SERMON 348/A expanded.
Sermon of Saint Augustine against Pelagius.
Christ came into the world to save sinners.
The reason for the advent and incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ is that when He came, He found all sinners. The Apostle very clearly states this cause of His advent in this manner: It is a human saying, he says, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. Therefore, no other cause brought the Son of God, God and eternal God, and co-eternal and equal with the Father, from the heavens to the earth to take flesh and die for us, except that there was no life in us. The physician would not descend, unless to the sick; life would not descend, unless to the dead. Today, as the Apostle was being read, those of you who were attentive heard: He thus commends His love for us, he says, because, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; much more now having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. This is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, which the prophets first proclaimed, then He Himself with His own mouth, then the apostles after His presence in the flesh, then the whole Church holds, declares, preaches, and commends and venerates. This is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
To rise from ruin, we need the help of God.
Wherefore, your love ought first to know, or rather to recall what you know and have always heard: that no man can be saved by his own merits and strength. For man was easy to wound himself, just as in our own fleshly life it is easy for anyone to kill himself: but is he able to resurrect himself? Therefore, to fall, we needed no assistance; indeed, because we abandoned God's help, we fell. But to rise from our fall, let us ask for His aid, lest we remain in our sins. Christ died for us - you have heard the Apostle - not for Himself, but for us. Why not for Himself, but for us? Because He had no cause of death, in whom there was no sin. Death is the penalty of sin. For if Adam had not sinned, he would certainly not have died, nor would we be born mortal from his offspring. But one came without sin, to absolve all sins: for He who was not liable could untie the bound, nor could the guilty liberate the condemned. He took flesh from a virgin without man's concupiscence; the flesh taken was not a wound, but the medicine for the wound. Christ died for us.
God gave His only Son for us.
What else shall we seek from him? What is Christ? You have heard: when he asked his disciples, it was said by Peter: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He by nature the Son, we by grace; he the only one, we many, because he was born, we were adopted. Since God had one and only Son, he spared not his only begotten and own Son, but delivered him up for us all, as the Apostle says. What greater remedy could the human race ask for or hope for than that the only Son should be sent not to live with us, but to die for us? And in order to die for us, he took on flesh in which he could die, because, being the Word God with God the Father, he did not have the means by which to die. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Where is there visibility and tangibility in the Word, where is there suffering or death in God? That which cannot be seen can be seen only by the mind. But even the mind itself is covered in darkness, blinded by sins, the whole man weak, the whole man languid, the whole man wounded, I dare say the whole man dead and extinguished, how could it see the ubiquitous presence, not having a healthy inner eye, by which invisible things are seen?
"If we wish to live, let us not cling to death."
Therefore, there was nothing entirely healthy in us: the healer of body and soul descended, because he is the Savior of body and soul. For if these doctors can heal what they did not create from these medicines and herbs which they did not create, if the human doctor heals by the power of God, how much more does God heal his own? However, the human doctor heals the one destined to die, God heals the one who is to live eternally. And this very act of willing to die for us was our medicine. It is a great mercy, brothers, that our healer willed to cure us not with his ointment, but with his blood. Much more, he says, now being justified. By what? By his blood, not by our own strengths, not by our own merits, but by his blood, we will be saved from wrath through him, not through us, but through him. He bound himself to the cross: if we truly wish to live, let us not cling to death. He who clings to himself clings to death. For life is not in the dead. What can the dead presume about themselves? They could die by their own power, but they cannot revive themselves. We could and still can sin by ourselves, yet we will never be able to rise by ourselves. Our hope must be in God alone. Let us groan to him, let us place our trust in him; as far as it concerns us, let us strive by our will, that we may deserve through prayer.
Augustine exposes the error of the Pelagians.
Therefore, since these things are so, brothers, I will speak more openly to you, because there is nothing for us to hide: a certain new heresy, hiding and secretly and widely spreading, we endured in silence as much as we could, until it burst forth; we always refuted the error itself; we kept names silent, lest perhaps, when we refuted the error, people might be corrected; we kept names silent: for nothing is better, nothing more desirable, than that those hearing what was preached by us according to the most ancient foundation of the Church might fear to proclaim their errors and be healed in silence, converted to the one who heals all who call upon his name. We did this for a long time. For concerning this kind of impiety, we also wrote certain things and they were already in the hands of readers, and yet the names of those about whom we had written were not yet made known to you. Some of them were here and some were corrected, for the salvation of whom, in the name and mercy of the Lord, we rejoice. For some of those corrected from that error urged us greatly that we also write letters concerning that error itself.
Augustine sends a letter to Pelagius.
But now we have heard: the same person who is the chief and author of this pernicious teaching, they said was absolved in episcopal proceedings in the eastern regions and pronounced catholic. Therefore, he denied that the things objected to him were his own, and what others seemed to spread through his doctrine, he denied feeling, but also anathematized. The proceedings indeed have not yet reached us. Nevertheless, because we are accustomed to writing to him familiarly as a servant of God, just as last year, when my son, the presbyter Orosius, who is with us from Spain, a servant of God, went to the east with my letters, I wrote through the same Orosius to the same Pelagius, not marking him with my letters, but exhorting him to hear from the presbyter what I commanded. But the presbyter found the place where he was already very disturbed by his preachings and the dissensions of the brethren; hence he brought back letters to me from the much revered presbyter Jerome, for his age, sanctity, and erudition, known to all. This presbyter Jerome had already written a book against him on free will, which was also brought to us. However, as I said, he was absolved in church proceedings, confessing the grace of God which he seemed to deny and oppose by his disputations.
Augustine announces the deeds of Pelagius to the people.
Later, indeed, a few days ago, one of our citizens, Palatinus the deacon, the son of Gattus from Hippo — and many recognize both the name and more recognize the father; he is present; among the deacons he stands, he hears me, it is he — came to us from there. He brought me a certain brief book of Pelagius himself of what was being accused of him, not as part of the proceedings, but made and composed by him as a defense, just as he might also defend himself in the episcopal proceedings, which have not yet, as I said, been able to come into our hands. And he instructed the deacon to give me the same defense of his to read; yet he did not send me his letters. Hence I am anxious, lest he later deny that he sent even this which he did send. Therefore, I did not want to dispute anything from there until we read the proceedings, where ecclesiastical and episcopal authority seems to be contained. Why did I want to disclose this to your faith? Because I do not know what great disturbance has occurred in Jerusalem and has been reported to us full of sadness, saying that, even by popular tumult, two monasteries in Bethlehem are said to have been burned down. Which I would not need to tell you unless I knew it had already reached some of you. Therefore, it is better that you heard everything from me than that you were wounded by hidden rumors.
The foundation of Pelagian doctrine is explained.
What therefore is the harm of this heresy, understand briefly, so that you may beware and, whoever you hear either whispering such things in secret or clamoring about them in open disputes, you do not conceal from us. For we fear that cancer may spread when it is spared, and suddenly we may find many such people, whom we can scarcely or never heal. Therefore, hear what harm this heresy has. That which I said a little before and commended to you, the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, this heresy attacks with its pestilential disputations. How, you ask? They say that human nature is able, that free will is so capable that, just as we became sinners by ourselves, so also we can be justified by ourselves. And whereas a just man is better than a man— for the name "man" is for nature, and the name "justice" is for happiness and blessedness — therefore, since a just man is better than any man, they say that God made the man, but the man made himself just, so that it seems the man gives himself more than God had given him.
The Pelagians subvert the notion of grace.
Therefore, let your charity attend: through the malicious disputations of these people our prayers are attacked. For they act and dispute in such a way that we seem to pray without cause. Our Lord has taught us how to pray, lest perhaps we ask for carnal and temporal things in our prayers, such as to ask that your head not ache, that you may not die, that you may not carry out your son, that you may not suffer loss, that you may not be thrown into prison oppressed by someone, and if any other similar things are temporal and secular. These they allow us to pray for; what the Lord taught, they take away, not because they dare to deny it, but because they dispute in such a manner as to remove it. For when he says to you: "It is sufficient for you to do justice; if you will, you do; if you will, you do not; you have no need of God's help to fulfill what he commands, for the grace of God is not that which helps you not to sin, but that grace which made you with free will." Therefore, when they say such things, they speak of the grace of God by which we were made, which grace we also have in common with the pagans. For we were not created, and they were not created, nor did we proceed from the workshop of another artificer than they: we and they have one God as Author, one Creator, one Maker, who makes His sun to rise on the good and the bad, and rains on the just and the unjust. This, they say, is the grace of God; they do not wish to speak of the other, not by which we are also men with pagans, but by which we are Christians. You know which grace they deny, hear more evidently.
Paul in the struggle with the flesh seeks the help of God.
You know that Paul the Apostle placed our struggle with the flesh, so that we live piously and justly, the very contest in which we labor, before our eyes, saying: "I delight in the law of God according to the inner man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin - and death - which is in my members." In this difficulty he cried out and said: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" And it was as if the answer was: "The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." They do not deny him this grace, but they hear that you struggle with the flesh and the bad habit of your sins: "It is sufficient for you to conquer. Why do you ask for help? You can accomplish this by your own strength." But the Apostle succumbed. He confessed his weakness to obtain healing: "I see," he said, "another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin." What good is it to me that the inner man delights in the law of God with my mind? Behold, I am fought against, behold, I am dragged, behold, I am crushed, behold, I am taken captive. See, as if looking up to God from great oppression, he cried out. If he had said: "Who will deliver me from this body of death, except my own strength?" he would be seen to have spoken proudly, but perhaps we would also understand this, because he could not say it except of God, to whom the psalm says: "I will love You, O Lord, my strength." Did he therefore say: "Who will deliver me, except my nature, except my will, except the powers of my choice and ability?" He did not say that. He humbled himself to be exalted: "The grace of God," he said, "through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In the Lord's Prayer, we seek the grace of the delivering God.
For this reason, the Lord has enjoined us what we should pray: Hallowed be - and what? - thy name. Is not the name of God holy? What is "hallowed," if not in us? Now you, if you can of your own free will and by the power of your own nature hallow the name of God within you, why do you pray, why do you ask from the highest majesty what you have in your power? What more? {(1.) Those two: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and: Lead us not into temptation, when these are proposed, what do you think they reply? I shuddered, my brothers, when I heard. Indeed, I did not hear with my own ears, but my holy brother and fellow bishop, our Urbanus, who was a presbyter here and now is bishop of Sicca, when he had returned from the city of Rome and there was contending with someone holding such opinions, or was reporting that he had contended, he told me that he said this, when he was pressed by the weight of the Lord's prayer. For he was pressing him and saying: "If it is within our power not to sin and within our power to overcome all temptations of sins by our own wills alone, why do we say to God not to lead us into temptation?" What do you think he replied? "We ask," he says, "God not to lead us into temptation, lest we suffer any evil, which we do not have in our power: lest I fall from a horse and break a leg, lest a robber kills me, and anything of this sort. For these," he says, "I do not have in my power. For to overcome the temptations of my sins, if I am willing, I both can and am able, nor do I need the aid of God."
What is the temptation into which we ask not to be led?