Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. The good and salutary that exists in men can be reduced to three heads: 1) to the end, which is beatitude consisting in the vision of God, 2) to justification, by which they are constituted the legitimate heirs of this beatitude, 3) to good works or merits, by which we are either disposed for justification or by which, being justified, we procure eternal life for ourselves. But Catholic tradition teaches that all these things are to be credited to divine grace.

Indeed, Scripture first teaches universally that all our good is a gift of God: 1 Cor. IV, 7. Who distinguisheth thee? and what hast thou that thou hast not received? Ioan. VI, 66. No one can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father. Ioan. XV, 5.

Without me you can do nothing. Rom. IX, 15. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. These words hold universally in themselves and signify that every salutary good is a gift of God. Then, specifically as regards justification, the Scriptures testify that it is given gratuitously, without our merits, out of mercy. Rom. III, 24. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Tit. II, 1. seq. When the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared, not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Spirit, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that being justified by his grace we may be heirs according to hope of life everlasting. As regards good works or merits. Ephes. II, 8. seqq: By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; for it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one may glory; for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them. Philipp. II, 13. It is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish. As regards the glory of beatitude: if by grace and mercy we are constituted heirs according to hope when we are justified; if our merits, by which, being justified, we procure glory for ourselves, are from the grace of God; therefore glory itself also will be a gift of God.

The Fathers agree with the Scriptures; to exhibit their testimony, it will suffice to set forth what Caelestinus R. P. contains in the authorities of the Apostolic See, or what the Fathers defined in Synods. Thus among the authorities of the Apostolic See adduced by Caelestinus, c. 4 it is said: «That no one is good of himself, unless he who alone is good bestow on him a participation of himself.» c. 7: «That no one makes good use of free will except through Christ.» c. 8. «That all the studies and all the works and merits of the Saints are to be referred to the glory and praise of God; because no one pleases him from any other source, except from that which he himself hath given.» c. 9. «That God so works in the hearts of men and in free will itself, that holy thought, pious counsel, and every motion of a good will is from God; because through him we can do some good, without whom we can do nothing.» And Synod. Araus. can. 6: «If anyone says that mercy is conferred on us by God for our believing, willing, desiring, striving, laboring, watching, studying, petitioning, seeking, asking…» divinely, but does not confess that it is brought about in us, that we may believe, will, or be able to do all these things as we ought, by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit... he resists the Apostle saying: what hast thou that thou hast not received? and by the grace of God I am what I am." can. 7. »If anyone affirms that by the vigor of nature he can think, as is expedient, or choose anything good which pertains to the salvation of eternal life, or consent to the salutary, that is, evangelical preaching, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all sweetness in consenting to and believing the truth, he is deceived by a heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of God in the Gospel saying: Without me you can do nothing, and that of the Apostle: not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." can. 9. »Whenever we do good, God works in us and with us, that we may work." can. 20; » Man does no good things which God does not bring about that man should do." can. 22: » No one has anything of his own except lying and sin."

II. That the very necessity of grace is asserted is manifest upon inspecting those very testimonies which we have adduced both in this and in the preceding thesis. For the most universal negation, that nothing good is done without grace, can have its rationale only in the necessity of that same grace; a necessity which the testimonies of the preceding thesis explicitly affirm, and which several testimonies also cited in this thesis affirm, so that without the grace of God, without the operation of God, we can do nothing, we cannot please God, no good motion of the will, no good thought is possible, and from ourselves we have nothing but lying and sin. Therefore.

These things being generally established, let us come to that which we have undertaken to defend in particular,

II. In the error of the Massilians, who flourished after the Pelagian heresy, two things can be considered, namely, what they affirmed and the reason on account of which they affirmed it. The former pertains to the present question; the latter properly to the question of predestination, in which Augustine testifies that they were in the dark, in lib. de Praedest. SS. c. 1. For, having made a distinction between faith and the other salutary works, they affirmed that faith, or at least the beginning of faith, is owed not to the grace of God but to the powers of nature, whereas the other works cannot be done without the grace of God. But they asserted this in order to give an account to themselves of why, although God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, yet not all believe, not all are saved.

That we may briefly declare what we set down in the former place, Hilary is a witness (Epist. CCXXVI inter Augustinianas) to Augustine that the Massilians taught that of these two: believe and thou shalt be saved, God requires one of us and bestows the other: that faith, or the power of believing, remained in nature, albeit vitiated by original sin. And in truth they so defined faith, which they said is required before the conferral of grace, that it was not necessarily faith whole and perfect, but any beginning of faith, or a pious will of converting oneself to God, sufficed. For just as a sick man, they said, cannot give health to himself, but has need to seek the physician, yet the very act of seeking the physician and the desire of health is in the power of the sick man, nor does this prevent it from being truly said: the sick man of himself can do nothing, but must be healed by the physician; so man, made sick by original sin, truly cannot recover health by himself and can exercise no works of salvation without the help of God: nevertheless he can desire health and seek the physician. By a desire of this kind man approaches God and believes in him as the healer of our souls; therefore man is positively disposed by this faith to receive the grace necessary for works. Moreover, the grace which the Massilians denied to faith of this kind was interior grace; exterior grace, however, they supposed (cf. what we shall say in the historical synopsis of this error in Cap. IV.).

This error is in reality more ancient than the Pelagian heresy spread abroad in the West; for the same Augustine was imbued with it when he wrote the exposition of certain propositions from the Epistle to the Romans, which he wrote before he took up the Episcopate, while still a priest, around the year 394.

The remaining points concerning the opinion of the Massilians, and those things which Jansenius, perverting everything, invented in order to establish his heresy, will be discussed in another place.

IV. Now indeed, setting aside that chapter of doctrine which properly pertains to the question of predestination, the first point, which we have briefly expounded, is easily rejected. Namely, the testimonies of Scripture brought forward by Augustine in the book de Praedestinatione SS. and by the Fathers of the Second Council of Orange are more than enough to demonstrate the Catholic thesis against the Massilians. Those testimonies can be distributed into a threefold series. The first is of those from which the Catholic thesis is necessarily gathered; the second is of those by which the same Catholic thesis is immediately asserted; the third is of those by which, by an argument even ad hominem, the opinion of the Massilians is convicted of falsity. To the first series these pertain.

1. Cor. IV, 7. For who distinguisheth thee? and what hast thou that thou hast not received? and if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received?

2. Cor. III. 5. Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.

Gal. II, 21. If justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.

In these testimonies the following are most evidently contained.

1. That there is nothing pious and salutary in man which is not a gratuitous gift of God,

2. that in the order of salvation it is not man who distinguishes himself from another man, but that it is God who distinguishes one from another,

3. that since, if justice were from the law given extrinsically, it could also be from nature, hence Christ would have died in vain, if man were able to procure salvation for himself by the powers of nature,

4. that every good thought and every good motion of the will is not from nature, but from grace.

But these things clash most evidently with the opinion of the Massilians. For the Massilians teach that faith, or the beginning of faith, and the desire of salvation are salutary acts, acts, namely, which by reason of their merit determine God to confer the health and the grace necessary for all good works. But they will that faith, or the beginning of faith, or the desire of salvation, be from ourselves through the powers of nature, and that grace follows the merits of nature and is repaid to them. Therefore not every salutary good is a gratuitous gift of God; indeed, none in reality is a gratuitous gift of God; since the graces that follow faith are owed to the merit of faith, and what is owed is not grace; therefore we are sufficient to think something pious and salutary from ourselves; therefore the faithful man himself distinguishes himself from the unbeliever; therefore justice is from nature, and since the merits of nature are equal for obtaining grace, Christ died in vain.

To the second class these testimonies are referred.

Ioan. VI, 44. No one can come to me, unless the Father, who sent me, has drawn him.

Philipp. I, 29. It has been granted to you for Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

Ephes. II, 8. By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; for it is the gift of God, not from works, so that no one may glory.1 Cor. VII, 25. Having obtained mercy from the Lord, to be faithful. Now in these testimonies we are expressly taught that faith is a gratuitous gift of God, and not only progress in faith, but simply faith itself, and therefore also its beginning and every positive disposition toward it, or merit. Indeed, if natural merit precedes, faith itself is no longer grace; for if it is from works, it is no longer grace, as the Apostle says Rom. XI, 6.

To the third class is referred by Augustine in lib. de Praedest. SS. the testimony Ioan. VI, 27. 29. Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures unto life everlasting... What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?... This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom He has sent. From which Augustine thus argues ibid. c. 7: «But perhaps they will say: the Apostle distinguishes faith from works, but says that grace is not from works; he does not, however, say that it is not from faith. So it truly is; but Jesus Himself says that faith itself too is the work of God, and commands that we work it. Thus, then, the Apostle distinguishes faith from works, just as in the two kingdoms of the Hebrews Judas is distinguished from Israel, although Judas himself is Israel!» Clearly, both with Christ testifying and from the very nature of the matter, it is evident that faith is a work, no less than the other works; if, therefore, grace is not from works, but works are from grace, then neither will grace be from faith preceding it, but faith from grace.

The doctrine of the Scriptures against the Massilians was vindicated by Augustine in the book de Praedest. SS., by Prosper in his work adv. Collatorem, and by others in their works; and by Celestine, Roman Pontiff, through the authorities of the Apostolic See that were produced, which he therefore collected and sent into Gaul, so that a certain norm of the Catholic doctrine might be had and novelty might cease to attack antiquity; from which authorities, as from ecclesiastical rules and documents taken from divine authority, Celestine says it is gathered «that we profess God as the author of all good affections and works and of all studies and of all virtues, by which from the beginning of faith one tends to God, so that we do not doubt that all man's merits are preceded by His grace, through whom it comes about that we both begin to will and to do something good.» Cf. Conc. Arausicanum II., several canons of which, bearing on this matter, we have already recited elsewhere, which indeed

The Council, approved by the authority of the Apostolic See, at length settled the question and restored peace among Catholics.

V. Furthermore, from what has been demonstrated it is evident that prayer itself, by which we obtain from God salutary graces — namely, that prayer which God promised He would hear — is a gift of God and proceeds from prevenient grace. For that prayer is in reality a pious and salutary work; it is the beginning of faith and of salvation; but whatever is of this kind must be believed to be an effect of grace in us. And in truth the Massilians attributed to nature the pious desire by which one turns to the physician of souls and the petition for health; but this was reprobated in them by the Fathers: therefore.

And indeed Augustine, Cont. duas epistolas pelagg. L. IV, c. 11., adduces and proves the words of Ambrose from the Expositione Isaiae: «And to pray to God, he says, is a spiritual grace. For no one says Lord Jesus except in the Holy Spirit.» (2. Cor. XII, 3). And the same Augustine, de Dono Perseverantiae c. 23: «Who would truly groan, desiring to receive what he asks of the Lord, if he thinks he takes it from himself and not from Him? Especially since, we know not what we should pray for as we ought, says the Apostle, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspeakable groanings. What is the Spirit Himself intercedes except He makes us intercede? For He is the one of whom he says in another place (Gal. III, 6.): God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. And here, what is crying except making us cry, by that trope by which we call a day joyful, which makes men joyful? Which he manifests elsewhere, where he says (Rom. VIII, 15): For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry, Abba, Father. There he says crying; here, however, in whom we cry, manifestly opening how he had said crying, that is, as I have already explained, making us cry. Where we understand that even this very thing is a gift of God, that we cry to God with a true heart and spiritually. Let them attend, therefore, how they are deceived (the Massilians) who think that it is in us, not given to us, to ask, to seek, to knock, and who say that this is what it is for grace to be preceded by our merit, and that that follows — when we receive by asking and find by seeking, and it is opened to those who knock — nor do they will to understand that even this is of the divine gift, that we pray, i.e., ask, seek, knock.»

Hence against the same Conc. Araus. II. decreed in c. 3: «If anyone shall say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, let him be anathema.» Whoever says that the grace of God can be conferred through human invocation, but not that grace itself brings it about that it is invoked by us, contradicts the prophet Isaiah, or the Apostle saying the same: «I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly to those who did not ask for me» (Isaiae LXV, 1. Rom. X, 20.) and can. 6: «If anyone says that without the grace of God... mercy is conferred divinely upon us asking, seeking, knocking, but does not confess that it is brought about in us by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we are able to do all these things, as we ought... he resists the Apostle saying: what have you that you have not received?»

VI. Lest some difficulty arise from the reason by which we said the Massilians were moved: it is evident that they could have noticed that some sufficient grace is at hand for all men, and that by it the wills of all are prepared and prevented; but that it is left in the power of free will to cooperate with that grace or to resist, and hence it happens that not all believe, while those who do believe, believe through the grace of God.

BRIEF HISTORICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE PELAGIAN ERRORS CONCERNING GRACE.

Since in what follows we shall have need of historical knowledge of the Pelagian heresy — namely, what the Pelagians erred about, and what the Church defended against them — we have judged it worthwhile to subjoin here a brief synopsis of this controversy.

Augustine exhibits the sum of the Pelagian heresy in the book de Haeresibus, which book was written by him near the end of his life, after the Pelagian heresy had been conquered and prostrated by his many works. Now it reads thus in n. 88: «The Pelagians' heresy is at this time the most recent of all, having arisen from Pelagius, a monk. Him as master Caelestius so followed that their followers are even called Caelestians. These are so hostile to the grace of God — by which we are predestined unto the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, and by which we are delivered from the power of darkness, so that we believe in Him and are transferred into His kingdom, on account of which He says: No one comes to the Father, unless it has been given to him by my Father — and by which charity is poured forth in our hearts, so that faith works through love, that they believe that man can, without this grace, do all the divine commandments; whereas, if this were true, the Lord would seem to have said in vain: Without me you can do nothing. Finally, Pelagius, rebuked by the brethren for having attributed nothing to the grace of God for the doing of His commandments, yielded to their correction only to this extent, that he did not put it before free will, but with unfaithful cunning placed it after, saying that it is given to men for this, that what they are commanded to do through free will they may be able to fulfill more easily through grace. For by saying more easily, he wanted it to be believed that men could, even if with more difficulty, nevertheless do the divine commands without divine grace. But that grace of God, without which we can do nothing good, they say to be nothing but free will, which, without any preceding merits of its own, our nature received from Him; and that He helps only to this extent, through His law and doctrine, that we may learn what we ought to do and what we ought to hope for, but not to this, that through the gift of His Spirit we do what we have learned to be done. And by this they confess that knowledge is given to us divinely, by which ignorance is driven out; but they deny that charity is given, by which one lives piously; so that, since knowledge, which without charity puffs up, is a gift of God, charity itself, which edifies so that knowledge may not puff up, is not a gift of God. They also destroy the prayers which the Church makes, whether for unbelievers and those resisting the doctrine of God, that they may be converted to God, or for the faithful, that faith may be increased in them and they may persevere in it. For they contend that men have these not by receiving them from Him, but from themselves, saying that the grace of God, by which we are freed from impiety, is given according to our merits. And this indeed Pelagius, fearing to be condemned in the Palestinian episcopal judgment, was compelled to condemn; but in his later writings he is found teaching it. Thus far Augustine on the heresy of Pelagius concerning the necessity of grace. Let it be allowed to us to dwell a little on this description of the Pelagian heresy, which Augustine, most expert in it, has left us — not indeed that we may settle with some solemn critical apparatus the historical questions pertaining to that heresy, but that, having reviewed the principal questions which are commonly agitated on this matter, we may briefly and clearly show what is to be held in each one.

I. And first, since Pelagius stood forth as a proud praiser and defender of nature and of free will, the question spontaneously occurs what kind of Naturalism it was that he championed — whether it was similar to that which many modern enemies of revelation maintain. Indeed, Pelagius departs from those modern rationalists who, content with a single nature, do not admit a personal God distinct from it. But neither did Pelagius introduce a pure Naturalism, such as can be conceived together with the profession of an existing God. For Pelagius confessed a certain more excellent order of goods gratuitously instituted by God for men in the state of pure nature — namely, the adoption of sons — and admitted many other gratuitous gifts. These things will be manifest from what will be said shortly. Moreover, since the principal twofold power of rational man is both that of knowing the true and that of acting rightly, Pelagius was not solicitous to proclaim and enlarge the former power of nature, but clung entirely to exalting and amplifying the power of free will for acting rightly, so that he altogether willed that whatever good and perfect thing can be obtained in the exercise of all virtues, even those which Catholics call supernatural, man's free will is able by itself, with the sole forces of its own nature, to procure for itself — although he afterwards conceded that divine assistance contributes to this, so that men attain it more easily. For Pelagius had formed in his mind such a concept of free will, that he believed its natural and inborn ἐνέργειαν extends as far as its indifference extends, if the conditions suitable for action are present; and he judged that free will is taken away if, for doing something honestly and perfectly in any order whatsoever, the help of God is necessary and man's nature alone does not suffice. Wherefore the Naturalism of Pelagius is principally located in this: he preached, namely, that it is possible by the sole forces of nature for man to obtain the most absolute state of moral perfection, ἀπάθειαν καὶ ἀναμαρτησίαν.¹ And although, as we have said, Pelagius conceded that not a few goods are gratuitous — which, namely, God could have freely not destined for man — he nevertheless contended that, as to at least several of them and the principal ones, such as are adoption and the kingdom of heaven, given the destination of the same freely made by God, man, using free will, could merit them for himself by his own acts (August. De Praed. SS. cc. 18. 19). Now if you weigh what Pelagius preached about the power of free will and will to draw by a right conclusion what follows from it, you are forced to confess that such is the Naturalism of free will introduced by Pelagius, that the supernatural state becomes impossible for him; for no greater power can be conferred upon it than that which is said to inhere in it naturally, and no greater perfection than that which is affirmed to be due to it (cf. Tract. de Deo Creant. Th. XXXVI.). Besides, even from what Pelagius taught directly and explicitly it followed that the Incarnation and Death of Christ were useless, and hence the foundation of the whole Christian Religion was overthrown (epist. 178 of Augustine to Hilarius, and 180 to Paulinus, and epist. 5 of the African Bishops to Innocentius). For if the nature of the will can do all things: therefore Christ died in vain — especially since even the propagation of original sin was denied by him. This indeed was the reason why, as soon as the doctrine of Pelagius burst into the open, Christian ears shuddered at it; and although it was defended by ingenious and subtle men, and was not always refuted by all in its individual parts with valid arguments, nevertheless within the space of a few years it was routed and destroyed. For it was evident how repugnant to the whole of revelation was that doctrine which, exalting the powers of free will, excluded the entire economy of Christ.

Nevertheless, although Pelagius so exalted the powers of free will, he always conceded, however, that the remission of sins is a gratuitous grace: on which matter see n. IV. C. and V. below.

II. From these things, however, another special question spontaneously emerges: whether the Pelagians admitted habitual grace. There are on this matter diverse opinions of learned men. Jansenus I. V. De haeresi pelagiana c. 22. sqq., Natalis Alexander Hist. Eccl. sec. V. c. 3. §. 7., and others contend that Pelagius admitted habitual grace divinely infused, although Natalis and other Catholic theologians concede that the Pelagian profession of habitual grace did not adequately agree with the Catholic profession. They are moved by these arguments: a) the Pelagians certainly admitted the grace of the remission of sins, and that as gratuitous. Augustine, De Grat. et lib. arb. c. 6.: «When the Pelagians say that this alone is grace not according to our merits, by which sins are remitted to a man, but that that which is given at the end — that is, eternal life — is repaid to our preceding merits, it must be answered to them, etc.» But the remission of sins is effected through the infusion of sanctifying grace. Nor should you say that the Pelagians distinguished these two things and conceded indeed the remission of sins, but denied interior habitual sanctification; for this division, says Jansenius, is never charged against them by Augustine, but he reprehends them on another head — namely, that they indeed willed that a help be conferred by God by which men might be healed from past sins, but not a help by which they might be assisted to avoid future ones. b) All the attributes which belong to habitual grace and are asserted of it by Catholics were attributed to it by the Pelagians. For they attributed to it to blot out crimes, to cleanse, to heal, to bring salvation, to renew; to make men better by renewing; to be regeneration, justice, justification, sanctification, adoption of sons; that through it men are incorporated into Christ, anointed with the Holy Spirit, man is reconciled to God, man is made a temple of God. But with these things the essential concept of habitual grace is completed.

On the contrary, Garnerius (in Marium Mercatorem parte I. Dissert. VII. c. 5.) judges that the Pelagians in words indeed conceded to the Catholics in the profession of this grace which is called habitual, but that in reality they embraced that opinion which the later heretics afterwards adopted — namely, that men are formally justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of grace and charity, which is diffused in their hearts through the Holy Spirit; or also, that the grace by which we are justified is only a favor of God. Many other theologians agree with Garnerius. They demonstrate their own opinion by this argument: that although the Pelagians conceded that men become members of Christ through baptism, that we receive the remission of sins through the death of Christ, that men are justified by the obedience of Christ, that sins are freely remitted and the Spirit is given, they nevertheless denied that charity is diffused in our hearts in justification, and hence that the interior man is renewed. Moreover, what precedes without the last point savors entirely of the doctrine of the later heretics.

This opinion is approved by us. For it must be judged to have happened not without reason, that Augustine always reduced this kind of Pelagian grace — by which we are cleansed, by which we are renewed, by which we are restored — to the sole grace of the remission of sins, which of itself denotes a negative effect in the soul, not a positive one, such as is interior sanctification. By way of example, let the same Augustine be heard, De Grat. Christi c. 37. and 38., reporting and explaining the words of Pelagius. In the former chapter he says: «Likewise in the same work (the letter to the holy virgin Demetrias) in another place: but if even without God, he says (Pelagius), men show what they have been made by God: see what Christians can do, whose nature has been restored for the better through Christ, and who are also helped by the assistance of divine grace. Nature restored for the better he wants to be understood as the remission of sins, which he sufficiently demonstrated in another place in this very book, where he says: Even those who have been hardened in some way by a long habit of sinning can be restored through penance. But the assistance of divine grace he can place here also in the revelation of doctrine.» In the other chapter, however, he says: «Likewise elsewhere in the same epistle: for if even before the Law, he says, as we have said, and much before the advent of our Lord and Savior, certain men are reported to have lived justly and holily: how much more must we believe that we can do this after the illumination of His coming — we who, restored through the grace of Christ and reborn into a better man, have been expiated and cleansed by His blood, and, spurred by His example to the perfection of justice, ought to be better than those who were before the Law? See how here too, in other words indeed, but nevertheless he placed the assistance of grace in the remission of sins and in the example of Christ.» Moreover, the reason why Augustine always expressed the formal effect of this grace, when he declared it, through the remission of sins seems to be this: that Augustine judged that the Pelagians in reality posited nothing real in the soul through that grace. And indeed 2) all those appellations which are given to grace, or the effects which are attributed to the same grace, such as the adoption of sons, can be taken for some external favor, just as they are also taken by the Protestants: and that could be done by wily men wishing to hide in whatever way, such as the Pelagians certainly are known to have been. 3) Nor is it certain what Lansenius asserts, that Augustine never charged the Pelagians... except that they separated the remission of sins from interior sanctifying grace; for in order for this to be certain, these two things would have to be certain: a) that Augustine always understood the testimony of Paul — the charity of God is diffused in our hearts, etc. — of actual charity; b) that Augustine judged that habitual charity can, by the ordinary law, be separated from sanctifying grace, so that the latter can be without the former; for if these are not certain, since Augustine always reprehends the Pelagians for opposing that testimony — if Augustine takes it of habitual charity as well, Augustine will have to be said to charge the Pelagians also with the denial of this charity; but if Augustine judged that habitual charity cannot be had without sanctifying grace, and vice versa, then, in charging the Pelagians with the denial of habitual charity, he will have to be said to have virtually charged also the denial of sanctifying grace, since both cohere with one another by a mutual and necessary bond. But those two things which we have said are certainly not certain; rather, the opposite is more certain: cf. n. seg. Wherefore, finally, 4) since it is certain that the Pelagians denied habitual charity — for they denied any intrinsic, immediate help of the will, superadded to nature, which is diffused in our hearts through the Holy Spirit — it cannot be conceived how they truly admitted interior sanctifying grace, which, according to the nature of the thing and according to the Catholic understanding, coheres with charity by an individual bond.

III. Now it is easy to take a step to another question — namely, about which grace the dispute properly was between Catholics and Pelagians: about actual or about habitual. The common answer is: the question was per se and distinctly about actual grace. But it must be noted that in that age habitual grace was not represented by those formulas by which it would be distinguished from habitual charity; rather, it was frequently signified by the name of charity diffused in our hearts, by which we are interiorly renewed and transferred from death to life. Wherefore the same properties which belong to sanctifying grace were asserted of charity, such as are interior renewal, the blotting out of sins, adoption, and meritorious power for eternal life. Moreover, charity was regarded by the Fathers not only as it is inherent, but also as it is active — namely, the principle of salutary work and the reason of merit — whether they willed the principle of acting in the justified to be the very habit of charity, or another actual grace besides it, which was also called the inspiration of charity; so that therefore frequently both graces were represented under one name, namely charity, which justifies and is the principle of actual life. Since, therefore, grace is frequently signified by the Fathers under the name of charity, when it is asked whether they disputed about habitual or about actual grace, it is properly asked whether — although we grant that they spoke of charity habitually sanctifying — they nevertheless regarded it (when of course they spoke of the just) as it is simply informing, or as it is active and the principle of good work. For if they regarded it in this latter way, they must be said to have disputed about actual grace — namely, about that which is the divine assistance for acting, by which God works with us, which is the principle of good work. These things being posited, in order to demonstrate that the question in that age was per se and distinctly about actual grace, it will suffice to bring proofs both from those things which the Pelagians maintained and most constantly reprehended in Catholics, and from those things which are contained in the decrees of the Councils and of the Apostolic See, by which the heresy was condemned: for that grace which is asserted in these decrees is certainly that which the Church defended against the Pelagians.

But a) Pelagius, as we have already seen, so declared his opinion that, having distinguished these three — possibility, will (namely volition, i.e., the act of willing) and action — he conceded the first to God, and denied that the other two need divine assistance. And this was the complaint of the Pelagians, which Augustine reports, epist. CXCIV. ad Sixtum: «Free will is taken away, if we do not have even the good will itself without the help of God»; and Jerome reports, epist. ad Ctesiphontem: «If I do nothing without the help of God... in vain did He give the power of choice, which I cannot fulfill, unless He Himself has helped me; for the will which needs the aid of another is destroyed.» Nay, even this other complaint, which Augustine reports in Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. II. c. 5: «For thus they thought it should be objected to us: under the name of grace, they say, they (the Catholics) so assert fate, that they say that, unless God inspires in an unwilling and reluctant man the desire of good — and that itself imperfect — he can neither decline from evil nor seize upon good.»

b) If the decrees of the Councils and the authorities of the Apostolic See are considered, which Celestine exhibits in his letter to

If the Gauls and those things are compared together, it is clear that in them actual grace is treated of expressly, most clearly and most constantly, which is marked by the following characters. Namely, «1°» there is exhibited that grace which is a help for not committing sins, by which the understanding of the commandments is revealed and opened to us, and it is granted to us that we be able to do what we have known, without which we cannot fulfill the divine commandments (Conc. Cartag. cc. 3. 4. 5.); «2°» there is asserted that grace which raises up free will, which men obtain daily, that they may be good, which is necessary for the baptized for overcoming the snares of the devil, for conquering the concupiscences of the flesh, for persevering, without which no one uses free will well, by which those who are led are led by the instinct of God, by which the will is prepared by the Lord, by which the hearts of the faithful are touched, that they may do something good, by which God works in free will, so that holy thought, holy counsel, and every movement of a good will be from God, through which we can do something good, without which we can do nothing, which is necessary for all acts, causes, thoughts, movements, from which are the beginnings of a good will and the growths of praiseworthy endeavors and perseverance even to the end, by which faith is given to the unbelieving, idolaters are freed from the errors of their impiety, to the fallen the remedies of penance are conferred, from which are all good affections, all good works, all endeavors, all virtues, which precedes all human merits, by which it comes about that we begin both to will and to do something good, by which God acts in us so that we both will and do what he himself wills. (Auctor. Sed. Apost. cc. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 11. 13); «3°» that grace is vindicated by which it comes about that we invoke God, that we will to be cleansed from sin, from which is the beginning of Faith, and the very pious affection of belief by which we arrive at regeneration, by which our will is corrected from unbelief to faith, from impiety to piety, by which it comes about that we believe, will, labor, desire, strive, watch, study, ask as we ought, through which we can think something good and consent to the evangelical preaching, by which God works all our goods in us and with us, which is always necessary for the reborn and the holy, by which the mercy of God is going before us, which is the charity of God poured out in hearts, from which is Christian fortitude, which precedes good works that they may be done, which was necessary also to Adam while intact, which grants to man that he do good, through which men willingly serve the divine will (Conc. Araus. II. cann. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 9. 10. 14. 15. 17. 18, 19. 20. 23. 25): γ) that grace is asserted which is contained in the illuminations of the mind and the inspirations of the will (Auctt. Sed. Apost. Capp. 8. 11. Conc. Araus. II. Cann. 4. 6. 7). e) Finally that grace is defended which is proved by these testimonies: Without me you can do nothing; We are not sufficient to think etc. It is God who works in us to will. The will is prepared by the Lord. What have you that you have not received? (in the cited places passim).

Now the doctrine of Pelagius and his arguments a) tend to this, that they directly impugn actual grace; for the grace of the will (namely of volition) and of action is formally actual grace. Nor can it be devised what freedom has to fear from habitual grace, and how anyone could conceive that fate is introduced by it. Moreover γ) all the characters which are attributed by the Fathers to that grace which they championed against the Pelagians, especially if they are taken together, exhibit not habitual, but actual grace. For a) many good works can be done without sanctifying grace, as the acts of the penitent before justification; therefore the grace which is required for every good work, every pious thought, and every movement of a good will, is not habitual grace; β) the just do not need, nor did Adam need, new sanctifying grace; y) the grace from which are the beginnings of a good will precedes justification; d) the grace by which God works in us is the grace which is given for works; e) no one would say that illuminations and inspirations are habitual grace; ζ) in almost all those testimonies by which grace is proved from Scripture, actual grace is signified; and η) grace is always represented in those decrees as operative, helping free will in itself impotent for acting, and it is always regarded to this end, that the power of free will which Pelagius had asserted should be profligated. Therefore.

The same thing can again be proved from what Augustine says when he defines the state of the question between Pelagius and the Church. De Gratia Christi c. 47: «As far as it pertains to that question about divine grace and free will, attend to these three things, which he distinguished most openly: posse, velle and esse, that is, possibility, will, and action. If therefore he has agreed with us not only as to possibility in man, even if he neither wills nor acts…» well, but the will itself and the action as well, that is, that we will well and act well, which are not in man except when he wills well and acts well: if, as I said, he has agreed that the will itself and the action are also divinely helped, so that without that help we neither will nor do anything good, and that this is the grace of God through I. C. D. N., in which he makes us just by his own, not our, justice, so that it may be the true justice which is ours from him; nothing, as far as I judge, of controversy about the help of grace will remain between us.» The question therefore, and that alone, was about the grace by which the will and the action are helped, by which it comes about that we will and act; this, however, is actual grace.

We said moreover that the question was per se and distinctly about actual grace; for about this there was disputed extensively, always, directly, and most clearly on both sides. For Pelagius directly impugned this grace by his heresy concerning the necessity and gratuitousness of grace. We do not deny, however, that per accidens, in this respect, both by reason of the other head of doctrine which Pelagius also denied, namely original sin, and by reason of this same doctrine of actual grace itself, and confusedly, that is, insofar as it was contained virtually in the doctrine of actual grace, there was disputed also, or that speech fell upon, habitual grace. And indeed since Pelagius also denied original sin and denied that nature was vitiated, it was necessary to establish against him the necessity of the grace which is conferred by baptism, which is habitual grace; but this per se did not look to that question of the necessity of grace which Pelagius, the proud praiser of free will, denied, but rather to the question of original sin. Moreover, sometimes actual grace, which is given to sinners, tends to this, that it leads us to attain formal justification through habitual grace; but that which is given to the just tends to this, that it preserve the just in holiness and continually promote them in it; but the Fathers, disputing with the Pelagians, regarded chiefly that grace which is operative and attains its own term; hence not infrequently the Fathers join actual grace with its term, and attribute to it those appellations which most aptly suit habitual grace. Of this sort are: grace is the charity poured out in our hearts; through grace nature is renewed and restored to the pristine state of innocence; by its help the soul is healed; men are advanced to the adoption of the children of God; the grace of God by which we are Christians; which formulas, although taken in a causal sense, may suit actual grace as well, if however they are understood with the attainment of the effect, they so suit actual grace as to embrace also sanctifying grace. For the rest, those characters of grace which we enumerated above can suit only actual grace. But what Augustine says, De Natura et Gratia c. 4: «This grace of Christ, without which neither infants nor those of mature age can be saved, is not rendered for merits, but is given freely», does not prove that the grace about which Augustine disputed with the Pelagians per se and distinctly, in the question of the necessity and gratuitousness of grace, is that grace which is common equally to infants and to adults, and therefore habitual grace; but it proves only that in that question there repeatedly had place a mention also of the grace which is conferred on infants, both on account of the kindred dogma of original sin, and in order that, by the example adduced from the justification of infants, the gratuitousness of actual grace, which is not less grace or less unowed than that, might be placed in the most evident light. Thus Augustine, Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. II. c. 6: «Why has not the baptism, which is given to infants, reminded you what you ought to think about grace. For these are your words: we confess that baptism is necessary for all ages, and that grace also helps each one's good purpose, but does not instill the zeal of virtue into one who is unwilling; because there is no acceptance of persons with God. In all these words of yours, what you said about grace I for the present pass over; render an account of baptism: why you say that it is necessary for all ages; tell why it is necessary for little ones: assuredly because it confers on them some good, and that same something is neither small nor mediocre, but great... tell us then: those little ones who, baptized in Christ, have departed from the body, by what preceding merits did they receive this so sublime gift?... Why is this good sometimes denied to the children of the pious and granted to the children of the impious? etc.»

These things having been demonstrated, it is clear what grace Augustine says was denied by Pelagius in the prior part of the historical description of that same heresy which we related from the beginning: for it is evident that it is actual grace. For 1) in the historical description, Augustine must be said to make mention of that grace certainly about which the question properly was between the Pelagians and the Catholics; but this was, as we have seen, actual grace. 2) The grace of which Augustine speaks is indeed that by which we are adopted and transferred into the kingdom of God, delivered from the power of darkness, but it is nevertheless that from which is the beginning of this adoption, by which we come to the Father; and this is properly actual grace. Indeed Augustine says in epist. CXCIV ad Sixtum: «They can indeed say that the remission of sins is the grace which is given without any preceding merits. For what good merit can sinners possess? But not even the remission of sins itself is without some merit, if faith obtains it. For neither is the merit of faith nothing, by which faith that man said (Luc. XVIII, 13): God be propitious to me, a sinner, and went down justified by the merit of faithful humility, since he who humbles himself will be exalted. It remains therefore that we attribute faith itself, whence all justice takes its beginning... not to human free will, which those men extol, nor to any preceding merits; since from it begin whatever good merits there are: but let us confess that it is the gratuitous gift of God, if we think of true grace, that is, grace without merits.» Since therefore Augustine understands the words of Christ: No one comes to the Father etc. of the faith by which we begin to approach God (Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. I. c. 3. «Let them also read what the Lord says: No one can come to me, unless the Father, who sent me, has drawn him. Where, lest anyone think that coming to me is said to mean something other than believing in me, a little after, when he was speaking of his body and blood etc.» Cf. et De Gratia Christi c. XIV.) and says that the remission of sins, and therefore formal justification itself, is gratuitous, because the grace of faith, by which the remission is obtained, is given freely, and in this exposition of the Pelagian heresy he speaks of that grace which the Pelagians denied to be gratuitous and which the words of Christ exhibit: No one comes to the Father etc.; it follows that Augustine here speaks of that grace by which the beginning of justification and faith is brought about; this, moreover, is actual grace. 3) Moreover, the grace of which Augustine speaks there is that by which the divine commandments are done; this, however, is actual grace. 4) The words which follow, denique Pelagius etc., are connected with the preceding ones; for they refer to a certain correction of an error which Augustine described in the preceding words. The object of the discourse therefore is the same, that is, the negation of grace, simple indeed in the prior part of Augustine's discourse, a little softened in the one that follows; moreover in this latter the discourse is about the grace for doing the divine commandments, which according to the Catholics is necessary for being able to do them, but according to Pelagius is given for being able more easily; but this is actual grace. Therefore.

IV. There follows the second question, namely what grace Augustine here (Denique etc.) says was conceded by Pelagius: or did Pelagius admit some actual graces, and which, and to what extent necessary?

We answer. A) Besides the inborn possibility of good, which is the very power and nature of free will, with which is connected the power of knowing the natural law, which consequently is the grace of creation, the Pelagians professed several helps of this possibility, which namely would complete this possibility in first act. And first indeed the help of the positive law given extrinsically by God to men; then the help of the doctrine contained in the Scriptures and the magisterium of the Church; then especially the examples of Christ, which they called grace properly so called. These things are already sufficiently manifest from what has been recited above elsewhere.

Faith also pertains to the grace of the law, because, as Pelagius says in epist. ad Rom. c. 10: «In this time no one fulfills the law without Christ; because it is also of the law that he himself be believed.» Moreover, it must be noted that since this grace of law and doctrine tends to this, that it illumine the mind, and is, as Augustine puts it, the grace of knowledge, it is to be considered together with that knowledge, or illumination of the mind, which is excited in the mind by the law and doctrine proposed extrinsically.

B) We have already warned in Th. VIII, p. 2 that we judge that Pelagius conceded also the help of immediate illumination; although not as necessary, and perhaps to humor his adversaries in some way, lest he should seem to repudiate every interior help. So Petavius judged and defended in the book de Pelagiana et Semipelag. Haeresi cc. 8 et 9, and Livinus Meyer de Pelagg. et Semipelagg. erroribus c. 5. We are moved by these testimonies of Pelagius. Augustine (De Gratia Christi. c. 7.) relates certain words of Pelagius from his Lib. III, De lib. arbit. thus: «As though about to explain (Pelagius) what grace he means, he went on and added = Which we confess to be not, as you think, in the law only, but in the help of God. For God helps us through his doctrine and revelation, while he opens the eyes of our heart, while he shows us future things lest we be occupied with present ones, while he lays open the snares of the devil, while he illumines us with the multiform and ineffable gift of heavenly grace." Then (c. 41. of his same book) Augustine says that «they believe no help of grace, by which the possibility of nature is helped, except in the law and doctrine, so that they think even the prayers themselves, as he most openly affirms in his writings, are to be used for nothing else, except that doctrine be opened to us even by divine revelation, not that the mind of man be helped to accomplish even with love that which it has learned ought to be done." Whence Augustine subjoins: «The very help, by which he asserts the natural possibility to be helped, he places in the law and doctrine, which he confesses is revealed to us even by the Holy Spirit: on which account he concedes that we must also pray." Now from these things it is clear that Pelagius admitted another help besides the law and doctrine, namely the help by which doctrine and law are opened to us even by divine revelation. Indeed this revelation of the Holy Spirit is not itself the external grace of the divine law and doctrine proposed; for that it is another grace is shown a) by that particle etiam: is shown b) by what is subjoined, namely that prayers are to be used by us to obtain it; but we cannot pray that the law and external revelation be given to us, which are already immutably given and are had by us. The same occurs in epist. CLXXXVIII. 3 where August., reviewing the errors of Pelagius about grace, says that he judges that we are so created by God that beyond the fact that he reveals knowledge to us, he helps us in nothing: cf. ibid. nn. 12. 13. And again from the same work of Pelagius Augustine ibid. c. 9 brings forward these words: «(God) works in us the willing of what is good, the willing of what is holy, while he inflames us, given over to earthly desires and, after the manner of dumb animals, loving only present things, with the greatness of future glory and the promise of rewards, while by the revelation of wisdom he arouses the stunned will into the desire of God, while he persuades to us all that is good": what is this arousal of the stunned will and this persuasion through the revelation of wisdom but some interior operation of God in the mind?

Likewise in the book De Gratia Christi c. 23, these words of Pelagius from his Book I. De Lib. arbitrio are related by Augustine: «he who uses well that freedom of the will so delivers himself wholly to God and mortifies all his own will, that he can say with the Apostle: I live, now not I, but Christ lives in meGal. 2:20 and places his heart in the hand of God, that he himself may incline it whither he will.Cf. Prov. 21:1 That so great a help, that God himself incline our heart whither he will, we then, on the authority of Pelagius, as Augustine subjoins, merit, when without any help, only by the freedom of the will, we run to the Lord, desire to be ruled by him, hang our will from his will, and, by adhering to him continually, are made one spirit with him.Cf. 1 Cor. 6:17 But, as Petavius rightly argues l. c. c. IX, 8, »neither can we deliver ourselves to God or hang from his will, without the knowledge of him, which is had through the law and the Scriptures; and since that inclination of the heart made by God is a later and different kind of grace (as being the fruit of merit), it cannot be the same as the former, but is far more excellent than it.«

Likewise in cp. 22 of the same book de Gratia Christi Augustine relates the words of Pelagius from his letter to Demetrias: »For there, having interposed the testimony of the apostle James, in which he says: be subject to God, but resist the Devil and he will flee from youIac. 4:7, he subjoins and says: — He shows how we must resist the Devil, if indeed we are subject to God and, by doing his will, merit divine grace, so that with the help of the Holy Spirit we may more easily resist the wicked spirit.« Here again a certain grace is distinguished which is the effect of the merit of the works which have been done from the knowledge of the law; it is therefore another, more excellent grace. But since that certainly is not the grace of the will, it remains that it is that grace of which we have heard Pelagius speak also elsewhere, namely the interior illumination of the mind.

Finally weigh the words of Augustine in the description of the heresy recited: denique etc. Namely, the brethren reproached Pelagius because he attributed nothing to the grace of God for doing his commandments: but he who is reproached in this manner is supposed indeed to admit the knowledge of the commandments of God, yet to deny the necessity of some help, assuredly distinct from that simple knowledge. Now Pelagius, to humor those brethren in part, professed the help which was demanded, although only for doing them more easily: but which help shall we judge that to have been? the law and doctrine proposed externally? that would be ridiculous. The least that one may conjecture is the interior illumination, of which we have heard Pelagius speak elsewhere.

Finally it is certain that Augustine proved the necessity of a double interior help, of illumination and of inspiration, and it is equally certain that he himself, in the Pelagian controversy, was indeed solicitous in extorting from the Pelagians the profession of the help of the will, that he disputed about it most distinctly and most constantly, and, it having been received, testified that the question was finished: but about the help of knowledge he never disputed deliberately, and spoke of it only in passing. But what is the reason of this diverse method, unless that Augustine knew that this latter was not denied by Pelagius?

Those who think otherwise warn that Augustine reduces the Pelagian grace to law and doctrine, and this is their principal argument. But one may note 1) that this formula by itself alone is ambiguous and can signify both the law and doctrine proposed only extrinsically, and the same manifested also by an interior operation; for even regarded in this way it is nothing but law and doctrine. The determination of the sense of this Augustinian expression must therefore be sought from elsewhere. One may note 2) that Augustine does not oppose Pelagian grace to interior grace in general, but specifically to the interior grace of the will: in this opposition, however, the interior grace of the intellect can also come under law and doctrine (cf. De Gratia Christi c. 7. in fine). Indeed 3) Augustine says De Gratia Christi c. 10: «To doctrine pertains also that wisdom is revealed; to doctrine pertains when all that is good is persuaded.» The same he clearly shows by the words cited p. 141.

You will say that that which the Pelagians called grace properly so called are the examples of Christ, which are exterior grace: moreover, if they had admitted the grace of interior illumination, they would have called this properly grace. I answer: that grace comprises also the interior illumination, by which the understanding of the examples of Christ is opened, just as to the other exterior graces of law and doctrine there corresponds the interior opening of the understanding of them: wherefore in this regard there is no difference between those graces. But a comparison can be instituted between the grace of the examples of Christ and the other graces of law and doctrine in respect of itself, and thus it can be said that it is properly grace; because it is the grace proper to the Gospel.

You will say again that Augustine, the testimony of Pelagius in the book De Gratia Christi c. 23., which we have already described, having been related, after he has refuted the doctrine contained therein, showing that God precedes with his grace the evil wills of men, concludes thus: «Let them read therefore and understand, let them contemplate and confess, that not by the law and doctrine sounding from without, but by an internal and hidden, wonderful and ineffable power, God works in the hearts of men not only true revelations, but also good wills.» Therefore the whole Pelagian grace, and that grace by which God inclines the heart of man whither he will, returns to the law and doctrine sounding from without, to which is opposed the power of God working in the hearts of men true revelations and good wills.

I answer that in this very testimony there is that by which the adversaries are refuted. And so we note that in those words: non solum veras revelationes (not only true revelations), that phrase: non solum etc. (not only, etc.) is wont to be used also when that which is subjoined is both defended by the one who speaks and admitted also by the adversary with whom he contends: so that the sense in this place is this: not only true revelations, which the Pelagians also concede, but also good wills, which the Catholics defend. Why then is Pelagian grace exhibited only as law and doctrine sounding from without? I answer that these things are not said exclusively, having regard to the whole context; yet mention is made from the beginning only of the law and doctrine sounding from without, because this was chiefly the grace of which the Pelagians spoke, which they conceded as necessary too, at least on the hypothesis that God wills to rule the wills of men by some positive law; for then there is need that it be manifested at least extrinsically, and thus we heard a little before Pelagius confessing faith or revelation as necessary. But the grace of interior illumination they conceded indeed, but in no way as necessary, and they seem rather to have conceded it lest they should seem to deny any interior help.

Moreover weigh this, that since the testimonies of Pelagius recited by us in this question have been taken from his work on free will chiefly, and also from the letter to Demetrias, and Pelagius wrote the letter in the year 413, the work in 416, and began to disseminate his heresy at the beginning of the 5th century, the opinion of those can easily be proved, who, to settle the disagreement of the critics, say that Pelagius admitted at first only the external graces, but then, toward the end, conceded also the interior grace of illumination. Cf. Antoine De Gratia c. 1. a. 1.

C) Besides these graces, which can be reduced to efficient causes, the Pelagians maintained that others are to be reduced to formal causes. Namely first the remission of sins, about which Augustine De Gestis Pelagii c. 35: «After the old heresies, even now a heresy has been brought in, not by bishops or priests or any clerics whatsoever, but by certain men as it were monks, which, as though defending free will, would dispute against the grace of God ..., and would deny the help of God in our acts, saying: that human nature, which was created with free will, can suffice for us not to sin and to fulfill justice, and that this is the grace of God; because we are so created that we can do this by the will, and that what help of his law and commandments he gave, and that he forgives past sins to those converted to him: that in these alone is the grace of God to be reckoned, not in the help of our individual acts.» Cf. et can. 3. Conc. Carthag. Then moreover the Pelagians professed the adoption into the children of God. Thus Caelestius in the little book which he offered at Rome to Zosimus: «But we confess that infants ought to be baptized for the remission of sins, according to the rule of the universal Church and according to the sentence of the Gospel, because the Lord decreed that the kingdom of heaven cannot be conferred except on the baptized, which, because the powers of nature do not have it, must be conferred through the bounty of grace.» And Julian (in the work of Augustine cont. eumdem L. III, c. 3.) «The grace of baptism is not to be changed according to causes, because it dispenses its own gifts according to the capacity of those who approach. And therefore Christ, who is the redeemer of his own work, increases benefits around his image with continual bounty, and those whom he had made good by creating, he makes better by renewing and adopting.»

Now of these graces, they thought the grace of adoption necessary for all, not indeed that men might be happy in any way in the other life, but that they might obtain the kingdom of heaven. The grace of the remission of sins they judged necessary for adult sinners, for they taught that little ones are immune from sin. But the other graces given as a help to possibility they denied to be necessary, but they wished only that they be conferred, that free will might the more easily keep the divine commandments. «The very way of salvation (which we find through the law, doctrine, and the examples of Christ) can be found even by nature alone, but more easily if grace helps», they said, with Augustine as witness, De Grat. Christi. c. 41. Which again is evident from the doctrine of Pelagius, which Augustine relates De Pecc. Origin. c. 20 in these words: «Let us not therefore, like Pelagius and his disciples, divide the times, saying: first just men lived from nature, then under the law, thirdly under grace. From nature, namely, from Adam for so long an age, when the law had not yet been given. For then, they say, the creator was known under the guidance of reason, and how one ought to live was carried written not by the law of the letter but of nature. But with morals corrupted, when nature, already discolored, began not to suffice, the law was added to it, by which, like the Moon, it might be restored to its former splendor, the rust having been rubbed off. But after the excessive habit of sinning prevailed, for the healing of which the law availed too little, Christ came, and as to a most desperate disease, not through disciples, but through himself, the physician himself came to the aid.» From which distribution of the three ages it is clear that the Pelagians judged that men could have been holy through nature alone, not only apart from the grace of Christ, but also without the written law, and that some in fact were holy. Whence the necessity of the law and of Christ, arising from contracted vices and the excessive habit of sinning, is only moral, that the difficulty may be overcome. What is said of the law, that is to be affirmed much more of immediate illumination; for they absolutely teach that nature suffices by itself.

But faith in Christ, after his coming, they thought necessary, as is evident from the words of Pelagius in epist. ad Ephesios c. 6: «When now men will not be able to be saved otherwise, unless they are saved by the faith of Christ.»

V. The question is more difficult: whether the Pelagians willed that any grace at all be gratuitous or not. In the first place this was their capital dogma, the most wicked and most subtle germ of their other errors, as Prosper says in the epistle to Rufinus, namely, that the grace of God is given according to the merits of men. This error indeed the Pelagian heresy professed from its very beginning, as is clear from the things that were objected to Pelagius in the Synod of Diospolis in the year 415; although, as Garnerius notes, the reprobation of this error is not found in the canons of the Council of Carthage, nor in the synodal letters of the earlier Council of Carthage and of Milevis to Innocent, nor in his rescripts. But it is permissible to consider that this dogma, that the grace of God is given according to our merits, coheres with the other dogma concerning the possibility of nature to live piously and justly, that is, with the denial of the necessity of grace. Indeed, these two — the grace of God is given according to the merits of men, and the grace of God is not necessary — are partial formulas of one adequate dogma, which as a whole is partly signified and partly co-signified by each one. For the Pelagians did not deny that there is some grace, since they saw that many benefits are God's, which God could of himself have denied to nature; and they counted the free creation itself of nature and the conferral of free will among the principal graces. But since they had established among themselves that free will was so constituted by God as to be sufficient to itself for every exercise of virtue and for attaining all perfection, and consequently for meriting whatever it is right to correspond to virtue, hence 1) they denied that, besides the grace of the creation of nature itself, another grace was necessary for free will in order to live holily, and2) they affirmed that nature could by merits from itself, as it were, procure for itself the other benefits or graces of God. Whence this head of doctrine, that the grace of God is given according to our merits, was a consequence of the other, which had been established beforehand, namely, that nature is by itself sufficient for living holily. Conversely, this other too followed from that former one, which had been posited antecedently. For if the grace of God is given according to the merits of man, merits therefore precede, which can be only from nature, and for that reason nature is by itself powerful for working justly. The Pelagians, namely, denied at the same time both the necessity and the gratuitousness of grace. It is, moreover, evident by itself that if the gratuitousness of grace is denied, the necessity of grace insofar as it is such is also denied: for what is rendered as a debt is not grace. And conversely, if the necessity of grace is denied, because nature is by itself powerful for meriting, the gratuitousness of the gifts that are afterwards superadded to nature is also denied.

It is not permitted to conjecture which of these two was first explicitly devised by them; it is certain that they taught both and confirmed both with their own arguments, and it is equally certain that the question of the gratuitousness of grace was agitated especially after the heresy was proscribed by Zosimus in the year 418, and that the gratuitousness of grace was defended deliberately by Augustine in his last works. But just as the Pelagians denied the necessity of grace, lest freedom should seem to be denied or harmed, so too they taught that the grace of God is given according to merits, lest God should be deemed unjust and an acceptor of persons.

Although, however, the Pelagians denied the gratuitousness of grace in general, teaching that the grace of God is given according to merits, yet it must not be thought that they willed that absolutely all graces be repaid to merits and that none be conferred freely. Surely, how could they have conceived that the grace of the law and of external doctrine, of the examples of Christ, is given to us according to merits, since those graces preceded even the merits of each one of us, and in general the law and doctrine is known, at least in part, before anyone actually merits. Especially since, according to the Pelagian doctrine of the distribution of the three ages, which we gave above, the law was given and Christ came because morals had been corrupted and the excessive habit of sinning had prevailed; in the human race, therefore, bad merits, not good ones, had preceded. But it does not appear how the good works of subsequent men could have merited these graces for themselves; therefore the Pelagians are to be said to have acknowledged these graces, although not necessary to nature, as gratuitous nevertheless. But the grace of interior and immediate illumination, by which the understanding of the commandments is opened, by which the Spirit reveals the law, the doctrine, and the examples of Christ; the grace of adoption, by which God turns himself to men and receives them among his sons and friends; the grace of eternal life, that is, of the kingdom of heaven — these certainly are the graces which the Pelagians willed to be given to adults according to merits (for to infants it was impossible). «It has been understood (says Prosper, epist. ad Rufinum, c. 2) and most salutarily perceived that they confess only this much about grace, that it is a certain mistress to free will and shows itself through exhortations, through the law, through doctrine, through the contemplation of creatures, through miracles and through terrors at its indication, by which each one, according to the motion of his own will, if he has sought, may find, if he has asked, may receive, if he has knocked, may enter. Because, namely, the calling of grace itself does this first of all with regard to us, that it admonishes the choice of our faculty, and grace is nothing other than the law, than the prophet, than the teacher, to whom, with regard to all men through the whole world, the care is common and general, so that those who will may believe, and those who have believed may receive justification by the merit of faith and of good will, and thus grace is bestowed according to the merit of men, and in this way grace is not grace.» Augustine reports these words of Pelagius in De Grat. Christi, c. 31: «We say that this power of free will is in all men generally, in Christians, Jews, and Gentiles; in all, free will is equal through nature, but in Christians alone it is helped by grace. Those are therefore to be judged and condemned, because, although they have free will, through which they could come to faith and merit the grace of God, they use badly the liberty granted. These, however, are to be rewarded, who, using free will well, merit the grace of the Lord and keep his commandments."

The question, however, is about the grace of the remission of sins. Garnerius (in Marium Mercatorem, p. 1. D. VII. c. 5. § 3) contends that Pelagius was always of that opinion, that it is given freely, indeed also the rest of his followers, if you except Caelestius; and there is a clear testimony of Augustine in De Grat. et lib. arbit., c. 6: «When the Pelagians say that this is the only grace that is not according to our merits, by which sins are forgiven to a man, but that the one which is given at the end, that is, eternal life, is rendered to preceding merits: it is to be answered, etc.» But Petavius (l. c., c. 3) doubts whether Pelagius was always of that opinion, and certainly he does not see how this doctrine coheres with the rest of the doctrine of Pelagius. For he himself teaches that justification is merited by faith, but that faith is acquired by the merits of nature. And although the things which we have just given from Augustine are affirmed by him in a book written in the year 424, nevertheless in the book de Gestis Palaestinensibus, written in the year 417, and in the epist. ad Paulinum Nolanum, written in 418, Augustine affirms that it was objected to Pelagius in the Synod of Diospolis that he taught: that pardon is given to the penitent not according to the grace and mercy of God, but according to the merit and labor of those who through penance have been made worthy of mercy.

What then? Either Pelagius changed his opinion in this matter — which, however, would be a wonder, since it was never noticed by Augustine — or it must be said with Garnerius that this was the special opinion of Caelestius, which was objected to Pelagius only on account of the fellowship of both in the heresy. Certainly Pelagius denied that he taught this, nor does Augustine reproach in him any vice of dissimulation in this regard. But how Pelagius was able to reconcile the gratuitous remission of sins with the rest of his doctrine, you will understand without difficulty if you weigh that, however excellent the dignity of nature may be and great its power of acting, and however huge those things may be which the creature is said to be able to bring to God for satisfaction, nevertheless the acceptance of satisfaction is always free on the part of God offended by his creature, just as it also had place in Christ. But God, according to Pelagius, accepts the natural merits of faith, and thus remission is obtained through faith, which is a work of nature, condign even, if you will, in first act; but it is obtained by God freely accepting this sort of merit of faith. Moreover, this very opinion of Caelestius was what was objected to Pelagius in the Synod of Diospolis.

VI. It is asked whether the Pelagians were constant concerning the necessity of grace, always affirming what they had taught from the beginning, or whether they in some way afterwards changed their opinion. The authority of Augustine persuades that the Pelagians deflected in the course of time somewhat from the opinion which they had previously conceived, and wished to concede something to the Catholics. Thus Augustine, Serm. CLVI. c. 12, which he delivered around the year 417, in which the heresy was condemned by Innocent: «Yet know that you so do good that the Spirit is the ruler and helper, who, if he is lacking, you can do nothing good at all. For indeed those who were constrained began at last to say something, confessing grace (and we bless God because they have at last said even this; for by drawing near they will be able to make progress and to arrive at that which is truly right). Now, therefore, they say that the grace of God is a helper for doing the commandments more easily. For these are their words. For this, they say, God gave his grace to men, that what they are commanded to do through free will, they may be able to fulfill more easily through grace.» But what is that grace which Pelagius afterwards conceded to be given by God for doing the commandments more easily, of which also the Fathers of Carthage speak? It seems to be the illumination of the mind, even the interior one, which we have shown to have been admitted by Pelagius, of which there is speech also in these words of Augustine, De Gratia Christi, c. 40: «In which words it is certainly manifest that he wills us to be helped in such a way by the grace of the Holy Spirit, not because without it, even through the mere possibility of nature, we cannot resist the tempter, but that we may resist more easily. Which help, however, of whatever kind and however small, it is credible that he places in that which seems to us to be knowledge, the Spirit revealing through doctrine, which we cannot have, or can have only with difficulty, through nature.» Namely, it seems that from the beginning Pelagius admitted only that grace which is placed in free will itself and in the natural possibility of good and in the natural law, which, as he said, suffice in the state of nature, and that he afterwards added graces, not indeed necessary but for working more easily: the law and doctrine and also the interior and immediate illumination, by which the understanding of the law would be opened; and so the grace given for fulfilling the law more easily is the grace of doctrine, which is manifested to us through the Gospel and the examples of Christ, and especially, unless we are mistaken, it is the grace of interior and immediate illumination, by which the understanding of the doctrine of Christ is opened to us by the Spirit, which grace Pelagius, as we have said, at length admitted. (IV.)

VII. Moreover, that we may say in this place whatever pertains to the historical question of the gratuitousness of grace denied by the Pelagians, we judge that these things are to be noted. 1) After the Tractoria of Zosimus in the year 418, the Pelagians contended especially for this, that the grace of God is given according to our merits, that is, they agitated the question of grace principally under the aspect of gratuitousness. This is clear from the disputations of the Fathers after that time, who impugn that head of doctrine more frequently. The testimony of Augustine is also usually adduced from the book De Grat. et lib. arbit., which was written in the year 426 or 427: but there perhaps only the method of disputing of the Pelagians is indicated. Thus in c. 14 he says: «But when they have been convicted — not defenders, but inflators and precipitators of free will, because neither the knowledge of the divine law nor nature nor the sole remission of sins is that grace which is given through Jesus Christ Our Lord; .... they turn to this, that they may try in whatever way to show that the grace of God is given according to our merits. For they say: even if it is not given according to the merits of good works, because through it we work well, yet it is given according to the merits of the will; because a good will, they say, precedes the one praying, which was preceded by the will of the one believing, so that according to these merits the grace of God who hears may follow.» 2) For denying the gratuitousness of grace, the Pelagians, when they were pressed with the diverse lot of little children, also answered that which was afterwards adopted by the Massilians, namely, that some are chosen, others left, because God foresaw their future works (namely, those that would have been future). Augustine testifies this in epist. ad Sixtum CXCIV., written in the year 418, n. 25. 3) Although the Pelagians, as we shall soon say, never approved the interior grace of the will, nevertheless, since they taught that the grace of God is given according to merits, they seem to have spoken so generally as to have comprised any interior grace whatsoever, whether that which they actually confessed or that which the Catholics proved to be admissible: this is what the Pelagians seem to have specifically intended, to deny the gratuitousness of grace, lest fate should be introduced, lest acceptance of persons should be said to be with God, and therefore their assertion seems to have been not only absolute with respect to those graces which they themselves professed, but also hypothetical with respect to the grace defended by the Catholics; namely, their assertion was equivalent to this: whatever grace is to be admitted, even if a grace proper to the will itself is to be admitted, it is nevertheless given according to merits. These things persuade us of this: a) the testimony of Augustine just cited, from which the Pelagians seem to be especially solicitous about this matter, that grace be said to be given according to the merits of a good will, even if through it we work well.The usage of disputing of the Fathers, who reproach the Pelagians for teaching that the grace of God is given according to our merits, with no distinction of graces having been made, and even when they treat of the grace properly so called of the will. August. Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. I. c. 3. (year 420 or a little later) «Lest perhaps they say that (men) were helped to this, that they might have the power to become sons of God: but that they might merit to receive this, they first received with free will, helped by no grace: this indeed is the intention by which they strive to destroy grace, that they may contend that it is given according to our merits; lest perhaps, therefore, they so divide this evangelical sentence, that they place the merit in what was said: as many as received him, and then that the grace in what follows, he gave them the power to become sons of God, etc., is not given freely, but rendered to this merit.» And a little after: «No one, therefore, can have a just will, unless with no preceding merits he has received the true, that is, the gratuitous, grace from above. This the proud and haughty do not will, neither purging defenders, but extolling precipitators of free will. Who are indignant at us saying these things for no other reason, except that they disdain to glory in the Lord.» persuades a certain observation of Augustine on a certain opinion of the Pelagians, which is of this sort (L. I. of the same work, c. 8). «They (the Pelagians) thought this should not be objected to us, that we say God inspires into a man, even unwilling and reluctant, not the desire of any good whatsoever, but even of the imperfect itself. Perhaps, therefore, they themselves at least in that way preserve a place for grace, so that they think a man can have without it the desire, namely, of imperfect good; but of perfect good not more easily through it, but not at all except through it» that they absolutely could not. But even so they say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, which Pelagius in the East, fearing to be condemned by the ecclesiastical acts, condemned.» «Now indeed this hypothesis, which Augustine makes — that the Pelagians attributed to nature the desire only of the imperfect, so that in this way they might defend the grace of God as given according to merits, but attributed to nature no possibility of perfect good — is an argument that it did not seem repugnant to Augustine that the Pelagians, in order to defend the grace of God as given according to merits, should contend at least this alone, that the possibility of imperfect good is in nature. But this repugnance could have seemed to Augustine to be lacking on a twofold account. Either because he knew that they then actually taught that grace is necessary for perfecting the good, or because he saw that, for defending the thesis which the Pelagians then propounded, it was enough if they said that nature suffices for beginning the good. But the first is false: the other, however, comes to this: the thesis which the Pelagians defended, namely, that the grace of God is given according to merits, sufficiently stands by itself according to them, if at least the beginning of good is from nature, even if afterwards for perfecting the good a grace also of the will is required; which was afterwards the opinion of the Massilians. Moreover, this is just as much as to say that the Pelagians then so defended the grace of God as given according to merits, that they contended this alone, that the grace of God, whatever it at length may be, is not gratuitous: and therefore that they spoke not only absolutely of their own grace, but also hypothetically of the grace of the Catholics.

VIII. There follows the most important question: whether the Pelagians ever confessed the interior immediate grace of the will, and indeed whether even before the condemnation of the heresy, or at least after the heresy was proscribed by Zosimus. Likewise, what grace helping the will the Fathers demanded the profession of from the Pelagians, so that they might count them among the Catholics. This second question concerns us more closely, who must declare and defend the catholic dogma according to the norm of the Fathers. And so the answer to the first question is: the Pelagians conceded neither before nor after the condemnation of the heresy the interior grace of the will, namely, that grace which would affect the will too, adding strength to it for working.

A) And indeed with regard to that age which preceded the Tractoria of Zosimus in the year 418, this becomes evident from the most certain monuments.

It suffices to adduce these. a) The books De libero arbitrio were written by Pelagius in the year 416; moreover, that in those books Pelagius professed no interior grace of the will supplying strength, but only the grace of the law and of doctrine or of knowledge, Augustine is witness in the book De Gratia Christi, by which he refuted those books of Pelagius. β) The bishops of Africa, Aurelius and three others with Augustine, in letters given to Innocent I at the end of the year 416, who, writing back to them in the year 417, first condemned the heresy, have these words (epist. CLXXVII. among the Augustinian letters): «For whether (Pelagius) has said that grace is free will, or that grace is the remission of sins, or that grace is the precept of the law, he says none of those things which pertain, through the subministration of the power of the Holy Spirit, to overcoming concupiscences and temptations.» γ) At the same time Augustine, writing to Hilary, his brother and fellow priest, epist. CLXXVIII., says: «A certain new heresy, hostile to the grace of Christ, strives to arise against the Church of Christ, but it is not yet evidently separated from the Church, namely, of men who dare to attribute so much power to human weakness, that they contend that this alone pertains to the grace of God: that we were created with free will and the possibility of not sinning, and that we received from God the commandments which were to be fulfilled by us; but that for keeping and fulfilling the same commandments we need no divine help. But that the remission of sins is necessary for us, because the things which were badly done by us in the past we cannot make undone. But for avoiding future sins and overcoming all temptations by virtue, without any further help of the grace of God, they will the human will to suffice by natural possibility.» δ) Innocent testifies the same in the letters given to the Fathers of the Council of Carthage and of the Council of Milevis and to the five bishops. ε) The same is proved from canons 3. and 5. of the Council of Carthage held in the year 418, in which those are condemned who teach that the grace of God avails only for the remission of sins, but deny that it avails as a help by which sins may not be committed hereafter, who, having conceded the grace of the knowledge of the law, deny the grace by which it is granted to us that we love and are able to do what we have known to be done. ζ) Finally Zosimus in his Tractoria condemned this error of the Pelagians. For Prosper testifies, adversus Collatorem, n. 57, that «the African

councils, to the decrees of which Pope Zosimus of blessed memory annexed the strength of his own sentence and armed the right hands of all the bishops with the sword of Peter for the beheading of the impious." Moreover, the African Fathers proscribed this error especially. Whence also Celestine, explaining certain words of the Tractoria of Zosimus, established a sentence contrary to this error and proves it by the authority of the same Zosimus, c. 9, among the Auctorr. of the Apostolic See. »That God so works in the hearts of men and in free will itself, that a holy thought, a pious counsel, and every motion of a good will is from God, because through him we can do something good, without whom we can do nothing. For to this profession the same doctor instructed us, who, when he spoke to the bishops of the whole world about the help of divine grace, said: what time, then, intervenes in which we do not need his aid? in all acts, therefore, causes, thoughts, motions, the helper and protector is to be prayed to. For it is proud that human nature should presume anything for itself."

But there are those who think the contrary and, in confirmation of their opinion, adduce these 1) words of Pelagius, which Augustine reports in the book De Grat. Christi, c. 10, and which are taken from the works of Pelagius written before the Tractoria of Zosimus: »How, he says, will that saying of the Apostle stand: For God it is who works in us both to will and to accomplish? He works in us to will what is good, to will what is holy, while, as we are given over to earthly desires and, after the manner of dumb animals, loving only present things, he sets us aflame with the greatness of future glory and the promise of rewards; while by the revelation of wisdom he rouses the stupefied will into desire of God; while he persuades to us everything that is good." But this is the interior grace of the will. 2) In the same book Augustine, c. 29, reciting the words of Pelagius from the first book, De libero arbitrio: »That what men are commanded to do through free will, he says, they may be able to fulfill more easily through grace:" Augustine adds: »Take away 'more easily,' and the sense is not only full, but even sound, if it is said thus: that what men are commanded to do through free will, they may be able to fulfill through grace." Moreover, the sense would not be sound, if that grace were not one of inspiration; therefore Pelagius admitted that grace, and in this alone did he err, that he contended that it is given not for being able, but only for being able more easily. 9) With Augustine as witness, in the same work De Gratia

Christi, cc. 2. 7. 10., Pelagius conceded that the possibility of good is a gift of the grace of God and that it is completed by a supernatural help; but that possibility of good is interior, and the help by which it is completed is a help of the will.

But to the first Augustine in the same book De Gratia Christi testifies that in no work of Pelagius which he himself has read did he ever see him profess the interior grace of the will. In c. 30 he says: «That grace by which we are justified, that is, by which the charity of God is diffused in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, in the writings of Pelagius and Caelestius, whatever I have been able to read, I have nowhere found them confessing as it is to be confessed.» Therefore it cannot be that in those words of Pelagius reported by Augustine is contained the grace of charity diffused in hearts, which is the grace of inspiration properly so called. And certainly, to those words of Pelagius Augustine immediately subjoins this commentary, c. 10: «What is more manifest than that he says that the grace by which God works in us to will what is good is nothing other than the law and doctrine?... But we will that he at some time confess that grace, by which the greatness of future glory is not only promised, but also believed and hoped, and wisdom is not only revealed, but also loved, and everything that is good is not only urged, but also prevails.» Namely, that Augustine testifies ibid. c. 41 concerning the books of Pelagius De lib. arb.: «whatever he seems to say for grace, by which we are helped to decline from evil and to do good, he so says it that he in no way departs from the ambiguity of words, which he can so explain to his disciples that they believe no help of grace, by which the possibility of nature is helped, except in the law and doctrine, so that he thinks that the prayers themselves, as he most manifestly affirms in his writings, are to be employed for nothing else, except that doctrine may be opened to us even by divine revelation... For he does not depart at all from that his most manifest dogma, where he established those three: possibility, will, action, and says that possibility alone is always helped by divine assistance, but thinks that the will and action need no help of God.» — the grace, namely, of interior illumination Pelagius expressed in those words, as is clear from Augustine's own interpretation.

To the second again, since those words of Pelagius are taken from the first book De libero arbitrio and in them Augustine testifies that the grace proper to the will is denied by Pelagius, it is evident that they cannot the words of Pelagius be turned to the sense intended by the objectors. Hence there the speech of Augustine is not about the nature of grace, but about its necessity: moreover, if the question is made only about the necessity of grace, it is certain that the words of Pelagius, with the little word 'more easily' removed, exhibit a most sound sense. But if you ask again of what sort the necessary grace is, it will be answered that this was already defined by Augustine in the preceding pages, and therefore he now only supposes it.

To the third, moreover, we say that there is in reality no difficulty there. For the possibility of good is indeed grace according to Pelagius, but it is the very grace of creation: but the help by which the possibility is helped he placed in the law and doctrine, that is, in knowledge, not however in charity and the subministration of the power of the Holy Spirit.

B) It must likewise be certain that the Pelagians persisted in the same opinion after the heresy condemned by Innocent and Zosimus, and did not will to profess an interior help of the will conferring strength upon it. Certainly 1) in the profession of faith which Julian and the other Pelagian bishops offered to the Apostolic See after the Tractoria of Zosimus, to which they refused to subscribe, they speak no otherwise than they had spoken before, and make no mention of that grace which they had previously denied. For thus they say: «We say that the commandments of the divine law are possible on account of the justice of God, and we confess that they can universally be fulfilled through the grace of Christ, which is always the helper and companion of all good acts, and through the free will of man, which itself too is a gift of God. Which grace of God, however, we so receive, that it does not follow the unwilling nor forsake the obedient.» Which words indeed are so ambiguous that they can conveniently be explained even of the mere grace of knowledge. Whence 2) concerning Julian, who seems then to have been the prince of the Pelagian faction, Marius Mercator has these things in the Subnotationes on the writings of Julian: «These and similar (Pelagian chapters) pleased also Julian and his other fellow soldiers, which, when they had been known and detected and had been condemned with the aforesaid persons (Pelagius and Caelestius) by ecclesiastical authority, were also defended by the same Julian with a multitude of books: and it pleased that he be counted third in the condemnation with Pelagius and Caelestius.» If he defended the doctrine of Pelagius and Caelestius, which had been condemned by ecclesiastical authority, he did not therefore temper that opinion. And in very truth 3) Julian himself, in the first book of the eight to Florus, which he wrote around the year 421, so opens his opinion, as Augustine reports in Oper. imperf. L. I. n. 94: «We confess the grace of Christ to be manifold. Its first gift is that we were made from nothing; the second, that we excel those living by sense, even as the sentient excel by reason, which was impressed on the soul, so that it might be called the image of the creator, to whose dignity the liberty granted to the will equally looks. Thus grace sent the law as a help; it pertained to its office that it should arouse by manifold teachings and foster by its invitation the light of reason, which the examples of depravity and the habit of vices were dulling. To the fullness of this grace, that is, of the divine benevolence, which gave cause to things, it looked that the Word should be made flesh and dwell in us. This grace, therefore, which in baptism not only pardons sins, but together with this benefit of indulgence also advances and adopts and consecrates; this, I say, grace changes the merit of the guilty, it does not create free will, which we receive at the time when we are created; but we use it when we attain the power of discretion between good and evil. To a good will, therefore, we do not deny that innumerable kinds of divine help are present; but in such a way that neither through the kinds of help is the destroyed liberty of the will fabricated, nor, with it excluded, is it ever thought that any necessity of good or evil presses upon anyone (behold the arguments of the Pelagians against the necessity of the grace of the will; therefore this is not asserted here): but all help cooperates with free choice.» Here, moreover, was the place to enumerate the interior grace of the will among the others, if Julian had approved it; but it is passed over in silence; therefore it was not then counted among the graces by the Pelagians. Wherefore 4) Augustine, who had read both the two letters of the Pelagians written after the Tractoria of Zosimus and the eight books of Julian to Florus, does not hand down that they taught anything except what Pelagius had also taught at first. For thus he says in Contra duas epistt. pelagg. L. IV, c. 5: «Nowhere do these enemies of grace plot more hidden snares for attacking the same grace more vehemently, than where they praise the law, which is without doubt to be praised. For they will the law to be understood as grace in diverse modes of speech and variety of words in all their disputations, namely, that we may have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, by which we may know those things which are to be done purely, not the inspiration of love, that we may do the known things with holy love, which is properly grace.» in the Opere imperf., in which he responds to the books of Julian, he says L. III, n. 14: «But when it is asked of you what those helps of the grace of God are, you declare those which you have commemorated above: that God helps by commanding, blessing, sanctifying, coercing, provoking, illuminating; all of which are done even through men, even through the Scriptures... Not, however, is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase: this, moreover, is the increase, that each one obeys the precepts of God, which does not happen, when it truly happens, except by charity... This charity no one gives but God; for charity is from God. This you do not will to name among the helps of grace which you commemorate, lest you concede that this very thing, that we obey God, is of his grace. For you think that in this way the choice of the will is taken away.»The same finally is clear from the testimony of Augustine from the book De haeresibus related at the beginning of this disputation, from those words: «that grace of God, without which we can do nothing good» etc., in which Augustine testifies that the Pelagians reduce the grace of God to the law and doctrine, that they confess that knowledge indeed is given, but deny that charity is given.

Nor do the arguments which are adduced on the contrary effect anything. For they say 1) that just as before the condemnation of the heresy the question for the Fathers was about the nature of grace, and they vindicated its necessity, so after the condemnation of the heresy, leaving that question aside, the Fathers turned to defending the gratuitousness of grace; which is an argument that the Pelagians in the first question gave their hands as conquered and consented to the Catholics. Which indeed can also be proved by the testimony of Augustine, who says that the Pelagians, convicted that the grace of God is not only knowledge or nature or the remission of sins, turned to this, to show that the grace of God is given according to merits. De Grat. et lib. arb. c. 14, in the place cited above.

But a) it is false that the Fathers did not agitate even after the condemnation of the heresy the question of the nature of grace and its necessity. b) Even if Augustine says that the Pelagians were convicted, he does not say that they also confessed. Whence c) that the Fathers vindicated especially after the Tractoria of Zosimus the gratuitousness of grace did not come from this, that the Pelagians consented with the Catholics in the other question, but both from this — that the Pelagians, routed on that side, lest they should seem wholly conquered, renewed the war in that part which had previously been treated with lesser cares, and contended that the grace of God is given according to merits — and from this — that, with the prior question sufficiently discussed and settled, the Fathers had no further need to dwell on it. Hence it is that Augustine, who in the cited place De Gratia et lib. arb. c. 14 says, as they object to us, that the Pelagians were convicted and so turned to impugning the gratuitousness of grace, in the same book c. 11 says the same: «What is it, then, that the most vain and most perverse Pelagians say that the law is the grace of God, by which we are helped not to sin? What is it, wretches, that they say, who without any doubt contradict so great an Apostle (Gal. II, 16)!» Still, therefore, the Pelagians persisted in the error about the nature of grace necessary for the work.

They say Augustine, in the book De dono perseverantiae, and therefore in his last age, reduces to only three heads the doctrine which the Church would defend against the Pelagians, among which heads that one about the nature and necessity of grace does not appear. c. 2: «There are three things, as you know, which the catholic Church especially defends against them; of which one is that the grace of God is not given according to our merits... the second is, that no one lives in this corruptible body in whatever greatness of justice without sins of whatever kind; the third is, that man is born liable to the sin of the first parent.» Therefore, they say, about that former head there was no longer any controversy with the Pelagians.: the testimony of Augustine is affirmative, not exclusive; β) that Augustine enumerates, not all things, but those which the Church at that time especially defended against the Pelagians: γ) that the interpretation of the testimony of Augustine is to be required according to the other testimonies which we adduced from the Opere cont. epistt. pelag., from the Opere imperfecto, and from the book De haeresibus.

They say at least it must be conceded that the Pelagians, although they persisted in denying the necessity of the interior grace which would confer strength on the will for beginning, nevertheless conceded the necessity of the same grace for perfecting. Which they think to prove by the testimony adduced from c. 8 of L. II. cont. duas epistt. pelag., which we exhibited above under num. VII.: but that Augustine did not will by those words to teach what the Pelagians absolutely thought about the nature of grace and its necessity is evident from those things which he hands down about the same Pelagians in other works written even in his last age, from which we have already cited testimonies; from which it is clear that the Pelagians never willed to acknowledge the interior grace of the will. To which testimonies this also can be added, from Op. imper. L. II. n. 198: «Now break out into the open, enemies of the cross of Christ... Say openly: we can be justified by nature, we can be justified by the law; Christ died in vain. But fearing the Christian multitude, you substitute the Pelagian word, and to those asking you why Christ died, if nature or the law effects the just, you answer: that this very thing might be done more easily: as if it could be done, although more difficultly, yet nevertheless either through nature or through the law. Christ, answer, conquer, convince, cry out: without me you can do nothing; let those be silent who cry: although more difficultly, yet we can do something without you.» Still, therefore, the Pelagians persisted in the opinion of the sufficiency of nature for doing justice, which comprises not only the beginning, but also the perfection, and of the help of the law, of doctrine and of the examples of Christ, which grace, however, would be offered only for doing it more easily. Moreover, with this doctrine cannot be composed the opinion asserting that for perfecting justice the interior grace of the will is necessary.

To this also belongs what Augustine says about the distinction between the Pelagians and the Massilians. De Praed. SS. c. 1. «These our brethren have arrived, for whom your pious charity is solicitous, at believing with the Church of Christ that the human race is born subject to the sin of the first man, and that no one is freed from that evil except through the justice of the second man. They have arrived also at confessing that the wills of men are prevented by the grace of God, and at agreeing that no one can suffice for himself either for beginning or for perfecting any good work. Holding fast, therefore, to these things, to which they have arrived, they are distinguished very much from the error of the Pelagians.» Therefore the error of the Pelagians was: that anyone suffices for himself for beginning and perfecting.

IX. It remains for us to see what that grace is, the profession of which the Fathers demanded of the Pelagians. It is a question of the greatest moment, and one to be treated accurately. For certain learned men, in order to defend their own systems, imagine that the grace which was denied by the Pelagians and defended by the Fathers is that which they themselves have devised, and they would wish it, so fortified by the authority of the Fathers, to impose it upon others as a revealed dogma. Let these things, therefore, be held.

1. The necessary help of God, of which the Fathers spoke, Palm. De Grat. tion is that which is commonly called the general concurrence of God, which is necessary for all the actions of every secondary cause. Proof. The general concurrence of God is related by reason of nature to all acts considered physically, whether good or bad; but the Fathers indicated a help of this kind, which would be a gift superadded to nature and which would not be except for good, insofar as a power to good, not to evil, was conferred. For to this belongs what we have already noted. Th. VIII. n. VI.

Furthermore, the help of which the Fathers spoke was asserted by them to be necessary for salutary acts, for acting as one ought; but the general concurrence of God is necessary also for natural acts; therefore the help which the Fathers claimed is some special help, distinct from the general concurrence.

Again, the help defended by the Fathers is a help by which the faculty for acting is prevented, prepared, and excited: but the general concurrence is only cooperating.

Likewise, the help championed by the Fathers is a help altogether gratuitous; it is a help which the Pelagians contended to be given according to merits: but the general concurrence is owed to created nature, nor may it be merited, since the first merit necessarily precedes it. Therefore.

That, however, does not prevent the Fathers from sometimes bringing forward also that head of doctrine which comes back to the general concurrence of God, in order to blunt the pride of the Pelagians and to demonstrate the necessity of divine help for acting well and the impotence of nature, which the Pelagians so greatly extolled, as Jerome seems to do in the first Dialogue against the Pelagians, who, if you consider only the words which Jerome reports, seem to deny even the general concurrence. But this special manner of arguing, employed at times by some Father, is not to be confused with that doctrine which the whole Church, together with all the Fathers, asserted against the Pelagians (cf. Th. XXII. n. I).

Note also that the general concurrence is distinct from that gratuitous natural help by which God excites the mind to suitable thoughts, of which we spoke in Thesis II. But because a gratuitous help of this kind has a place in both orders, the natural and the supernatural, it does not follow that, if the Fathers speak of that help, they are discoursing about the natural help.

2. The help of God, the profession of which the Fathers demanded of the Pelagians, is an internal help, a help of the will suggesting to it powers for willing and operating; yet without the Fathers contending that a certain definite mode is to be believed, by which the will is aided by a help of this kind, whether by predetermining it or, much less, by imposing necessity upon it. Proof. The Pelagians admitted all external graces; yet with these the Fathers were not content; therefore some internal, immediate help was asserted by the Fathers. But the immediate help, besides the illumination of the mind, which the Fathers openly testified, was chiefly the help of the will, which would heal it and add powers to it for operating as one ought. That this was demanded by the Fathers sufficiently appears from several authorities already cited. Moreover, we say only this, that it was demanded by the Fathers, without their being solicitous about, or proposing for belief, some mode by which divine grace operates in us. They knew, to be sure, that some mode is present; for what thing is there without some mode? But the question then was not what that mode might be: nor did the Fathers propose to the Pelagians that some determinate mode was to be believed. Certainly, the Carthaginian Fathers in the letter to Innocent (which is CLXXV inter Augustinianas) and the Milevitan Fathers to the same pontiff in their letter (CLXXVI inter Augustin.) reprobate this in Pelagius and Caelestius: that they leave no place for the grace of God by which we are Christians, by which the very choice of our will truly becomes free; that they place the grace of God in this, that He instituted such a nature, which could by its own will fulfill the law of God, whether naturally written in the heart or given in letters; but they are unwilling to acknowledge that grace by which, against the evil of sin and for working justice, God is our helper, which the Apostle preaches, saying: for I take delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and captivating me under the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through I. Ch. D. N. Likewise, the five African Bishops to the same Innocent (letter CLXXVII inter Augustin.) reprove this in Pelagius: that whether he says grace

of God be free will, or grace be the remission of sins, or grace be the precept of the law, he says none of those things which pertain, through the ministration of the Holy Spirit, to overcoming concupiscences and temptations; and they demand that Pelagius «confess most openly that grace which Christian doctrine proclaims to be proper to Christians, which is not nature, but by which nature is saved, which fosters nature not by doctrine sounding in the ears or by some visible assistance, like a planter and waterer, so to speak, from without, but by the ministration of the Spirit and hidden mercy, as He does who gives the increase, God.»

Likewise, the Synods both of Carthage and of Orange, in defining what is to be believed about the assistance of the grace of God, establish these things: that by the grace of God it is granted to us to love and to be able to do what we have known to be done, and that not only may we fulfill the law more easily, but that we may be able to fulfill it at all; that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not by the vigor of nature, that we are able to do all things as we ought; that by the same inspiration of the Holy Spirit our will is corrected from unbelief to faith, from impiety to piety; that God operates in us and with us, so that we operate — men so willing to do what they do — that nevertheless the will is prepared by the grace of God to will, and, willing and acting, is aided.

Likewise, in the authorities of the Apostolic See collected by Caelestinus, we are taught that no one uses free will well except through Christ; that no one pleases God from any other source except from that which He Himself has given; that God operates in the hearts of men and in free will itself, so that every motion of a good will is from God, so that He is the author of all good affections and works.

Moreover, from all these things it is clear what the Fathers reprobated in the heretics, what they demanded to be believed; that, moreover, is the assistance of the will; but concerning the mode by which it aids, and that mode which some invent, absolutely nothing.

The same thing is evidently established from Augustine. Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L IV, c. 6. he says: «What does it profit them, that in the praise of free will itself they say that grace aids each one's good purpose? This would be accepted without scruple as spoken catholicly, if they did not place merit in the good purpose, to which merit the reward would already be rendered according to debt, not according to grace, but understood and confessed that even the good purpose itself, which grace aids as a consequence, could not have been in man, if grace did not precede.» And de Gratia Christi c. 17. «As far as pertains to that question of divine grace and assistance, attend to those three things which he most openly distinguished: posse, velle and esse — that is, possibility, will, action. If, therefore, he agrees with us, not only the possibility in man, even if he neither wills nor acts well, but also the will and the action themselves, that is, that we will and act well, which are not in man except when he wills well and acts well; if, as I said, he agrees that the will and the action themselves are divinely aided, and so aided that without that assistance we neither will nor do anything good, and that this is the grace of God through I. Ch. D. N., in which He made us just by His own, not our, justice, so that it may be the true justice which is ours from Him; nothing, as I judge, of controversy about the assistance of the grace of God remains between us.» What is clearer than these words? This one thing was demanded, that they confess the assistance by which the will and the action are aided: but concerning the mode nothing is said. The Fathers, therefore, did not propose that a certain definite mode, by which grace operates in us, was to be believed, although they certainly knew that some mode exists; but about this they were not solicitous, and it was enough for them if it were believed that the very act of the will, the very good action, is from God aiding.

Hence it is that Augustine most frequently reproaches the Pelagians, because they are unwilling to confess that the charity of God is diffused in our hearts; but if they confess it, he affirms that they are truly corrected: «This grace of God (he says, de Gratia Christi c. 26.), manifest in the divine eloquence, let even Pelagius manifestly confess, and let him not cover with most shameless shame that he has so long thought the contrary, but let him disclose it with salubrious sorrow, so that the holy Church may not be disturbed by his perverse obstinacy but may rejoice in his truthful correction. Let him distinguish knowledge and love, as they are to be distinguished; because knowledge puffs up, charity builds up, and then knowledge does not puff up, when charity builds up. And since both are a gift of God, but one is lesser, the other greater, let him not so extol our justice above the praise of our Justifier, as to attribute to divine assistance the lesser of the two, and to usurp for the human will the greater. And if he agrees that we receive charity by the grace of God, let him not think as though any good merits of ours preceded.»

The same thing is finally brought about by the attention given to the controversy with the Massilians. For it is established (as we will show in its place, c. IV. art. 1.) that the Fathers and the Massilians agreed with one another as to the character of the grace which is necessary for good works, and that the Fathers demanded this one thing, that the Massilians confess the same grace to be necessary also for the beginning of faith. Now indeed, with Jansenius himself admitting it, the Massilians did not admit any predetermining grace: but the Fathers so defined the grace, the profession of which they required, that it is that by which our will is prevented and prepared, and by which it is aided in acting. Cf. what we will discuss in its place about the Error of the Massilians.

It is clear, therefore, that Augustine demanded that one thing which is most certain and catholic: namely, that the will is interiorly prepared and aided by the ministration of the power of the Holy Spirit, which all Catholic theologians both confess and demonstrate; but that the other things, which pertain to the mode, were foreign to the controversy which was then held with the Pelagians.

But this is not the same as saying that Augustine did not speak of the mode by which God acts efficaciously in the will, so that salutary acts come to be; certainly Augustine spoke not rarely also of this matter, and we will see it in its place: but we only deny that, between Augustine fighting for the Catholic dogma and the heretics, there was a question about the mode by which grace exerts its powers in the soul, so that a salutary action results, or that Augustine ever demanded of the heretics that they profess a certain definite mode by which God's operation is efficacious in the will.

X. Augustine briefly touched upon the history of the condemnation of the Pelagian heresy, epist. CXV. ad Valentinum, n. 2. «That which was written to Pope Innocent, Bishop of the city of Rome, from the Council of the province of Carthage and from the Council of Numidia (behold, a double provincial Council, the Carthaginian and the Milevitan, which sent only synodal letters to Rome without drawing up canons), and somewhat more carefully by five Bishops, and what he himself replied to those three (behold, the first condemnation of the heresy by the authority of the Roman Pontiff Innocent, by which Augustine said that the cause was finished): likewise, that which was written to Pope Zosimus from the African council (it was a sufficiently prolix synodal letter, by which the errors of Pelagius and Caelestius were censured) and his rescript sent to all the bishops of the whole world «A council having been held at Carthage (says Prosper in the Chronicle, an. 418.), synodal decrees of two hundred and fourteen bishops were carried to Pope Zosimus, upon the approval of which the Pelagian heresy was condemned throughout the whole world: namely, through that letter of Zosimus, which Marius Mercator calls the Tractoria, by which, as the same Prosper says adv. Coll. c. 21., Pope Zosimus armed the right hands of all the bishops with the sword of Peter for the cutting off of the error; and what, in a later plenary Council of all Africa, we briefly established against that same error (behold, eight or nine Carthaginian canons against the Pelagian heresy, which were a brief recapitulation of those things which had been prescribed in the synodal letter sent to Zosimus by the preceding Council and approved by Zosimus), all these things we also read at present with them and sent to you through them.» Cf. Fratres Ballerini Operum S. Leonis Tom. III. Observationes in Dissertationem 13am Quesnelli cap. 1. §. 2. sqq.; and ibid. de antiquis Collectionibus Canonum. Part. II. c. III. §. 10. Cf. the cited works of Petavius and Garnerius and Livinus Meyer.