De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

1 If anyone says that a man can be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the powers of human nature or through the teaching of the law, without the divine grace that is through Jesus Christ: let him be anathema.

2 If anyone says that divine grace through Jesus Christ is given for this sole purpose, that a man may more easily live justly and merit eternal life, as though by free will, without grace, he could do both, but only with difficulty and hardship: let him be anathema.

3 If anyone says that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his help a man can believe, hope, love or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification may be conferred on him: let him be anathema.

4 If anyone says that the free will of man, moved and aroused by God, cooperates in nothing by assenting to God who arouses and calls him, so as to dispose and prepare himself for obtaining the grace of justification, and that it cannot dissent if it wishes, but is like some inanimate instrument that does nothing at all and behaves merely passively: let him be anathema.

5 If anyone says that the free will of man was lost and extinguished after the sin of Adam, or that it is a thing of mere title—indeed, a title without a thing—and finally a fiction introduced into the Church by Satan: let him be anathema.

6 If anyone says that it is not in the power of man to make his ways evil, but that God works evil works, not only by permission but also properly and of himself, so that his own proper work is no less the betrayal of Judas than the calling of Paul: let him be anathema.

7 If anyone says that all works done before justification, in whatever manner they are done, are truly sins, or deserve the hatred of God, or that the more earnestly a man strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema.

8 If anyone says that the fear of hell, through which we flee in sorrow for our sins to the mercy of God, or by which we abstain from sinning, is a sin, or makes sinners worse: let him be anathema.

9 If anyone says that the ungodly is justified by faith alone, so that he understands that nothing else is required that cooperates toward obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will: let him be anathema.

10 If anyone says that men are justified without the justice of Christ, by which he merited justification for us, or that they are formally just by that justice itself: let him be anathema.

11 If anyone says that a man is justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, with grace and charity excluded, which are poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inhere in them, or even that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God: let him be anathema.

12 If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing other than confidence in the divine mercy that remits sins for the sake of Christ, or that it is this confidence alone by which we are justified: let him be anathema.

13 If anyone says that for every man, in order to obtain the remission of sins, it is necessary that he believe with certainty and without any hesitation concerning his own weakness and indisposition that his sins have been remitted to him: let him be anathema.

14 If anyone says that a man is absolved from his sins and justified because he believes with certainty that he is absolved and justified, or that no one is truly justified unless he believes that he is justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are accomplished: let him be anathema.

15 If anyone says that a man who has been reborn and justified is bound by faith to believe that he is certainly in the number of the predestined: let him be anathema.

16 If anyone says that he will certainly have that great gift of perseverance to the end with absolute and infallible certainty, unless he has learned this from a special revelation: let him be anathema.

17 If anyone says that the grace of justification comes only to those predestined to life, but that all the rest who are called are indeed called but do not receive grace, as though by divine power they were predestined to evil: let him be anathema.

18 If anyone says that the commandments of God are impossible for a man, even one justified and established under grace, to observe: let him be anathema.

19 If anyone says that nothing is commanded in the gospel besides faith, that the rest are indifferent, neither commanded nor forbidden, but free, or that the ten commandments do not pertain to Christians: let him be anathema.

20 If anyone says that a justified man, however perfect, is not bound to the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe, as though the gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life without the condition of observing the commandments: let him be anathema.

21 If anyone says that Jesus Christ was given by God to men as a redeemer in whom they may trust, but not also as a lawgiver whom they must obey: let him be anathema.

22 If anyone says that a justified man can persevere in the justice he has received without the special help of God, or that with it he cannot: let him be anathema.

23 If anyone says that a man once justified can no longer sin nor lose grace, and therefore that one who falls and sins was never truly justified, or on the contrary that he can throughout his whole life avoid all sins, even venial ones, unless by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds concerning the Blessed Virgin: let him be anathema.

24 If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God by good works, but that the works themselves are only the fruits and signs of justification obtained, and not also the cause of its increase: let him be anathema.

25 If anyone says that the just man sins at least venially in every good work, or—what is more intolerable—mortally, and therefore deserves eternal punishments, and is condemned only because God does not impute those works to condemnation: let him be anathema.

26 If anyone says that the just ought not to expect and hope for an eternal reward from God through his mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ for the good works that have been done in God, if they have persevered in doing well and keeping the divine commandments to the end: let him be anathema.

27 If anyone says that there is no mortal sin except unbelief, or that by no other sin, however grave and enormous, besides the sin of unbelief, can grace once received be lost: let him be anathema.

28 If anyone says that when grace is lost through sin, faith is always lost at the same time, or that the faith that remains is not true faith, although it is not living, or that he who has faith without charity is not a Christian: let him be anathema.

29 If anyone says that one who has fallen after baptism cannot rise again through the grace of God, or that he can indeed, but by faith alone, recover the justice he has lost, without the sacrament of penance—as the holy Roman and universal Church, taught by Christ the Lord and his Apostles, has hitherto professed, preserved and taught: let him be anathema.

30 If anyone says that after the grace of justification has been received, the fault and the guilt of eternal punishment are so remitted to any penitent sinner that no guilt of temporal punishment remains to be paid, either in this age or in the age to come in purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can lie open: let him be anathema.

31 If anyone says that the justified man sins when he does good with a view to an eternal reward: let him be anathema.

32 If anyone says that the good works of a justified man are so much gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of the justified man himself; or that the justified man himself by the good works that are done by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ (whose living member he is) does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of eternal life itself (provided that he departs in grace), and also an increase of glory: let him be anathema.

33 If anyone says that by this catholic doctrine of justification, expressed by the holy Synod in this present decree, anything is derogated in any part from the glory of God or from the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord, and that the truth of our faith and the glory of God and of Jesus Christ are not rather illustrated: let him be anathema.

PRAISE TO GOD.