駁異教徒史 第 2 章

THE PRESBYTER'S BOOK OF DEFENSE. It is not of my ability nor of my presumption, most blessed priests, but of a most pressing and almost extreme necessity—as you yourselves recognize—that I should now appear as I do. To do this, indeed, I have been compelled by an injury, being not only the defender of my own faith but also the discloser of another's perfidy. For just as I ought to be zealous for my own purgation on account of conscience—and I mean conscience not my own but another's—so too I am forced to point out with the finger the wolves caught among the flock of sheep, on account of faith and zeal—and I mean zeal not my own but Christ's. Yet neither do I, being the least of all, presume anything out of rashness: it is a necessity for me to make manifest the injury which I have suffered.

Let it be plain to all who have done these things. For it is both the will and the ordinance of God that the evil which was being tolerated through patience should of necessity be brought forth, and that—through the contention of their fury, while they themselves receive the fitting reward which their error deserved—there should be made not only a marking of their most wicked dogmas but a disclosure of the persons to be corrected. For the fathers, both those martyrs and confessors who have already gone to rest—Cyprian, Hilary, and Ambrose—and those for whom it is even now necessary to remain still in the flesh, who are the pillars and bulwarks of the Catholic Church—Aurelius Augustine and Jerome—have already published, in writings most approved, many things against this abominable heresy, without designating the names of the heretics.

And yet this abomination of most venomous dogmas has even now both living dead and dead living. For Origen and Priscillian and Iovinian, long since dead in their own persons, live on in these men, and not only live but even speak; but now Pelagius and Caelestius, if they persevere in these errors as living dead, behold, against the Church—which is a wretched thing—and, what is far more wretched, within the Church, they openly hiss, and as impious serpents, licking with quivering tongues their mouths infected with poison, while they besiege the holy and most fortified see into which they have subtly crept in, they terrify all the faithful, lest we fly together to that once most firm refuge in Zion.

Indeed the stench of their mouth, diffused far and wide, has turned, for all to whom the odor of life was unto life, that odor into death. Against this serpent and its suffocating breath the most blessed men whom we have mentioned above prepare many and manifold sweet ointments of the Scriptures, and, to restore the burning hearts of the peoples, they kindle a most fragrant incense together with the offering of prayer. But it is too little a thing to contend with an almost uncertain author and, by substituting contraries for contraries, to temper the air infected with a pestilential breath, unless the serpents themselves are dragged forth into the midst and trampled.

Since they, for the sake of guarding the head alone, expose the rest of the body to wounding and injury, reckoning no loss so long as that part of them is free from peril which holds within itself manifold and venomous tongues, even if all their other members be cut off: does it then seem enough to us to be satisfied with merely tempering the stench, but not to move the serpents themselves from their inner chambers?—as though there were any end to the fetid exhalation except by the author being made an end of. And amid these things does not that testimony of Solomon occur to mind? 'One building up, another tearing down—what shall profit them but their labor?'

There stands also the most monstrous Goliath, swollen with pride and with carnal power, confident that he can do all things by himself, in head and hand, and moreover clothed over his whole body with abundant bronze, having behind him his armor-bearer, who, though he himself does not fight, nevertheless supplies all the aids of bronze and iron. And it is no wonder if Scripture, fittingly foreseeing this place, declares, where it says, 'The Philistines were standing upon the mountain on this side.' For from the Church the assailant of heresy is expelled, while the heretic is found being nourished in the bosom of the Church; and for this reason, through the Holy Spirit, Israel is there declared to stand, and on the other side the enemy. And this often. For even king David, the godly father, was driven from Jerusalem, having laid aside the kingly garb, even by his impious son:

whereupon straightway Absalom the tyrant enters in. So Goliath stands—alas the grief!—on this side, that is, within the Church, and not only stands but even provokes, and at the same time, for very many days, reproaches holy Israel with manifest fear. Let no one, I beseech you, most blessed priests, suppose that I, under the pretext of the figure of Goliath, glory in the name of David: you it was who wished me to be a sharer in your contest, that I might come as a helper, not as an author. For I was lying hidden in Bethlehem, an unknown, poor stranger—why do I wretchedly speak thus, perhaps again to be marked for boastfulness? since David himself too was such a one and came forth from there—I was lying hidden, then, in Bethlehem, handed over by my father Augustine that I might learn the fear of the Lord, sitting at the feet of Jerome.

Thence, when those of Jerusalem summoned us, I came, being called; and from there I ascended into your assembly at the bidding of the bishop John together with you. There you all at once asked of my littleness that, if I knew of anything done in Africa concerning this heresy which Pelagius and Caelestius had sown, I should faithfully and simply report it. I set forth to your reverend body, briefly as I could, that Caelestius, already creeping in toward the honor of the presbyterate at Carthage, had—with very many bishops judging—been exposed, heard, convicted, confessed, and abhorred, and had fled from the Church out of Africa;

that against the book of Pelagius the blessed Augustine, at the urging and request of Pelagius's own disciples, had most fully replied; that there was moreover in my hands a letter of the aforesaid bishop which he had recently directed to Sicily, in which he had refuted many questions of the heretics—which letter you also bade me read there, and I read it. To these things the bishop John asked that Pelagius be brought in to his face. And to him, both out of reverence for his fatherly dignity and for the usefulness of the proceeding, since you believed he would be more rightly refuted by the bishop while present, the indulgence of admitting him was granted. Pelagius being brought in, you all unanimously asked him whether he acknowledged that he had taught those things to which the bishop Augustine had replied.

Straightway he replied: 'And who is Augustine to me?' And when all cried out that the one blaspheming against the bishop—through whose mouth the Lord had granted health of unity to all Africa—was to be expelled not only from that assembly but from the whole Church, the bishop John forthwith ordered him, namely a layman, to sit guilty of manifest heresy in the midst of the Catholics in the session of presbyters, and then said: 'I am Augustine'—so that, having assumed as it were the person of one present, he might the more freely, by the authority of him who was being wronged, pardon and soothe the minds of those who grieved. To him it was at once said by us: 'If you take the person of Augustine, follow the opinion of Augustine.' Then the same bishop said to us all:

'These things which are read were said against others; but you think it should be suggested that they were said of Pelagius; if therefore you have anything to say against Pelagius himself, set it forth.' And I, with you assenting, said: 'Pelagius told me that he teaches that a man can be without sin and can easily keep the commandments of God, if he will.' Pelagius replied, with us hearing: 'That I both said this and say it, I cannot deny.' I straightway continued: 'This the African synod abhorred in Caelestius; this the bishop Augustine, in his writings, as you have heard, shuddered at; this, now in Pelagius's own writings, he condemns by his own reply;

this too the blessed Jerome—whose eloquence the whole West awaits, as dew upon the fleece—for already many heretics, with their dogmas, have been struck down by his very assault—condemned in his letter which he recently issued to Ctesiphon, and likewise refutes in the book which he now writes, contending in the manner of a dialogue brought together as a debate. For this is to hold the slippery dragon on a hook, lest it be able to escape.' But further, the bishop John, hearing none of these things, was endeavoring to exact of us that we should confess ourselves accusers with himself as judge. It was answered very often by all of us:

'We are not accusers of this man, but we make known what your brothers, our fathers, have judged and decreed concerning this heresy which now a layman openly preaches, lest it should trouble the Church—your own especially, to whose bosom we have fled—without your knowing it.' But he, when he often tried under the pretense of instruction to lead us into some show of profession, saying that it was said to Abraham by the Lord, 'Walk before me and be without blemish,' and that Zacharias and Elizabeth were pronounced both righteous before the Lord, walking in all the justifications of the Lord without complaint—which indeed, said by Origen, we knew well was being brought forth by him before very many of us—to him it was answered through me: 'We are sons of the Catholic Church;

do not demand of us, father, that we should dare to be teachers over teachers, or judges over judges. The fathers, whom the whole Church throughout the world approves, in whose communion you rejoice to cling, have decreed these dogmas to be damnable: with them approving, it is fitting that we obey.

Why do you ask the sons what they think, when you hear the fathers as to what they decree?' To which he, disputing long, and—to us, on account of our inexperience, through an interpreter unknown to us, whom very often the foremost and religious men, the presbyters Passerius and Avitus and the former leader Domnus, refuted as either interpreting wrongly, or suppressing much, or substituting some things for others—to us, as I have said, with our proceedings for the most part either tampered with or passed over in silence, the bishop John said: 'If he were to say that a man can do this without the help of God, it would be most wicked and damnable; but now, since he adds that a man can be without sin not without the help of God, what do you say? Or do you perhaps deny the help of God?' To whom I replied:

'With you yourselves even now bearing witness and testifying, and with the men mentioned above, anathema to him who denies the help of God. I certainly do not deny it, especially since, on the contrary, I have refuted it against the heretics.' Then, when—the judge having been recognized and the interpreter exposed—we cried out that he was a Latin heretic, that we were Latins, that a heresy better known to the Latin parts should be discussed before Latin judges, and that he was thrusting himself almost shamelessly forward to judge—when indeed we were not accusers—being both a single man and a suspect one, it was necessary that it should be said by many: 'No one can be at the same time both a heretic and an advocate and a judge.'

And after many other things were transacted, the bishop John brought forth his final sentence, confirming at last our demand and intention, that to the blessed Innocent, the Roman pope, brethren and letters should be sent, all parties about to follow whatever he should decree; but that the heretic Pelagius, with silence imposed upon him thus far, should keep quiet, and that our people should cease from the railing of the convicted and confessed John. We all consented to this sentence; and when thanksgiving had been celebrated, peace made and completed, we departed with a prayer as a testimony of peace.

But now, when after forty-seven days, on the first day of the dedication festival, as I had been accustomed when I was present, I had hastened to attend upon the bishop John, I straightway received from him, in place of the grace of a greeting, the brand of a false charge. For he said to me: 'Why do you come to me, you man who blasphemed?'—not wishing, as I believe, to be understood: 'Touch me not, for I am clean and without sin.' But I, conscious of nothing in myself, asked: 'When, or in whose hearing, or of what sort is that thing said, which could be ascribed to blasphemy?' The bishop replied: 'I heard you say that not even with the help of God can a man be without sin.'

I indeed, most blessed priests—as you yourselves are my witnesses, and the whole brotherhood, and besides the holy men who, out of love of the truth, stand by for this testimony—straightway testified, saying that such a word as the bishop now alleged was said by me had never before proceeded from my mouth. And yet, while I ruminate over this incongruity of a wretched falsehood, by frequent rehearsal I may seem not so much to have proved my own case as to have disclosed another's. For I grant that, whatever sort that saying was, I did say it: how did a Greek, devoid of Latinity, hear a Latin word?

Or, if he did hear the sacrilegious word, why did he not at once convict the blasphemer, or—to act more gently—why did he not, like a godly father, admonish a heedless son about restraining the license of dangerous speech? But on the contrary, after very much forgetfulness of a long time, he himself by himself brought the accusation, he himself bore the testimony, he himself promulgated the judgment, taking upon the authority of his own person the offices of all crimes—especially he who had been diligently instructed by the Gospel reading that our Lord Jesus was not condemned save by the testimony of the ruler. On one side my brethren stood by me, on the other side the false brethren.

Then in that same assembly, on one side with me sat the presbyters Avitus and Vitalis; on the other, some unknown interpreter, and then men approved both in the world and before God, the presbyter Passerio and Domnus the former duke. Both of these, that they might deign to be present as interpreters in keeping with their experience and faith, were summoned and brought together at the request of your assembly, with bishop John himself agreeing. You yourselves also were in the midst, and in that gathering it is no less astonishing to have heard than to have seen how a word once let fall could pass by so many adversaries, colleagues, and hearers, and enter the unsuspecting ears of one understanding hearer. But I, driven by the heat of truth, am pressed hard enough: I go beyond the measure of my profession.

It must rather be granted that the interpreter seemed to have erred in speaking than that the bishop feigned in hearing; and now, in return for the wages he paid to the heretics, he must be made to seek out false witnesses in his own support, demanding them. Indeed no one ought any longer to wonder that false witnesses are sought out and arise in Jerusalem from the priests and elders: this the blood of Stephen cried out, this the standards of the Lord's cross signify, this even now the wrong stirred up by them makes plain. But whether these things seem to have been rashly believed by the bishop, or maliciously feigned, or ignorantly misheard, I commit to Christ the judge to be sifted. Far be it from me ever that I, a poor man, a sinner, unknown, should dare to challenge a bishop, and especially the bishop of Jerusalem, before the bishops.

My simplicity and integrity before the most eminent Trinity of God's omnipotence, and before all His catholic servants, is enough for me. I call God to witness upon my soul, most blessed priests—you who know these same things and bear witness with me—that I uttered no blasphemy with my mouth in that assembly of yours, nor spoke such words as were laid against me by bishop John: namely, that not even with God's help can a man be without sin. As for the contention of an opinion unknown to me, I am unwilling to make satisfaction, lest perhaps you, thinking that what was not even heard by you was nevertheless spoken by me, should labor under an ambiguous testimony.

And to the common report and rumor likewise, lest, while one would not believe that a bishop could lie, he should sin by another kind of innocent credulity. And who from this would not recognize the authors, whether in the accusation of Susanna or in the stoning of Naboth? And lest perhaps anyone be unaware that in Jerusalem there was never lacking, for the shedding of Christian blood, either the bribes of silver or the scourges of soldiers—now, since I reckon myself free from this word, whatever it be, free by your faith, free by my own conscience, the ambiguity of the word itself having been sifted, I shall try to inquire: those who assert that we so answered, in what manner they themselves seem to have questioned.

Perhaps through the manner of their own questioning the secret of the dogma will be laid bare, so that, striking with reciprocal wounds, they may with surer aim chastise their own marksman with the darts he shot back. For he says that this was answered by us: 'Not even with God's help can a man be without sin.' If anyone of men should think this must be so said as to affirm that God cannot act under the weakness of man, and should suspect that something is impossible to God's omnipotence in all the creation of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal—him I would call, not only by my own sentence, a blasphemer to be detested with anathema, but also one to be condemned, after the example of Nadab and Abihu, by divine fire, or, in keeping with the perdition of Dathan and Abiram, to be received alive by the gaping of the earth and plunged down to hell.

For both alike, by the presumption of their heart, detracted from the power of God: those, while they offer strange fire, as if God needed this; these, while, resisting Moses, they distrust that they can be brought into the land of promise. God can do all things, and what He wills He can always do; as mighty in making something from nothing, so easy in bringing to completion what is already done. For to Himself it is subject to be able, when He wills. This the grace granted according to the Spirit confesses; this the law written according to the letter testifies; this the natural law understands in all men; this the most orderly motion of the world displays. For what Gentile would dare to say this, who has ever before his eyes the distinct elements of heaven and earth and sea?

Or what Jew could suspect this, to whom even the slightest knowledge of the law handed down through Moses has come, since he both recognizes and believes what is written: that the deep lay open when the waves of the Red Sea were cleft, and offered a safe path in the sea to the foot upon dry land; that the Jordan, divided, flowed back upon itself to its source in upturned currents; that Elijah was carried up mortal in his body by the fire of a fiery chariot and yet not harmed; or that Habakkuk, laden with prepared food, that he might minister a meal to the fasting just man among the hungering beasts, was, as the common edition relates, in a moment of a day carried straightway from Judea to Babylon and brought back?

What Christian would admit this even in an atom of thought, who knows that Lazarus, four days dead, with limbs already stinking and his skin now flowing in liquid decay within itself, sprang forth at the devoted service of the Lord; who has read that the man blind from birth and now of full age suddenly flourished, his eyes either made or restored; who has proved that winds, waves, and tempests, and the elements at strife with one another at once, grew gentle when they heard the Lord's rebuking command; who believes that Peter, heavy with the burden of the flesh and about to deny the Lord three times in quick succession, walked upon the swelling waves with footsteps hung in air?

And so I judge that all men—whether those endowed with surpassing faith and wisdom, or those who are otherwise—venerate, believe, and confess this, that God can do all things. For this reason indeed He is called Almighty by every creature in general, because He can do all things. And this is God alone who says: 'These things are impossible with men.' And elsewhere He teaches, saying: 'Without me you can do nothing.' He therefore who can do all things can do all things in man. But further, why is earth and ashes proud, that it should say, 'man can,' when it is God who can? The apostle cries out: 'By His grace I am what I am, and His grace was not empty in me, but I labored more abundantly than they all—yet not I, but the grace of God with me.'

What, rash presumptuous man, do you regard in that he said 'with me'? Attend, that he prefaced it with 'not I.' Wherefore between these two words 'not I' and 'with me' the grace of God stands in the middle, whose it is truly both to will and to accomplish for the sake of good will, and yet by the will of man. Whence too the one was confident to say 'with me' who had said 'not I.' In the will of man, therefore, the grace of divine power operates, which has granted this very willing itself. Thus the conscience of man professes, so that he says 'not I'; the grace of God bestows, so that 'with me.' The apostle cries: 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' For he remembered the Lord proclaiming: 'No one comes to me unless the Father has drawn him'; and again elsewhere:

'But I am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the age.' And in another place He so speaks of the Holy Spirit: 'It is expedient for you that I go; for if I do not go, that Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.' Unhappy, O man, according to the truth of God's sentence! The Father draws you, the Son is with you, and the Spirit the Comforter; and in this so great encompassing of the divine majesty you dare to say: 'By the grace of God indeed assisting, but by my own possibility, I am what I am'! For you now assert, after this correction allied to your ancient error: 'a man can be without sin with God's help';

although in your book, which you marked with the title of 'Testimonies,' this very sentence is written in this manner: that a man can be without sin and easily keep God's commandments, if he will. There no grace of God, no help is named, however often you may speak of the grace of God. 'I did not therefore deny it, because I did not say it'—but I am to be taken as having said it, because I did not deny it. As if indeed Susanna were therefore to be believed to have confessed adultery, because she did not deny it to those accusing her, or as if the Lord Jesus had approved the testimony of false witnesses because He was silent. But if with you not to have denied is to have said, and to have been silent is to have cried out, then in vain does David ask: 'Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth and a door of enclosure over my lips';

in vain too do I confirm, by witnesses and by testimony, that I did not say that of which I am accused, and another could hear what my speech did not say. But I grant that you should reckon as said what you by no means said. What do we do about this, that, finding from the sense a diversity of speech, they do not cohere with discordant joinings, since the very page does not admit words at variance with one another? For you write that a man can be without sin and easily keep God's commandments, if he will; and, just as the most blessed father Jerome expounded concerning this same sentence in the letter which he wrote to Ctesiphon, at last, as if waking from a most heavy sleep, you add: 'not without the help of God.'

For in this very thing truth itself fights against you and cries out. Why, through a disdainful swelling and a queasy false modesty, do you withhold from your own mouth the help of God as unnecessary to you, you who reckon all things easy for yourself? You honor me with the tips of your lips, but your heart is far from me. There is no need of two in a work which is easy for one, and in vain does the grace of the Godhead interpose itself where a man confesses that he can do easily what he wills. You said that the commandments are easy to one who wills; but I assert this too, that you should say even hard things are fulfilled. Yet however you promise it can be done through man, you reproach the Lord with envy, who attempts to ascribe to His added help what man alone by his own will could have accomplished.

Either take away from man the 'if he will' and ascribe to grace what he can do; or, since you attribute to man the being able when he wills, remove the feigned, flattering, and incoherent participation of grace, and out of the abundance of the heart profess your naked blasphemy. But it is not for my part to track these things out more widely, especially since the most blessed fathers Augustine and Jerome have handed over to the western provinces a fullest proof of the heresy convicted. Let me return to the question proposed above, to which I came, roused not by confidence of talent but moved by wrong. You say that a man can be in this world without sin with God's help. You say 'man can,' I say 'God can.' The three boys the seething flame within did not harm.

Which of them could do what was done against nature: was it they themselves, or the fourth in their midst, like to the Son of God? The leper cries out: 'Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,' manifesting the will by the possibility, confirming the will by the possibility. For He alone is the one to whom, when He wills, the being able subsists. The blind came to Him, praying that they might be enlightened; to whom Jesus says: 'Do you believe that I can do this?' The Lord Christ judges worthy of the highest reward of faith whoever has believed that the Son of God can do these things; and our Briton soon trusts that, as soon as he wills, he himself can! To the faithful paralytic the Lord says: 'Be of good courage, son: your sins are forgiven you';

and now this ninth master and minister of tables has dared to presume the remission of sins rather from his own possibility, nor does he wait to hear it from the Lord! The scribes, not understanding the truth, murmur and say: 'Who can forgive sins but God alone?'; and this man judges those things to be abolished which he does not know God to have forgiven! Behold, puffed up with the spirit of your flesh, as though it were nothing, you glory proud in free will and say: 'I am a sinner because I will; I sin while I will; but when I will again, I can be without sin.' What you say, 'I sin when I will,' is true, because even what you have not done in deed, you have done in thought;

Again, 'when I will, I do not sin'—a hard thing indeed and difficult, nor always within the power of all, but yet that it can sometimes come to pass is not doubtful; but truly that one who has sometime sinned can be without sin is impossible, apart from the grace of baptism alone, where, in the person of the Lord, it is said: 'Your sins are forgiven you.' This I am persuaded to believe, because I am permitted to hear it: 'I can therefore be without sin'—'in this corruption at least, in which we live, I do not accept it, I do not presume it, I do not dare it.' For if David prays to God, 'Against you only have I sinned and done evil before you,' and, according to the Apocalypse of John, the dead are to be judged out of those things which they sinned before God, out of those things which are written in the books, receiving according to their works:

why do I presume my own judgment concerning myself, if I know that I am to be judged even concerning that very thing? Or, if those sacred books, never to be opened except in judgment, take up alike the goods and evils of our life, about to present the scrutiny of judgment in the balance: how do we recognize as abolished, without scrutiny, in this life and before death, those things which we read are to be brought forth not only after death but even after the resurrection? I have had it in my power to sin; to be freed from sin I do not have in my power. To pray is mine, to be absolved is not mine. But where I have given myself to sin, I have become the slave of the accuser, the defendant of the judge.

I can, on account of the merits sent ahead by assiduous prayers, bear hope from a good judge; but to vindicate an innocent conscience without fear before the promulgation of the sentence, I cannot. For the apostle says: 'Do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both illuminate the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts: and then shall each one have praise from God.' Otherwise, if it is in man's power to make himself free from his sin, either Christ is not judge, or He is in vain. But you say: 'I said a man is without sin according to this sense: when the sinner has groaned, then he shall be saved—that is, then he shall begin to belong to salvation.' Yet he will not at once be without sin.

For the Lord, when He had entered the house of believing Zacchaeus, said: 'Today salvation has been made to this house.' Surely, if one believed, was the whole household at once without sin, into which then indeed, when the greater part of the house believed, the beginning of salvation entered? For David too, when he had sinned, groaned; and although he had deserved to hear that his offense was forgiven him, yet long afterward he expiated that very thing by exile and by very much reproach, so that manifestly both a penalty was rendered in the present and remission was promised for the future; and through this God granted much of mercy to the groaning sinner, that he might purge by a temporal chastisement the sin which was worthy of death. To Ananias it is said concerning Paul, as he made his complaint about the persecution with fear:

'I will show him how much he must suffer for my name,' so that, when Paul was loosed there where he had bound by persecuting Christ, soon, by suffering for Christ, afflicted unto death, he might stand glorified in the resurrection. So it comes to pass, because mercy and truth go ever before the face of God, that, if in due time a voluntary sacrifice is offered by one groaning—so that truth may be made in mercy—a sacrifice of a troubled spirit and a contrite heart, then in the end mercy may be preferred to judgment. The Lord Christ, about to come in the glory of God the Father, is both believed and hoped to judge the living and the dead, from whose face, as Scripture testifies, heaven and earth shall flee;

and there exist men who, neither on account of ignorance—not to say on account of conscience—judge themselves to be subject to the judgment that is to come, and tremble at the coming of the Lord and the illumination of His brightness, with the elements burning and the world perishing! Whom I fear to be among those of whom the Lord forewarns: 'For many shall say in that day'—men, that is, of that carnal arrogance by which they seduced men, and not so much before God as still in their own eyes just—'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and in your name done great miracles?' And then will I swear to them and say: 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.' It is said through the prophet David in the person of Christ:

'Lord, who shall dwell in your tabernacle, or who shall rest on your holy mountain? He who walks without blemish and works justice.' This is truly to say: he who can be and is without sin. For the Lord Himself also says of Himself: 'The prince of this world comes, and finds nothing of his own in me.' For what is the devil's? Without doubt, sin. For from the beginning the devil is a liar; and against him the Lord is the mind that speaks truth in His heart and has done no guile on His tongue. A great and strong angel, as Scripture testifies, cries in heaven: 'Who is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals?'

And no one was able, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, to open the book, nor to look upon it; and John weeps much and mourns, because out of the whole of rational creatures no one was found worthy who might open the book, that he might see it. As John weeps, one of the elders consoles him and says: 'Do not weep, John. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the book and to loose its seals.' What, I ask, is this book, which from the hand of Him who lives forever and ever no one was able to receive, except Him who walks without blemish and works justice?

It is too little that He is without blemish, too little that He is the Lamb, unless He had also been slain, unless He had crowned the purity of His life with the testimony of His passion—having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God: nor is there doubt that these are the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of the Lord. What then is this book? As I believe, of judgment. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. Alas for the grief! I am compelled to say what I shuddered to have thought.

Behold now even Pelagius, who has dared to profess himself to be without blemish and sin, consequently reckons himself worthy of receiving the book and the judgment, and it is the next step that he should say of himself: 'I have power to lay down my soul and to take it up again,' and that he should prepare himself to be a consort in the throne of Christ. Wretched man, who does not rather understand that he is preparing himself to be the forerunner of Antichrist's coming, who, when he has been revealed, exalts himself above all that is called or that is worshiped as God—just like this man who now compares himself to an equality with the only Son of God.

The Lamb of God, the Son of God, in order to receive the book from the Father's hand, presents the marks of His passion, not judging the victory accomplished except in death and in resurrection; and the 'sinless' mind confirms that the perfection of an immaculate life can come to him while he eats, drinks, and sleeps! Our Lord Jesus, after the fast of forty days, the devil, tempting Him thrice and thrice overcome, left—and did not leave Him forever but for a time, about to return more fierce even to the death of the cross, to trouble Him through an apostle; and our 'impassible' one, with the temptations vanquished, to be sure (as it seems to himself) together with their author, trusts that he can no longer be tempted or troubled!

That perfect Lamb—He who not only has no sins but even takes away the sins of the world, and who has seven horns and seven eyes—does not so winnow the tempter as to keep him from returning; and this our man, mutilated, light in the forehead, one-eyed, deems no protection necessary upon his head, who presumes possibility in the flesh! Wretched man, who, according to the Gospel, would perhaps rather, if he were blind, have no sin! But perhaps, because the seven eyes are seven spirits, he boasts that he abounds in all these, and that his inner man, as it were, thrives with the heaped-up virtues of sevenfold grace—especially he who glories in the very titles of his so many dogmas.

Whence it can come to pass that by his own judgment he reckons himself filled with the spirit of wisdom, especially since he says God's commandments are easy; sufficient above all in the spirit of understanding, by which he foreknows and preaches that all sinners together with the impious are to be condemned to eternal fire; rich in the spirit of counsel, by which he advises that evil is not even to be thought; mighty in the spirit of might, by which he affirms a man can be without sin; puffed up in the spirit of knowledge, by which he hopes that, except him who has the knowledge of the law, one cannot be without sin; overflowing in the spirit of piety, by which he teaches that an enemy is to be loved as a friend—forgetting that he himself said an enemy is by no means to be trusted in any way;

honored with the spirit of the fear of God, by which, at last awakened after much drunkenness, he adds that a man can be without sin not without the help of God; and through these grades, as I think, of presumptions, he does not shrink from ascending, lifted up even to this, that he says that, after the likeness of Christ, in the perfection of his own power, full in his entirety, the Holy Spirit descended upon him and remained—although this was given to Him alone by God the Father, to whom also He gave the name which is above every name, who alone is without sin and walks without blemish, with whom abides the very ointment of sanctification.

But we run in the odor of His ointments, and meanwhile, with the Lord going before, we catch upon us the sweet breaths of life by the breathing of the vital air. But you say: 'Why do you provoke me with so great a wrong? Why do you burden me with the odium of so arrogant a word? Would I, a servant, dare compare myself to my Lord? Would I, earth and ashes, set myself beside the Word of God? Ought I, subject to death, to be called equal to the victor over death?' Well indeed, O condemned wickedness: giving testimony to God, you are humbled in words, but otherwise your meaning cries out in your pages. You say a man can be without sin; again and more often I repeat it. The man who can do this is Christ: either presume the name, or lay aside the confidence.

God granted that to one alone, and this to none but the firstborn among many brethren. So it is handed down by the catholic faith, so we hold. Truly our Lord admonished the unbelieving: 'I have come in the name of my Father, and you have not received me. Another shall come in his own name; perhaps him you will receive.' Either follow, with us sinners who believe in Him, that one without sin, the same Only-begotten; or, if you are that other, confess it. He is the Lord Jesus, who, death conquered and the devil triumphed over, ascending on high, led captivity captive, gave gifts to men; of whose fullness we all have received; as the apostle teaches: 'But to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of the giving of Christ.'

And to the Romans the same teacher of the Gentiles writes: 'For I say, through the grace that is given to me, to all who are among you: not to be wise above what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety, and to each one as God has divided the measure of faith.' Then to the Corinthians he proclaims: 'Now there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of operations, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of ministrations, but the same God who works all in all'; and after very many enumerations of graces and virtues he adds: 'But all these one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as He wills.'

Then by the comparison of the members in the body of man he makes manifest that the body of the Church's unity comes together, out of unequal modes of works, into one concord of perfection, proving that there is absolutely none of the members which does not need the help and connection of another, with the Lord Himself constituted as head, in whom are all the senses and the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Whence to us also He gave understanding, by which we might know what is the Word in Christ Jesus, in whom is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; into whom, according to the testimony of John, the Holy Spirit descending and remaining upon Him declared Him to be the Lord.

And so, if no one has except him who asks of you, and no one receives except according to the division and measure, and he who has received needs another's aid to keep it: with what madness, I ask, does he promise himself out of fullness, who in his own singularity is not sufficient? Of the Lord the evangelist testifies: 'But there was the true Light, which enlightens every man coming into this world.' But the Lord says to His apostles: 'You are the light of this world.' There, in the Lord alone, is the whole light, because true; here, in all the apostles, light indeed, but from the Light which is the whole.

And since this is so in the apostles, in whose election the whole body of the Church was taken up, what can we—we, I say, and as individuals—what can we be seen to be after them, except, according to the apostle Peter, men unlearned, believing only through faith the evangelical and prophetic word, as to a lamp shining in a dark place? As if enlightened, even we ourselves are persuaded that our lamps, prepared in good works, should be burning in our hands—lamps which, wearied by manifold temptations, are imperiled always by their own failing and by another's blow. Whence too the Lord says in the Gospel: 'And if the very light which is in us is darkness: how great shall that darkness itself be?'

But I grant that this light, however small it be, should remain with unfailing vigor even to the end—that is, that it should not lose that gift which it has obtained of special grace—otherwise the fullness of light stands present in its entirety, no gloom remains: but I call gloom the darkness of folly arising from the filth of sin—what if it is a fitting reckoning, that as much as has been lacking of light, so much of gloom remains over? But further it is most difficult that the gloom should have no stumbling-block. It is necessary for a man, established in a quantity of light and in remnants of gloom, willing the good and not escaping the evil, both that help should subsist and that sin should not be lacking. But if to anyone this seems obscurely said, let him take an example from human conduct.

Two individuals have diverse gifts, one that he should be humble in silence, the other that he should be persuasive in teaching. That one, to whom silence is dear, if perhaps he be asked to render account of his faith, do you suppose he will suffer no offense in discoursing? Or if he to whom doctrine has been committed in teaching, if he be chastised for arrogance, do you suppose he assumes no deceit under humility? Or do you easily reckon that the simple man is free from scurrility, the cheerful one from glibness of word, the careful from irascibility, the patient from negligence, the meek from sloth, the learned from boastfulness, the submissive from envy—apart from that which is the general gloom of all good works, the concupiscence of vainglory?

But if this be understood piously and holily, let each one of us take up the comparison, so that he may rather condemn himself by setting another above him than justify himself by despising one lesser. So at last he will join the members to one another, especially if—with the one charity, as it were a skin surrounding the bones and the sinews joined to the needy parts—a man conscious of himself may understand that this very grace which he has is a gift not owed, and may rather glory in the Lord on account of that from which he received, than be angry on account of that which he did not receive. For we, when we were by nature children of wrath on account of our offense, were made children of mercy on account of the clemency of the Lord, worthy of nothing but condemnation.

Let us not bring against the Lord a complaint about what we have not received, but rather for what we have received let us render thanks; let us return glory to him alone, our Creator and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God set forth as the propitiator in his own blood, that at his name every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, whom, judging in that foretold power, all flesh shall see, and to whom every tongue shall confess. Whence the Apostle also says: 'Therefore we strive, whether absent or present, to please him. For we must all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil'; and elsewhere: 'For we shall all stand before the tribunal of God.'

The apostle Paul said that he too would stand before the tribunal of God and would, with the rest, render account for the proper things of the body according as he had done; yet Pelagius, on the contrary, confidently dares to say: 'Quickly I bring to completion the whole perfection in the flesh, so that from the judge's goodness I hope for nothing.' The righteous, on that day, hearing the glories of their own works from the judge, will nevertheless still, as though unaware, ask: 'Lord, when did we see you and do these things for you?' And this man, our most expert in the law, recognizes on what day, at what hour, in what moment he will enter the final seat, beyond which there is no other of fullest sanctity! Or perhaps he protests and says:

'Truly,' he says, 'these reproaches of madness, not to say of pride, would be cast upon me, if I said that a man could be without sin apart from any helper; but in fact I affirm the help of God, to whom nothing is difficult. Or do you perhaps deny the help of God?' I grant for a little while your slander, so that, while I seem to expose in myself what I wish to convict in you, we may at the same time be found, I more cleansed in my own defense, and you more manifest in your own confusion. This is ever my faithful and undoubted opinion: that God bestows his help not only within his own body, which is the Church, to which by special

on account of believers' faith bestows the gifts of his grace), but also supplies it to all the nations in this world, on account of his long-suffering and eternal clemency toward himself; not — as you assert together with your disciple Caelestius, whose hidden nature of impious doctrines has already been crushed at the African synod — that one grace is granted generally to all merely in natural good and in free will, but that he ministers it particularly every day, through seasons, through days, through moments, through instants, both to all and to each. For Scripture says: 'Who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil.' But you perhaps answer: 'Nature, well composed, keeps its own order, and by this God, the elemental courses being once established, brings it about thence, because he made it.'

What, then, do you think of that part of the sentence which follows: 'He gives rain upon the just and the unjust'? Surely he who gives, gives when he wills and where he wills, either by dispensing an established ordinance or by pouring out his own bounty. And lest, according to the madness of your impiety, you contrive to empty this also of meaning, hear the prophet bearing witness to this truth: 'He who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth, the Lord is his name.' But what shall I say of the true hope of the human race, since 'every one who plows, plows in hope'? But to hope is not a matter of one's own capacity, but of another's bounty.

And when someone has sown, and the tiller has hidden the scattered seed in the bosom of the earth, he has nothing further to do except to lift up his eyes to heaven, and to pray — not to the earth to which he entrusted the seed, but to God in whom he believed — that he may make his labors fruitful by the early or the late rain. And to enjoy a spiritual testimony even for common uses: 'Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase.' How greatly, then, I rejoice in the help of God, measure by this: that I prove it to be ministered, particle by particle, even to the nations; so that it might be manifest to us whom we ought to guard against to the end, and whom we ought to invoke without ceasing. The Devil is questioned by the Lord: 'Whence do you come?' And he answered:

'Going about the earth and traversing the things that are under heaven, I am present.' I ask you: is this care of the devil one of good will or of evil? You must needs confess: wholly of evil. For this, and his subsequent demand, shows it. This manifestation of the devil took place in the time of Job, that is, in the time of Moses. Surely then there was no Judaea, no Jerusalem, no Church throughout the world. As yet all the Gentile world had no knowledge of God, and yet already the devil, going about the earth, was traversing all things that are under heaven, and was borne, with the unceasing diligence of his malice, to seduce and destroy the human race.

And so, when you see that against men who were ignorant such great wickedness of the devil pressed down to destroy them, do you believe that no grace of God was at hand to guard them? Or do you perhaps think it was said in vain: 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein'? But indeed, that you may more manifestly prove that the help of God is present both for all things and for each one — behold, the devil himself, while he bears witness about the whole, is questioned about one: 'Have you considered,' says God, 'my servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth?' The Lord knows each one particularly; the devil knows too — the one by the power of nature, the other by the labor of malice; the one to tempt, the other to approve. Job, while the adversary contradicts, is praised by the Creator.

The Lord wishes to judge the work of man, which he himself works in him; but indeed even the devil confesses concerning the help. For he says: 'Have you not fenced about the things that are outside his house and within his house?' When the enemy demanded his servant, God despoils him through temptation, but does not strip him bare; he takes away substance and gives grace: 'Behold,' he says, 'all that he has I give into your hand, but do not touch him himself.' This is too little. The envious one rages, attempts to bring in death, but on the contrary is moved by the dispensation of God; grace is not taken away; the prey is permitted to the plunderer that was demanded, and again a guardian is set over his own prey. For it is said to him: 'Behold, I deliver him to you; only preserve his life.'

Let no one from this suppose that the devil labors only to seduce the soul in the body, unless he were also to tear it from the very body, if the protection of the merciful God did not fortify the wounded and weak man, and did not always meet, in opposition, all the attempts of his snares. You have, as I think, even among the nations a sufficient proof of cooperating grace; receive also a manifest indication of that special gift which he bestows as peculiar to the Church and to his own body. The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians: 'I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus:'

'because in everything you are made rich in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that you come short in no grace.' And again: 'Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ: through whom we have access by faith into this grace, by which we stand and glory.' Whence the apostle Peter also admonishes, saying: 'Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of souls. Of which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace of God that should come unto us.' From which it is most evidently declared that to no man is the help of God lacking, especially since both the seducer is at hand and weakness is within.

The slander of the blind accuser is confounded and emptied, who says: 'Perhaps you deny the help of God?' But since we have made mention of Job, and in the testimony above it was reviewed with the Lord saying 'a man without crime, a true worshiper of God, abstaining from all evil' — for it is very often asserted by us, to prove that a man can be without sin because there has been one, that is, because Job too was called by the testimony of God a man without crime and truthful, and Zacharias is shown in the Gospel to be proved without complaint — : the Lord said of Job 'a man without crime'; did he say 'without sin'? For a thought conceives sin, but only an act displays a crime.

To be also without complaint is ascribed to the recognition and judgment of those for whom it is ready at hand to behold meekness in the face, but not to know the wars of the heart. Whence Paul also confidently commands, saying: 'For a bishop must be without crime'; and elsewhere he gives a general testimony to the Corinthians and asserts: 'So that you lack in no grace, awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ: who will also confirm you to the end without crime.' Behold, those whom Paul by his testimony confirms to be without crime to the end, soon, in the same epistle, he rebukes, writing: 'Now indeed there is utterly a fault in you, that you have lawsuits among yourselves.'

Under one heading and concerning the same persons, behold 'without crime,' behold 'a fault': whence he declares that one is not at once to be asserted to be without fault whom you see named as without crime. For the Lord Jesus also said: 'John came neither eating nor drinking.' And again it is written: 'His food was locusts and wild honey.' Is John, on the one account, to be believed not to have eaten, or the Lord to have deceived, on the other? But on the contrary the truth is in both, because John took something for the substance of fleshly food, and again the Lord truly said of John that he ate neither with the rest nor what the rest ate — proving that he and the holy Scriptures often, with the knowledge of God hidden, make manifest the judgments of men.

Wherefore it is to be reverently understood that, as often as Scripture mentions both 'just' and 'without complaint,' it is said according to the capacity of the time and according to the judgments of men, not according to that final indication of God, to whom the conscience of all is subject and the tongue of all shall confess. Finally, clearly understand that the justification of Job and the permission of his sufferings into the flesh, by the provident counsel of God, wrought the confounding of the arrogant devil; so that, while the man is praised for the honor of the Creator, with the Lord himself approving, the angel, declining the mark of infidelity, might be punished.

But again, lest he should inflict a more grievous blow upon his servant while healing him, and through care for the flesh inflict a wound on the soul — that is, lest blessed Job, having overcome so great a temptation, with all things doubled and restored, lifted up into pride, should fall into the judgment of the devil — he is admonished from his own hidden things, that even if outwardly he were praised for righteousness, yet inwardly he should know himself to be subject to him by whom he was guarded. For the Lord says to him: 'Who is this that hides counsel from me, keeping words in his heart, and thinks he is hidden from me? Gird your loins like a man. I will question you, and you answer me. Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you know knowledge.'

And after much correction by teaching, or teaching by correcting, Job answering the Lord said: 'Why am I judged, being warned and rebuked by the Lord, hearing such things when I am nothing?' Such too was Zacharias, a man without complaint, worthy of the honor of men, worthy of the testimony of the Scriptures, whom, as I think, some inflation from this already tickled, and he began to trust reputation more than conscience; he is convicted of the mark of unbelief through the rebuking angel, and is chastised with a temporary silence. Whence Paul also says: 'And so, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.' And, as it were a pattern for men, he himself pronounces concerning himself, saying: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.'

Thus, that anyone is called 'without crime' and 'without complaint' is not a testimony of perfection but an example of conduct. But concerning the 'undefiled,' wherever Scripture pronounces — as David says, 'Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord' — I think it handed down by sound doctrine, that truly blessed are those who are undefiled in the way, that is, those walking by perfect faith in the truth, not turning aside by heretical perversity either to the right or to the left. The Way is Christ, who through the Holy Spirit leads to the Father. Therefore he who, without stain and leprosy, and uncorrupted by those whose word creeps like a cancer, hears, believes, and understands the glory of the venerable Trinity, stands blessed in faith and undefiled.

From which it is also said to Abraham: 'Walk before me and be without stain.' For necessarily Abraham — who believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness; that he might be in him in whom he believed, saw, and rejoiced — is warned to be perfect and without stain, being appointed the father of many nations in faith, and the bosom of the faithful, that we all may be at rest, who hope in God with faithful Abraham. 'Blessed are the undefiled in the way,' it is written; for by faith we walk, not by sight. But indeed, if you wish to hear about the 'undefiled' such as David in prayer seeks, lay aside the vain confidence of your capacity, and, prostrate in prayers, join yourself with the prophet in supplication, weeping likewise and saying: 'Who understands his faults?'

'Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord, and from those of others spare your servant. For if they have not dominion over me, then shall I be undefiled.' Wretched man that I am, when shall I avoid the faults which I do not yet understand? Peter loves Christ and never declines from love; by the testimony of the Lord's love he is now established as the rock of the Church's foundation, now is depraved by the name of Satan. To him who always works one and the same thing, it is now said: 'Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven'; now again it is cast at him: 'You do not savor the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.' The apostle was chosen by loving, and confounded by loving, having sin on account of his excessive love.

For indeed, when the Lord announced concerning his Passion, in the impatience of love he had said: 'Be it favorable to you, Lord; this shall not be to you.' O the misery of the wretched! If Peter in any respect sinned by loving Christ, who understands faults? The prophet cries, and cries in the Holy Spirit, he cries of whom the Lord had said: 'My hand shall help him, and my arm shall strengthen him, and the enemy shall profit nothing against him' — and attend to what he cries: 'Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord.'

That David, chosen according to God's heart, he whom God promised would do all his wills, he whom he anointed as king, he whom he endowed with the sanctification of the prophetic spirit, astonished at the creeping-in of sins, cries to the Lord and implores that he be cleansed from his secret faults; and it is said to him by the Lord in another place: 'You shall not build a house to my name, because you are a man of war and have shed blood,' as though by the abolition of all defilements he could not so cleanse him as to prepare one worthy for a worthy work. David is not cleansed even to death, but, his son being preferred to him in the building of the temple, he himself condemns himself; and the Goliath, with his armor-bearer, slanders me, asking why the Lord does not do in him what he never did in any age!

Ecclesiastes also says: 'Nothing new under the sun, nor is anyone able to say: behold this is recent; for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us'; and the instructor of new doctrines affirms: 'It can come to pass, what has never been done! Do not inquire whether it has been, since you do not doubt that it can be.' God wished a house to be built to his name, but on this condition, that none but an innocent and well-undefiled one should erect it. For this two kings are chosen with all their powers, each for help; concerning protection it is promised to both. For to David God says: 'My truth and my mercy shall be with him.' But concerning Solomon he testifies: 'Him I have chosen for myself as a son, and I shall be to him as a father.' Of these two, one prepares the temple of the Lord, the other builds it;