And to these words of men who err and do not understand the grace of God, he replied as he ought, saying. 「God forbid; for if we are dead to sin, how shall we live in it?」 Nothing could be said more briefly and better. For what does the grace of God confer upon us more usefully in this present evil world than that we should die to sin? And accordingly, he will be found ungrateful to grace itself who wishes, for its sake, to live in sin, through which we die to sin. But God, who is rich in mercy, grant to you also both to be soundly wise and to persevere fruitfully unto the end in a good purpose. This for yourselves, this for us, this for all who love you, and for those who hate you, pray earnestly in brotherly peace and vigilantly, that you may live unto God.
If I deserve anything of you, let brother Florus come to me. 216. To the truly holy lord, to be reverently set before us above all things, and to be cherished with pious exultation, the most blessed Pope Augustine: Valentinus, servant of your Holiness, and the whole congregation which together with me hopes in your prayers, greeting in the Lord. The venerable writings and the book of your Holiness we received with a heart so trembling that, just as the blessed Elijah, when he stood at the mouth of the cave, veiled his face as the glory of the Lord passed by, so we too, thus rebuked, covered our eyes, because through the rusticity of our brethren we blushed at our own judgment; by whose disorderly departure we feared for your blessed and saving welfare.
For there is a time to speak and a time to keep silence, lest, while we wrote through those who doubt and waver concerning the truth, we should seem to doubt, together with the doubters, of the sayings of your wisdom, which is like the wisdom of an angel of God. For it was not necessary for us to inquire concerning your blessedness and your wisdom, which is known to us through the grace of the Lord. For at the book of your most sweet Holiness we were so eagerly gladdened that, just as the apostles, when the Lord ate with them after the resurrection, did not dare to ask who he was — for they knew that it was Jesus — so we too neither wished nor dared to inquire concerning the book,
whether it be of your Holiness, since the very faithful grace which is generously commended in it testifies to us with most lively utterances, holy lord Pope, that it is yours. But let us begin, most blessed lord Pope, to set forth the order of the disturbance itself. Our most beloved brother Florus, servant of your Paternity, when at the urging of charity he had set out for the region of Uzalis, brought to our monastery — during his very sojourn in that city — presents from your Holiness, namely from your little works, one brother Felix (who is known to have come to your Holiness late, after his companions) devoutly dictating the same book. Then Florus came to the monastery with that same little book, having set out from the city of Uzalis to Carthage.
With the book not shown to me, they began to read it aloud to unlearned brethren. And it stirred up the hearts of certain ones who did not understand — just as, when the Lord said. 「He who has not eaten the flesh of the Son of Man, nor drunk his blood, shall not have life in himself,」 those departed who understood it impiously, not through the fault of the Lord who spoke, but through the hardness of a most impious heart. The aforesaid brethren, who overturned everything, began to stir up the souls of the untaught while my littleness was utterly ignorant of it, to such a degree that I knew nothing of their murmuring assembly, so that, unless brother Florus, returning from Carthage and recognizing their disturbances, had anxiously reported it to me .............................
there was among them a stealthy and, as it were, servile contention about a truth not understood. I proposed, in order to remove these impious questions, that we should send to the holy lord father Evodius, that he himself might write back to us something more certain about this sacrosanct book, for the sake of the ignorant. But they would not receive even this with patience; rather, they seized upon a departure in no way desired by us, brother Florus being almost thrown into confusion by their fury — against whom they raged, because he, as they supposed, had brought them the wounds of this book, in which, being sick, they could not recognize the medicine. Whence we also asked the holy presbyter Sabinus, for the sake of greater authority, and his Holiness read the book with clear expositions.
Yet not even so was the wounded soul healed. To these men, for very piety's sake, we gave provisions, lest we should heap up their wounds, which the grace of that book could heal, in which your holy presence shines forth. When they had departed, quiet and peace exulted in the Lord throughout all the brethren. For among five brethren, or somewhat more, this contention was born of animosity. But because sometimes, lord Pope, joy comes forth out of sadness, we are not so greatly saddened, since through the ignorant and the meddlesome we were counted worthy to be enlightened by the most sweet admonitions of your Holiness. For even the doubt of the blessed apostle Thomas, seeking the marks of the nails, became the confirmation of the universal Church. We received, therefore,
lord Pope, the medicine of those who piously care for us, with the grace of your letters, and we have beaten our breasts, that at least thus our conscience may be healed — which grace heals and quickens through our free will, which mercy bestows. But in this time, when we still sing of mercy with a delay. For when we shall have begun to sing judgment to the Lord, we are to carry back a reward for our work, because merciful and just is the Lord, compassionate and upright; because, as your Holiness teaches us, we must be presented before the tribunal of Christ, that each one of us may receive the things proper to the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil; because the Lord will come, and his reward with him.
because man and his work shall stand before him; because the Lord will come like a burning furnace, to set the wicked on fire like stubble, and to those who fear the name of the Lord the Sun of righteousness shall arise, when the wicked shall be punished by the judgment of justice. This the righteous man, whose friend you are, lord Pope, cries out; he trembles and suppliantly says. 「Lord, enter not into judgment with your servant.」 If grace were of one who rewards, the righteous man would not fear the secret chamber of the judgment of the Majesty. This is the faith of your servant Florus, father, not as these brethren have spoken. In their presence they heard him say that the gift of piety is given not according to our merits, but through the grace of the Redeemer; for who would doubt that grace is far off from that day, when justice shall have begun to be angry?
This we cry out, father; this, with you teaching, we sing, not secure but trembling. 「Lord, rebuke me not in your fury, nor chasten me in your wrath.」 This we say. 「Amend us, Lord, and instruct us out of your law, that you may give us respite from evil days.」 This we believe, with you teaching, venerable father: that the Lord questions the righteous and the ungodly; that to those set on the right and on the left, the good and the evil, he imputes the works of piety to be rewarded, and enumerates the tenacity of impiety to be punished. Where will grace be, when the works, whether good or evil, shall be requited according to their own quality? But why does the crooked man not fear to bring forth a lie? We do not deny free will healed by the grace of God;
but we believe that it advances through the daily grace of Christ, and we trust that it is helped. And men say. 「It is in my power to do good.」 If only men did do good! O empty boasting of wretched men! Daily their sins accuse them, and they take to themselves a bare free will, boasting of it, not examining their own conscience — which cannot be healed except through grace — so as to say. 「Have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.」 What would they do, who boast of their free will (which is not denied, provided it has the help of God at least), if death had already been swallowed up in victory, if now our mortal were putting on immortality and our corruptible were putting on incorruption?
Behold, the wounds stink, and yet medicine is proudly demanded. They do not say, as the righteous man does. 「Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul had almost dwelt in hell」; they do not say, as the holy man does. 「Unless the Lord keep the city, he who guards it has watched in vain.」 But pray, most pious father, that we may henceforth have no care save for our sin, to be expiated by tears and commended to the grace of God; pray, lord father, that the pit may not close its mouth over us, that we may be saved from those who go down into the lake, that our soul may not perish with the ungodly through our pride, but may be healed through the grace of the Lord.
Therefore, as you commanded, lord Pope, our brother Florus, servant of your Holiness, has set out with all eagerness — whom fatigue does not hinder but profits, that the enlightened instruction of the heart may come to him. Him we suppliantly commend to your Sanctity, and likewise earnestly beg that you may also commend the ignorant to the Lord by your prayers, to be most gently set in order. Pray, lord and most sweet father, that the devil may flee from our congregation, and that, every storm of alien questions being removed, the ship of our purpose, laden with the passengers of quiet, may stand secure within the station of a most safe harbor.
while it sails through this great and immense sea, and in that harbor, within which there will no longer be any fear for the vessel of life, may receive the undiminished price of its pleasing merchandise. This, by your Holiness's help, we trust we shall obtain through the grace which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. All the sons of your apostolate, our lords the clergy and the holy ones serving in the congregation of our purpose, we beseech that you would deign to greet on behalf of our office, that together with your Blessedness they may all deign to pray for us. May the undivided Trinity of the Lord our God preserve for us your holy apostolate, which he chose through grace, in his Church, and crown you, mindful of us, in the great Church — which we desire, lord.
But if brother Florus, servant of your Holiness, should suggest anything concerning the rule of the monastery, we beg, father, that you would deign gladly to accept it and in all things to instruct us who are weak. 217. Augustine, bishop, servant of Christ and through him servant of his servants, to brother Vitalis, in him, greeting. When things not good had been reported to me concerning you, both I asked God, and, until good things be reported to me, I still ask, that you would receive my letter not disdainfully and read it wholesomely. If he hears this my prayer for you, he grants also that I may offer thanksgiving concerning you. And if I obtain this, without doubt you do not contradict this very beginning of my letter. For this I pray for you, that you may be of right faith.
If, then, it does not displease you that we pray for our dear ones, if you acknowledge this prayer to be Christian, if you too either recall that you pray such things for your dear ones, or recognize that you ought to pray them, how do you say — as I hear you say — that our believing rightly in God and consenting to the Gospel is not the gift of God, but that this is from ourselves, that is, from our own will, which he himself did not work in our heart? And when to this you hear. 「What then is it that the Apostle says: God works in us even to will?」 you reply that through his law, through his Scriptures, God works that we may will — which we either read or hear; but to consent to them or not to consent is so within our own power that, if we will, it comes to pass, but if we will not,
we cause the working of God to avail nothing in us. For he works, you say, as much as in him lies, that we may will, while his utterances become known to us; but if we are unwilling to acquiesce in them, we ourselves bring it about that his working profits nothing in us. If you say these things, you assuredly contradict our prayers. Say, then, most openly, that we ought not to pray for those to whom we preach the Gospel, that they may believe, but only to preach to them.
Exercise your disputations against the prayers of the Church, and, when you hear the priest of God at the altar of God exhorting the people of God to pray for unbelievers, that God may convert them to the faith, and for catechumens, that he may inspire in them the desire of regeneration, and for the faithful, that by his gift they may persevere in that which they have begun to be — mock the pious voices and say that you do not do what he exhorts, that is, that you do not ask God for unbelievers, that he may make them faithful, on the ground that these are not benefits of divine compassion but offices of human will; and, a man educated in the Church of Carthage, condemn also the book of the most blessed Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer, in which that teacher, when he expounded it, showed that those things are to be sought from God the Father which you say belong to man from man, that is, from himself.
But if concerning the prayers of the Church and the martyr Cyprian you think what I have said to be too little, dare greater things: reprehend the Apostle Paul, since he said. 「We pray to God that you do nothing evil.」 For neither will you say that he does nothing evil who does not believe in Christ, or who deserts the faith of Christ. And accordingly, he who says. 「That you do nothing evil,」 both wills that these things not be done, and it is not enough for him to command, but he confesses that he asks God that they be not done, knowing that the will of man is corrected and directed by him, so that man does not do these things. 「For by the Lord are the steps of a man directed, and he shall will his way.」 He did not say.
「And he shall learn his way,」 or 「hold it,」 or 「walk in it,」 or anything of this kind, of which you could say that it is indeed given by the Lord, but to a man already willing — so that, forsooth, the benefit of God, by which he directs the steps of a man, that he may learn his way, hold it, and walk in it, man may precede by his own will, and by his own will going before may merit this gift of God. But for this reason he said. 「By the Lord are the steps of a man directed, and he shall will his way,」 that we might understand that the good will itself, by which we begin to will to believe — for what is God's way but right faith? — is the gift of him who first directs our steps for this very purpose, that we may will. For Scripture does not say. 「By the Lord are the steps of a man directed, because he willed his way,」 but:
「They are directed,」 it says, 「and he shall will.」 Not, therefore, because he willed, are they directed, but because they are directed, he shall will. Here again you will perhaps say that this is done by the Lord while his teaching is read or heard, if a man consents by his own will to the truth which he reads or hears. 「For if the teaching of God were hidden from him,」 you say, 「his steps would not be directed, by which, being directed, he would will the way of God」; and accordingly you thus think that the steps of a man are directed by the Lord to the choosing of the way of God only because, without the teaching of God, the truth to which he may consent by his own will cannot become known to him. 「And if he consents to it」 —
you say, 「which is set within his free will, then rightly indeed are his steps said to be directed by him, that he may will his way, whose teaching, with persuasion going before and consent following after, he pursues — which by natural liberty he does if he wills, and does not do if he does not will — to receive, for what he shall have done, either reward or punishment.」 This is that ill-famed opinion of the Pelagians, deservedly reprobated, and condemned even by Pelagius himself, fearing to be condemned, in the judgment of the Eastern bishops — the opinion by which they say that the grace of God is not given for individual acts, but consists in free will, or in the law and teaching. And to such a degree, brother,
shall we be heavy of heart, that concerning the grace of God — nay rather, against the grace of God — we should hold that Pelagian opinion which Pelagius himself, with a feigned breast indeed yet fearing the catholic judges, condemned? And how, you will say, is it to be answered? How do you think more easily and more plainly than that we should embrace that which we treated above concerning praying to God, so that no creeping in of forgetfulness may withdraw this from our mind, no craftiness of argumentation may wrest it away? For if that which is written. 「By the Lord are the steps of a man directed, and he shall will his way,」 and. 「The will is prepared by the Lord,」 and:
「For it is God who works in you even to will,」 and many things of this kind, by which the true grace of God is commended — that is, the grace which is not given according to our merits, but itself gives the merits when it is given, because it forestalls the good will of man and does not find it in anyone's heart, but makes it — if, then, God so prepared and so worked the will of man that he only applied his law and teaching to man's free will, and did not, by that deep and secret calling, so move his understanding that he might accommodate his assent to that same law and teaching, then without doubt it would suffice to read it, or by reading to understand it, or even to expound and preach it, and there would be no need to pray
that God would convert the hearts of unbelievers to his faith, and to the converted, as they advance, bestow persevering perseverance by the largess of that same grace of his. If, then, you do not refuse that these things are to be asked of the Lord, what remains, brother Vitalis, but that you confess them to be given by him from whom you consent that they are to be asked? But if you deny that we ought to ask these things of him, you contradict that very teaching of his, since we have learned this too in it: that we should ask these things of him. You know the Lord's Prayer, and I do not doubt that you say to God. 「Our Father, who art in heaven,」 and the rest. Read its expositor, the most blessed Cyprian, and how he has expounded that which is there said. 「Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,」 attend diligently and understand obediently;
assuredly he will teach you to pray for the unbelieving enemies of the Church, according to the precept of the Lord who says. 「Pray for your enemies,」 and to pray this: that the will of God may be done, as in those who are already faithful and bear the image of the heavenly man and are therefore worthy of the name of heaven, so also in those who through unbelief bear only the image of the earthly man and are on this account deservedly called earth. Surely these are they, for whom, being our enemies, the Lord commanded us to pray, and concerning whom the most glorious martyr thus expounded what we say in the prayer:
「Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,」 that we may ask even for these the faith which the faithful have. Surely, then, these enemies of Christian piety either altogether refuse to hear the law of God and the teaching by which the faith of Christ is preached, or they hear or even read it for this purpose: to deride and detest it and, with all the contradiction they can, to blaspheme it. In vain, therefore, and perfunctorily rather than truly, do we pour forth prayers to God for them, that they may consent by believing to the teaching which they oppose, if it does not pertain to his grace to convert to his faith the wills of men that are contrary to that very faith;
in vain also, and perfunctorily rather than truly, do we with exultation give great thanks to God when any of them believe, if he himself does not work this in them. Let us not deceive men; for we cannot deceive God. We do not pray to God at all, but only feign that we pray, if we do not believe that he, and not we ourselves, does that for which we pray; we do not at all give thanks to God, but feign that we give thanks, if we do not suppose that he himself does that for which we thank him. If deceitful lips are found in men's speeches of whatever sort, let them at least not be in prayers. Far be it that, what we ask God with our mouths and voices to do, we should deny with our hearts that he does; and, what is more grievous,
let us not, for the deceiving of others also, keep silence about this in our disputations and, while we wish to defend free will among men, lose before God the help of prayer and have no true thanksgiving, while we do not acknowledge true grace. If we truly do not wish to defend free will, let us not assail that from which it becomes free. For he who assails the grace by which our will is freed to turn away from evil and to do good, wishes his own will still to be captive. Answer, I beseech you: how does the Apostle say. 「Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for a share in the lot of the saints in light,」
who has rescued us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love — if it is not he himself, but our will itself, that frees our will? Falsely, then, do we give thanks to the Father, as though he did what he does not do; and he erred who said that he himself makes us fit for a share in the lot of the saints in light, because he himself rescued us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. Answer: how did we have a free will to turn away from evil and to do good, when it was under the power of darkness? Whence, if — as the Apostle says — God has rescued us, he assuredly made it free.
But if he does this so great a good of ours only through the preaching of his teaching, what shall we say of those whom he has not yet rescued from that very power of darkness? Is only the divine teaching to be preached to them? Or is it also to be prayed on their behalf, that they may be divinely rescued from the power of darkness? If you say only that it is to be preached, you contradict the command of the Lord and the prayers of the Church; but if you confess that it is to be prayed for them, you assuredly confess that this is to be prayed: that, their will being freed from the power of darkness, they may consent to that same teaching. So it comes about that they neither become faithful except by free will, and yet by the grace of him become faithful who freed their will from the power of darkness.
Thus both the grace of God is not denied, but shown to be true without any preceding human merits, and free will is so defended that it is made firm by humility, not cast down headlong by pride; and let him who glories glory not in man, whether in any other or in himself, but in the Lord. For what is the power of darkness but the power of the devil and his angels, who, whereas they had been angels of light, not standing in the truth through free will but falling from it, were made darkness? I am not teaching you these things, but admonishing you of things you know, that you may remember. To this power of darkness, then, the human race was made subject through the ruin of him — the first man — to whom transgression was persuaded by that power, and in whom we all fell.
For this reason even little children are rescued from this power of darkness when they are regenerated in Christ. Yet this does not become manifest in their liberated free choice until they reach an age that has the use of reason, having a will that consents to the saving doctrine in which they were nurtured, and ending this life in that same doctrine — if, that is, they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and unspotted in his sight, predestined in love unto the adoption of sons.
Now this power of darkness, that is, the devil — who is also called the prince of the power of the air, working in the children of unbelief — this prince, the ruler of the darkness, that is, the devil of the unbelief of these children, governs them according to his own will, which he himself does not possess free to do good, but hardened toward the utmost malevolence by the punishment of his own crime. Whence no one of sound faith believes or says that these apostate angels are ever converted to their former piety by a corrected will.
What then does this power work in the children of unbelief but its own evil works — and first and chiefly this very unbelief and faithlessness, by which they are enemies of the faith, through which he knows that they can be cleansed, can be healed, can be made most perfectly free, and can reign in eternity — which he vehemently envies them? And so, in some of them, through whom he seeks to deceive more widely, he permits them to have certain seemingly good works, in which they are praised among various nations, and especially among the Roman people, who lived nobly and gloriously. But since, as most truthful Scripture says, everything that is not of faith —
— is sin; and without faith it is impossible indeed to please God, not men. This prince does nothing so much as this: that men should not believe in God, nor come by believing to the Mediator, by whom his works are undone. But the Mediator himself enters into the strong man's house — that is, into this world of mortals, which as far as concerns the strong man is set under the power of the devil; for of him it is written that he holds the power of death. He enters into the strong man's house,
that is, into the human race which the devil holds in his dominion; and first he binds him, that is, he restrains and checks his power with the stronger chains of his own power, and thus he snatches away his vessels, whomsoever he has predestined to snatch away, freeing their choice from the devil's power, so that, with the devil no longer hindering, they may believe in Christ by a free will. Accordingly this is the work of grace, not of nature. It is the work, I say, of grace, which the second Adam brought to us — not of nature, all of which the first Adam lost in himself. It is the work of grace which takes away sin and gives life to the dead sinner, not the work of the law which shows sin and does not give life from sin; for that great herald of grace says: I did not know sin except through the law; and:
If a law had been given, he says, which could give life, righteousness would certainly be of the law. This is the work of grace. Those who receive it, though they were once enemies, become friends of the saving doctrine of the Holy Scriptures — it is not the work of that same doctrine, for those who hear and read it without the grace of God are made worse, its enemies. Therefore the grace of God is not in the nature of free choice, nor in the law and doctrine, as Pelagian perversity foolishly dreams, but it is given for each single act by his will. Of which it is written:
God, setting apart a bountiful rain for his inheritance — because we lost by the enormity of the first sin both the free choice to love God, and because the law and doctrine of God, though holy and just and good, nevertheless kills, unless the Spirit gives life, through whom it comes about that it is held fast not by hearing but by obeying, not by reading but by loving. Wherefore, that we may believe in God and live godly, it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy — not because we ought not to will and to run, but because he himself works in us both to will and to run. Whence the Lord Jesus himself, distinguishing believers from non-believers, that is, the vessels of mercy from the vessels of wrath, says: No one comes to me, unless it has been given him by my Father;