerning himself, saying: “I chastise my body and reduce it to servitude, lest perhaps, after I have preached to others, I myself be found reprobate.” Thus, to say of anyone that he is without fault and without complaint is not a testimony of perfection but an example of conduct. Concerning the “immaculate,” however, wherever Scripture pronounces it—as David says: “Blessed are the immaculate in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord”—I consider it handed down as sound teaching, because truly blessed are those who are immaculate in the way, that is, advancing in perfect faith in the truth, not deviating to the right or to the left through heretical depravity. The way is Christ, who through the Holy Spirit leads to the Father. Therefore, he who, without stain and leprosy and not defiled by those whose speech creeps like a cancer, hears, believes, and understands the venerable glory of the Trinity, stands blessed in faith and immaculate.

Hence it is also said to Abraham: "Walk before me and be without stain." For Abraham—who believed God and had it reckoned to him as righteousness, so that in that which he believed, he saw and rejoiced—is necessarily admonished as perfect and without stain, having been established as the father of many nations in faith and the bosom of the faithful, so that we may all be at rest, who hope in God with faithful Abraham. "Blessed are the unstained on the path," it is written; for we walk by faith, not by appearance. But if you wish to hear from the unstained one what kind David seeks in prayer, lay aside the vain confidence of your own ability, and prostrate in prayers join with the prophet in prayer, weeping as you say: "Who understands offenses? Cleanse me from my hidden faults, Lord, and spare your servant from those of others." For if they do not dominate me, then I will be unstained. Unhappy man that I am, offenses I do not yet understand—when shall I avoid them? Peter loves Christ and never departs from love; by the testimony of the Lord's love he is now established as the rock of the foundation of the Church, now corrupted by the name of Satan. To the same one always acting, it is now said: "Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven," and again it is thrust upon him: "You do not understand what belongs to God, but what belongs to men.

The apostle, chosen through loving, was confounded through loving, having sin because of excessive love. Indeed, when the Lord was announcing his passion, he said out of impatience of love: "Be propitious to yourself, Lord; this will not happen to you." Misery of the miserable! If Peter sinned in any way by loving Christ, who understands the offenses? The prophet cries out, and cries out in the Holy Spirit; he cries out, he of whom the Lord had said, "My hand will help him, and my arm will strengthen him, and the enemy will accomplish nothing against him." And hear what he cries: "Cleanse me from my hidden things, O Lord." That David, chosen according to the heart, he whom God promised would do all his wills, he whom he anointed as king, he whom he gifted with the sanctification of prophetic spirit, stunned by the stealthy approach of sins, cries out to the Lord and implores to be cleansed from his hidden things. And it is said to him by the Lord in another place: "You will not build a house for my name, because you are a man of war and have shed blood," as if he could not cleanse him by the abolition of all filth so as to prepare him, worthy for a worthy work.

David is not cleansed until death, but when his son was preferred to him in the construction of the temple, he condemns himself; and Goliath with his armor-bearer is thrown up to me as a reproach, asking why the Lord does not do in him what he never did in the world! And Ecclesiastes says: nothing new under the sun, nor can anyone say: behold, this is recent; for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us; and the teacher of new doctrines asserts: it can happen, what has never happened! Do not ask whether it has been, what you do not doubt can be. God wished a house to be built for his name, and that only an innocent and thoroughly spotless man should build it. Two kings are chosen for this with all their might, each for assistance; from the beginning, a promise is made to both. For to David indeed God says: my truth and my mercy are with him. But concerning Solomon he testifies: I myself have chosen him as a son for myself, and I will be a father to him. Of these two, one prepares the temple of the Lord, the other builds it; the old man prepares, the boy completes it. For it is fitting that the holy temple of the Lord be built by a holy man. The old man prepares, as I said, but as if after he has ceased to sin; the boy completes it, but almost while he has not yet begun to sin. The one sinned before, the one after. The one, because of much sin, did not deserve to build; the other, by sinning much, abandoned what he had built.

And amid these things, the holy ordinance wonderfully arranged itself so that between two ages, what could not be perpetual in a human being might be found according to the capacity of the time. Each at some time did not sin, yet each could not be without sin: so that God is truthful, but every human being is a liar, as it is written; vain are the sons of men, lying are the sons of men in the scales. Certainly having the grace and help of God, yet neither David nor Solomon was able to obtain or preserve being without sin; and the son of Jovinian hopes that almighty God will change the entire order of things for him and his disciples! If by chance this does not happen, will he accuse God of impossibility? 'He can, he says, be without sin, yet with the help of God.' What am I to do? I will tolerate for a while a new patch sewn onto an old garment, until a worse tear reveals the wretched falsehood of the correction. For I grant that, when he said 'he can if he wills' against the leader of truth speaking, he may seem to have said 'he can with the help of God.

Now at last my speech must be recalled, as it were, to the beginning of my proposition, and, having set aside for a little while the pain of the injury, I must recur with reverence for disputation to the height of the Head. For our Head is Christ Jesus, whom, as the Apostle says, God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood for the display of justice, for the remission of preceding offenses, for the sustaining of God and the display of his justice in this time, so that he himself might be just and might justify him who is of the faith of Jesus. Therefore, the propitiator through faith in his blood placed for the display and form of justice is himself the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Concerning him, John, led in almost to that inaccessible light itself, exclaims: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him.

And a little later, after setting forth the truth of the divine work, he adds: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we saw his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. He who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth, who like a lamb before its shearer thus not opening its mouth, when he was scourged, crucified, and died, who tamed the sting of death, who rose from the dead, who, leading captivity captive, ascended into the heavens." This is the only-begotten in the Father, the firstborn among many brothers; in whom is all the fullness of divinity bodily. Therefore this is the Lord Christ, this, I say, is the Son of God, in the power and glory of the Father, who in the beginning established and in the middle redeemed, and will also judge at the end. Thus, after the creation of the universe, which came into being according to his will, having composed the mode of things, he imposed a limit, so that what had been made rational might subsist by reason, and what he had granted with free will, lest it run into the license of perdition, he restrained by the law of precept: so that with the creature.

the creator and the gift of the Lord, and would recognize the stability of the precept; in submission, looking forward to freedom, it would wish to use that very freedom only to this end, that through it it might choose the servitude by which it would be governed, having been held in worthy judgment, so that from prudent servitude it would gain defense, from free will it would earn reward, as the apostle confirms, who says: "For if I do this willingly, I have reward." "Let there be two great lights," almighty God said, and they were made, and he commanded that they divide day and night and be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. Do not these things, once decreed, continue in their daily motion even to the present day? And yet these very things, which are borne with such ordered motion, the creator had the power to change when he wished, if reason did not hold him back: because in all things the reason of God's power is joined. For if there were change of works on the part of the creator, how could observance of the commandments be expected from the creature?

It was commanded by God that the earth should bring forth grass, hay, and fruit-bearing wood. This it still now maintains with annual cycles in unceasing parturition; and yet, very often when angry, God has diminished the fruits of the earth by denying the abundance of rains, and what He could have taken away entirely He preferred to chastise, so that He might both show correction by the blow and preserve the order of nature. God made man from the slime of the earth and, living by the insufflation of a vital spirit, placed him in the paradise of delights, moreover endowed him with free will and bound him by a commandment set between immortality and death; although those who have sucked more abundant poisons from your breast assert that it was made mortal and that no damage from the transgression of the precept befell him. But when man transgressed, the earth was cursed, man himself was laden with labors and sorrows, was ordered to gain bread by the sweat of his face, was circumscribed by the mark of death, until he should return to the earth from which he was taken; Adam was cast out of paradise, he begot sons dragging with them the original sin of an unfaithful seed; the human race sinned; God also repented that He had made man on earth.

O Lord, bear with my foolishness a little while, until he who seems to himself wise and prudent blushes and perceives his imprudence! When one man sinned, from whom dire contagions passed into the whole succession and the reign of death grew strong over all, you repent, you grow angry, you grieve, and you are disturbed until the Word made flesh has need of passion, cross, and death. Perhaps it had been better for the one sinner to be destroyed on the spot and another to be substituted immediately by a second formation, so that a progeny free from all filth and unstained might descend. Or do we acknowledge that you, almighty God, did not do this, and believe that you could not? O Peter, upon whose rock Christ founded his Church, and O Paul, who laid the foundation beyond which no one else can lay any other, which is Christ—blessed apostles, pillars and firmaments of truth—do you at least answer this man, who is counselor to God and mediator, with sacred words! Peter says:

Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who through His great mercy regenerated BOS into the hope of life through the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ, into an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, preserved in the heavens for us, who are guarded in the power of God through faith for the salvation prepared to be revealed in the last time. Then Paul, the vessel of election, brings forth the saving treasures and says: Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, as He chose us in Him before the constitution of the world, that we might be holy and immaculate in His sight in the love by which He predestined us to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ into Himself, according to the purpose of His will, for the praise of His glory, in which He gratified us in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, remission of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which superabounded in us in all wisdom and prudence: that He might make known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He disposed in that dispensation of the fullness of times, to restore all things in Christ, both those which are in the heavens and those which are on earth.

Peter speaks of the salvation prepared to be revealed at the end of time; Paul also testifies that he has purposed in that same salvation, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to restore all things in Christ. And now some unknown person, like a frog from the mire, emerges and croaks: “Why should I wait for time, wait for judgment? If God can, He can always; if He can always, He is not a respecter of persons!” He can, therefore, and He can even now; and in you He would truly be proven a respecter of persons if, what He can do in all and will certainly do in His own time, He were to do in you alone before the time—what He did not do even in Moses, to whom He reproached only one sin in this life and yet forgave it before death, whom He ordered to die for this fault, lest he enter the land of promise. Let him therefore hear Solomon, testifying concerning the ordering of times and the constitution of God: “All things have a time, and everything under the sun passes in its own spaces: a time of being born and a time of dying, a time of planting and a time of uprooting what has been planted, a time of killing and a time of healing.” Then in another place he says:

I saw under the sun, in the place of judgment, impiety, and in the place of justice, iniquity, and I said in my heart: God will judge the just and the impious, and the time for everything will be then. Therefore, O empty man, if you have any trust, wait patiently for the order of God, which the Lord Himself deigned to wait for, He who made it: He was made subject under the law, He who had made the law. Listen to Him speaking to you: It is not for you to know the times, which the Father has placed in His own power. Or if you wish to receive a more explicit testimony, that although God certainly can, yet for the sake of His own ordering He does not act, He says to Peter: Do you think that I cannot now ask my Father, and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? But how will the Scriptures be fulfilled, since it must happen thus? You see, therefore, that the operator of time tempers his powers, and the reason of the arrangement mingles patience with power. Then the Lord says: Put the sword back in the sheath. For it cannot happen that I should not drink the cup which my Father has given me.

And yet God can do nothing that He does not will, nor is there anything He does not do, unless perhaps He does not will it, it is not fitting, or He does not purpose it. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians, indicating the coming of the Antichrist: "Do you not remember that, when I was still with you, I used to say these things to you? And now you know what detains Him, that He may be revealed in His own time." So great is the force of God's decree and so irrevocable the state of the times established in each of their own causes, that on behalf of His elect He said He would shorten the days of the age, not remove them; so that He might bring about, for the majesty of the established times, their fullness, and for piety, their brevity, and at the same time mercy might seize the advantage and the world might fulfill its number. And do you now—behold, I speak with the grief of mercy—do you, I say, wish, O man like myself, that men in this present time, which is nowhere previously mentioned in the sacred volumes, should answer you that anyone is without sin, and, if they happen to agree to this, should subscribe to it as to the day and the moment?

constructing a new engine of calumny, so that what we say does not happen, we may seem to have said cannot happen, and in which we especially proclaim the omnipotence working in the disposition He has established, lest we be judged to be slandering impotence impatiently? Cast aside, I beg you, this vain fury, since this very thing contributes to the sin, the cleansing of which you seem to have considered in terms of the possibility of time, not the mercy of the judge. Let it suffice to have said thus far concerning the power of God, which we proclaim and worship, and concerning the predestination of times, which are established by His most profound counsel; concerning which, even if there were no writings of the saints, at least the sole response of the demons would suffice, who, condemned by their own conscience, cry out to the Lord: "What have you to do with us, Son of God? Why have you come before your time to destroy us?" When you understand them confessing concerning the constitution of the judgment, take the most certain example of this against yourself. If you understand them, caught in the oppression of wretched man, to have been condemned at that final judgment: accept that you yourself are here to be purified by unperturbable cleansing; but if, as it is read, the patience of God still grants them free will: believe that you yourself are still to be tempted.

Now I pass briefly to another question, which you are said often to brandish against all Catholics. For even in that most labored letter of yours, we could scarcely understand these very things. So these things, I say, you, a most shameless man, did not blush to write to the maiden Demetrias, as I hear, sacred and holy, teaching, I believe, reverence for chastity under the guise of Joseph and his wanton mistress, where you said: "The mistress, frequently spurned, sets closer snares for the young man, seizes him in secret and without witnesses with an impudent hand," weaving an inappropriate story in the most obscene language. Although this, which is said neither aptly nor decently, we should not impute to you, to whom neither birth gave the means to be educated in more honorable studies, nor did it naturally come to you to have wisdom, but to those dictators of yours, who write wretched sense in the most wretched language and expose you to be read with guffaws, as if a title of shame.

Among these things, therefore, you belched forth a meaning of this sort in that same letter with undigested words—that many of our people say that God created the nature of man evil. This also that Phineus of yours tried to press upon us step by step. Hence I first briefly profess, and then I reply. Before the tribunal of Christ, on the right among the lambs of God, he is not worthy to stand nor does he deserve to see the Lord in the region of the living, nor is the life of Jesus manifested in the glory of resurrection in his mortal body, who says that God created any nature—whether of man or of anything else—evil, or who in any way takes away free will, when he has read it written: "All things whatsoever God made are very good." And concerning the free will of man it is written: "God created man indestructible and left him in the hand of his own counsel." Blindly and malignly—for I cannot speak to you otherwise, you who have no sense of the Lord's authority, no sense of your own frailty, no sense of common understanding—we say that the nature of man is weak, not evil. For if it were evil, it would not at all receive the good; but now, when with genuine affection it desires the good and clings to the good and altogether flees the evil, where in it is an evil substance to be said to exist?

Dopinus cries out: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Abraham cries out: "I am but earth and ashes." Job cries out: "Man is putrefaction, and the son of man is a worm." Isaiah cries out: "O wretched me, for I am stricken, because, though I am a man and have unclean lips, I also dwell among a people having unclean lips." Jeremiah cries out: "The soul is in distress, and the anxious spirit cries out to you: 'See, Lord, and have mercy.'" Habakkuk cries out: "I have kept myself, and my belly has shuddered at the sound of prayers, and within me my constitution has been disturbed." David cries out: "Hear me in your justice, and do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no living thing will be justified in your sight." All the apostles cry out, troubled by the fear of their weakness: "Lord, deliver us, we perish." John cries out: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." James cries out: "For in many things we all offend.

Paul cries out: "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from this body of death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." And so that the weakness of all may cry out generally, the Holy Spirit cries out in the saints: "All flesh is hay, and the glory of man is like the flower of hay. The hay has withered, the flower has fallen; but the word of the Lord endures forever." Against these so splendid and clear clouds of divine testimonies, let the whole world, laboring in its groan, hear Pelagius crying out in opposition and resisting humble truth not only with the impudence of his words but also with the brands of his writings. For he says in the letter which we named above: "But on the contrary, with a slack and disdainful spirit, like that of proud and worthless slaves, we cry out against the face of the Lord, and we say, 'It is hard, it is steep, we cannot; we are men, we are surrounded by fragile flesh'" — and O blind madness! — and O profane temerity! — "we accuse the Lord of knowledge of a double ignorance, so that he seems not to know what he made, not to know what he commanded, and as though forgetful of human fragility, whose author he himself is, he has imposed upon man what he cannot bear." What, I ask, is more deadly than this presumption?

What could be more perverse than this reproach? You reproach the Catholic Church, whose very bowels we are, as if it seemed to speak in despair, saying that God, the author of man, imposed upon man what he cannot bear. Yet the Church’s confession is most faithful, both in word and in humility: that God first commanded all things as possible, and when no one fulfilled them—for which reason the whole world is subject to God—afterwards He lightened the weight of the commandment by substituting the indulgence of grace. But you, wicked and malicious slave, who try to exact from your fellow slaves what your own master has remitted to you: I first examine your meaning, and then, if it seems good, I explain my own. You who accuse certain people of having said that the burden of the law cannot be borne—do you therefore trust that you yourself can bear it? O wretched man, who, as it is written, say in your heart: “I am rich, and I have grown rich, and I lack nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.

Did Christ speak to you, saying, "Truly I say to you"? Did flesh and blood reveal to you, but my Father who is in heaven? Did he say to you, "You will be called Cephas"? Did he promise to you, "Upon this rock I will build my church"? Consider, therefore, what the apostle Peter, taught by the Holy Spirit, warns, who says: "And now, therefore, why do you tempt God, to impose the yoke upon the necks of learners, which neither our fathers nor we ourselves could bear? But by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we believe we can be saved, just as they were." The apostle Peter says that he truly tempts God who now attempts to impose the burden of the law upon man; but on the contrary, you object and threaten, that he accuses God of injustice who, through confession of his own weakness, flees from the killing letter to the grace of the spirit. Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah—all the saints, whether judges or kings or prophets, are without doubt your fathers, and Peter affirms that none of the fathers, nor even themselves, that is the apostles, when they were Jews, could bear the burden of the law, but were saved by faith in Christ according to the hope of grace.

Or is it that, according to you, all those holy fathers did not have the help of God? Behold, Peter rebukes those who were trying to impose the yoke of discipline upon the necks of learners; you, on the contrary, rebuke with the scandal of Peter those who flee to the faithful mercy of God and, through themselves, distrust bearing the burden of the law. But perhaps you have special confidence in bearing the burden there, because, nourished by baths and feasts, you carry broad shoulders and a robust neck, also displaying fatness on your forehead, as it is written: For he stretched out his hand against God and was strengthened against the Almighty. He ran against him with erect neck and was armed with fat. Thickness covered his face, and from his sides hangs suet. But such men cannot be those in whose heart Christ always speaks: Strive to enter by the narrow way; the one that leads to death is broad. And the apostle Paul warns: Do not care for the flesh in its desires. The truth of Christ is in me, because I grieve greatly for you. For according to the judgment of my blessed father Augustine, it is not the confidence of the sane but of the insane.

those who were trying to impose the yoke of discipline upon the necks of learners; you, on the contrary, rebuke concerning one precept, and that the first, I ask you, if you deign, I ask you. In the Law the Lord commands through Moses, which also in the Gospels Christ affirms: "You shall love your Lord God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with all your strength"; and a second similar to this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." I ask you, answer not me but God, not with your voice but with your conscience, whether you so love God with your whole heart that you never admit any thought in which anything that can be understood without the fear and love of God may be present; whether you so follow with your whole soul that, having once taken up the cross, you never yield to any delight in passing pleasantness; whether you so burn with the heat of charity in your whole being that you never acquiesce in weak lusts or desires through arguments of necessity; then, since it is written that everything which is not from faith is sin, and whether you see bishops of noble places or powerful men of the world or rich men under religion, whether you indulge absolutely nothing in flattery or fear or hope of acceptance of persons, nor anything in which your heart reproaches you and your conscience pricks you, or whether you respond with no words accommodated to the time rather than to the truth.

I also ask this: whether you love all Christians equally as yourself? For we, under one head, which is Christ, and under one Church, which is Christ, are all brothers and one body in Christ. Therefore, do you love as yourself all who hope for the mercy of God, whom you nevertheless know? Confess; for I do not ask you about those unknown to you, whom you suppose you love for the reason that, because you do not know them, you do not hate them. But why do I demand this from your confession, when the common people know your way of life? You, perfect without infirmity, you, capable of bearing the entire burden of the law, you, I say, inflated but empty man, listen, if you deign, to the Lord Savior calling you back to holiness, if indeed you can: Amen, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child will not enter it. A child has nothing in himself, except that he loves the one who caresses him and that, hoping for his bread not by his own sweat but by his prayers, he obtains the sustenance of life by simple petition, which he does not merit by trustful work: by which comparison you are admonished to turn to childhood, so that you may return to life.

And since I had spoken above about the possibility of bearing the burden, I first examine your initial opinion and later, if it seems good, I explain my own. My opinion is this: that we also sin in this, that when we are weak, we complain about weakness, as the apostle says: "Does the clay say to him who shaped it, 'Why did you shape me thus?'" The complaint of weakness is an ambition for one's own strength, because it secretly disdains the help of God, who seeks a particular fortitude. And this is the devil, who says, "I will do it by my own strength." But I, according to the apostle, will always glory in my weaknesses, so that my heart may always say to God: "I will exult in the shelter of your wings; my soul has clung to you; your right hand has received me." Whence it is also written: "Let your petitions be made known before God, and may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and bodies in Christ Jesus." Therefore, I have weakness and I rejoice in the knowledge of my weakness. For when I am weak, then I am strong, calling upon the powerful God, who hears me weak, who has most faithfully promised us: "But I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age.

It is a special work of weakness to pray always in every place, that almighty God, who promised not to abandon, may also not cease to help. For behold, Scripture cries out to the weak: "Seek the Lord and be strengthened; seek his face always," to which a pious and true confession responds: "Behold, as the eyes of servants are in the hands of their masters, so are our eyes upon our Lord God until he takes pity on us." Great and certain is the confidence concerning perfection, when the Almighty does what the lowly one desires; and again, great and certain is the security concerning confirmation, when the Almighty preserves and does not destroy the weak; as it is written: "But to him who can do everything more abundantly than we ask or understand, according to the power which he works in us: glory to him in Christ Jesus." Wherefore, the apostle admonishes: "Think of things above, not of things upon the earth; for you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." The fruit of life is sanctity; sanctity, however, is to be without sin. Therefore, if the glory of incorruption is hidden from all men in this time, how do you boast that you can clothe yourself in that same incorruption in this same time?

For just as the beginning of corruption for man was to fall into sin, so the beginning of incorruption will be to have no sin. Who, therefore, concealed that before the judgment of God, or took it from the bosom of Christ and handed it over to you? Or do you perhaps understand that she would not merit it in the future from the hand of the Lord? Paul instructs us on these matters and says: when this mortal has put on immortality, then the word that is written will come to pass: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where is your victory, death? Where is your sting, death? But the sting of death is sin. By this the apostle shows that no one can in any way boast against death and sin until mortality is overtaken by immortality and corruption by incorruption, and where, with weakness destroyed, perfect virtue succeeds, where there will be no male and female, but all will be like the angels of God. Moreover, if anyone already grows to such a height of sanctity that, living in this flesh, he does not know whether he is male or female, if, having already received the fullest purity and not having soiled garments, he is like the angels of God, and if that which is promised to the saints is already surrounded by the brightness of the sun, he worthily professes this perfection not by word but by habit.

Nevertheless, that presumption is ruin; rather, it is expedient for such a man not to listen to his own heart but to Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, and to follow him, and at the same time to pray with him, to whose prayer the Lord responds: "My grace suffices for you; but virtue is perfected in weakness." Therefore, let each one of us offer himself to God as willing soil—the only thing and the only area in which free will is of use—for we are God's tillage; we are God's building. Let him who is the true farmer cast the seed-word into his field, believe in his heart, himself plant, himself water, himself make fruitful, himself grant increase. Yet let that which alone is in our power—voluntary devotion—faithfully supply itself for retaining the root of the seed and nourishing the abundant offspring, and always by its prayers rouse its farmer, lest the enemy be able to oversow tares. Let this be its cooperation in the work of God, with undoubting hope and sincere charity.

The Lord Jesus says: I am the vine, you are the branches: whatever a branch has, it has from the vine. For, says the apostle, you do not carry the root, but the root carries you. Why, then, does a man exalt himself over the fruits that are seen in him, when everything pertains to the vine, not only that it may be able, but also that it may exist? Otherwise, it will be cut off and thrown into the fire. For it is not the branch but the vine that has the power, and what the vine can do, the branch shows. Therefore, it is enough for each one that he has; but truly, from what source and in what manner he has, let him humbly acknowledge and patiently await, lest, while he does not have and believes himself to have, that very thing which he has be taken away from him. God cast the first man, sinning, out of paradise; then Christ led the first man, believing on the cross, into paradise. Rightly, therefore, as long as I am not in paradise and I remain in the land of Adam’s exile, I do not believe myself to be without sin. But if I am brought into paradise by the grace of God, there, with my perfection and with death overcome and sin destroyed, I will proclaim the eternal glory of His power in the sight of God.

I have set these things forth as best I could, most blessed priests, for the sake of faith and simplicity. Let those who have been offended not be angry with me if in some matters they are touched by comparisons of names. But concerning the questions, let them bear them with equanimity and rather, if they have fear of God, rejoice that the answer which was true has been given. I confess, with Jesus Christ as my witness, that I hate heresy, not the heretic; but, as is just, I avoid the heretic for the time being on account of heresy, because I have both tested and rebuked him. Let him detest and condemn with mouth and hand alike, and he will cleave to the whole bond of brotherhood, because it is written: Carry one another's burdens, and thus you will fulfill the law of Christ.