Chapter V: he is first-begotten, he has deigned to name all those his brothers who

he is first-begotten, he has deigned to name all those his brothers who after and through his headship are born again into the grace of God through the adoption of sons." Or (Chapter XI.): "Our Lord's humility was lowly in his being born for us; to this it was added that he deigned to die for mortals." Or (Chapter XIX.): "The writers of the Divine Scriptures declare that the Holy Spirit is God's gift in order that we may believe that God does not bestow a gift inferior to himself." Or (ibid.): "No one enjoys that which he knows, unless he also loves it . . . nor does anyone abide in that which he apprehends unless by love." [150] But if Augustine had died before the Donatist and Pelagian controversies, he would not have been the dogmatist who changed the whole scheme of doctrine; for it was these controversies that first compelled him to reflect on and review what he had long held, to vindicate it with all his power, and to introduce it also into the instruction of the Church. But since it had never entered his mind that the ancient doctrinal tradition, as attached to the Symbol, could be insufficient, [151] since it had still less occurred to him to declare the Symbol itself to be inadequate, it was a matter of course to him that he should make everything which he had to present as religious doctrine hinge on that Confession. In this way arose the characteristic scheme of doctrine, which continued to influence the West in the Middle Ages; nay, on which the Reformed version is based--a combination of ancient Catholic theology and system with the new fundamental thought of the doctrine of grace, forced into the framework of the Symbol. It is evident that by this means a mixture of styles arose which was not conducive to the transparency and intelligibility of doctrine. But we have not only to complain of want of clearness, but also of a complexity of material which, in a still higher degree than was the case in the ancient Catholic Church, necessarily frustrated the demand for a closely reasoned and homogeneous version of religious doctrine. We are perhaps justified in maintaining that the Church never possessed in ancient times another teacher so anxious as Augustine to think out theological problems, and to secure unity for the system of doctrine. But the circumstances in which he was placed led to him above all others necessarily confusing that system of doctrine, and involving it in new inconsistencies. [152] The following points fall to be considered.

1. As a Western theologian, he felt that he was bound by the Symbol; but no Western theologian before him had lived so much in Scripture, or taken so much from it as he. The old variance between Symbol and Scripture, [153] which at that time indeed was not yet consciously felt, was accordingly intensified by him. The uncertainty as to the relation of Scripture and Symbol was increased by him in spite of the extraordinary services he had rendered in making the Church familiar with the former. [154] The Biblicism of later times, which afterwards took up an aggressive attitude to the Church in the West, is to be traced back to Augustine; and the resolute deletion of Scriptural thoughts by an appeal to the authority of the Church's doctrine may equally refer to him. [155] If we are asked for the historical justification of pre-reformers and reformers in the West, in taking their stand exclusively on Scripture, we must name Augustine; if we are asked by what right such theologians have been silenced, we may refer similarly to Augustine; but we can in this case undoubtedly go back to the authority of Tertullian (De præscr. hær.).

2. On the one hand, Augustine was convinced that everything in Scripture was valuable for faith, and that any thought was at once justified, ecclesiastically and theologically, by being proved to be Biblical--see his doctrine of predestination and other tenets, of which he was certain simply because they were found in the Bible. By this principle any unity of doctrine was nullified. [156] But, on the other hand, Augustine knew very well that religion was a practical matter, that in it faith, hope, and love, or love alone, were all-important, and that only what promoted the latter had any value. Indeed he advanced a considerable step further, and approximated to the Alexandrian theologians: he ultimately regarded Scripture merely as a means, which was dispensed with when love had reached its highest point, and he even approached the conception that the very facts of Christ's earthly revelation were stages beyond which the believer passed, whose heart was possessed wholly by love. [157] This latter point--which is connected with his individualistic theology, but slightly influenced by the historical Christ--will be discussed below. It is enough here to formulate sharply the inconsistency of making Scripture, on the one hand, a source, and, on the other, a means. [158] --a means indeed which is finally dispensed with like a crutch. [159] The mystics and fanatics of the West have given their adhesion to the last principle, advancing the inner light and inner revelation against the written. Now Augustine, in his excellent preface to his work "De doctrina Christiana," has undoubtedly, as with a flash of prophetic illumination, rejected all fanatical inspiration, which either fancied it had no need at all of Scripture, or, appealing to the Spirit, declared philological and historical interpretation to be useless. But yet he opened the door to fanaticism with his statement that there was a stage at which men had got beyond Scripture. Above all, however, he created the fatal situation, in which the system of doctrine and theology of the Western Church are still found at the present day, by the vagueness which he failed to dispel as to the importance of the letter of Scripture. The Church knows, on the one hand, that in the Bible, so far as meant for faith, the "matter" is alone of importance. But, on the other hand, it cannot rid itself of the prejudice that every single text contains a Divine and absolute direction, a "revelation." Protestant Churches have in this respect not gone one step beyond Augustine; Luther himself, if we compare his "prefaces" to the New Testament, e.g., with his position in the controversy about the Lord's Supper, was involved in the same inconsistency as burdened Augustine's doctrinal structure.

3. Augustine brought the practical element to the front more than any previous Church Father. Religion was only given to produce faith, love, and hope, and blessedness itself was bound up in these virtues bestowed by God, or in love. But the act of reform, which found expression in the subordination of all materials to the above intention, was not carried out by him unalloyed. In retaining the old Catholic scheme, knowledge and eternal life (aphtharsia) remained the supreme thoughts; in pursuing Neoplatonic mysticism, he did not cast off the acosmic view that regarded all phenomena as transient, and all that was transient as figurative, retaining finally only the majesty of the concealed Deity; in despising the present life, he necessarily also depreciated faith and all that belonged to the present. Thus, his theology was not decided, even in its final aims, by one thought, and he was therefore unable really to carry out his doctrine of grace and sin in a pure form. As the intellectualism of antiquity, of course in a sublimated form, was not wholly superseded by him, his profoundest religious utterances were accompanied by, or entwined with, philosophical considerations. Often one and the same principle has a double root, a Neoplatonic and a Christian (Pauline), and accordingly a double meaning, a cosmological and a religious. Philosophy, saving faith, and Church tradition, disputed the leading place in his system of faith, and since Biblicism was added to these three elements, the unity of his type of thought was everywhere disturbed.

4. But apart from the intention, the execution contains not only inconsistencies in detail, but opposite views. In his conflict with Manichæism and Donatism, Augustine sketched a doctrine of freedom, the Church, and the means of grace, which has little in common with his experience of sin and grace, and simply conflicts with the theological development of that experience--the doctrine of predestinating grace. We can positively sketch two Augustinian theologies, one ecclesiastical, the other a doctrine of grace, and state the whole system in either.

5. But even in his ecclesiastical system and his doctrine of grace, conflicting lines of thought meet; for in the former a hierarchical and sacramental fundamental element conflicts with a liberal, universalist view inherited from the Apologists; and in the doctrine of grace two different conceptions are manifestly combined, namely, the thought of grace through (per, propter) Christ, and that of grace emanating, independently of Christ, from the essential nature of God as the supreme good and supreme being (summum bonum, summum esse). The latter inconsistency was of greatest importance for Augustine's own theology, and for the attitude of Western theology after him. The West, confessedly, never thoroughly appropriated the uncompromising Eastern scheme of Christology as a statement of saving faith. But by Augustine the relation of the doctrine of the two natures (or the Incarnation) to that of salvation was still further loosened. It will be shown that he really prepared the way much more strongly for the Franciscan feeling towards Christ than for Anselm's satisfaction theory, and that, in general, as a Christologian--in the strict sense of the term--he bequeathed more gaps than positive material to posterity. But in addition to this antithesis of a grace through Christ and without Christ, we have, finally, in Augustine's doctrine of sin a strong Manichæan and Gnostic element; for Augustine never wholly surmounted Manichæism.

From our exposition up to this point--and only the most important facts have been mentioned--it follows that we cannot speak of Augustine having a system, nor did he compose any work which can be compared to Origen's peri archon. Since he did not, like the latter, boldly proclaim the right of an esoteric Christianity, but rather as Christian and churchman constantly delayed taking this liberating step, [160] everything with him stands on one level, and therefore is involved in conflict. [161] But it is "not what one knows and says that decides, but what one loves"; he loved God, and his Church, and he was true. This attitude is conspicuous in all his writings, whether it is the Neoplatonist, the earlier Manichæan, the Pauline Christian, the Catholic Bishop, or the Biblicist, that speaks, and it lends to all his expositions a unity, which, though it cannot be demonstrated in the doctrines, can be plainly felt. Therefore, also, the different movements that started or learned from him, were always conscious of the complete man, and drew strength from him. He would not have been the teacher of the future if he had not stood before it as a Christian personality who lent force and weight to every word, no matter in what direction it led. As preacher of faith, love, and the dispensation of grace, he has dominated Catholic piety up to the present day. By his fundamental sentiment: "Mihi adhærere deo bonum est," as also by his distinction between law and gospel, letter and spirit, and his preaching that God creates faith and a good will in us, he called forth the evangelical Reformation. [162] By his doctrine of the authority and means of grace of the Church, he carried forward the construction of Roman Catholicism; nay, he first created the hierarchical and sacramental institution. By his Biblicism he prepared the way for the so-called pre-reformation movements, and the criticism of all extra-Biblical ecclesiastical traditions. By the force of his speculation, the acuteness of his intellect, the subtlety of his observation and experience, he incited, nay, partly created, scholasticism in all its branches, including the Nominalistic, and therefore also the modern theory of knowledge and psychology. By his Neoplatonism and enthusiasm for predestination he evoked the mysticism as well as the anti-clerical opposition of the Middle Ages. [163] By the form of his ideal of the Church and of felicity, he strengthened the popular Catholic, the monachist, state of feeling, domesticating it, moreover, in the Church, and thereby rousing and capacitating it to overcome and dominate the world as contrasted with the Church. Finally, by his unique power of portraying himself, of expressing the wealth of his genius, and giving every word an individual impress, by his gift of individualising and self-observation, he contributed to the rise of the Renaissance and the modern spirit.

These are not capricious combinations, but historical facts: [164] the connecting lines that lead back to him, can everywhere be clearly demonstrated. But where, then, in the history of the West is there a man to be compared to him? Without taking much to do with affairs--Augustine was Bishop of a second-rate city, and possessed neither liking nor talent for the rôle of an ecclesiastical leader or practical reformer--by the force of his ideas he influenced men, and made his life permeate the centuries that followed. __________________________________________________________________

It has been attempted to depict Augustine's significance as Church teacher, by dividing absolutely the various directions in which his thought moved, and by giving separate accounts of the Neoplatonist, the Paulinist, the earlier Manichæan, and the Catholic Bishop. [165] But it is to be feared that violence is done him by such an analysis. It is safer and more appropriate, within the limits of a history of dogma, to keep to the external unity which he has himself given to his conceptions. In that case his Enchiridion ad Laurentium, his matured exposition of the Symbol, presents itself as our best guide. This writing we mean to bring forward at the close of the present chapter, after preliminary questions have been discussed which were of supreme importance to Augustine, and the controversies have been reviewed in which his genius was matured. We shall, in this way, obtain the clearest view of what Augustine achieved for the Church of his time, and of the revolution he evoked. It is a very attractive task to centralise Augustinian theology, but it is safer to rest content with the modest result of becoming acquainted with it, in so far as it exerted its influence on the Church. One difficulty meets us at the very outset which can not be removed, and went on increasing in after times. What portion of Augustine's countless expositions constituted dogma in his own eyes, or became dogma at a later period? While he extended dogma to an extraordinary extent, he at the same time sometimes relaxed, sometimes--as regards ancient tradition--specifically stiffened, the notion to be held of it. The question as to the extent of dogmas was neither answered, nor ever put precisely, in the West, after the Donatist and Pelagian controversies. In other words, no necessity was felt for setting up similarly express positive statements in addition to the express refutations of Pelagians, Donatists, etc. But the necessity was not felt, because Churchmen possessed neither self-confidence nor courage to take ecclesiastical action on a grand scale. They always felt they were Epigones of a past time which had created the professedly adequate tradition. This feeling, which was still further accentuated in the Middle Ages, was gradually overcome by the Popes, though solely by them. Apart from a few exceptions, it was not till the Council of Trent that dogmas were again formed. Till then the only dogmas were the doctrines contained in the Symbols. Next these stood the catalogues of heretics, from which dogmas could be indirectly deduced. This state of matters induces us to present the doctrine of Augustine as fully as possible, consistently with the design of a text-book. Many things must here be brought forward from his works which bore no fruit in his own time, but had a powerful influence on the course of doctrinal development in the following centuries, and came to light in the dogmas of Trent. [166]

In what follows we shall proceed (1) to describe Augustine's fundamental view, his doctrines of the first and last things; [167] for they were fixed when he became a Catholic Christian; (2) and (3) we then describe his controversies with Donatists and Pelagians, in which his conception of faith was deepened and unfolded; and (4) we expound his system of doctrine by the help of the Enchiridion ad Laurentium. __________________________________________________________________

[149] The foundation of Augustine's religious characteristics can be best studied in the writings that are read least, namely in the tractates and letters written immediately after his conversion, and forming an extremely necessary supplement to his Confessions (see above, p. 92, note 2). In these writings he is not yet at all interested in Church dogmatics, but is wholly absorbed in the task of making clear to himself, while settling with Neoplatonism, the new stage of religious philosophical reflection and inner experience, in which he finally found rest (see De vita beata, Adv. Academ., Soliloquia, De ordine, and the Epistles to Nebridius). The state of feeling expressed by him in these work, never left him; but it was only in a later period that he gave it its dogmatic sub-structure. In consequence of this, as is proved even by the Confessions and also the Retractations, he himself lost the power of rightly estimating those writings and the inner state in which he had found himself in the first years after his conversion. But he never lost the underlying tone of those first fruits of his authorship: "Rest in the possession of God," as distinguished from the unrest and unhappiness of a seeking and inquiry that never reach their aim, or the essentially Neoplatonic version of the loftiest problems (see e.g., De ordine II., 11 ff., "mala in ordinem redacta faciunt decorem universi"; the same view of evil is still given in De civit., XI., 18). Those writings cannot be more fully discussed in a history of dogma.

[150] "Secundum id, quod unigenitus est, non habet fratres; secundum id autem quod primogenitus est, fratres vocare dignatus est omnes qui post ejus et per ejus primatum in dei gratiam renascuntur per adoptionem filiorum." "Parva erat pro nobis domini nostri humilitas in nascendo; accessit etiam ut mori pro mortalibus dignaretur." "Divinarum scripturarum tractatores spiritum sanctum donum dei esse prædicant, ut deum credamus non se ipso inferius donum dare." "Eo quod quisque novit non fruitur, nisi et id diligat . . . neque quisquam in eo quod percipit permanet nisi dilectione."

[151] He undoubtedly noticed, and with his love of truth frankly said, that the Church writers gave throughout an insufficient statement of the grace of God; but he contented himself with the plea that the Church had always duly emphasised grace in its prayers and institutions. See prædest. sanct., 27: "Quid opus est, ut eorum scrutemur opuscula, qui prius quam ista hæresis (Pelagianorum) oriretur, non habuerunt necessitatem in hac difficili ad solvendum quæstione versari? quod procul dubio facerent, si respondere talibus cogerentur. Unde factum est, ut de gratia dei quid sentirent, breviter quibusdam scriptorum suorum locis et transeunter adtingerent, immorarentur vero in eis, quæ adversus inimicos ecclesiæ disputabant, et in exhortationibus ad quasque virtutes, quibus deo vivo et vero pro adipiscenda vita æterna et vera felicitate servitur. Frequentationibus autem orationum simpliciter apparebat dei gratia quid valeret; non enim poscerentur de deo quæ præcipit fieri, nisi ab illo donaretur ut fierent." He himself had indeed learned from experience in his struggle with the Manichæans, that the defence of truth has to be regulated by the nature of the attack. When he was twitted by his opponents with what he had formerly written about freewill against the Manichæans, he appealed to the claims of advancing knowledge, as well as to the duty of offering resistance both to right and left. He thus saw in the earlier Church teachers the defenders of the truth of the Church against fatalism, Gnosticisim, and Manichæism, and from this standpoint explained their attitude.

[152] It is self-evident that for this reason dogma, i.e., the old Catholic doctrine of the Trinity and Christology, necessarily became less impressive. Reuter's objection (l.c. p. 495) rests on an incomprehensible misunderstanding.

[153] See on this and on what follows, Vol. III., pp. 203 ff., 207 ff.

[154] The attempts to define their relationship, e.g., in Book I. of the treatise De doctrina Christiana, are wholly vague, and indeed scarcely comprehensible. The "substance" of Scripture is to form the propositions of the Rule of Faith; but yet every sentence of Scripture is an article of faith.

[155] After his conversion Augustine was firmly of opinion that nothing stood in Scripture that contradicted the doctrine of the Church; he was not so certain that the interpretation of Scripture must follow the authority of tradition. Yet what a profusion of "dangerous" ideas would have been evolved from the Bible by his rich and acute genius if once he had freed his intellect from the fetters of obedience! The perception that no less than everything would have been doubtful, that a thousand contradictions would have taken the place of a unanimous doctrine, certainly helped in determining him not to shake the bars of his prison. He felt he would never be able to escape, but would be buried by the ruins of the collapsing edifice. Hence the principle declared in De nat. et grat. 22, that we must first submit to what stands in Scripture, and only then ask "quomodo id fieri potuerit." What a difference from Origen!

[156] See Vol. II., 331, n. 3.

[157] De doctr. Christ. I., 34: an extremely noteworthy exposition, which, so far as I know, has very few clear parallels in Augustine's works, but forms the background of his development.

[158] See the details in "De doctr. Christiana" copied in Vol. III., p. 203, n. 2, of this work.

[159] De doctr. Christ., 35-40, especially c. 39, "Therefore a man who depends on faith, hope, and love, and holds by them invincibly, only needs Scripture to instruct others." Scripture even only offers patchwork; but a man may rise to such perfection even in this life as no longer to require the patchwork.

[160] Tendencies in this direction are found everywhere; but they were never more than tendencies.

[161] It is one of Reuter's chief merits that he has proved the impossibility of constructing a system from Augustine's thought, and of removing the inconsistencies that occur in it.

[162] See the testimonies to Augustine of the Reformers and their confessional writings; yet the difference that still existed was not unknown to them.

[163] Even the Anti-Gregorian party in the Middle Ages frequently appealed to Augustine. It was possible to find in him welcome statements as to the meaning of the Empire, the possibility of correcting Councils, and, generally, anti-hierarchical passages.

[164] Compare Reuter, Studie VII.

[165] It is unmistakable that there are three planes in Augustine's theological thoughts, Neoplatonic mysticism (without means of grace, without the Church, nay, in a sense, even without Christ), Christological soteriology, and the plane of the authority and sacraments of the Church. Besides these, rationalistic and Manichæan elements have to be taken into account.

[166] Reuter also recognises (p. 495 f., note) that Augustine held the contents of the Symbol alone to be dogma. But we have here to remember that the most elaborate doctrine of the Trinity and Christology were evolved from the Symbol, and that its words "sancta ecclesia" and "remissio peccatorum" contained theories from which equally far-reaching dogmas could be formed, or heretics be convicted. Even Cyprian refuted the Novatians from the Symbol, and Augustine used it against the Pelagians. A peculiar difficulty in the way of discussing Augustine in the history of dogma consists further in the fact that he created countless theological schemes, but no dogmatic formulas. He was too copious, too earnest, and too sincere to publish catch-words.

[167] Augustine was the first dogmatist to feel the need of considering for himself the questions, which we are now accustomed to treat in the "prolegomena to dogmatics." The Alexandrians undoubtedly attempted this also; but in their case formal and material, original and derived, were too much intertwined. Nor did they advance to the last problems of psychology and the theory of perception. Enchir., 4: "Quid primum, quid ultimum, teneatur, quæ totius definitionis summa sit, quod certum propriumque fidei catholicæ fundamentum." (Questions by Laurentius.) __________________________________________________________________

1. Augustine's Doctrines of the First and Last Things. [168]

It has been said of Fiesole that he prayed his pictures on to the walls. It can be maintained of Augustine that his most profound thoughts regarding the first and the last things arose out of prayers; for all these matters were contained for him in God. If the same can be said of innumerable mystics down to the private communities of Madame de Guyon and Tersteegen, it is true of them because they were Augustine's disciples. But more than anyone else he possessed the faculty of combining speculation about God with a contemplation of mind and soul which was not content with a few traditional categories, but analysed the states of feeling and the contents of consciousness. Every advance in this analysis became for him at the same time an advance in the knowledge of God, and vice versâ; concentration of his whole being in prayer led him to the most abstract observation, and this, in turn, changed to prayer. No philosopher before or after him has verified in so conspicuous a fashion the profound saying that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Godliness was the very atmosphere of his thought and life. "Piety is the wisdom of man" (Hominis sapientia pietas est, Enchir., 2; De civ. dei XIV., 28). Thus Augustine was the psychological, because he was the theological, genius of the Patristic period. [169] Not unversed in the domains of objective secular knowledge, he yet discarded them more resolutely than his Neoplatonic teachers, to whom he owed much, but whom he far surpassed. "The contents of the inner life lay clearly before Augustine's eyes as a realm of distinctive objects of perception, outside and independent of sense experience, and he was convinced by his own rich insight that in this sphere quite as genuine knowledge and information, based on inner experience, were to be gained, as by external observation in surrounding nature." Augustine brought to an end the development of ancient philosophy by completing the process which led from the naïve objective to the subjective objective. [170] He found what had been long sought for: the making of the inner life the starting-point of reflection on the world. [171] And he did not give himself up to empty dreams, but investigated with a truly "physiological psychology" all conditions of the inner life, from its elementary processes up to the most sublime moods; he became, because he was the counterpart of Aristotle, the true Aristotle of a new science, [172] which seems indeed to have forgotten that as a theory of perception, and as inner observation, it originated in the monotheistic faith and life of prayer. He disposed of all that we call the ancient classical temper, the classical conception of life and the world. With the last remains of its cheerfulness and naïve objectivity, he buried for a long time the old truth itself, and showed the way to a new truth of things. But this was born in him amid pains, and it has kept its feature of painfulness. Mohammed, the barbarian, smote into ruins, in the name of Allah, who had mastered him, the Hellenistic world which he did not know. Augustine, the disciple of the Hellenes, completed in the West the long prepared dissolution of this world, in the name of God, whom he had perceived to be the only reality; [173] but he built up a new world in his own heart and mind. [174] However, nothing really perished entirely, because everything was accomplished by a protracted transformation, and, besides, the old Hellenistic world continued in part to exist on the North-East coast of the Mediterranean. It was possible to travel back along the line which had been traced by a millennium down to Augustine, and the positive capital, which Neoplatonism and Augustine had received from the past and had changed into negative values, could also be re-established with a positive force. But something had undoubtedly been lost; we find it surviving in almost none but those who were ignorant of theology and philosophy; we do not find it among thinkers; and that is frank joy in the phenomenal world, in its obvious meaning, and in calm and energetic work. [175] If it were possible to unite in science and in the disposition, the piety, spirituality, and introspection of Augustine, with the openness to the world, the restful and energetic activity, and unclouded cheerfulness of antiquity, we should have reached the highest level! We are told that such a combination is a phantom, that it is an absurd idea. But do we not honour the great minds, who have been granted us since Luther, simply because they have endeavoured to realise the "fancy picture"? Did not Goethe declare this to be his ideal, and endeavour to present it in his own life, in his closing epoch? Is it not in the same ideal that the meaning of evangelical and reforming Christianity is contained, if it is really different from Catholicism?

"I desire to know God and the soul. Nothing more? Nothing at all."
[176] In these words Augustine has briefly formulated the aim of his spiritual life. That was the truth [177] for which "the marrow of his soul sighed." All truth was contained for him in the perception of God. After a brief period of sore doubting, he was firm as a rock in the conviction that there was a God, and that he was the supreme good (summum bonum); [178] [179] but who he was, and how he was to be found, were to him the great questions. He was first snatched from the night of uncertainty by Neoplatonism: the Manichæan notion of God had proved itself to be false, since its God was not absolute and omnipotent. Neoplatonism had shown him a way by which to escape the flux of phenomena, and the mysterious and harassing play of the transient, to reach the fixed resting-point he sought, and to discover this in the absolute and spiritual God (Confess. VI I., 26: "incorporea veritas"). Augustine traversed this ascending path from the corporeal world through ever higher and more permanent spheres, and he also experienced the ecstatic mood in the "excess" of feeling. [180] But at the same time he turned more energetically to those observations for which the Neoplatonists had only been able to give him hints--to his spiritual experience, and psychological analysis. He was saved from scepticism by perceiving that even if the whole of external experience was subject to doubt, the facts of the inner life remained and demanded an explanation leading to certainty. There is no evil, but we are afraid, and this fear is certainly an evil. [181] There is no visible object of faith, but we see faith in us. [182] Thus--in his theory of perception--God and the soul entered into the closest union, and this union confirmed him in his belief in their metaphysical connection. Henceforth the investigation of the life of the soul was to him a theological necessity. No examination seemed to him to be indifferent; he sought to obtain divine knowledge from every quarter. The command to "know thyself" (Gnothi seauton) became for him the way to God. We cannot here discuss the wealth of psychological discoveries made by him. [183] But he only entered his proper element when he was inquiring into the practical side of spiritual life. The popular conception, beyond which even philosophers had not advanced far, was that man was a rational being who was hampered by sensuousness, but possessed a free will capable at every moment of choosing the good--a very external, dualistic view. Augustine observed the actual man. He found that the typical characteristic of the life of the soul consisted in the effort to obtain pleasure [184] (cupido, amor); from this type no one could depart. It was identical with the striving to get possessions, enjoyment. As the attempt to attain the pleasant it was desire (libido), cupiditas, and was perfected in joy; as resistance to the unpleasant, it was anger (ira), fear (timor), and was completed in sadness (tristitia). All impulses were only evolutions of this typical characteristic; sometimes they partook more of the form of passive impression, sometimes they were more of an active nature, and they were quite as true of the spiritual as of the sensuous life. [185]

According to Augustine, the will is most closely connected with this life of impulse, so that impulses can indeed be conceived as contents of the will, yet it is to be distinguished from them. For the will is not bound to the nexus of nature; it is a force existing above sensuous nature. [186] It is free, in so far as it possesses formally the capacity of following or resisting the various inclinations; but concretely it is never free; that never free choice (liberum arbitrium), but is always conditioned by the chain of existing inclinations, which form its motives and determine it. The theoretical freedom of choice therefore only becomes actual freedom when desire (cupiditas, amor) of good has become the ruling motive of the will; in other words, it is only true of a good will that it is free: freedom of will and moral goodness coincide. But it follows just from this that the will truly free possesses its liberty not in caprice, but in being bound to the motive which impels to goodness ("beata necessitas boni"). This bondage is freedom, because it delivers the will from the rule of the impulses (to lower forms of good), and realises the destiny and design of man to possess himself of true being and life. In bondage to goodness the higher appetite (appetitus), the genuine impulse of self-preservation, realises itself, while by satisfaction "in dissipation" it brings man "bit by bit to ruin." It does not follow, however, from Augustine's assertion of the incapacity for good of the individual spontaneous will, that the evil will, because it is not free, is also irresponsible; for since the will is credited with the power of yielding to the love of good (amor boni), it is guilty of the neglect (the defect).

From this point Augustine, combining the results of Neoplatonic cosmological speculation with the above analysis, now built up his metaphysic, or more correctly, his theology. But since in the epoch in which he pursued these observations, he turned to the asceticism of Catholic monachism, and also studied profoundly the Psalms (and the Pauline epistles), the simple grandeur of his living notion of God exerted a tremendous influence on his speculations, and condensed the different, and in part artificially obtained, elements of his doctrine of God, [187] again and again into the supremely simple confession: "The Lord of heaven and earth is love; He is my salvation; of whom should I be afraid?"

By the Neoplatonic speculation of the ascent [of the soul] Augustine reached the supreme unchangeable, permanent Being, [188] the incorporeal truth, spiritual substance, incommutable and true eternity of truth, the light incommutable [189] (incorporea veritas, spiritalis substantia, incommutabilis et vera veritatis æternitas, the lux incommutabilis). Starting with this, everything which was not God, including his own soul, was examined by Augustine from two points of view. On the one hand, it appeared as the absolutely transient, therefore as non-existent; for no true being exists, where there is also not-being; therefore God exists alone (God the only substance). On the other hand, as far as it possessed a relative existence, it seemed good, very good, as an evolution of the divine being (the many as the embodiment, emanating, and ever-returning, of the one). Augustine never tires of realising the beauty (pulchrum) and fitness (aptum) of creation, of regarding the universe as an ordered work of art, in which the gradations are as admirable as the contrasts. The individual and evil are lost to view in the notion of beauty; nay, God himself is the eternal, the old and new, the only, beauty. Even hell, the damnation of sinners, is, as an act in the ordination of evils (ordinatio malorum), an indispensable part of the work of art. [190] But, indeed, the whole work of art is after all--nothing; a likeness, but ah! only a likeness of the infinite fulness of the one which alone exists. How deeply in earnest Augustine was with this acosmic Pantheism, which threatened to degenerate into cosmic Monism, how he never wholly abandoned it, is shown even by the expression "pulchritudo" (beauty) for God, [191] by his doctrine of predestination, which has one of its roots here, and, finally, by the aesthetic optimism of his view of the world which comes out here and there even in his latest writings, [192] and by his uncertainty as to the notion of creation. [193] But the very fact that, as a rule, Augustine was governed by a wholly different temper is a guarantee that the element here obtained was only a grounding to which he applied new colours. He would not have been the reformer of Christian piety if he had only celebrated, albeit in the most seductive tones, [194] that Neoplatonic notion of God, which, indeed, ultimately rested on a pious natural sentiment.

The new elements resulted first from the psychological analysis briefly indicated above. He found in man, as the fundamental form of existence, the desire to reach happiness, goods, being, and he could harmonise this desire excellently with his Neoplatonic doctrine. He farther found the desire to obtain an ever higher happiness, and ever loftier forms of good, an inexhaustible and noble longing, and this discovery also agreed with the doctrine. Unrest, hunger and thirst for God, horror and disgust at the enjoyment of lower kinds of good, were not to be stifled; for the soul, so far as it exists, comes certainly from God, and belongs to Him (ex deo and ad deum). But now he discovered a dreadful fact: the will, as a matter of fact, would not what it would, or at least seemed to will. No, it was no seeming; it was the most dreadful of paradoxes; we will to come to God, and we cannot, i.e., we will not. [195] Augustine felt this state along with the whole weight of responsibility; that responsibility was never lessened for him by the view that the will in not seeking God was seeking nothing, that it therefore by self-will was properly "annulling itself until it no longer existed." Nor was it mitigated for him by the correlative consideration, that the individual will, ruled by its desire, was not free. Rather, from the dread sense of responsibility, God appeared as the good, and the self-seeking life of impulse, which determined the will and gave its motive, constituted evil. The "summum bonum" now first obtained its deeper meaning--it was no longer merely the permanent resting point for disturbed thinkers, or the exhilarating enjoyment of life for jaded mortals: it now meant that which ought to be, [196] that which should be the fundamental motive ruling the will, should give the will its liberty, and therewith for the first time its power over the sphere of the natural, freeing the inexhaustible longing of man for the good from the dire necessity of sinning (misera necessitas peccandi), and accordingly first making that innate longing effectual. In a word, it now meant the good. And thus the notion of the good itself was divested of all accretions from the intellect, and all eudaimonist husks and wrappings. In this contemplation that overpowered him, the sole object was the good will, the moral imperative vitalised, to renounce selfish pleasure. But at the same time he acquired the experience which he himself could not analyse, which no thinker will undertake to analyse, that this good laid hold of him as love, and snatched him from the misery of the monstrous inconsistency of existence. [197] Thereby the notion of God received a wholly new content: the good which could do that was omnipotent. In the one act of liberation was given the identity of omnipotent being and the good, the summum on (supreme being) was holiness working on the will in the form of omnipotent love. This was what Augustine felt and described. A stream of divine conceptions was now set loose, partly given in the old language, but with a meaning felt for the first time, wonderfully combined with the statement of the philosophical knowledge of God, but regulating and transforming it. The Supreme Being (summum esse) is the Supreme Good; He is a person; the ontological defect of creaturely being becomes the moral defect of godlessness of will; evil is here as there negative; [198] but in the former case it is the negation of substance (privatio substantiæ), in the latter that of good (privatio boni), meaning the defect arising from freedom. The good indeed still remains the divine being as fulness of life; but for man it is summed up in the "common morality" which issues from the divine being and divine love. That is, he cannot appropriate it save in the will, which gladly forsakes its old nature, and loves that which dwells above all that is sensuous and selfish. Nothing is good except a good will: this principle was most closely combined by Augustine with the other: nothing is good but God; and love became for him the middle term. For the last and highest point reached in his knowledge was his combination of the thought that "all substance was from God" (omnis substantia a deo) with the other that "all good was" from God (omne bonum a deo). The conception of God as universal and sole worker, shaded into the other that God, just because he is God and source of all being, is also the only author and source of good in the form of self-imparting love.
[199] It belongs just as essentially to God to be grace (gratia) imparting itself in love, as to be the uncaused cause of causes (causa causatrix non causata). If we express this anthropologically: goodness does not make man independent of God--that was the old conception--but in goodness the constant natural dependence of all his creatures on God finds expression as a willed dependence securing the existence of the creaturely spirit. The latter only exists in yielding himself, only lives in dying, is only free when he suffers himself to be entirely ruled by God, is only good if his will is God's will. These are the grand paradoxes with which he contrasted the "monstrous" paradoxes discussed above. But meanwhile there is no mistake that the metaphysical background everywhere shows in the ethical view; it is seen, first, in the ascetic trait which clings to the notion of the good in spite of its simple form (joy in God); secondly, in uncertainty as to the notion of love, into which an intellectual element still enters; thirdly, in the conception of grace (gratia), which appears not infrequently as the almost natural mode of the divine existence.

The instruction how to hold communion with God displays still more clearly the interweaving of metaphysical and ethical views, that wonderful oscillation, hesitancy, and wavering between the intellectual and that which lives and is experienced in the depths of the soul.
[200] On the one hand, it is required to enjoy God; nay, he is the only "thing" (res) which may be enjoyed, all else may only be used. But to enjoy means "to cling to anything by love for its own sake" (alicui rei amore inhærere propter se ipsam"). [201] God is steadfastly to be enjoyed--the Neoplatonists are reproached with not reaching this. [202] This enjoying is inseparably connected with the thought of God's "beauty," and in turn with the sense that he is all in all and indescribable. [203] But, on the other hand, Augustine thrust aside the thought that God was a substance (res) in the interest of a living communion with him. God was a person, and in the phrase "to cleave by love" ("amore inhærere") the emphasis falls in that case on the love (amor) which rests on faith (fides), and includes hope (spes). "God to be worshipped with faith, hope, and love ("Fide, spe, caritate colendum deum"). [204] Augustine was so strongly possessed by the feeling, never, indeed, clearly formulated, that God is a person whom we must trust and love, that this conviction was even a latent standard in his Trinitarian speculations. [205] Faith, hope, and love had, in that case, however, nothing further to do with "freedom" in the proper sense of the word. They were God's gifts, and constituted a spiritual relation to Him, from which sprang good resolves (bonum velle) and righteousness (justitia). But, indeed, whenever Augustine looked from this life to eternal life, the possession of faith, love, and hope assumed a temporary aspect. "But when the mind has been imbued with the commencement of faith which works by love, it aspires by a good life to reach the manifestation in which holy and perfect hearts perceive the ineffable beauty whose complete vision is the highest felicity. This is surely what thou requirest, what is to be esteemed the first and the last thing,' to begin with faith, to be perfected in sight" (Enchir. 5; see De doctr., II. 34 sq.). [206] Certain as it is that the Neoplatonic tendency comes out in this, it is as certain that we have more than a mere "remnant of mystical natural religion"; for the feeling that "presses upward and forward" from the faith in what is not seen, to the seeing of what is believed, is not only the innate germ of religion, but its enduring stimulus. [207] The idea of the world sketched from contemplation of the inner life and the sense of responsibility, which was combined with that of metaphysical cosmological speculation, led finally to a wholly different state of feeling from the latter. The optimism founded on aesthetics vanished before the "monstrum" of humanity which, infirm of will, [208] willed not and did not what at bottom it desired, and fell into the abyss of perdition. They are only a few who suffer themselves to be saved by grace. The mass is a massa perditionis, which death allures. "Woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom! Who shall stop thy course? How long will it be before thou art dried up? and whom wilt thou, O offspring of Eve, roll into the huge and hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who have climbed the tree [the Church]?" [209] The misery of the earth is unspeakable; whatever moves and cherishes an independent life upon it is its own punishment; for he who decreed sins (the ordinator peccatorum) has ordained that every sin judges itself, that every unregulated spirit is its own punishment. [210]

But from the beginning the historical Christian tradition penetrated with its influence the sequence of thoughts (on nature and grace), which the pious thinker had derived from his speculations on nature and his spiritual experience. Brought up from boyhood as a Catholic Christian, he has himself confessed that nothing ever satisfied him which did not bear the name of Christ. [211] The description of the years when he wandered in doubt is traversed as with a scarlet cord by the bond that united him with Christ. Without many words, indeed with a modest reserve, he recalls in the Confessions the relation to Christ that had never died out in him, until in VII. 24 f., he can emphasise it strongly. We cannot doubt that even those expositions of his which are apparently indifferent to the Church traditions of Christianity--on the living personal God, the distinction between God and the world, on God as Creator, on grace as the omnipotent principle--were already influenced by that tradition. And we must remember that his intense study of Paul and the Psalms began whenever, having broken with Manichæism, he had been convinced by Neoplatonism that God was a spiritual substance (spiritalis substantia). Even the expositions in the earliest writings which are apparently purely philosophical, were already dominated by the Christian conviction that God, the world, and the Ego were to be distinguished, and that room was to be made for the distinction in mystical speculation. Further, all attempts to break through the iron scheme of God's unchangeableness (in his active presence in the world) are to be explained from the impression made by Christian history upon Augustine.

However, we cannot here take in hand to show how Christ and the Church gradually obtained a fixed fundamental position in his mode of thought. His reply to Laurentius in the Enchiridion, that "Christ is the sure and peculiar foundation of the Catholic faith," (certum propriumque fidei catholicæ fundamentum Christus est), would have been made in the same terms many years before, and, indeed, though his conceptions of Christ were then still uncertain, as early as about A.D. 387. [212] Christ, the way, strength, and authority, explained for him the significance of Christ. It is very noteworthy that in the Confessions VII., 24 sq., and other passages where he brings the Christian religion into the question as to the first and last things, he does not produce general theories about revelation, but at once gives the central place to Christ and the Church. [213] The two decisive principles on which he laid stress were that the Catholic Church alone introduces us into communion with Christ, and that it is only through communion with Christ that we participate in God's grace. That is, he is only certain of the speculative conception of the idea of the good, and its real activity as love when it is proclaimed authoritatively by the Church and supported by the conception of Christ.

By the conception formed of Christ. Here a new element entered. Augustine supported, times without number, the old Western scheme of the twofold nature (utraque natura), the word and man one person (verbum et homo una persona)--(we may leave unnoticed the rare, inaccurate expressions "permixtio," "mixtura," e.g. Ep. 137, I11, 12), the form of God and form of a slave, and he contributed much to fortify this scheme in the West with its sharply defined division between what was done by the human, and what by the divine. But the unusual energy with which he rejected Apollinarianism--from his earliest to his latest writings--is enough to show that his deepest interest centred in the human soul of Jesus. The passages are extremely rare in which he adopts the same interpretation as Cyril of the confession: "the Word became flesh," and the doctrine of the deification of all human nature by the Incarnation is not represented, or, at any rate, only extremely doubtfully represented, by him. (Passages referring to it are not wholly awanting, but they arc extremely rare.) He rather explains the incarnation of the Word from another point of view, and accordingly, though he has points of contact with Origen, he describes it quite differently from the Greeks. Starting from the speculative consideration, to him a certainty, that it is always the whole Trinity that acts, and that its operation is absolutely invariable, the Incarnation was also a work of the whole Trinity. The Trinity produced the manifestation held to signify the Son (De trin. in many places). The Word (verbum) was not really more closely related than the whole Trinity to the Son. But since the Trinity could not act upon Jesus except as it always did, the uniqueness and power of the Person of Jesus Christ were to be derived from the receptiveness with which the man Jesus met the operatio divina; in other words, Augustine started from the human nature (soul) in his construction of the God-man. The human nature received the Word into its spirit; the human soul, because it acted as intermediary (medians), was also the centre of the God-man. Accordingly, the Word did not become flesh, if that be taken to mean that a transformation of any sort took place, but the divina operatio trinitatis could so work upon the human spirit of Jesus, that the Word was permanently attached to him, and was united with him to form one person. [214] This receptiveness of Jesus was, as in all other cases, caused by the election of grace; it was a gift of God (munus dei), an incomprehensible act of divine grace; nay, it was the same divine grace that forgives us our sins which led the man Jesus to form one person with the Word and made him sinless. The Incarnation thus appeared simply to be parallel to the grace which makes us willing who were unwilling, and is independent of every historical fact. [215]

But it was not so meant. While, indeed, it is here again evident, that the conception of the divine grace in Christ was, at bottom, subordinate to predestinating grace, and that the latter was independent of the former, [216] yet Augustine by no means confined himself to dealing with the ultimate grounds of his conceptions. Rather the Incarnation benefited us; the salvation bestowed was dependent on it for us "who are his members" (qui sumus membra ejus). [217] But how far? Where Augustine speaks as a Churchman, he thinks of the sacraments, the powers of faith, forgiveness and love, which were the inheritance left the Church by the God-man (see under). But where he expresses the living Christian piety which actuated him, he had three wholly distinct conceptions by which he realised that Christ, the God-man, was the rock of his faith. [218] The Incarnation was the great proof of God's love towards us; [219] the humility of God and Christ attested in it breaks down our pride and teaches us that "all goodness is made perfect in humility" (omne bonum in humilitate perficitur); the truth which was eternal is made comprehensible to us in Christ: lying in the dust we can apprehend God who redeems us by revealing himself in our lowliness.

Throughout all this we are met by the living impression of Christ's person, [220] and it is humility, which Paul also regarded as so important, that stands out as its clearest and most weighty attributes.
[221] The type of humility exhibited in majesty--this it was that overpowered Augustine: pride was sin, and humility was the sphere and force of goodness. From this he learned and implanted in the Church the new disposition of reverence for humility. The new bias which he thus gave to Christology continued to exert its influence in the Middle Ages, and displayed itself in rays of varying brilliancy and strength; although, as a consequence of the Adoptian controversy, Greek Christology once more entered in force, from the ninth century, and hindered piety from expressing its knowledge clearly in dogma. We now understand also why Augustine attached such value to the human element (homo) in Christ. This was not merely due to a consequence of his theology (see above), but it was in a much higher degree the pious view of Christ that demanded this conception. He could not realise Christ's humility with certainty in the Incarnation; for the latter sprang from the universal working of God, predestinating grace, and Jesus' receptiveness; but humility was the constant "habit" of the divino-human personality. Thus the true nature of Jesus Christ was really known: "strength is made perfect in weakness" (robur in infirmitate perficitur). That lowliness, suffering, shame, misery, and death are means of sanctification; nay, that selfless and therefore ever suffering love is the only means of sanctification ("I sanctify myself for them"); that what is great and good always appears in a lowly state, and by the power of the contrast triumphs over pride; that humility alone has an eye wherewith to see the divine; that every feeling in the good is accompanied by the sense of being pardoned--that was the very core of Augustine's Christology. He, for his part, did not drag it into the region of æsthetics, or direct the imagination to busy itself with separate visions of lowliness. No, with him it still existed wholly on the clear height of ethical thought, of modest reverence for the purport of Christ's whole life, whose splendour had been realised in humility. "Reverence for that which is beneath us is a final stage which mankind could and had to reach. But what was involved not only in despising the earth and claiming a higher birthplace, but in recognising lowliness and poverty, ridicule and contempt, shame and misery, suffering and death as divine, nay, in revering sin and transgression not as hindrances, but as furtherances of sanctification." Augustine could have written these words; for no idea was more strongly marked in his view of Christ than that he had ennobled what we shrank from--shame, pain, sorrow, death--and had stripped of value what we desired--success, honour, enjoyment. "By abstinence he rendered contemptible all that we aimed at, and because of which we lived badly. By his suffering he disarmed what we fled from. No single sin can be committed if we do not desire what he despised, or shirk what he endured."

But Augustine did not succeed in reducing this conception of the person of Christ to dogmatic formulas. Can we confine the sun's ray in a bucket? He held by the old formulas as forming an element of tradition and as expressing the uniqueness of Christ; but to him the true foundation of the Church was Christ, because he knew that the impression made by his character had broken down his own pride, and had given him the power to find God in lowliness and to apprehend him in humility. Thus the living Christ had become to him the truth [222] and the way to blessedness, and he who was preached by the Church his authority. [223]

But what is the beatific fatherland, the blessed life, to which Christ is the way and the strength? We have already discussed it (p. 91 f.), and we need only here mention a few additional points.

The blessed life is eternal peace, the constant contemplation of God in the other world. [224] Knowledge remains man's goal; even the notion of the enjoyment of God (fruitio dei), or that other of heavenly peace, does not certainly divert us from it. [225] Knowledge, is, however, contrasted with action, and the future state is wholly different from the present. From this it follows that Augustine retained the popular Catholic feeling that directed men in this life wholly to hope, asceticism, and the contemplation [of God] in worship, for though that can never be attained in this world which the future will bring, yet life here must be regulated by the state which will be enjoyed afterwards. Hence Augustine championed monachism and opposed Jovinian so decidedly; hence he regarded the world in the same light as the ancient Catholic Fathers; hence he valued as highly as they did the distinction between precepts and counsels; hence he never looked even on the highest blessings (munera dei) which we can here enjoy as containing the reality, but only a pledge and similitude; for set in the sphere of the transitory they were themselves transitory; hence, finally, he did not think of the earthly Church when seeking to realise the first and last things, for God alone, constantly seen and enjoyed, was the supreme blessing; and even the divine kingdom, so far as it was earthly, was transitory.

But even here much that was new emerged in the form of undercurrents, and the old was modified in many respects, a few details being almost set aside. It is therefore easy to point to numerous dissonances in Augustine's idea of the goal; but he who does not criticise like an irresponsible critic or impartial logician will admit that he knows no more than Augustine, and that he also cannot do better than alternate between different points of view. Let us pick out the following points in detail.

1. Augustine put an end to the doubt whether virtue was not perhaps the supreme good; he reduced virtues to dependance on God--to grace; see Ep. 155, 12 sq. [226] He, indeed, re-admitted the thought at a new and higher stage--merits called forth by grace, righteousness made perfect by love. But the mood at any rate is changed.

2. Augustine did not follow the lead of the Greek Church: he did not cultivate systematic mysticism with a view to the future state, or regard and treat the cultus as a means by which to anticipate deification. He set aside the elements of physical magic in religious doctrine, and by this means spiritualised the ideas of the other world. The ascetic life of the churchman was to be spiritual and moral. Statements, indeed, are not wholly wanting in his works to the effect that eternal life can be experienced in ecstatic visions in this world; but he is thinking then especially of Biblical characters (Paul), and in the course of his Christian development he thrust the whole conception more and more into the background.

3. Augustine's profound knowledge of the will, and his perception of the extent to which the latter swayed even knowledge, led to his discovery of the principle, that goodness and blessing, accordingly also final salvation, coincided in the dependance of the will on God. By this means he broke through intellectualism, and a superlative blessing was shown to exist even in this world. "It is a good thing for me to cleave to God." This "cleaving" is produced by the Holy Spirit, and he thereby imparts love and blessedness to the heart. [227] In presence of the realisation of this blessedness, the antithesis of time and eternity, life and death, disappears. [228]

4. Starting from this, he arrived at a series of views which necessarily exerted a powerful influence on the popular frame of mind.

(a) Of the three virtues, graces, by which man clings to God--faith, love, and hope--love continues to exist in eternity. Accordingly, love, unchanging and grateful, connects this world with the next.

(b) Thereby, however, the quietism of knowledge is also modified. Seeing is to be nothing but loving; an element of adjustment of all discords in feeling and will is introduced into the notion of blessedness, and although "rational contemplation" (contemplatio rationalis) is always ranked above "rational action" (actio rationalis), a high value is always attached to practical and active love. [229]

(c) A higher meaning was now given, not indeed to the earthly world, but to the earthly Church and its peculiar privileges (within it) in this world. The idea of the city of God on earth, formulated long before by others, was yet, as we shall see in the next section, first raised by Augustine into the sphere of religious thought. In front of the Holy of Holies, the first and last things, he beheld, as it were, a sanctuary, the Church on earth, with the blessings granted it by God. He saw that it was a self-rewarding task, nay, a sacred duty, to cherish this sanctuary, to establish it in the world, to rank it higher than worldly ties, and to devote to it all earthly goods, in order again to receive them from it as legitimate possessions. He thus, following, indeed, the impulses given by the Western tradition, also created, if we may use so bold a phrase, a religion of the second order. But this second-order religion, was not, as in the case of the Greeks, the formless creation of a superstitious cultus. It was on the contrary a doctrine which dealt with the Church in its relation to the world as an active and moral power transforming and governing society, as an organism, in which Christ was actively present, of the sacraments, of goodness and righteousness. Ecclesiasticism and theology were meant to be thoroughly united, the former serving the latter, the one like Martha, the other like Mary. [230] They ministered to the same object, and righteousness made perfect by love was the element in which both lived. [231]

(d) While the ascetic life remained the ideal for the individual, Augustine modified the popular tendency also in monachism by never forgetting, with all his appreciation of external works (poverty, virginity, etc.), that faith, hope, and charity were alone of decisive importance, and that therefore the worth of the man who possessed these virtues might no longer be determined by his outward performances. He knew, besides, better than anyone else, that external works might be accomplished with a godless heart--not only by heretical monks, where this was self-evident, but also by Catholics, Ep., 78, 79, and, uniting ascetics as closely as possible to the Church, he urged them to engage in active work. Here, again, we see that he broke through the barren system which made blessedness consist in contemplatio rationalis and that alone.

This is, in brief, Augustine's doctrine of the first and last things, together with indications that point to that sphere which belongs though not directly yet indirectly to those things, viz., the equipment and tasks of the Church in our present state. "Doctrine" of the first and last things is really an incorrect expression; for, and this is the supreme thing to be said in closing the subject, it was not to him a matter of "doctrine," but of the faithful reproduction of his experiences. The most thorough-going modification by Augustine of traditional dogmatic Christianity consisted in his perception "that Christianity is ultimately different from everything called doctrine'" (Reuter, p. 494). The law is doctrine; the gospel is power. The law produces enlightenment; the gospel peace. This Augustine clearly perceived, and thereby set religion in the sphere of a vital, spiritual experience, while he disassociated it from knowledge and inference. He once more, indeed, placed his newly-discovered truth on the plane of the old; for he was a Catholic Christian; but the connection with the past which belongs to every effective reformer need not prevent us from exhibiting his originality. Anyone who seeks to give effect to the "whole" Augustine and the "whole" Luther is suspected of seeking to evade the "true" Augustine and the "true" Luther; for what man's peculiarity and strength are fully expressed in the breadth of all he has said and done? One or two glorious passages from Augustine should show, in conclusion, that he divested the Christian religion of what is called "doctrine" or "dogma." "I possess nothing but will; I know nothing but that what is fleeting and transitory ought to be despised, and what is certain and eternal ought to be sought for. . . . If those who flee to thee find thee by faith, grant faith; if by virtue, grant virtue; if by knowledge, grant knowledge. Increase in me faith, hope, love." "But we say that man's will is divinely aided to do what is righteous, so that, besides his creation with free-will, and besides the doctrine by which he is taught how he should live, man receives the Holy Spirit in order that there may be created in his mind, even now when he still walks by faith, and not by appearance, the delight in and love of that supreme and unchangeable good which is God; in order that this pledge, as it were, having been given him of the free gift, a man may fervently long to cling to his Creator, and be inflamed with desire to enter into the participation of that true light, that he may receive good from him from whom he has his being. For if the way of truth be hidden, free-will is of no use except for sinning, and when that which ought to be done, or striven for, begins to reveal itself, nothing is done, or undertaken, and the good life is not lived, unless it delights and is loved. But that it may be loved, the love of God is diffused in our hearts, not by free choice emanating from ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit given unto us." "What the law of works commands by threatening, the law of faith effects by believing. This is the wisdom which is called piety, by which the father of lights is worshipped, by whom every excellence is given, and every gift made perfect. . . . By the law of works God says: Do what I command; by the law of faith we say to God: Grant what thou commandest. . . . We have not received the spirit of this world, says the most constant preacher of grace, but the spirit which is from God, that we may know what things have been granted us by God. But what is the spirit of this world but the spirit of pride? . . . Nor are they deceived by any other spirit, who, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, are not subject to God's righteousness. Whence it seems to me that he is a son of faith who knows from whom he hopes to receive what he does not yet possess, rather than he who attributes to himself what he has. We conclude that a man is not justified by the letter, but by the spirit, not by the merits of his deeds, but by free grace." [232] __________________________________________________________________

[168] Augustine taught that it was only possible to obtain a firm grasp of the highest questions by earnest and unwearied independent labour. Herein above all did his greatness consist.

[169] Compare with what follows, Siebeck, in the Ztschr. f. Philos. and philos. Kritik, 1888, p. 170 ff.

[170] See the Appendix on Neoplatonism, Vol. I., p. 336 ff.

[171] The method of the Neoplatonists was still very uncertain, and this is connected, among other things, with their polytheism. It is easy to show that Augustine went so much further in psychology because he was a monotheist. So far as I know we are still, unfortunately, without any investigation of the importance of monotheism for psychology.

[172] See the excellent parallel between them in Siebeck, l.c. p. 188 f.: "Among the important personalities of Antiquity two could hardly be found with characters so different as Aristotle and Augustine. In the former we have the Greek, restful and clear, and yet moved by energetic warmth of thought, who gives its purest scientific expression to the Hellenic ideal of the life of the cultured, contentment with the even and constant advance of the life of the thinker, examining the depths and wants of the soul, only in so far as they appear on the surface, in the external nature and garb of the affections, and discussing this whole domain, not properly in order to know the heart, but only for rhetorical purposes. The internal world of the soul is here described and criticised only in so far as it evinces itself in reciprocal action with the external, and in the form it assumes as determined by the co-operation of the latter. For the comprehensive and final problem with Aristotle is the scientific construction and form of the external world in nature and social life. Augustine's tendency and frame of mind are quite the opposite. The external owes all its importance and value in his eyes to the form it assumes as reflected in the internal. Everything is dominated not by problems of nature and the State and secular ethics, but by those of the deepest wants of mind and heart, of love and faith, hope and conscience. The proper objects and the moving forces of his speculation are not found in the relation of inward to outward, but of inner to innermost, to the sense and vision of God in the heart. Even the powers of the intellect are looked at from a new point of view, owing to the influence exerted on them by the heart and will, and they lose, in consequence, their claim to sole supremacy in scientific thought. The cool analysis made by Aristotle of the external world, which also dissected and discriminated between the states of the soul, as if they were objects that existed externally, disappears in Augustine before the immediate experience and feeling of states and processes of the emotional life; but the fact that he presents them to us with the warmest personal interest in them, entirely prevents us from feeling the absence of the Aristotelian talent of acuteness in analytical dissection. While Aristotle avoids all personal and individual colouring in his views, and labours everywhere to let the matter in hand speak for itself, Augustine, even when bringing forward investigations of the most general purport, always speaks as if only of himself, the individual, to whom his personal feelings and sensations are the main thing. He is a priori certain that they must have a farther reaching meaning, since feeling and wishing are found to be similar potencies in every human heart. Questions of ethics, which Aristotle handles from the standpoint of the relation of man to man, appear in Augustine in the light of the relations between his own heart and that of this known and felt God. With the former the supreme decision is given by clear perception of the external by reason; with the latter, by the irresistible force of the internal, the conviction of feeling, which in his case--as is given in such perfection to few--is fused with the penetrating light of the intellect. . . . Aristotle knows the wants of the inner life only so far as they are capable of developing the life, supported by energetic effort and philosophic equanimity, in and with society. He seems to hold that clear thinking and restfully energetic activity prevent all suffering and misfortune to society or the individual. The deeper sources of dispeace, of pain of soul, of unfulfilled wants of the heart, remain dark in his investigation. Augustine's significance begins just where the problem is to trace the unrest of the believing or seeking soul to its roots, and to make sure of the inner facts in which the heart can reach its rest. Even the old problems which he reviews and examines in their whole extent and meaning from the standpoint of his rich scientific culture, now appear in a new light. Therefore he can grasp, and, at the same time, deepen everything which has come to him from Hellenism. For Aristotle, everything that the intellect can see and analyse in the inner and outer world constitutes a problem; for Augustine, that holds the chief place which the life of feeling and desire forces on him as a new fact added to his previous knowledge. In the one case it is the calm, theoretical mind; in the other, the conscience excited by the unrest caused by love of God and consciousness of sin, from which the questions spring. But along with this, scientific interest also turned to a wholly novel side of actual life. No wonder that the all-sufficiency of the dissecting and abstracting intellect had its despotism limited. The intellect was now no longer to create problems, but to receive them from the depths of the world of feeling, in order then to see what could be made of them. Nor was it to continue to feel supremacy over the will, but rather the influence to which it was subject from it. The main subject of its reflections was to consist, henceforth, not in the external world, nor in the internal discussed by means of analogy with, and the method of, the external, but in the kernel of personality, conscience in connection with emotion and will. Only from this point might it return, in order to learn to understand them anew, to previous views of the inner and outer life. Aristotle, the Greek, was only interested in the life of the soul, in so far as it turned outward and helped to fathom the world theoretically and practically; Augustine, the first modern man (the expression occurs also in Sell, Aus der Gesch. des Christenthums, 1888, p. 43; I had already used it years ago), only took it into consideration, in so far as reflection upon it enabled him to conceive the inner character of personal life as something really independent of the outer world." Aristotle and Augustine are the two rivals who contended in the science and tendency of the following centuries. Both, as a rule, were indeed degraded, Aristotle to empty distinctions and categories, and a hide-bound dogmatism, Augustine to a mysticism floating in all conceivable media, having lost the guidance of a sure observation of the inner nature. Even in the Pelagians Augustine energetically opposed Aristotelian rationalism, and his controversy with them was repeated over and over again in after ages. In the history of religion it was a fight between a really irreligious, theologically, labelled morality and religion; for even in its classical form, Aristotelianism is a morality without religion.

[173] All Christian Hellenistic thinkers before Augustine were still refined polytheists, or, more correctly, the polytheistic element was not wholly eradicated in their case, seeing that they preserved a part of nature-religion. This is most evident among Origen's successors.

[174]
Weh! Weh!
Du hast sie zerstört,
Die schöne Welt,
Mit mächtiger Faust;
Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!
Ein Halbgott hat sie zerschlagen!
Wir tragen
Die Trümmer ins Nichts hinüber
Und klagen
Ueber die verlorene Schöne.
Prächtiger baue sie wieder,
In deinem Busen baue sie auf!

[175] Compare even the state of feeling of Petrarch and the other Humanists.

[176] Soliloq., I. 7. Deum et animam scire cupio. Nihilne plus? Nihil omnino. In the knowledge of God was also included that of the Cosmus, see Scipio, Metaphysik, p. 14 ff.

[177] Playing with husks and shells disgusted Augustine; he longed for facts, for the knowledge of actual forces.

[178] Augustine became a Manichæan because he did not get past the idea that the Catholic doctrine held God to be the originator of sin.

[179] Confess., VII. 16: "Audivi (verba Ego sum qui sum) sicut auditur in corde, et non erat prorsus unde dubitarem; faciliusque dubitarem vivere me, quam non esse veritatem (VI., 5).

[180] Suggestions in Confess., VII. 13-16, 23. Here is described the intellectual "exercise" of the observation of the mutabilia leading to the incommutabile. "Et pervenit cogitatio ad id quod est, in ictu trepidantis aspectus. Tunc vero invisibilia tua, per ea quæ facta sunt, intellecta conspexi (this now becomes his dominant saying); sed aciem figere non valui: et repercussa infirmitate redditus solitis, non mecum ferebam nisi amantem memoriam et quasi olfacta desiderantem (quite as in Plotinus) quæ comedere nondum possem," VIII. 1. But again in his famous dialogue (IX. 23-25), with his mother in Ostia, a regular Neoplatonic "exercise" is really described which ends with ecstasy (attigimus veritatem modice toto ictu cordis"). We afterwards meet extremely seldom with anything of the same kind in Augustine; on the other hand, the anti-Manichæan writings still show many echoes ("se rapere in deum," "rapi in deum," "volitare," "amplexus dei"). Reuter says rightly (p. 472) that these are unusual expressions, only occurring exceptionally. But he must have forgotten the passages in the Confessions when he adds that no instructions are given as to the method to be followed.

[181] Confess., VII. 7: "Ubi ergo malum et unde et qua huc irrepsit? Quæ radix ejus et quo semen ejus? An omnino non est? Cur ergo timemus et cavemus quod non est? Aut si inaniter timemus, certe vel timor ipse malum est . . . et tanto gravius malum, quanto non est quod timeamus. Idcirco aut est malum quod timemus, aut hoc malum est quia timemus."

[182] De trinit., XIII. 3: "Cum propterea credere jubeamur, quia id quod credere jubemur, videre non possumus, ipsam tamen fidem, quando inest in nobis, videmus in nobis."

[183] As regards memory, association of ideas, synthetic activity of spontaneous thought, ideality of the categories, a priori functions, "determinant" numbers, synthesis of reproduction in the imagination, etc. Of course all this is only touched on by him; we have, as it were, merely flashes of it in his works; see Siebeck, 1.c. p. 179. He has applied his observations on self-consciousness in his speculation on the Trinity.

[184] He meant by this the legitimate striving after self-assertion, after Being, which he attributed to all organic, nay, even to inorganic, things; see De civ. dei, XI., 28.

[185] This is the most important advance in perception.

[186] See Siebeck l.c. p. 181 f.; Hamma in the Tüb. Theol. Quartalschr., vol. 55, pp. 427 ff. 458; Kahl, Primat des Willens, p. 1 f. Augustine's psychology of the will is undoubtedly rooted in indeterminism; but in his concrete observations he becomes a determinist.

[187] They have all besides a practical object, i.e., they correspond to a definite form of the pious contemplation of the divine, and a definite relation to it (a definite self-criticism). For details of the theology, see Dorner, Augustin, pp. 5-112.

[188] In Confess. VII. 16, he could now put the triumphant question: "Numquid nihil est veritas, quoniam neque per finita, neque per infinita locorum spatia diffusa est."

[189] Not common light; "non hoc illa erat; sed aliud, aliud valde ab istis omnibus. Nec ita erat supra mentem meam sicut oleum super aquam, nec sicut coelum super terram, sed superior, quia ipsa fecit me, et ego inferior, quia factus sum ab ea. Qui novit veritatem novit eam, et qui novit eam, novit æternitatem. Caritas novit eam. O æterna veritas, et vera caritas, et cara æternitas! tu es deus meus; tibi suspiro die ac nocte." (Confess. VII. I6.) Further the magnificently reproduced reflection, IX. 23-25, De Trin. IV. 1. By being, Augustine did not understand a vacuous existence, but being full of life, and he never doubted that being was better than not-being. De civit. dei, XI. 26: "Et sumus et nos esse novimus et id esse ac nosse diligimus." The triad, "esse, scire, amare" was to him the supreme thing; he never thought of the possibility of glorifying not-being after the fashion of Buddhism or Schopenhauer.

[190] We cannot here discuss Augustine's cosmology more fully (see the works by Gangauf and Scipio). His reflections on life and the gradation of organic and inorganic ("ordo, species, modus") were highly important to later philosophy and theology, and especially continued to exert an influence in mediæval mysticism. So also the view that evil and good are necessary elements in the artistic composition of the world continued to make its presence actively felt in the same quarter. Yet--as in Augustine--the idea of the privative significance of evil always preponderated.

[191] This expression is frequent in all his writings. Even utterances like ";vita vitæ meæ," etc., have at first an acosmic meaning, but, of course, were given a deeper sense by Augustine.

[192] Augustine never lost his optimistic joy in life in the sense of the true life, as is proved in his work, De civit. dei; but in contrasting the moods caused by contemplation of the world--æsthetic joy in the Cosmus, and sorrow over the world perverted by sin--the latter prevailed. Existence never became to Augustine a torment in itself, but that existence did which condemned itself to not-being, bringing about its own ruin.

[193] Where Augustine put the question of creation in the form, "How is the unity of being related to plurality of manifestation?" the notion of creation is really always eliminated. But he never entirely gave up this way of putting the question; for, at bottom, things possess their independence only in their manifestation, while, in so far as they exist, they form the ground of knowledge for the existence of God. But besides this, Augustine still asserted vigorously the creatio ex nihilo ("omnes naturæ ex deo, non de deo," De nat. bon. c. Manich., I.). See note 4, p. 120.

[194] He discovered these, and inspired hundreds of mystics after him. We have no right to deny that this contemplative view of being, not-being, and the harmony of being evolving itself in the phenomenal, is also a sphere of piety.

[195] We have the most profound description of this state in Confess. VIII, 17-26; Augustine calls it a "monstrum" (monstrous phenomenon). He solves the problem disclosed, in so far as it is capable of solution, not by an appeal to the enslaved will, accordingly not by the "non possumus," but as an indeterminist by the reflection, "non ex toto volumus, non ergo ex toto [nobis] imperamus." (21), "I was afraid that Thou mightest soon hear me, and heal me of the sickness of lust, whose satisfaction I wished more than its eradication. . . . And I was deluded, therefore I put off following Thee alone from day to day, because I had not yet seen any certain aim for my striving. And now the day was at hand, and the voice of my conscience exhorted me: Didst thou not say thou wouldst not cast the vain burden from thee, only because the truth was still uncertain? Behold now thou art certain of the truth, but (thou wilt not).' . . . The way to union with God, and the attainment of the goal, coincide with the will to reach this goal, though, indeed, only with the determined and pure will. . . . And thus during this inner fever and irresoluteness I was wont to make many movements with my body, which can only be performed when the will makes definite resolves, and become impossible if the corresponding limbs are wanting, or are fettered, worn out, asleep, or hindered in any way. If, e.g., I tore a hair out, beat my brow, or embraced my knee with folded hands, I did it because I willed it. But I might have willed and not done it, if the power of motion in my limbs had forsaken me. So many things, then, I did in a sphere, where to will was not the same as to be able. And yet I did not that which both I longed incomparably more to do, and which I could do whenever I really earnestly willed it; because, as soon as I had willed it, I had really already made it mine in willing. For in these things the ability was one with the will, and really to resolve was to do. And yet, in my case, it was not done; and more readily did my body obey the weakest willing of my soul, in moving its limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed itself where it was called upon to realise its great desire by a simple effort of the will. How is such a prodigy possible, and what is its reason? The soul commands the body, and it obeys instantly; the soul commands itself, and is resisted. The soul commands the hand to be moved, and it is done so promptly that command and performance can scarcely be distinguished; and yet the soul is spirit, but the hand is a member of the body. The soul commands the soul itself to an act of will; it is its own command, yet it does not carry it out. How is such a prodigy possible, and what is its reason? The soul commands an act of will, I say; its command consists simply in willing; and yet that command is not carried out. Sed non ex toto vult; non ergo ex toto imperat. Nam in tantum imperat, in quantum vult, et in tantum non fit quod imperat, in quantum non vult. Quoniam voluntas imperat ut sit voluntas, nec alia sed ipsa. Non itaque plena imperat ideo non est quod imperat. Nam si plena esset, nec imperaret ut esset, quia jam esset. Non igitur monstrum partim velle, partim nolle, sed ægritudo animi est, quia non totus assurgit, veritate sublevatus, consuetudine prægravatus. Et ideo sunt duæ voluntates, quia una earum tota non est, et hoc adest alteri quod deest alteri."

[196] "What ought to be? How cannot the inner nature exhibit itself by reflection, but can by action?" (Scipio, Metaphysik des Aug., p. 7.) Augustine was the first to put this question clearly. "Antiquity conceived the whole of life, we might say, in a naïve fashion from the standpoint of science: the spiritual appeared as natural, and virtue as a natural force.

[197] Augustine indeed could further explain why the form, in which the good takes possession of and delivers the soul, must consist in the infusion of love. So long as the soul along with its will is confronted by duty (an ought), and commands itself to obey, it has not completely appropriated the good; "nam si plena esset, nec imperaret ut esset, quia jam esset" (Confess. VIII. 21). Accordingly, the fact that it admits the duty, does not yet create an effective will ex toto. It must accordingly so love what it ought, that it no longer needs command itself; nay, duty (the ought) must be its only love; only then is it plena in voluntate bona. The "abyssus corruptionis nostræ" is only exhausted when by love we "totum illud, quod volebamus nolumus et totum illud, quod deus vult, volumus (Confess. IX. 1).

[198] Confess. VII. 18: "Malum si substantia esset, bonum esset. Aut enim esset incorruptibilis substantia, magnum utique bonum; aut substantia corruptibilis esset, quæ nisi bona esset, corrumpi non posset." But since evil thus always exists in a good substance (more accurately: springs from the had will of the good substance), it is absolutely inexplicable; see e.g., De civitat. dei, XII. 7: "Nemo igitur quærat efficientem causam malæ voluntatis; non enim est efficiens sed deficiens (that is, the aspiration after nothing, after the annulling of life, constitutes the content of the bad will), quia nec illa effectio sed defectio. Deficere namque ab eo, quod summe est, ad id, quod minus est, hoc est incipere habere voluntatem malam. Causas porro defectionum istarum, cum efficientes non sint, ut dixi, sed deficientes, velle invenire tale est, ac si quisquam velit videre tenebras vel audire silentium, quod tamen utrumque nobis notum est, neque illud nisi per oculos, neque hoc nisi per aures, non sane in specie, sed in speciei privatione. Nemo ergo ex me scire quærat, quod me nescire scio, nisi forte, ut nescire discat, quod scire non posse sciendum est. Ea quippe quæ non in specie, sed in ejus privatione sciuntur, si dici aut intellegi potest quodammodo nesciendo sciuntur, ut sciendo nesciantur."

[199] Augustine says of love (De civ. XI. 28), that we not only love its objects, but itself. "Amor amatur, et hinc probamus, quod in hominibus, qui rectius amantur, ipse magis amatur." This observation led him to see God everywhere in love. As God is in all being, so is he also in love; nay, his existence in being is ultimately identical with his existence in love. Therefore love is beginning, middle, and end. It is the final object of theological thought, and the fundamental form of true spiritual life. "Caritas inchoata inchoata justitia est; caritas provecta provecta justitia est; caritas magna magna justitia est; caritas perfecta perfecta justitia est" (De nat. et grat. 84). But since in life in general voluntas = caritas (De trin. XV. 38): "quid est aliud caritas quam voluntas?", we here find once more the profound connection between ethics and psychology.

[200] Augustine's ability to unite the Neoplatonic ontological speculation with the results of his examination of the practical spiritual life was due inter alia especially to his complete abstinence, in the former case, from accepting ritualistic elements, or from introducing into his speculation matter taken from the Cultus and the religion of the second order. If at first the stage of spiritual development which he occupied (when outside the Church), of itself protected him from admitting these deleterious elements, yet it was a conspicuous and hitherto unappreciated side of his greatness that he always kept clear of ritualistic mysticism. Thereby he rendered an invaluable service not only to his disciples in mysticism, but to the whole Western Church.

[201] De doctr. christ., I., 3 sq.

[202] See Confess., VII. 24: "et qæerebam viam comparandi roboris quod esset idoneum ad fruendum te, etc.," 26: "certus quidem in istis eram, nimis taken infirmus ad fruendum te."

[203] Augustine has often repeated the old Platonic assertion of the impossibility of defining the nature of God, and that not always with a feeling of dissatisfaction, but as an expression of romantic satisfaction ("ineffabilis simplex natura"; "facilius dicimus quid non sit, quam quod sit"). He contributed much, besides, to the relative elucidation of negative definitions and of properties and accidents, and created scholastic terminology; see especially De trinit., XV. He is the father of Western theological dialectic: but also the inventor of the dialectic of the pious consciousness. From the anti-Manichæan controversy sprang the desire to conceive all God's separate attributes as identical, i.e., the interest in the indivisibility of God--God is essence, not substance; for the latter cannot be thought of without accidents; see De trinit., VII., 10; and this interest went so far as to hold that even habere and esse coincided in God (De civ., X1. 10: "ideo simplex dicitur quoniam quod habet hoc est"). In order to guard God from corruptibilitas, compositeness of any sort was denied. But, at this point, Augustine had, nevertheless, to make a distinction in God, in order to discriminate the divine world-plan from him, and not to fall completely into Pantheism. (The latter is stamped on many passages in the work De trinit., see e.g., IV., 3, "Quia unum verbum dei est, per quod facta sunt omnia, quod est incommutabilis veritas, ibi principaliter atque incommutabiliter sunt omnia simul, et omnia vita sunt et omnia unum sunt.") But since he always harked to the conviction that being, and wisdom, and goodness, are identical in God, he did not reach what he aimed at. This difficulty increased still further for him, where he combined speculation as to the nature of God with that regarding the Trinity. (Dorner, p. 22 ff.) It is seen most clearly in the doctrine of the divine world-plan. It always threatens to submerge the world in the Son as a unity, and to take away its difference (it is wrong, however--at least for the period after c., A.D. 400--to say conversely that the intelligible world is for Augustine identical with the Son, or is the Son). The vacillation is continued in the doctrine of creation. But Dorner (p. 40 f.) is wrong when he says: "Augustine had no conception as yet that the notion of causality, clearly conceived, is sufficient to establish the distinction between God and the world." Augustine had undoubtedly no such conception, but this time it is not he, but Dorner, who shows his simplicity. The notion of causality, "clearly conceived," can never establish a distinction, but only a transformation. If he had meant to give expression to the former, he required to introduce more into the cause than the effect; that is, it was necessary to furnish the cause with properties and powers which did not pass into the causatum (effect). But this already means that the scheme of cause and effect is inadequate to establish the difference. Augustine, certainly, had no clear conception of such a thing; but he felt that mere causality was useless. He adopted the expedient of calling in "nihil" (nothing) to his aid, the negation: God works in nothing. This "nothing" was the cause of the world not being a transformation or evolution of God, but of its appearing as an inferior or irridescent product, which, because it is a divina operatio, exists (yet not independently of God), and which, so far as independent, does not exist, since its independence resides in the nihil. The sentence "mundus de nihilo a deo factus"--the root principle of Augustinian cosmology--is ultimately to be taken dualistically; but the dualism is concealed by the second element consisting in negation, and therefore only revealing itself in the privative form (of mutability, transitoriness). But in the end the purely negative character of the second element cannot be absolutely retained (Augustine never, certainly, identified it with matter); it purported to be absolute impotence, but combined with the divine activity it became the resisting factor, and we know how it does resist in sin. Accordingly, the question most fatal to Augustine would have been: Who created this nothing? As a matter of fact this question breaks down the whole construction. Absurd as it sounds, it is justified. Augustine cannot explain negation with its determinative power existing side by side with the divina operatio; for it is no explanation to say that it did not exist at all, since it merely had negative effects. Yet theory, sometimes acosmic, sometimes dualistic, in form, is everywhere corrected in Augustine, whether by the expression of a wise nescience, or by faith in God as Father. The criticism here used has been attacked by Loofs (R.-Encykl. 3, Vol. II., p. 271). We have to admit that it goes more deeply into the reason of his views than Augustine's words require. But I do not believe that the statement given by Loofs is adequate: "God so created his creatures from nothing that some are less fair, less good than others, and, therefore, have less being (esse)." Could Augustine have actually contented himself with these facts without asking whence this "less"?

[204] Enchirid. 3.

[205] See Vol. IV., p. 129 ff. I do not enter further into the doctrine of the Trinity, but remark that the term "tres personæ" was very fatal to Augustine, and that all his original efforts in dealing with the Trinity lead away from cosmical and hypercosmical plurality to conceptions that make it express inner, spiritual self-movement in the one God.

[206] Cum autem initio fidei quæ per dilectionem operatur imbuta mens fuerit, tendit bene vivendo etiam ad speciem pervenire, ubi est sanctis et perfectis cordibus nota ineffabilis pulchritudo, cujus plena visio est summa felicitas. Hoc est nimirum quod requiris, "quid primum, quid ultimum teneatur," inchoari fide, perfici specie.

[207] We may here touch briefly on the question several times recently discussed, as to the supremacy of the will in Augustine. Kahl has maintained it. But Siebeck (1.c. 183 f.) has with reason rejected it; (see also my notice of Kahl's book in the ThLZ., 1886, No. 25); and Kahl has himself to admit "that at the last stage of knowledge Neoplatonic intellectualism, which explains volition away in view of thought, has frequently traversed the logical consequences of Augustine's standpoint." But it is just the last stage that decides. On the other hand, Kahl is quite right in appreciating so highly the importance of the will in Augustine. The kernel of our nature exists indisputably according to Augustine in our will; therefore, in order that the veritas, the scire deum et animam may be able to obtain supremacy, and become, as it were, the unique function of man, the will must be won on its behalf. This takes place through God's grace, which leads the soul to will and love spiritual truth, i.e., God. Only now is it rendered possible for the intellect to assume supremacy. Accordingly the freeing of the will is ultimately the substitution of the supremacy of the intellect for that of the will. (Compare, e.g., the passage Confess. IX. 24: "regio ubertatis indeficientis, ubi pascis Israel in æternum veritatis pabulo, et ubi vita sapientia est"; but for this life it holds true that "sapientia hominis pietas.") Yet in so far as the supremacy of the intellect could not maintain itself without the amor essendi et sciendi, the will remains the co-efficient of the intellect even in the highest sphere. That is, briefly, Augustine's view of the relation of the will and intellect. It explains why the return to Augustine in the Middle Ages brought about the complete subordination of the intellect to the will; for Augustine himself so presented the case that no inner state and no activity of thought existed apart front the will. But if that were so, Augustine's opinion, that the vision (visio) of God was the supreme goal, could not but in the end pass away. It was necessary to demonstrate a goal which corresponded to the assured fact that man was will (see Duns Scotus).

[208] See De civit. dei, XIV. 3 sq.; it is not the body (sensuousness) that is the ultimate cause of sin.

[209] Confess. I. 25: Væ tibi flumen moris humani? quis resistet tibi? quamdiu non siccaberis? quosque volves Evæ, filius in mare magnum et formidolosum, quod vix transeunt qui lignum [ecclesiam] conscenderint?

[210] There is a wonderful contrast in Augustine between the profound pessimistic view of the world, and the conception, strictly held in theory, that everything takes place under the uniform and unchangeable activity of God. What a difference between the statement of the problem and the result! And in order to remove this difference the metaphysician refers us to the--nothing. The course of the world is so confidently regarded as caused in whole and in detail by God, nay, is, as it were, taken up into the unchangeableness of God himself, that even miracles are only conceived to be events contrary to nature as known to us (Genes. ad lit. VI. 13; cf. De civ. X. 12; XXI. 1-8; nothing happens against nature; the world is itself the greatest, nay, the sole miracle; see Nitzsch, Aug's Lehre v. Wunder, 1865; Dorner, p. 71 f.), and yet everything shapes itself into a vast tragedy. In this nothing there still indeed lurks in Augustine a part of Manichæism; but in his vital view of the world it is not the "nothing" which plays a part, but the sin of wicked pleasure--self-will.

[211] Confess. III. 8; V. 25; etc.
[212] See the avowals in Confess. VII. 25.

[213] Naturally, general investigations are not wanting of the nature of revelation as a whole, its relation to ratio, its stages (punishment of sin, law, prophecy), etc., but they have no secure connection with his dogmatics; they are dependant on the occasions that called them forth, and they are not clearly thought out. In any case, however, so many elements are found in them which connect them with Greek speculations, and in turn others which exerted a powerful influence at a later date (see Abelard), that one or two references are necessary (cf. Schmidt, Origenes and Aug. als Apolegeten in the Jahrbb. f. deutsche Theol. VIII.; Böhringer, p. 204 ff.; Reuter, p. 90 f., 350 ff., 400). Augustine occupies himself here, as always, with a problem whose factors ultimately do not admit of being reconciled. On the one hand, he never gave up the lofty appreciation of reason (ratio), of independent knowledge, in which being and life are embraced. Originally (in his first period, after A.D. 385), although he had already seen the importance of auctoritas, he set up as the goal of the ratio the overcoming of auctoritas, which required to precede it only for a time (De ord. II., 26, 27). "Ratio was to him the organ in which God reveals himself to man, and in which man perceives God." In after times this thought was never given up; but it was limited by the distinction between subjective and objective reason, by the increasing perception of the extent of the influence exerted on human mason by the will, by the assumption that one consequence of original sin was ignorance, and, finally, by the view that while knowledge, due to faith, would always be uncertain here below, the soul longed after the real, i.e., the absolute and absolutely sure, knowledge. The latter alone superseded ratio as the organ by which God is known, as guide to the vita beata; the other limitations were limitations pure and simple. And the constancy with which, in spite of these, Augustine at all times valued ratio is proved by those striking expositions, which occur in his earliest and latest writings, of Christianity as the disclosure of the one true religion which had always existed. The whole work De civitate dei is, indeed, built upon this thought--the civitas dei not being first created by the appearance of Christ--which, indeed, has two other roots besides Rationalism, namely, the conception of the absolute immutability of God, and the intention to defend Christianity and its God against Neoplatonic and pagan attacks. (The first two roots, as can be easily shown, are reducible ultimately to one single conception. The apologetic idea is of quite a different kind. Christianity is held to be as old as the world, in order that the reproach of its late arrival may fall to the ground. Here the wholly incongruous idea is introduced that Christians before Christ had believed on his future appearance. Reuter has shown excellently (p. 90 ff.) how even the particularist doctrine of pre-destination has its share in the universalist and humanist conception; he also deserves the greatest gratitude for collecting the numerous passages in which that conception is elaborated.) Even before the appearance of Christ the civitas dei existed; to it belonged pagans and Jews. Christianity is as old as the world. It is the natural religion which has existed from the beginning under various forms and names. Through Christ it received the name of the Christian religion; "res ipsa quæ nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis humani, quousque ipse Christus venit in carne, unde vera religio, quæ jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana" (Retract. I., 12, 3); see especially Ep. 102 and De civit. XVIII., 47, where the incongruous thought is inserted that the unus mediator was revealed to the heathens who belonged to the heavenly Jerusalem in the earliest time. The latter idea is by no means inserted everywhere; there was rather up to the end of his life, in spite and because of his doctrine of particular predestinating grace, an undercurrent in Augustine's thought: co-ordinating God and free knowledge, he recognised behind the system of the Church a free science, and in accordance therewith conceived also God and the world to be the abiding objects of knowledge. With this idea, however, as in the case of Origen, Christ at once disappears. The ultimate reason of this consists in the fact that Augustine, with all his progress in knowledge, never advanced to history. The great psychologist was still blind to the nature of historical development, to what personality achieved in history, and what history had accomplished fur mankind. He had only two methods of observation at his disposal--either the mythological contemplation of history, or a rationalistic neutralising. The man who felt so clearly and testified so convincingly that freedom lay in the change of will when it received a strength binding us to the good, was yet incapable as a thinker of drawing clearly the consequences of this experience. But those should not blame him who cannot free themselves from the illusion that an absolute knowledge of some sort must be possible to man; for the effort to obtain such a knowledge is the ultimate cause of the inability to understand history as history. He who is only happy with absolute knowledge is either blind to history, or it becomes a Medusa's head to him. Yet rationalism is only the undercurrent, though here and there it does force its way to the surface. More surely and more constantly Augustine appeased with revelation his hunger for the absolute, which he was unable to distinguish from aiming at force and strength (God and goodness). His feelings were the same as Faust's: "We long for revelation." Now, it is very characteristic that in dealing with the notion of revelation, Augustine has expounded nothing more clearly than the thought that revelation is absolutely authoritative. We can leave out of account his other views on its necessity, nature, etc. The decisive fact for him is that revelation does not merely recommend itself by its intrinsic worth. Accordingly, the external attestation is the main point. Augustine discussed this (especially in his work De civit.) much more carefully and comprehensively than earlier Apologists, in order to establish the right to demand simple submission to the contents of revelation. Auctoritas and fides were inseparably connected; indeed, they occupied an almost exclusive relation to each other (see De util. cred., 25 sq.). We indeed find him explaining in his writings of all periods that authority is milk-food, and that, on the other hand, the demand in matters of religion for faith resting on authority is not exceptional, but that all the affairs of life of a deeper nature rest on such a faith. But these are simply sops to Cerberus. Man needs authority to discipline his mind, and to support a certainty not to be obtained elsewhere. Augustine was especially convinced of this as against heretics (Manichæans). Heathens he could refute to a certain extent from reason, heretics he could not. But even apart from this, since the power which hinds the will to God presented itself to him as the rock-fast conviction of the unseen, even the "strong" could not dispense with faith in authority. The gradual progress from faith to knowledge, which was well-known to him ("Every one who knows also believes, although not every one who believes knows,") was still a progress constantly accompanied by faith. The saying, "fides præcedit rationem," of which he has given so many variations (see e.g., Ep. 120, 2 sq.: "fides præcedit rationem," or paradoxically: "rationabiliter visum est, ut fides præcedat rationem,") did not signify a suspension of faith at the higher stages. Or, rather, and here the Sic et Non holds good, Augustine was never clear about the relation of faith and knowledge; he handed over this problem to the future. On the one hand he trusted ratio; but, on the other hand, he did not, relying only on God, and:is Genius ruling in experience. Faith's authority was given for him in Scripture and the Church. But here, again, he only maintained and transmitted the disposition to obey, while his theoretical expositions are beset by sheer contradictions and ambiguities; for he has neither worked out the sufficiency, infallibility, and independence of Scripture, nor demonstrated the infallibility of the Church, nor defined the relation of Scripture and the Church. Sometimes Scripture is a court of appeal which owes its authority to the Church, sometimes the Church doctrine and all consuetudo are to be measured by Scripture (Scripture is the only source of doctrina Christiana), sometimes Church and Scripture are held to constitute one whole; in one place the Church seems to find in the Council its infallible mouthpiece, in the other, the perfectibility of Councils themselves is maintained. "The idea of the Church's infallibility belongs to Augustine's popular Catholic presuppositions which grew out of his Catholic faith. It was never directly or expressly expounded by him, or dogmatically discussed. Therefore he cannot have felt the necessity of adjusting an exhaustive or precise doctrine regarding the legitimate form of the supreme representation of the Church by supposition infallible. This uncertainty and vagueness perhaps" (rather, indisputably) "spring from the vacillations of his thought regarding authority and reason, faith and knowledge" (see Reuter, pp. 345-358; Böhringer, pp. 217-256; Dorner, pp. 233-244; further, above pp. 77-83, and Vol. III., p. 203 ff.).

[214] The figure often used by Augustine that the Word was united with the man Jesus as our souls are with our bodies is absolutely unsuitable. Augustine borrowed it from antiquity without realising that it really conflicted with his own conception.

[215] Enchir., 36: "Hic omnino granditer et evidenter dei gratia commendatur. Quid enim natura humana in homine Christi meruit ut in unitatem personæ unici filii dei singulariter esset assumpta! Quæ bona voluntas, cujus boni propositi studium, quæ bona opera præcesserunt, quibus mereretur iste homo una fieri persona cum deo? Numquid antea fuit homo, et hoc ei singulare beneficium præstitum est, cum singulariter promereretur deum? Nempe ex quo homo esse coepit, non aliud coepit esse homo quam dei filius: et hoc unicus, et propter deum verbum, quod illo suscepto caro factum est, utique deus. . . . Unde naturæ humanæ tanta gloria, nullis præcedentibus meritis sine dubitatione gratuita, nisi quia magna hic et sola dei gratia fideliter et sobrie considerantibus evidenter ostenditur, ut intellegant homines per eandem gratiam se justifcari a peccatis, per quam factum est ut homo Christus nullum habere posset peccatum." 40: "Natus Christus insinuat nobis gratiam dei, qua homo nullis præcedentibus meritis in ipso exordio naturæ suæ quo esse coepit, verbo deo copularetur in tantam personæ unitatem, ut idem ipse esset filius dei qui filius hominis, etc." De dono persev., 67. Op. imperf., I., 138: "Qua gratia homo Jesus ab initio factus est bonus, eadem gratia homines qui sunt membra ejus ex malis fiunt boni." De prædest. 30: "Est etiam præclarissimum lumen prædestinationis et gratiæ ipse salvator, ipse mediator dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus, qui ut hoc esset, quibus tandem suis vel operum vel fidei præcedentibus meritis natura humana quæ in illo est comparavit? . . . Singulariter nostra natura in Jesu nullis suis præcedentibus meritis accepit admiranda (scil. the union with deity). Respondeat hic homo deo, si audet, et dicat: Cur non et ego? Et si audierit: O homo, tu quis es qui respondeas deo, etc." De corrept. et grat. 30: "Deus naturam nostram id est animam rationalem carnemque hominis Christi suscepit, susceptione singulariter mirabili vel mirabiliter singulari, ut nullis justitiæ suæ præcedentibus meritis filius dei sic esset ab initio quo esse homo coepisset, ut ipse et verbum, quod sine initio est, una persona esset." De pecc. mer. II. 27. Augustine says in Confess. VII. 25: "Ego autem aliquanto posterius didicisse me fateor, in eo quod verbum caro factum est, quomodo catholica veritas a Photini falsitate dirimatur." Our account given above will have shown, however, that he never entirely learnt this. His Christology, at all times, retained a strong trace of affinity with that of Paul of Samosata and Photinus (only all merit was excluded on the part of the man Jesus), because he knew that his faith could not dispense with the man Jesus, and he supplanted the pseudo-theological speculation as to the Word by the evangelical one that the Word had become the content of Christ's soul.

[216] Therefore, also, the uncertainty which we find already in Augustine as to whether the Incarnation was necessary. In De Trinit. XIII. 13, he answers the momentous question whether God might not have chosen another way, by leaving the possibility open, but describing the way selected as bonus, divinæ dignitati congruns and convenientior. By this he opened up a perilous perspective to the Middle Ages.

[217] Op. imperf. l.c.

[218] He definitely rejects the idea held by him before his conversion that Christ was only a teacher; see, e.g., Confess. VII. 25: "Tantum sentiebam de domino Christo meo, quantum de excellentis sapientiæ viro, cui nullus posset æquari; præsertim quia mirabiliter natus ex virgine ad exemplum contemnendorum temporalium pro adipiscenda immortalitate divina pro nobis cura tantam auctoritatem magisterii meruisse videbatur."

[219] De trin. XIII. 13: "Quid tam necessarium fuit ad erigendam spem nostram, quam ut demonstraretur nobis, quanti nos penderet deus quantumque diligeret?" That takes place through the Incarnation.

[220] The "work" of Christ falls to be discussed afterwards; for we cannot include Augustine's views concerning it among his fundamental conceptions. In part they alternate (between redemption from the devil, sacrifice, and removal of original sin by death), and in part they are dependant on his specific view of original sin. Where he indulges in expositions of practical piety, he has no theory at all regarding Christ's work.

[221] The clearest, and on account of the historical connection the most decisive, testimony is given in Confess. VII. 24-27, where, in telling what Christ had become to him, he at the same time explains why Neoplatonism was insufficient. He knew what the Neoplatonists perceived, but "quærebam viam comparandi roboris quod esset idoneum ad fruendum te, nec inveniebam donec amplecterer mediatorem dei et hominem, hominem Christum Jesum vocantem et dicentem: Ego sum via et veritas et vita, et cibum, cui capiendo invalidus eram, miscentem carni; quoniam verbum caro factum est, ut infantiæ nostræ lactesceret sapientia tua per quam creasti omnia. Non enim tenebam dominum meum Jesum, humilis humilem, nec cujus rei magistra esset ejus infirmitas noveram. Verbum enim tuum æterna veritas . . . subditos erigit ad se ipsam: in inferioribus autem ædificavit sihi humilem domum de limo nostro, per quam subdendos deprimeret a seipsis et ad se trajiceret, sanans tumorem et nutriens amorem, ne fiducia sui progrederentur longius, sed potius infirmarentur videntes ante pedes sues infirmam divinitatem ex participatione tunicæ pelliceæ nostræ, et lassi prosternerentur in eam, illa autem surgens lavaret eos." He then explains in the sequel that the Neoplatonic writings led him to thoroughly understand the nature of God, but: "garriebam plane quasi peritus, et nisi in Christo salvatore nostro viam tuam quærerem, non peritus, sed periturus essem." I sought to be wise, puffed up by knowledge. "Ubi enim erat illa ædificans caritas a fundamento humilitatis, quod est Christus Jesus?" This love rooted in humility those writings could not teach me. It was from the Bible I first learned: "quid interesset inter præsumptionem et confessionem, inter videntes quo eundun sit nec videntes qua, et viam ducentem ad beatificam patriam, non tantum cernendam, sed et habitandam." Now I read Paul. "Et apparuit mihi una facies eloquiorum castorum. Et coepi et inveni quidquid illac verum legeram, hac cum commendatione gratiæ tuæ dici, ut qui videt non sic glorietur quasi non acceperit, non solum id quod videt, sed etiam ut videat, et ut te non solum admoneatur ut videat, sed etiam sanetur ut teneat, et qui de longinquo videre non potest, viam tamen ambulet, qua veniat et videat et teneat." For if a man delights in the law of God after the inner man, what does he do with the other law in his members? . . . What shall wretched man do? Who shall deliver him from the body of this death? Who but thy grace through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the handwriting which was against us was abolished. "Hoc illæ litteræ non habent. Non habent illæ paginæ vultum pietatis hujus, lacrimas confessionis, sacrificium tuum, spiritum contribulatum. . . . Nemo ibi cantat: Nonne deo subdita erit anima mea. Ab ipso enim salutare meum. Nemo ibi audit vocantem: Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis. Dedignantur ab eo discere quoniam mitis est et humilis corde. Abscondisti enim hæc a sapientibus et prudentihus, et revelasti ea parvulis." "For it is one thing from the mountain's wooded top to see the land of peace and yet to find no way to it, and another to keep steadfastly on the way thither." Compare with this the elaborate criticism of Platonism in De civit. dei, X., esp. ch. 24 and 32, where Christ is presented as "universalis animæ liberandæ via," while his significance is for the rest explained much more in the popular Catholic fashion than in the Confessions. In ch. 1 ff. there is even an attempt to conceive the angels and saints as a heavenly hierarchy as the Greeks do.

[222] Augustine accordingly testifies that in order that the truth which is perceived should also be loved and extolled, a person is necessary who should conduct us and that on the path of humility. This is the burden of his Confessions. The truth itself had been shown clearly to him by the Neoplatonists; but it had not become his spiritual possession. Augustine knew only one person capable of so impressing the truth as to make it loved and extolled, and he alone could do this, because he was the revelation of the verbum dei in humilitate. When Christendom has attained securely and clearly to this "Christology," it will no longer demand to be freed from the yoke of Christology.

[223] This is linked together by Augustine in a wonderful fashion. The scepticism of the thinker in genre and the doubts, never overcome in his own mind as to the Catholic doctrine in specie, demanded that Christ should be the indisputable authority of the Church. To this is added, in connection with gratia infusa, the Christ of the sacraments. I do not discuss this authoritative Christ more fully, because he coincides with the authority of the Church itself, and we have already dealt with the latter.

[224] De civ. dei XIX. 13: "Pax cælestis civitatis ordinatissima et concordissima societas fruendi deo et invicem in deo." Enchir. 29: "Contemplatio ejus artifices, qui vocat ea quæ non sunt tamquam ea quæ sunt, atque in mensura et numero et pondere cuncta disponit," see 63.

[225] Yet the conception of blessedness as peace undoubtedly involves a tendency to think primarily of the will.

[226] The whole of Book XIX. of De civit. dei--it is perhaps on the whole the most important--comes to be considered here. In Ch. IV., it is expressly denied that virtue is the supreme good.

[227] See De spiritu et lit. 5 (the passage follows afterwards).

[228] That Augustine was able from this point of view to make the conscious feeling of blessedness a force entering into the affairs of this world, is shown by the passage De civit. dei XIX. 14, which, indeed, so far as I know, is almost unique. "Et quoniam (Christianus) quamdin est in isto mortali corpore, peregrinatur a domino, ambulat per fidem non per speciem; ac per hoc omnem pacem vel corporis vel animæ vel simul corporis et animæ refert ad illam pacem, quæ homini mortali est cum immortali deo, ut ei sit ordinata in fide sub æterna lege oboedientia. Jam vero quia duo præcipua præcepta, hoc est dilectionem dei et dilectionem proximi, docet magister deus . . . consequens est, ut etiam proximo ad diligendum deum consulat, quem jubetur sicut se ipsum diligere (sic uxori, sic filiis, sic domesticis, sic ceteris quibus potuerit hominibus), et ad hoc sibi a proximo, si forte indiget, consuli velit; ac per hoc erit pacatus, quantum in ipso est, omni homini pace hominum, id est ordinata concordia cujus hic ordo est, prinmm ut nulli noceat, deinde ut etiam prosit cui potuerit. Primitus ergo inest ei suorum cura; ad eos quippe habet opportuniorem facilioremque aditum consulendi, vel naturæ ordine vel ipsius societatis humanæ. Unde apostolus dicit: Quisquis autem suis et maxime domesticis non providet, fidem denegat et est infideli deterior.' Hinc itaque etiam pax domestica oritur, id est ordinati imperandi oboediendique concordia cohabitantium. Imperaut enim, qui consulunt: sicut vir uxori, parentes finis, domini servis. . . . Sed in domo justi viventes ex fide et adhuc ab illa cælesti civitate peregrinantis etiam qui imperant serviunt eis, quibus videntur imperare. Neque enim dominandi cupiditate imperant, sed officio consulendi, nec principandi superbia, sed providendi misericordia."

[229] The element of "pax" obtains a value higher than and independent of knowledge (see above). That is shown also in the fact that the definitive state of the unsaved (De civit. dei, XIX., 28) is not described as ignorance, but as constant war: "Quod bellum gravius et amarius cogitari potest, quam ubi voluntas sic adversa est passioni et passio voluntati, ut nullius earum victoria tales inimicitiæ finiantur, et ubi sic confligit cum ipsa natura corporis vis doloris, ut neutrum alteri cedat? Hic [in terra] enim quando contingit iste conflictus, aut dolor vincit et sensum mors adimit, aut natura vincit et dolorem sanitas tollit. Ibi autem et dolor permanet ut affligat, et natura perdurat ut sentiat; quia utrumque ideo non deficit, ne poena deficiat." Undoubtedly, as regards the sainted (see Book, XXII.), the conception comes again and again to the front that their felicity will consist in seeing God.

[230] Augustine has (De trin. I. 20) applied this comparison to the Churches of the future and present world; we may also adapt it to the relations of his doctrines of the Church and of God.

[231] Ritschl published in his Treatise on the method of the earliest history of dogma (Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1871) the grand conception that the Areopagite in the East, and Augustine in the West, were parallels; that the former founded a ritualistic ecclesiasticism, the latter an ecclesiasticism of moral tasks, in the service of a world-wide Christianity that both thus modified in the same direction, but with entirely different means, the old state of feeling (the bare hope of the future life). This conception is substantially correct If we keep firm hold of the fact that the traditional popular Catholic system was not modified by either to its utmost limit, and that both followed impulses which had been at work in their Churches even before their time. The doctrine regarding the Church was not Augustine's "central idea," but he took what every Catholic was certain of, and made it a matter of clearer, in part for the first time of any clear, conviction; and moved by very varied causes, he finally produced an ecclesiasticism whose independent value he himself never thoroughly perceived.

[232] Solil. I. 5: "Nihil aliud habeo quam voluntatem; nihil aliud scio nisi fluxa et caduca spernenda esse, certa et æterna requirenda . . . si fide te inveniunt, qui ad te refugiunt, fidem da, si virtute, virtutem, si scientia, scientiam. Auge in me fidem, auge spem, auge caritatem." De spiritu et lit., 5: "Nos autem dicimus humanam voluntatem sic divinitus adjuvari ad faciendam justitiam, ut præter quod creatus est homo cum libero arbitrio voluntatis, præterque doctrinam qua ei præcipitur quemadmodum vivere debeat, accipiat spiritum sanctum, quo fiat in animo ejus delectatio dilectioque summi illius atque incommutabilis boni quod deus est, etiam nunc cum adhuc per fidem ambulatur, nondum per speciem: ut hac sibi velut arra data gratuiti muneris inardescat inhærere creatori atque inflammetur accedere ad participationem illius veri luminis, ut ex illo ei bene sit, a quo habet ut sit. Nam neque liberum arbitrium quidquam nisi ad peccandum valet, si lateat veritatis via, et cum id quod agendum et quo nitendum est coeperit non latere, nisi etiam delectet et ametur, non agitur, non suscipitur, non bene vivitur. Ut autem diligatur, caritas dei diffunditur in cordibus nostris, non per arbitrium liberum quod surgit ex nobis, sed per spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis." L.c., 22: "Quod operum lex minando imperat, hoc fidei Iex credendo impetrat. Ipsa est illa sapientia quæ pietas vocatur, qua colitur pater luminum, a quo est omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum. . . . Lege operum dicit deus: Fac quod jubeo; lege fidei dicitur deo: Da quod jubes. . . . Non spiritum hujus mundi accepimus, ait constantissimus gratiæ prædicator, sed spiritum qui ex deo est, ut sciamus quæ a deo donata sunt nobis. Quis est autem spiritus mundi hujus, nisi superbiæ spiritus? . . . Nec alio spiritu decipiuntur etiam illi qui ignorantes dei justitiam et suam justitiam volentes constituere, justitiæ dei non sunt subjecti. Unde mihi videtur magis esse fidei filius, qui novit a quo speret quod nondum habet, quam qui sibi tribuit id quod habet. Colligimus non justificari hominem littera, sed spiritu, non factorum meritis, sed gratuita gratia." __________________________________________________________________

2. The Donatist Controversy. The Work: De civitate Dei. Doctrine of the Church, and Means of Grace.

Augustine was still occupied with the controversy with the Manichæans, in which he so sharply emphasised the authority of the Catholic Church,
[233] when his ecclesiastical position--Presbyter, A.D. 392, Bishop, A.D. 396, in Hippo--compelled him to take up the fight with the Donatists. In Hippo these formed the majority of the inhabitants, and so violent was their hatred that they even refused to make bread for the Catholics. Augustine fought with them from 393 to 411, and wrote against them a succession of works, some of these being very comprehensive. [234] We must here take for granted a knowledge of the course of the controversy at Synods, and as influenced by the intrusion of the Civil power. [235] It was carried on upon the ground prepared by Cyprian. His authority was accepted by the opponents. Accordingly, internal antitheses developed in the dispute which had remained latent in Cyprian's theory. The new-fashioned Catholic theory had been already stated impressively by Optatus (see above, p. 42 ff.). It was reserved to Augustine to extend and complete it. But, as it usually happens in such questions, every newly-acquired position opened up new questions, and for one solution created any number of problems. And thus Augustine left more problems than he had solved.

The controversy did not now deal directly with the hierarchical constitution of the Church. Episcopacy was an accepted fact. The competency of the Church was questioned, and therewith its nature, significance, and extent. That ultimately the constitution of the Church should be dragged into the same peril was inevitable; for the hierarchy is, of course, the tenderest part in a constitution based upon it.

The schism was in itself the greatest evil. But in order to get over it, it was necessary to go to its roots and show that it was utterly impossible to sever oneself from the Catholic Church, that the unity, as well as truth of the Church, was indestructible. The main thesis of the Donatists was to the effect that the empirical is only the true Church when those who propagate it, the priests, are "pure"; for no one can propagate what he does not himself possess. [236] The true Church thus needs pure priests; it must therefore declare consecration by traditores to be invalid; and it cannot admit the efficacy of baptism administered by the impure--heretics, or those guilty of mortal sins; finally, it must exclude all that is manifestly stained and unworthy. This was followed by the breach with such Christian communions as did not strictly observe these rules, and by the practice of re-baptism.
[237] Separation was imperative, no matter how great or small the extent of the Church. This thesis was supplemented, during the period of the State persecutions, by a second, that the persecuted Church was the true one, and that the State had nothing to do with the Church.

Augustine's counter-argument, based on Cyprian, Ambrosiaster, and Optatus, but partly disavowing, though with due respect, the first-named, went far beyond a bare refutation of the separatists. He created the beginnings of a doctrine of the Church, and means of grace, of the Church as institute of salvation, the organism of the good, i.e., of divine powers in the world. Nor did the Donatist controversy furnish him with his only motive for developing this doctrine. The dispute with the Manichæans had already roused his interest in the authority of the Church, and led him to look more closely into it than his predecessors (see above, p. 79 ff.), who, indeed, were quite at one with him in their practical attitude to the Church. The Pelagian controversy, the state of the world, and the defence of Christianity against heathen attacks, had an extremely important influence on conceptions of the Church. Thus Augustine created the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic Church on earth, and we attempt in what follows to give, as far as possible, a complete and connected account of it. Finally, the earthly Church was and remained absolutely nothing but a means for the eternal salvation of the individual, and therefore the doctrines of the Church was also meant to be nothing but a subsidiary doctrine. But if all dogmatic ran the risk, with its means and subsidiary conceptions, of obscuring the important point, the danger was imminent here. Does not the doctrine of salvation appear in Catholicism to be almost nullified by the "subsidiary doctrine," the doctrine of the Church? [238]

Grace and Authority--these two powers had, according to Augustine's self-criticism, effected his conversion. The authority was the Church. Every one knew what the Church was: the empirical, visible Church, which had triumphed ever since the days of Constantine. A "logical definition" of the Church was therefore unnecessary. The important point was to show that men needed an authority, and why it was the authority. The weak intellect needed revelation, which brings truth to the individual, before he himself is capable of finding it; this revelation is bound up in the Church. The fact that the Church was the authority for doctrine constituted for long Augustine's only interest in it. He produced in support of this principle proofs of subjective necessity and of an objective nature; yet he never reached in his exposition the stringency and certainty which as a Catholic he simply felt; for who can demonstrate that an external authority must be authoritative? The most important point was that the Church proclaimed itself to be the authority in doctrine. One was certainly a member of the Church only in so far as he submitted to its authority. There was no other way of belonging to it. Conversely, its significance seemed, on superficial reflection, to be entirely limited to doctrinal authority. We occupy our true relation to God and Christ, we possess and expect heavenly blessings only when we follow the doctrinal instructions given by the Church.

Augustine embraced this "superficial reflection" until his ecclesiastical office and the Donatist controversy led him to more comprehensive considerations. He had arrived at his doctrine of predestinating grace without any external instigation by independent meditation on the nature of conversion and piety. The development of his doctrine regarding the Church, so far as it carried out popular Catholic ideas, was entirely dependent on the external circumstances in which he found himself placed. But he did not himself feel that he was stating a doctrine; he was only describing an actual position accepted all along by every Catholic, one which each had to interpret to himself, but without subtraction or addition. In addition to the importance of the Church as a doctrinal authority, he also felt its significance as a sacred institution which imparted grace. On its latter feature he especially reflected; but the Church appeared to him much more vividly after he had gained his doctrine of grace: it was the one communion of saints, the dwelling-place of the Spirit who created faith, love, and hope. We condense his most important statements.

1. The Catholic Church, held together by the Holy Spirit, who is also the bond of union in the Trinity, possesses its most important mark in its unity, and that a unity in faith, love, and hope, as well as in Catholicity.

2. This unity in the midst of the divisions existing among men is the greatest of miracles, the proof that the Church is not the work of men, but of the Holy Spirit.

3. This follows still more clearly when we consider that unity presupposes love. Love is, however, the proper sphere of the Spirit's activity; or more correctly, all love finds its source in the Holy Spirit; [239] for faith and hope can be acquired to a certain extent independently--therefore also outside of the Church--but love issues only from the Holy Spirit. The Church, accordingly, because it is a unity, is the alliance of love, in which alone sinners can be purified; for the Spirit only works in "love the bond of unity" (in unitatis vinculo caritate). If then the unity of the Church rests primarily on faith, yet it rests essentially on the sway of the spirit of love alone, which presupposes faith. [240]

4. The unity of the Church, represented in Holy Scripture by many symbols and figures, obtains its strongest guarantee from the fact that Christ has made the Church his bride and his body. This relationship is so close that we can absolutely call the Church "Christ"; [241] for it constitutes a real unity with Christ. Those who are in the Church are thus "among the members of Christ" (in membris Christi); the means and bond of this union are in turn nothing but love, more precisely the love that resides in unity (caritas unitatis).

5. Heretics, i.e., those who follow a faith chosen by themselves, cannot be in the Church, because they would at once destroy its presupposition, the unity of faith; the Church, however, is not a society like the State, which tolerates all sorts of philosophers in its midst. Expelled heretics serve the good of the Church, just as everything must benefit those who love God, for they exercise them in patience (by means of persecutions), in wisdom (by false contentions), and in love to their enemies, which has to be evinced on the one hand in saving beneficence, and on the other in the terrors of discipline.
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6. But neither do the Schismatics, i.e., those who possessed the true faith, belong to the Church; for in abandoning its unity--being urged thereto by pride like the heretics--they show that they do not possess love, and accordingly are beyond the pale of the operations of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly the Catholic Church is the only Church.

7. From this it follows that salvation (salus) is not to be found outside the Church, for since love is confined to the visible Church, even heroic acts of faith, and faith itself, are destitute of the saving stamp, which exists through love alone. [243] Means of sanctification, a sort of faith, and miraculous powers may accordingly exist outside of the Church (see afterwards), but they cannot produce the effect and afford the benefit they are meant to have.

8. The second mark of the Church is holiness. This consists in the fact that it is holy through its union with Christ and the activity of the Spirit, possesses the means--in the Word and sacraments--of sanctifying its individual members, i.e., of perfecting them in love, and has also actually attained this end. That it does not succeed in doing so in the case of all who are in its midst [244] --for it will only be without spot or wrinkle in the world beyond--nay, that it cannot entirely destroy sin except in a very few, detracts nothing from its holiness. Even a preponderance of the wicked and hypocritical over the good and spiritual [245] does not lessen it, for there would be no Church at all if the Donatist thesis were correct, that unholy members put an end to the Church's existence. The Donatists required to limit their own contention in a quite capricious fashion, in order to avoid destroying the Church. [246]

9. Although the tares are not to be rooted out, since men are not omniscient, and this world is not the scene of the consummation, yet the Church exercises its discipline, and in certain circumstances even excommunicates; but it does not do so properly in order to preserve its holiness, but to educate its members or guard them against infection. But the Church can also tolerate. "They do not know the wicked in the Catholic unity, or they tolerate those they know for the sake of unity." [247] It can even suffer manifest and gross sinners, if in a particular case the infliction of punishment might result in greater harm. [248] It is itself secured from contamination by the profane by never approving evil, and always retaining its control over the means of sanctification. [249]

10. But it is indeed an attribute of its holiness also to beget actually holy members. It can furnish evidence of this, since a few have attained perfection in it, since miracles and signs have constantly been wrought, and a general elevation and sanctification of morals been achieved by it, and since, finally, its whole membership will in the end be holy.

11. Its holiness is, however, shown more clearly in the fact that it is only within the Church that personal holiness can be attained (see above sub. 7). [250]

12. The unholy in the Church unquestionably belong to it; for being in its unity they are subject to the operation of the means of sanctification, and can still become good and spiritual. Yet they do not belong to the inner court of the Church, but form a wider circle in it. [They are "vessels to dishonour in the house of God" (vasa in contumeliam in domo dei); they are not themselves, like the "vessels to honour" (vasa in honorem), the house of God, but are "in it"; they are "in the communion of the sacraments," not in the proper society of the house, but "adjoined to the communion of the saints" (congregationi sanctorum admixti); they are in a sense not in the Church, because they are not the Church self; therefore the Church can also be described as a "mixed body" (corpus permixtum).] [251] Nay, even the heretics and schismatics, in so far as they have appropriated the Church's means of sanctification (see under), belong to the Catholic Church, since the latter makes them sons without requiring to impart a second baptism.
[252] The character of the Church's holiness is not modified by these wider circles in the sphere to which it extends; for, as regards its foundation, means, and aim, it always remains the same, and a time will come when the holiness of all its members--for Augustine does not neglect this mark--will be an actual fact.

13. The third mark of the Church is Catholicity. It is that which, combined with unity, furnishes the most impressive external proof, and the surest criterion of its truth. That is, Catholicity--extension over the globe--was prophesied, and had been realised, although it must be described as a miracle, that an association which required such faith and obedience, and handed down such mysteries, should have obtained this extension. The obvious miracle is precisely the evidence of the truth. Donatists cannot be the Church, because they are virtually confined to Africa. The Church can only exist where it proves its Catholicity by union with Rome and the ancient Oriental Churches, with the communities of the whole globe. The objection that men's sin hinders the extension is without weight; for that would have had to be prophesied. But it is the opposite that was prophesied and fulfilled.
[253] The reminder, also, that many heresies were extended over the world is of no consequence; for, firstly, almost all heresies are national, secondly, even the most wide-spread heresy finds another existing at its side, and thereby reveals its falsehood. [This is the old sophism: on the one hand, disintegration is regarded as the essential characteristic of heresies; on the other, they are represented as forming a unity in order that the existence of others side by side with it may be urged against each in turn.]

14. The fourth mark of the Church is its apostolicity. It was displayed in the Catholic Church, (1) in the possession of apostolic writings,
[254] and doctrine, (2) in its ability to trace its existence up to the Apostolic communities and the Apostles, and to point to its unity (communicatio) with the churches founded by the latter. [255] This proof was especially to be adduced in the succession of the Bishops, though their importance is for the rest not so strongly emphasised by Augustine as by Cyprian; indeed passages occur in his works in which the universal priesthood, as maintained by Tertullian, is proclaimed.
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15. While among the apostolic communities those of the East are also very important, yet that of Rome, and in consequence its Bishop, hold the first place. Peter is the representative of the Apostles, of Christians in general (Ep. 53, 2: "totius ecclesiæ figuram gerens"), of weak Christians, and of Bishops, or the Episcopal ministry. Augustine maintained the theory of Cyprian and Optatus regarding Peter's chair: it was occupied by the Roman Bishop and it was necessary to be in accord with it, because it was the apostolic seat par excellence, i.e., the bearer of the doctrinal authority and unity of the Church. His statements as to the infallibility of the Roman chair are as uncertain and contradictory as those dealing with the Councils and Episcopate. He had no doubt that a Council ranked above the Roman Bishop (Ep. 43, 19).
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16. Augustine was convinced of the infallibility of the Catholic Church; for it is a necessary consequence of its authority as based on Apostolicity. But he never had any occasion to think out this predicate, and to establish it in the representation and decisions of the Church. Therefore he made many admissions, partly without thought, partly when hard pressed, which, logically understood, destroyed the Church's infallibility.

17. So also he holds the indispensableness of the Church, for it follows from the exclusive relation to Christ and the Holy Spirit revealed in its unity and holiness. This indispensableness is expressed in the term "Mother Church" [258] (ecclesia mater or corpus Christi); on modifications, see later.

18. Finally, he was also convinced of the permanence of the Church, and therewith also of its primeval character; for this follows from the exclusive relation to God; yet ideas entered into the conception of permanence and primevalness, which did not flow from any consideration of the empirical Church ("the heavenly Church" on the one hand, the "city of God" on the other; on this see under).

19. The empirical Catholic Church is also the "Kingdom of God" (regnum dei, civitas dei). As a matter of fact these terms are primarily employed in a view which is indifferent to the empirical Church (see under); but since to Augustine there was ultimately only one Church, everything that was true of it was also applicable to the empirical Church. At all times he referred to the Catholic Church the old term which had long been applied to the Church, "the kingdom (city) of God," of course having in mind not that the Church was the mixed, but the true body (corpus permixtum, verum). [259]

20. But Augustine gave a much stronger hold than his predecessors to the conception that the Church is the kingdom of God, and by the manner in which in his "Divine Comedy," the "De civitate dei," he contrasted the Church with the State, far more than his own expressed view, he roused the conviction that the empirical Catholic Church sans phrase was the kingdom of God, and the independent State that of the devil. That is, although primarily the earthly State (civitas terrena) consisted for Augustine in the society of the profane and reprobate, inclusive of demons, while the city of God (civitas dei) was the heavenly communion of all saints of all times, comprising the angels, yet he held that the former found their earthly historical form of expression and manifestation in the secular State, the latter in the empirical Church; for there were by no means two cities, kingdoms, temples, or houses of God. Accordingly the kingdom of God is the Church. And, carried away by the Church's authority and triumph in the world, as also profoundly moved by the fall of the Roman world-empire, whose internal and external power manifestly no longer existed save in the Church, Augustine saw in the present epoch, i.e., in the Church's History, the millennial kingdom that had been announced by John (De civit. XX.). By this means he revised, without completely abolishing, the ancient Chiliasm of the Latin Church. [260] But if it were once determined that the millennial kingdom was now, since Christ's appearance, in existence, the Church was elevated to the throne of supremacy over the world; for while this kingdom consists in Christ's reign, he only reigns in the present through the Church. Augustine neither followed out nor clearly perceived the hierarchical tendency of his position; yet he reasoned out the present reign of Christ which he had to demonstrate (XX. 9-13) by reflecting that only the "saints" (sancti) reign with Christ, and not, say, the "tares"; that thus only those reign in the kingdom who themselves constitute the kingdom; and that they reign because they aim at what is above, fight the fight of sanctification, and practise patience in suffering, etc. But he himself prepared the way directly for the sacerdotal interpretation of his thought, or positively expressed it, in two of his arguments. The one was drawn from him by exegesis, [261] the other is a result of a manifest view of his own. In the first place, viz., he had to show that Rev. XX. 4 ("those sitting on thrones judge") was even now being fulfilled. He found this fulfilment in the heads of the Church, who controlled the keys of binding and loosing, accordingly in the clergy (XX. 9). Secondly, he prepared the way for the supremacy of the Church over the State [262] in his explicit arguments both against and in favour of the latter (XIX., and even before this in V.). The earthly State (civitas terrena) and accordingly secular kingdoms are sprung from sin, the virtue of the ambitious, and simply because they strive for earthly possessions--summed up in the pax terrena, carried out in all earthly affairs--they are sinful, and must finally perish, even if they be legitimate and salutary on earth. The secular kingdom is finally, indeed, a vast robbery (IV. 4): "righteousness being abolished, what are kingdoms but great robberies?") [263] which ends in hell in everlasting war; the Roman Republic never possessed peace (XIX. 21). From this point of view the Divine State is the only legitimate association.

But Augustine had yet another version to give of the matter. The establishment of earthly peace (pax terrena)--see its manifold forms in XIX. 13--is necessary upon earth. Even those who treasure heavenly peace as the highest good are bound to care on earth by love for earthly peace. (Already the Jewish State was legitimate in this sense; see the description IV. 34, and the general principle XV. 2: "We therefore find two forms in the earthly State, one demonstrating its present existence, the other serving to signify the heavenly State by its presence"; [264] here the Divine State is also to be understood by the earthly, in so far as the former is copied on earth.) The Roman kingdom has become Christian, and Augustine rejoices in the fact. [265] But it is only by the help of justitia that rests on love that the State can secure earthly peace, and lose the character of being a robbery (latrocinium). But righteousness and love only exist where the worship of the true God is found, in the Church, God's State. [266] Accordingly the State must be dependent on the kingdom of God; in other words, those who, as rulers, administer the earthly peace of society, are legitimate and "blessed" (felices), when they make "their power subservient to the divine majesty for the extension as widely as possible of the worship of God, if they love that kingdom more, where they do not fear having colleagues." [267] Rulers, therefore, must not only be Christians, but must serve the Church in order to attain their own object (pax terrena); for outside the Divine State--of love and righteousness--there are no virtues, but only the semblance of virtues, i.e., splendid vices (XIX. 25). However much Augustine may have recognised, here and elsewhere, the relative independence and title of the State, [268] the proposition stands, that since the Church is the kingdom of God it is the duty of the State to serve it, because the State becomes more legitimate by being, as it were, embodied in it.
[269] It is especially the duty of the State, however, to aid the Church by forcible measures against idolatry, heretics, and schismatics; for compulsion is suitable in such cases to prevent the good from being seduced, to instruct the wavering and ignorant, and to punish the wicked. But it by no means follows from this that in Augustine's view the State was to pursue anything that might be called an independent ecclesiastical or religious policy. It rather in matters of religion constantly supports the cause of the Church, and this at once implies that it is to receive its instructions from the Church. And this was actually Augustine's procedure. His conception of the "Christian State" did not include any imperial papistical title on the part of the civil power; such a title was rather absolutely precluded. Even if the Church begged for clemency to heretics, against whom it had itself invoked the arm of the State, this did not establish the independent right of the latter to inflict punishment: it served the Church in punishing, and it gratified it in practising clemency. [270]

II. 21. Augustine was compelled by the Donatist practice of re-baptism and re-ordination to examine more closely, following Optatus, the significance and efficacy of the functions of the Church. It was inevitable that in doing so he should give a more prominent place to the notion of the Church as the communion of the Sacraments, and at the same time have instituted extremely sophistical discussions on the Sacraments--which, however, he did not yet carry out to their conclusion--in order to prove their objectivity, and make them independent of men, yet without completely externalising them, while vindicating them as the Church's exclusive property.

22. To begin with, it was an immense advance, only possible to so spiritual a man as Augustine, to rank the Word along with the Sacraments. It is to him we owe the phrase "the Word and Sacraments." If he did not duly appreciate and carry out the import of the "Word," yet he perceived that as gospel it lay at the root of every saving rite of the Church. [271]

23. Exhaustively as he dealt with the Sacraments, he was far from outlining a doctrine regarding them; he contented himself rather with empirical reflections on ecclesiastical procedure and its defence. He did not evolve a harmonious theory either of the number or notion of the Sacraments. [272] Every material sign with which a salvation-conferring word was connected was to him a Sacrament. "The word is added to the element, and a Sacrament is constituted, itself being, as it were, a visible word." [273] The emphasis rests so strongly on the Word and faith (on John XXV. 12: "believe and thou hast eaten") that the sign is simply described in many places, and indeed, as a rule, as a figure. But this view is modified by the fact that in almost as many passages the Word, with its saving power, is also conceived as a sign of an accompanying invisible entity, [274] and all are admonished to take whatever is here presented to the senses as a guarantee of the reality. But everything beyond this is involved in obscurity, since we do not know to what signs Augustine would have us apply his ideas about the Sacrament; in De doctr. Christ. he speaks as if Baptism and the Lord's Supper were almost alone in question, but in other passages his language is different. [275]

24. He himself had no occasion to pursue his reflections further in this direction. On the other hand, the Donatist thesis that the efficacy of the Sacrament depended on the celebrant, and the Donatist practice of re-baptism, forced him to set up two self-contradictory positions. First, the Sacraments are only efficacious in the Church, but they are also efficacious in circles outside the Church. If he abandoned the former principle, he denied the indispensableness of the Church; if he sacrificed the second, he would have required to approve of re-baptism. Secondly, the Sacraments are independent of any human disposition, and they are inseparably attached to the Catholic Church and faith. To give up the one thesis meant that the Donatist was right; to doubt the other was to make the Sacrament a magical performance indifferent to Christianity and faith. In order to remove these contradictions, it was necessary to look for distinctions. These he found, not, say, by discriminating between the offer and bestowal of grace, but by assuming a twofold efficacy of the Sacraments. These were (1) an indelible marking of every recipient, which took place wherever the Sacrament was administered, no matter by whom, [276] and (2) an administration of grace, in which the believer participated only in the union of the Catholic Church. According to this he could teach that: the Sacraments belong exclusively to the Catholic Church, and only in it bestow grace on faith; but they can be purloined from that Church, since, "being holy in themselves," they primarily produce an effect which depends solely on the Word and sign (the impression of an indelible "stamp"), and not on a human factor. [277] Heretics have stolen it, and administer it validly in their associations. Therefore the Church does not again baptise repentant heretics (schismatics), being certain that at the moment of faithful submission to the Catholic communion of love, the Sacrament is "efficacious for salvation" (ad salutem valet) to him who had been baptised outside its pale. [278]

25. This theory could not but leave the nature of the "stamp" impressed and its relation to the communication of grace obscure. [279] The legal claim of schismatics and heretics to belong to the Catholic Church appears to be the most important, and, indeed, the sole effect of the "objectivity" of the Sacraments outside the Church. [280] But the theory was only worked out by Augustine in baptism and ordination, though even here he did not succeed in settling all the problems that arose, or in actually demonstrating the "objectivity." But in his treatment of the Lord's Supper, e.g., it cannot be demonstrated at all. For since, according to him, the reality of the Sacrament (res sacramenti) was invisible incorporation in the body of Christ (Augustine deals with the elements symbolically), and the eucharistic sacrifice was the sacrifice of love or peace, the co-operation of the Catholic Church is always taken to be essential to the Lord's Supper. Accordingly there is here no "stamp" independent of the Church. [281] But in the case of Baptism, he could assume that it could establish, even outside of the Church, an inalienable relation to the triune God, whose place could not be supplied by anything else, which in certain circumstances created a kind of faith, but which only bestowed salvation within the pale of the Church. [282] And in the case of Ordination he could teach that, properly bestowed, it conveyed the inalienable power to administer the Sacraments, although the recipient, if he stood outside the Church, only officiated to his own perdition.
[283] In both cases his view was determined by the following considerations. First, he sought to defend the Church, and to put the Donatists in the wrong. Secondly, he desired to indicate the mark of the Church's holiness, which could not, with certainty, be established in any other way, in the objective holiness of the Sacraments. And, thirdly, he wished to give expression to the thought that there must exist somewhere, in the action of the Church, an element to which faith can cling, which is not supported by men, but which sustains faith itself, and corresponds to the assurance which the believer rests on grace. Augustine's doctrine of grace has a very great share in his doctrine of the sacraments, or, more accurately, of the sacrament of baptism. On the other hand, he had by no means any sacerdotal interest in this conception. But it could not fail afterwards to develop in an essentially sacerdotal sense. But, at the same time, men were impelled in quite a different direction by the distinction between the outward rite and accompanying effect, by the value given to the "Word" and the desire to maintain the objectivity of the Sacrament. The above distinction could not but lead in later times to a spiritualising which refined away the Sacraments, or, on the other hand, centred them in the "Word," where stress was laid on a given and certain authority, and therewith on the supremacy of the Word. Both these cases occurred. Not only does the Mediæval Catholic doctrine of the Sacraments go back to Augustine, but so do the spiritualists of the Middle Ages, and, in turn, Luther and Calvin are indebted to him for suggestions. [284] __________________________________________________________________

Augustine's conception, above described, of the visible Church and means of grace is full of self-contradictions. His identification of the Church with the visible Catholic Church was not a success. He meant that there should be only one Church, and that none but believers should belong to it; but the wicked and hypocrites were also in it, without being it; nay, even heretics were in a sense in it, since they participated in the Sacraments. But in that case is the Church still visible? It is--in the Sacraments. But the Church which is visible in the Sacraments is certainly not the bride and body of Christ, the indispensable institution of salvation; that is alone the Church which is possessed by the spirit of love; and yet it is masked by the presence of the wicked and hypocritical. And the Sacrament cannot be relied upon; for while it is certainly not efficacious for salvation outside the Catholic Church, it is by no means certainly efficacious within it. The one Church is the true body of Christ, a mixed body, and the outward society of the Sacraments; in each instance we have a different circle; but it is as essential and important that it should be the one as the other. What is the meaning, then, "of being in the Church" (in ecclesia esse)? Every speculation on the notions of things is fated to stumble on contradictions; everything can be something else, anything is everything, and everything is nothing. The speculation surprises us with a hundred points of view--that is its strength--to end in none of them being really authoritative.

But all Augustine's deliverances on this subject are seen to be merely conditional in their value, not only from their self-contradictions, but from the fact that the theologian is not, or is only to a very limited extent, expressing his religious conviction. He felt and wrote as he did because he was the defender of the practice of the Church, whose authority he needed for his faith. But this faith took quite other directions. Even those inconsistencies, which indeed were partly traditional, show that his conception of the Church was penetrated by an element which resisted the idea that it was visible. This element, however, was itself by no means congruous throughout, but again cornprehended various though intertwined features.

1. The Church is heavenly; as bride and body of Christ it is quite essentially a heavenly society (cælestis societas). This ancient traditional idea stood in the foreground of Augustine's practical faith. What the Church is, it cannot at all be on earth; it possesses its truth, its seat, in heaven. There alone is to be found the true sphere of its members; a small fragment wander as pilgrims here upon earth for a time. It may indeed be said that upon earth we have only the copy of the heavenly Church for in so far as the earthly fragment is a "civitas terrena" (an earthly state) it is not yet what it will be. It is united with the heavenly Church by hope. It is folly to regard the present Church as the Kingdom of Heaven. "What is left them but to assert that the kingdom of heaven itself belongs to the temporal life in which we now exist? For why should not blind presumption advance to such a pitch of madness? And what is wilder than that assertion? For although the Church even as it now exists is sometimes called the kingdom of heaven, it is surely so named because of its future and eternal existence?" [285]

2. The Church is primeval, and its members are therefore not all included in the visible institution of the Catholic Church. We now meet with the conception expounded by Augustine in his great work "De civitate dei," at which he wrought for almost fifteen years. The civitas dei, i.e., the society in which there rules "the love of God to the contempt of self" (amor dei usque ad contemptum sui, XIV. 28), and which therefore aspires to "heavenly peace" (pax cælestis), began in the angelic world. With this the above conception (see sub. 1) is combined: the city of God is the heavenly Jerusalem. But it embraces all believers of the past, present, and future; it mingled with the earthly State (civitas terrena) before the Deluge, [286] ran through a history on earth in six periods (the Deluge, Abraham, David, the Exile, Christ, and Christ's second Advent), and continues intermingled with the secular State to the end. With the transcendental conception of the City of God is thus combined, here and elsewhere, [287] the universalist belief applied to the present world: [288] Christianity, old as the world, has everywhere and in all ages had its confessors who "without doubt" have received salvation; for the "Word" was ever the same, and has always been at work under the most varied forms ("prius occultius, postea manifestius") [289] down to the Incarnation. He who believed on this Word, that is Christ, received eternal salvation.
[290]

3. The Church is the communion of those who believe in the crucified Christ, and are subject to the influences of his death, and who are therefore holy and spiritual (sancti et spiritales). To this view we are conducted by the conclusion from the previous one, the humanist and universalist element being stript away. If we ask: Where is the Church? Augustine answers in innumerable passages, wherever the communion of these holy and spiritual persons is found. They are Christ's body, the house, temple, or city of God. Grace on the one hand, faith, love, and hope on the other, constitute accordingly the notion of the Church. Or briefly: "the Church which is on earth exists by the remission of sins," or still more certainly "the Church exists in love." [291] In any number of expositions Augustine ignores every idea of the Church except this, which leads him to think of a spiritual communion alone, and he is as indifferent to the conception of the Church being an outward communion of the Sacraments as to the last one now to be mentioned. [292]

4. The Church is the number of the elect. The final consequence of Augustine's doctrine of grace (see next section) teaches that salvation depends on God's inscrutable predestination (election of grace) and on that alone. Therefore the Church cannot be anything but the number of the elect. This is not, however, absolutely comprehended in the external communion of the Catholic Church--for some have been elect, who were never Catholics, and others are elect who are not yet Catholics. Nor is it simply identical with the communion of the saints (that is of those who submit themselves in faith to the operation of the means of grace); for these may include for the time such as will yet relapse, and may not include others who will ultimately be saved. Thus the thought of predestination shatters every notion of the Church--that mentioned under 2 can alone to some extent hold its ground--and renders valueless all divine ordinances, the institution and means of salvation. The number of the elect is no Church. The elect of God are to be found inside and outside the Church, under the operation and remote from the operation of sacramental grace; God has his subjects among the enemy, and his enemies among those who for the time being are "good." [293] Augustine, the Catholic, did not, however, venture to draw the inexorable consequences of this conception; if he was ever led to see them he contented himself with bringing more closely together the notions of the external communion, communion of saints, Christ's body, city of God, kingdom of heaven, and number of elect, and with thus making it appear as if they were identified. He stated his conviction that the number of the elect was substantially confined to the empirical Catholic Church, and that we must therefore use diligently all its benefits. But on the other hand, the faith that actuated his own life was too personal to let him bind grace, the source of faith, love, and hope, indissolubly to mechanical means and external institutions, and he was too strongly dominated by the thought of God's majesty and self-sufficiency to bring himself to examine God narrowly as to the why and how of his actions. He never did maintain that predestination was realised by means of the Church and its communication of grace. [294]

Augustine's different conceptions of the Church are only united in the person of their originator, whose rich inner life was ruled by varied tendencies. The attempts to harmonise them which occur in his writings are, besides being few in number, quite worthless. But the scholastic endeavour to combine or pack together the different notions by new and flimsy distinctions leads to theological chatter. Even Augustine's opponents apparently felt only a small part of the inconsistencies. Men at that time were far from seeking in religious conceptions that kind of consistency which is even at the present day felt as a want by only a small minority, and in any case is no necessary condition of a sincere piety. Perhaps the most important consequence of Augustine's doctrine of the Church and Sacraments consists in the fact that a complex of magical ceremonies and ideas, which was originally designed to counter-balance a moralistic mode of thought based on the doctrine of free-will, now held its ground alongside of a religious frame of mind. The Sacrament had a deteriorating effect on the latter; but, on the other hand, it was only by this combination that it was itself rendered capable of being reformed. It is impossible to mistake, even in the case of Augustine himself, that the notion of the Church in which his own life centred was swayed by the thought of the certainty of grace and earnestness of faith and love, and that, similarly, his supreme intention, in his doctrine of the means of grace, was to establish the comfort derived from the sure grace of God in Christ, which was independent of human agency. Augustine subordinated the notions of the Church and Sacraments to the spiritual doctrine of God, Christ, the gospel, faith and love, as far as that was at all possible about A.D. 400. __________________________________________________________________

[233] The Manichæans professed, in the controversy of the day, to be the men of "free inquiry" ("docendi fontem aperire gloriantur" De utilit. 21). We cannot here discuss how far they were; Augustine did not conscientiously feel that his breach with them was a breach with free inquiry. Therefore the efforts from the outset to define the relations of ratio and auctoritas, and to save what was still possible of the former.

[234] Psalmus c. partem Donati--C. Parmeniani epist. ad Tichonium b. III.--De bapt. c. Donatistas, b. VII.--C. litteras Petiliani, b. III.--Ep. ad Catholicos c. Donatistas--C. Cresconium, b. IV.--De unico bapt. c. Petilianum--Breviculus Collationis c. Donatistis--Post collationem ad Donatistas. Further, at a later date Sermo ad Cæsareensis ecclesiæ plebem--De gestis cum Emerito--C. Gaudentium Donatistam episcopum, b. II. The Sermo de Rusticiano is a forgery by the notorious Hieronymus Viguerius.

[235] Augustine supported, at least from A.D. 407, the suppression by force of the Donatists by the Christian state in the interest of "loving discipline." The discussion of A.D. 411 was a tragi-comedy. Last traces of the Donatists are still found in the time of Gregory I., who anew invoked the aid of the Civil power against them.

[236] C. Litt. Petil I. 3: "Qui fidem a perfido sumpserit non fidem percipit, sed reatum." I. 2: "Conscientia dantis adtenditur, qui abluat accipientis." Other Donatistic theses ran (l.c.) "Omnes res origine et radice consistit, et si caput non habet aliquid, nihil est." "Nec quidquam bene regenerat, nisi bono semine (boni sacerdotis) regeneretur." "Quæ potest esse perversitas ut qui suis criminibus reus est, alium faciat innocentem?"

[237] The Donatists, of course, did not regard it as re-baptism, l.c. "non repetimus quod jam erat, sed damus quod non erat."

[238] Doctrine is, strictly speaking, inaccurate; for Catholicism does not know of any "doctrines" here, but describes an actual state of matters brought about by God.

[239] Grace is love and love is grace: "caritas est gratia testamenti novi."

[240] C. Crescon. I. 34: "Non autem existimo quemquam ita desipere, ut credat ad ecclesiæ pertinere unitatem eum qui non habet caritatem. Sicut ergo deus unus colitur ignoranter etiam extra ecclesiam nec ideo non est ipse, et fides una habetur sine caritate etiam extra ecclesiam, nec ideo non est ipse, ita et unus baptismus, etc." God and faith also exist extra ecclesiam but not "pie." The relevant passages are so numerous that it would give a false idea to quote singly. The conception given here constitutes the core of Augustine's doctrine of the Church: The Holy Ghost, love, unity, and Church occupy an exclusive connection: "caritas christiana nisi in unitate ecclesiæ non potest custodiri, etsi baptismum et fidem teneatis" (c. Pet. litt. II. 172).

[241] De unit eccl. 7: "totus Christus caput et corpus est." De civit. XXI. 25. De pecc. mer. I. 59: "Homines sancti et fideles fiunt cum homine Christo unus Christus, ut omnibus per ejus hanc gratiam societatemque adscendentibus ipse unus Christus adscendat in cælum, qui de cælo descendit." Sermo 354, I: "Prædicat Christus Christum."

[242] De civit. dei, XVIII. 51, X.

[243] Ep. 173, 6: "Foris ab ecclesia constitutus et separatus a compagine unitatis et vinculo caritatis æterno supplicio puniveris, etiam si pro Christi nomine vivus incenderis."

[244] The Biblical texts are here used that had been already quoted against Calixtus and the Anti-Novatians (Noah's Ark, The Wheat and Tares, etc.).

[245] Augustine seems to have thought that the bad were in the majority even in the Church. He at anyrate held that the majority of men would be lost (Enchir. 97).

[246] De bapt. II. 8: If the Donatists were right, there would have been no Church even in Cyprian's time; their own origin would therefore have been unholy. Augustine often reproaches them with the number of gross sinners in their midst. Their grossest sin, it is true, was--schism (c. litt. Pet. II. 221).

[247] C. Petil. I. 25: "Malos in unitate catholica vel non noverunt, vel pro unitate tolerant quos noverunt."

[248] Here and there in Augustine the thought occurs that the new covenant was throughout milder than the old.

[249] C. litt. Pet. III. 4: "Licet a malis interim vita, moribus, corde ac voluntate separari atque discedere, quæ separatio semper oportet custodiatur. Corporalis autem separatio ad sæculi finem fidenter, patienter, fortiter exspectatur."

[250] Sermo 4, 11: "Omnes quotquot fuerunt sancti, ad ipsam ecclesiam pertinent."

[251] "Corpus permixtum" against the second rule of Tichonius, who had spoken of a bipartite body of the Lord, a term rejected by Augustine. Not a few of Augustine's arguments here suggest the idea that an invisible Church present "in occulto" in the visible was the true Church (De bapt. V. 38).

[252] De bapt. I. 13: The question of the Donatists was whether in the view of Catholics baptism begot "sons" in the Donatist Church. if the Catholics said it did, then it should follow that the Donatists had a Church, and since there was only one, the Church; but if the question was answered in the negative, then they drew the inference: "Cur ergo apud vos non renascuntur per baptismum, qui transeunt a nobis ad vos, cum apud nos fuerint baptizati, si nondum nati sunt?" To this Augustine replies: "Quasi vero ex hoc generet unde separata est, et non ex hoc unde conjuncta est. Separata est enim a vinculo caritatis et pacio, sed juncta est in uno baptismate. Itaque est una ecclesia, quæ sola Catholica nominatur; et quidquid suum habet in communionibus diversorum a sua unitate separatis, per hoc quod suum in eis habet, ipsa utique general, non illæ."

[253] A Donatist, "historicus doctus," indeed urged the telling objection (Ep. 93, 23) "Quantum ad totius mundi pertinet partes, modica pars est in compensatione totius mundi, in qua fides Christiana nominatur." Augustine, naturally, was unable really to weaken the force of this objection.

[254] We have already remarked that Augustine held these to have--at least in many respects--an independent authority; see Doctrina Christ. and Ep 54, 55. In not a few expositions it seems as if the appeal to the Church was solely to the Church that possessed Scripture.

[255] Besides the whole of the anti-Donatist writings, see, e.g., Ep. 43, 21; 44, 3; 49, 2, 3; 51, 5; 53, 3.

[256] De civit. dei, XX. 10: Distinction between sacerdotes and proprie sacerdotes.

[257] Augustine's attitude to the Roman Bishop, i.e. to the infallible Roman tradition, is shown clearly in his criticism of Zosimus (Reuter p. 312 ff., 325 ff.) and in the extremely valuable 36 Epistle, which discusses the work of an anonymous Roman writer, who had glorified the Roman Church along with Peter (c. 21 "Petrus, apostolorum caput, coeli janitor, ecclesiæ fundamentum"), and had declared statutory institutions of the Roman Church to be universally binding.

[258] C. litt. Pet. III. 10: "deum patrem et ejus ecclesiam matrem habere."

[259] Perhaps the most cogent evidence of this is Ep. 36, 17. The anonymous Roman Christian had appealed to the verse "Non est regnum dei esca et potus," and simply identified "regnum dei" with "ecclesia," to prove that the Roman command to fast on the Sabbath was apostolic. Augustine does not reject this identification, but only the inference drawn from it by the anonymous writer. Here, however, ecclesia is manifestly the Catholic Church. In De trinit. I. 16, 20, 21, Augustine has no doubt that the regnum, which Christ will hand over to the Father, "omnes justi sunt, in quibus nunc regnat mediator," or the "credentes et viventes ex fide; fideles quippe ejus quos redemit sanguine suo dicti sunt regnum ejus." That is the Church; but at the same time it is self-evident that its "wrinkles" are ignored, yet not so its organisation; see on Ps. CXXVI. 3: "Quæ autem domus dei et ipsa civitas? Domus enim dei populus dei, quia domus dei templum dei . . . omnes fideles, quæ est domus dei, cum angelis faciunt unam civitatem. Habet custodes. Christus custodiebat, custos erat. Et episcopi hoc faciunt. Nam ideo altior locus positus est episcopis, ut ipsi superintendant et tamquam custodiant populum."

[260] How far he went in this is shown by observing that in B. XX. he has connected with the present, as already fulfilled, not a few passages which plainly refer to Christ's Second Advent; see c. 5: "Multa præterea quæ de ultimo judicio ita dici videntur, ut diligenter considerata reperiantur ambigua vel magis ad aliud pertinentia, sive scilicet ad eum salva oris adventum, quo per totum hoc tempus in ecclesia sua venit, hoc est in membris suis, particulatim atque paulatim, quoniam tota corpus est ejus, sive ad excidium terrenæ Hierusalem, quia et de illo cum loquitur, plerumque sic loquitur tamquam de fine sæculi atque illo die judicii novissimo et magno loquatur." Yet he has left standing much of the dramatic eschatology.

[261] See Reuter, Studie III.

[262] Augustine had already written in Ep. 35 (A.D. 396, c. 3): "Dominus jugo suo in gremio ecclesiæ toto orbe diffuso omnia terrena regna subjecit."

[263] "Remota justitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia"?

[264] "Invenimus ergo in terrena civitate dual formas, unam suam præsentiam demonstrantem, alteram cælesti civitati signifcandæ sua præsentia servientem."

[265] It is not, accordingly, involved under all circumstances in the notion of the earthly State that it is the organism of sin. Passages on the Christian State, Christian ages, and Catholic emperors, are given in Reuter, p. 141.

[266] Augustine, indeed, also holds that there is an earthly justitia, which is a great good contrasted with flagitia and facinora; he can even appreciate the value of relative blessings (Reuter, p. 135 ff.), but this righteousness finally is dissipated, because, not having itself issued from "the Good," it cannot permanently institute anything good.

[267] V. 24: If they "suam potestatem ad dei cultum maxime dilatandum majestati ejus famulam faciunt, si plus amant illud regnum, ubi non timent habere consortes."

[268] What holds true of the State applies equally, of course, to all particular blessings marriage, family, property, etc.

[269] Augustine, therefore, hold; a different view from Optatus (see above, p. 48); at least, a second consideration is frequent, in which the Church does not exist in the Roman empire, but that empire is attached to the Church. In matters of terrena felicitas the Church, according to Augustine, was bound to obey the State.

[270] On the relation of Church and State, see Dorner, pp. 295-312, and the modifications considered necessary by Reuter in Studien, 3 and 6. Augustine did not at first approve the theory of inquisition and compulsion (c. Ep. Man. c. 1-3), but he was convinced of its necessity in the Donatist controversy ("coge intrare"). He now held all means of compulsion legitimate except the death penalty; Optatus approved of the latter also. If it is not difficult to demonstrate that Augustine always recognised an independent right of the State to be obeyed, yet that proves little. It may, indeed, be the case that Augustine valued the State relatively more highly than the ancient Christians, who were still more strongly influenced by eschatological views. But we may not forget that he advanced not only the cælestis societas, but the catholica, in opposition to the State.

[271] Ep. 21, 3: "sacramentum et verbum dei populo ministrare." Very frequently verbum = evangelium = Christ and the first cause of regeneration. C. litt. Pet. I. 8: "Semen quo regeneror verbum dei est." The objective efficacy of the Word is sharply emphasised, but--outside of the Church it does not succeed in infusing love. C. Pet. III. 67: "minister verbi et sacramenti evangelici, si bonus est, consocius fit evangelii, si autem malus est, non ideo dispensator non est evangelii." II. 11: "Nascitur credens non ex ministri sterilitate, sed ex veritatis foecunditate." Still, Luther was right when he included even Augustine among the new-fashioned theologians who talk much about the Sacraments and little about the Word.

[272] "Aliud videtur aliud intelligitur" (Sermo 272) is Augustine's main thought, which Ratramnus afterwards enforced so energetically. Hahn (L. v. d. Sacram., p. 11 ff.) has detailed Augustine's various statements on the notion of the Sacrament. We learn, e.g., from Ep. 36 and 54, the strange point of view from which at times he regarded the conception of the Sacrament: see 54, 1: "Dominus noster, sicut ipse in evangelio loquitur, leni jugo suo nos subdidit et sarcinæ levi; unde sacramentis numero paucissimis, observatione facillimis, significatione præstantissimis societatem novi populi colligavit." Baptism and the Lord's Supper follow "et si quid aliud in scripturis canonicis commendatur. . . . Illa autem quæ non scripta, sed tradita custodimus, quæ quidem toto terrarum orbe servantur, datur intelligi vel ab ipsis apostolis, vel plenariis conciliis, quorum est in ecclesia saluberrima auctoritas, commendata atque statuta retineri, sicut quod domini passio et resurrectio et ascensio in cælum et adventus de cælo spiritus sancti anniversaria sollemnitate celebrantur, et si quid aliud tale occurrit quod servatur ab universa, quacumque se diffundit, ecclesia."

[273] On John T. 80, 3: "Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum, etiam ipsum tamquam visibile verbum.

[274] De catech. rud. 50: "Signacula quidem rerum divinarum esse visibilia, sed res ipsas invisibiles in eis honorari."

[275] Hahn (p. 12) gives the following definition as Augustinian: "The Sacrament is a corporeal sign, instituted by God, of a holy object, which, from its nature, it is adapted by a certain resemblance to represent, and by means of it God, under certain conditions, imparts his grace to those who make use of it."

[276] Ep. 173, 3: "Vos oves Christi estis, characterem dominicum portatis in Sacramento." De bapt. c. Donat. IV. 16: "Manifestum est, fieri posse, ut in eis qui sunt ex parte diaboli sanctum sit sacramentum Christi, non ad salutem, sed ad judicium eorum . . . signa nostri imperatoris in eis cognoscimus . . . desertores sunt." VI. 1: "Oves dominicum characterem a fallacibus deprædatoribus foris adeptæ."

[277] De bapt. IV. 16: "Per se ipsum considerandus est baptismus verbis evangelicis, non adjuncta neque permixta ulla perversitate atque malitia sive accipientium sive tradentium . . . non cogitandum, quis det sed quid det." C. litt. Pet. I . 8: "(Against various Donatist theses, e.g., conscientia dantis adtenditur, qui abluat accipientis') Sæpe mihi ignota est humana conscientia, sed certus sum de Christi misericordia . . . non est perfidus Christus, a quo fidem percipio, non reatum . . . origo mea Christus est, radix mea Christus est . . . semen quo regeneror, verbum dei est . . . etiam si ille, per quem audio, quæ mihi dicit ipse non facit . . . me innocentem non facit nisi qui mortuus est propter delicta nostra et resurrexit propter justificationem nostram. Non enim in ministrum, per quem baptizor, credo, sed in eum, qui justificat impium."

[278] We have to emphasise the distinction between "habere" and "utiliter habere" often drawn in the writings against the Donatists; c. Cresc. I. 34: "Vobis (Donatistis) pacem nos annuntiamus, non ut, cum ad nos veneritis, alterum baptismum accipiatis, sed ut eum qui jam apud vos erat utiliter habeatis," or "una catholica ecclesia non in qua sola unus baptismus habetur, sed in qua sola unus baptismus salubriter habetur." De bapt. c. Donat. IV. 24: "Qui in invidia intus et malevolentia sine caritate vivunt, verum baptisma possunt et accipere et tradere. (Sed) salus, inquit Cyprianus, extra ecclesiam non est. Quis negat? Et ideo quæcumque ipsius ecclesiæ habentur, extra ecclesiam non valent ad salutem. Sed aliud est non habere, aliud non utiliter habere."

[279] In the Catholic Church the seal and salvation coincide where faith is present. Augustine's primary concern was that the believer should receive in the Sacrament a firm conviction of the mercy of Christ.

[280] Augustine did not really lay any stress on legal relation; but he did, as a matter of fact, a great deal to set matters in this light.

[281] Sermo 57, 7: "Eucharistia panis noster quotidianus est; sed sic accipiamus illum, ut non solum ventre sed et mente reficiamur. Virtus enim ipsa, quæ ibi intelligitur, unitas est, ut redacti in corpus ejus, effecti membra ejus, simus quod accipimus." 272: "panis est corpus Christi . . . corpus Christi si vis intelligere, apostolum audi: vos estis corpus Christi." Augustine maintains the traditional conception that, in speaking of the "body of Christ," we may think of all the ideas connected with the word (the body is pneumatikon, is itself spirit, is the Church), but he prefers the latter, and, like the ancient Church, suffers the reference to forgiveness of sins to fall into the background. Unitas and vita (De pecc. mer. I. 34) occupy the foreground. Therefore in this case also, nay, more than in that of any other signum, the sign is wholly irrelevant. This "sacramentum unitatis" assures believers and gives them what they are, on condition of their possessing faith. (On John XXVI. 1: "credere in eum, hoc est manducare panem vivum"; De civit. XX I. 25.) No one has more strongly resisted the realistic interpretation of the Lord's Supper, and pointed out that what "visibiliter celebratur, oportet invisibiliter intelligi" (On Ps. XCVIII. 9 fin.). "The flesh profits nothing," and Christ is not on earth "secundum corporis præsentiam." Now it is possible that, like the Greeks, Augustine might here or there have entertained the thought that the sacramental body of the Lord must also be identified with the real. But I have found no passage which clearly supports this (see also Dorner, p. 267 ff.). All we can say is that not a few passages at a first glance can be, and soon were, understood in this way. Augustine, the spiritual thinker, has in general greatly weakened the dogmatic significance of the Sacrament. He indeed describes it, like Baptism, as necessary to salvation; but since he hardly ever cites the argument that it is connected with the resurrection and eternal life, the necessity is reduced to the unity and love which find one expression along with others in the Lord's Supper. The holy food is rather, in general, a declaration and assurance, or the avowal of an existing state, than a gift. In this Augustine agrees undoubtedly with the so-called pre-Reformers and Zwingli. This leads us to the import of the rite as a sacrifice ("sacrificium corporis Christi"). Here there are four possible views. The Church presents itself as a sacrifice in Christ's body; Christ's sacrificial death is symbolically repeated by the priest in memory of him; Christ's body is really offered anew by the priest; and Christ, as priest, continually and everywhere presents himself as a sacrifice to the Father. Of these views, 1, 2, and 4 can certainly be instanced in Augustine, but not the third. He strictly maintains the prerogative of the priest; but there is as little mention of a "conficere corpus Christi" as of Transubstantiation; for the passage (Sermo 234, 2) to which Catholics delight to appeal: "non omnis panis sed accipiens benedictionem fit corpus Christi," only means that, as in all Sacraments, the res is now added to the panis, and makes it the signum rei invisibilis; by consecration the bread becomes something different from what it was before. The res invisibilis is not, however, the real body, but incorporation into Christ's body, which is the Church. According to Augustine, the unworthy also obtain the valid Sacrament, but what they do receive is indeed wholly obscure. I could not say with Dorner (p. 274): "Augustine does not know of any participation in the real (?) body and blood on the part of unbelievers."

[282] It is now the proper administration of baptism (rite) that is emphasised. The Sacrament belongs to God; therefore it cannot be rendered invalid by sin or heresy. The indispensableness of baptism rests of sheer necessity on the "stamp," and that is the most fatal turn it could take, because in that case faith is by no means certainly implied. The "Punici" are praised in De pecc. mer. I. 34, because they simply call baptism "salus"; but yet the indispensableness of the rite is not held to consist in its power of conferring salvation, but in the stamp. This indispensableness is only infringed by the baptism of blood, or by the wish to receive baptism where circumstances render that impossible. In the corresponding line of thought baptism rightly administered among heretics appears, because possessed unlawfully, to be actually inefficacious, nay, it brings a judgment. The Euphrates, which flows in Paradise and in profane countries, only brings forth fruit in the former. Therefore the controversy between Dorner and Schmidt, whether Augustine did or did not hold the Sacrament to be dependent on the Catholic Church, is idle. It is independent of it, in so far as it is necessary; dependent, if it is to bestow salvation. Yet Dorner (l.c. p. 252 f., and elsewhere) seems to me to be advancing not an Augustinian conception, but at most a deduction from one, when he maintains that Augustine does not contradict the idea that the Church is rendered holy by its membership, by emphasising the Sacraments, but by laying stress on the sanctity of the whole, namely the Church. He repeatedly makes the suggestion, however, in order to remove the difficulties in Augustine's notion of the Sacraments, that he must have distinguished between the offer and bestowal of grace; even the former securing their objective validity. But this is extremely questionable, and would fall short of Augustine; for his correct religious view is that grace operates and does not merely make an offer. Augustine, besides, has wavered to such an extent in marking off the place of the stamp, and of saving efficacy in baptism, that he has even supposed a momentary forgiveness of sin in the case of heretics (De bapt. I. 19; III. 18: "rursus debita redeunt per hæresis aut schismatis obstinationem et ideo necessarium habent hujusmodi homines venire ad Catholicam pacem;" for, on John XXVII. 6: "pax ecclesiæ dimittit peccata et ab ecclesiæ pace alienatio tenet peccata; petra tenet, petra dimittit; columba tenet, columba dimittit; unitas tenet, unitas dimittit"). The most questionable feature of Augustine's doctrine of baptism (within the Church) is that he not only did not get rid of the magical idea, but strengthened it by his interest in infant baptism. While he intended that baptism and faith should be connected, infant baptism made a cleavage between them. He deduced the indispensableness of infant baptism from original sin, but by no means also from the tendency to make the salvation of all men dependent on the Church (see Dorner, p. 257). In order to conserve faith in baptism, Augustine assumed a kind of vicarious faith on the part of god-parents, but, as it would appear, he laid no stress on it, since his true opinion was that baptism took the place of faith for children. However, the whole doctrine of baptism is ultimately for Augustine merely preliminary. Baptism is indispensable, but it is, after all, nothing more. The main thing is the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the soul; so that, from this point of view, baptism is of no real importance for salvation. But Augustine was far from drawing this inference.

[283] Little reflection had hitherto been given in the Church to ordination. The Donatists furnished a motive for thinking about it, and it was once more Augustine who bestowed on the Church a series of sacerdotal ideas, without himself being interested in their sacerdotal tendency. The practice had indeed for long been sacerdotal; but it was only by its fateful combination with baptism, and the principle that ordination did not require (as against Cyprian) a moral disposition to render it valid, that the new sacrament became perfect. It now conferred an inalienable stamp, and was, therefore, if it had been properly administered, even though outside the Church, not repeated, and as it communicated an objective holiness, it gave the power also to propagate holiness. From Book I. c. 1 of De bapt. c. Donat. onwards, the sacramentum baptismi and the sacramentum baptismi dandi are treated in common (§ 2: "sicut baptizatus, si ab unitate recesserit, sacramentum baptismi non amittit, sic etiam ordinatus, si ab unitate recesserit, sacramentum dandi baptismi non amittit." C. ep. Parm. II. 28: "utrumque in Catholica non licet iterari." The clearest passage is De bono conjug. 32: "Quemadmodum si fiat ordinatio cleri ad plebem congregandam, etiamsi plebis congregatio non subsequatur, manet tamen in illis ordinatis sacramentum ordinationis, et si aliqua culpa quisquam ab officio removeatur, sacramento domini semel imposito non carebit, quamvis ad judicium permanente"). The priests are alone appointed to administer the sacraments (in c. ep. Parm. II. 29 we have the remarkably tortuous explanation of lay-baptism; Augustine holds that it is a veniale delictum, even when the necessity is urgent; he, at least, believes it possible that it is so. But baptism, even when unnecessarily usurped by laymen, is valid, although illicite datum; for the "stamp" is there. Yet Augustine warns urgently against encroaching on the office of the priest.) None but the priest can celebrate the Lord's Supper. That was ancient tradition. The judicial functions of priests fall into the background in Augustine (as compared with Cyprian). We do not find in him, in a technical form, a sacrament of penance. Yet it actually existed, and he was the first to give it a substructure by his conception that the gratia Christi was not exhausted in the retrospective effect of baptismal grace. In that period, baptism and penance were named together as if they were the two chief Sacraments, without the latter being expressly called a Sacrament; see Pelagius' confession of faith (Hahn, § 133): "Hominem, si post baptismum lapsus fuerit, per pænitentiam credimus posse salvari;" which is almost identical with that of Julian of Eclanum (l.c. § 535): "Eum, qui post baptismum peccaverit, per pænitentiam credimus posse salvari;" and Augustine's (Enchir. 46): "Peccata, quæ male agendo postea committuntur, possunt et pænitendo sanari, sicut etiam post baptismum fieri videmus;" (c. 65): "Neque de ipsis criminibus quamlibet magnis remittendis in sancta ecclesia dei misericordia desperanda est agentibus pænitentiam secundum modum sui cujusque peccati." He is not speaking of baptism, but of the Church's treatment of its members after baptism, when he says (l.c. c. 83): "Qui vero in ecclesia remitti peccata non credens contemnit tantam divini muneris largitatem et in hac obstinatione mentis diem claudit extremum, reus est illo irremissibili peccato in spiritum sanctum."

[284] A passage in Augustine's letter to Januarius (Ep. 55, c. 2) on the nature of the sacrament became very important for after ages: "Primum oportet noveris diem natalem domini non in sacramento celebrari, sed tantum in memoriam revocari quod natus sit, ac per hoc nihil opus erat, nisi revolutum anni diem, quo ipsa res acta est, festa devotione signari. Sacramentum est autem in aliqua celebratione, cum rei gestæ commemoratio ita fit, ut aliquid etiam signfcari intelligatur, quod sancte accipiendum est. Eo itaque modo egimus pascha ut non solum in memoriam quod gestum est, revocemus, id est, quod mortuus est Christus et resurrexit, sed etiam cetera, quæ circa ea adtestantur ad sacramenti significationem non omittamus."

[285] De virgin. 24: "Quid aliud istis restat nisi ut ipsum regnum cælorum ad hanc temporalem vitam, in qua nunc sumus, asserant pertinere? Cur enim non et in hanc insaniam progrediatur cæca præsumptio? Et quid hac assertione furiosius? Nam etsi regnum cælorum aliquando ecclesia etiam quæ hoc tempore est appellatur ad hoc utique sic appellatur, quia futuræ vitæ sempiternæque colligitur." It is needless to quote more passages, they are so numerous.

[286] See on this above, p. 151.
[287] E.g., Ep. 102, quæst 2, esp. § 12.
[288] See above, p. 152, n. 2.

[289] Formerly more hiddenly, afterwards more manifestly.

[290] In this line of thought the historical Christ takes a very secondary place; but it is quite different in others; see Sermo 116, 6: "Per Christum factus est alter mundus."

[291] "Per remissionem peccatorum stat ecclesia quæ est in terris." "In caritate stat ecclesia."

[292] We see here that the assumption that the Church was a corpus permixtum or an externa communio sacramentorum was only a make-shift conception; see the splendid exposition De baptis. V. 38, which, however, passes into the doctrine of predestination.

[293] De bapt. V. 38: "Numerus ille justorum, qui secundum propositum vocati sunt, ipse est (ecclesia). . . . Sunt etiam quidam ex eo numero qui adhuc nequiter vivant aut etiam in hæresibus vel in gentilium superstitionibus jaceant, et tamen etiam illic novit dominus qui sunt ejus. Namque in illa ineffabili præscientia dei multi qui foris videntur, intus sunt, et multi, qui intus videntur, foris sunt." We return to this in dealing with Augustine's doctrine of predestination.

[294] Here Reuter is entirely right as against Dorner. __________________________________________________________________

3. The Pelagian Controversy. The Doctrine of Grace and Sin.

Augustine's doctrine of grace and sin was constructed independently of the Pelagian controversy. It was substantially complete when he entered the conflict; but he was by no means clear as to its application in separate questions in the year of his conversion. At the time of his fight with Manichæism (see the Tres libri de libero arbitrio) he had rather emphasised, following the tradition of the Church teachers, the independence of human freedom, and had spoken of original sin merely as inherited evil. It was his clerical office, a renewed study of Romans, and the criticism of his spiritual development, as instituted in the Confessions, that first led him to the Neoplatonic Christian conviction that all good, and therefore faith, came from God, and that man was only good and free in dependence on God. Thus he gained a point of view which he confessed at the close of his life he had not always possessed, and which he opposed to the earlier, erroneous conceptions
[295] that friends and enemies frequently reminded him of It can be said that his doctrine of grace, in so far as it was a doctrine of God, was complete as early as A.D. 387; but it was not, in its application to Bible history, or to the problem of conversion and sanctification (in the Church), before the beginning of the fifth century. It can also be shown that he was at all times slightly influenced by the popular Catholic view, and this all the more as he was not capable of drawing the whole consequences of his system, which, if he had done so, would have led to determinism.

This system did not evoke Pelagianism. Pelagius had taken offence, indeed, before the outbreak of the controversy, at Augustine's famous sentence: "Grant what thou commandest, and command what thou dost desire," and he had opposed it at Rome; [296] but by that date his doctrine was substantially settled. The two great types of thought, involving the question whether virtue or grace, morality or religion, the original and inalienable constitution of man, or the power of Jesus Christ was supreme, did not evolve themselves in the controversy. They gained in clearness and precision during its course, [297] but both arose, independently of each other, from the internal conditions of the Church. We can observe here, if anywhere, the "logic" of history. There has never, perhaps, been another crisis of equal importance in Church history in which the opponents have expressed the principles at issue so clearly and abstractly. The Arian dispute before the Nicene Council can alone be compared with it; but in this case the controversy moved in a narrow sphere of formulas already marked off by tradition. On the other hand, in spite of the exegetical and pseudo-historical materials that encumbered the problems in this instance also, there is a freshness about the Pelagian controversy and disputants that is wanting in the Greek contentions. [298] The essentially literary character of the dispute, the absence of great central incidents, did not prejudice it any way; the main issue was all the freer of irrelevant matter. But it is its most memorable feature that the Western Church so speedily and definitely rejected Pelagianism, while the latter, in its formulas, still seemed to maintain that Church's ancient teaching. In the crucial question, whether grace is to be reduced to nature, or the new life to grace, in the difficulty how the polar antitheses of "creaturely freedom and grace" are to be united, [299] the Church placed itself resolutely on the side of religion. In doing so it was as far from seeking to recognise all the consequences that followed from this position as it had been a hundred years earlier at Nicæa; indeed it did not even examine them. But it never recalled--perhaps it was no longer possible to recall--the step taken as soon as rationalistic moralism clearly revealed its character.

Not only is the inner logic of events proved by the simultaneous and independent emergence of Augustinianism and Pelagianism, but the how strikes us by its consistency. On the one side we have a hot-blooded man who had wrestled, while striving for truth, to attain strength and salvation, to whom the sublimest thoughts of the Neoplatonists, the Psalms, and Paul had solved the problems of his inner life, and who had been over-powered by his experience of the living God. On the other, we have a monk and a eunuch, [300] both without traces of any inner struggles, both enthusiasts for virtue, and possessed by the idea of summoning a morally listless Christendom to exert its will, and of leading it to rnonachist perfection; equally familiar with the Fathers, desirous of establishing relations with the East, and well versed in Antiochene exegesis; [301] but, above all, following that Stoic and Aristotelian popular philosophy--theory of knowledge, psychology, ethics and dialectics--which numbered so many adherents among cultured Christians of the West. The third member of the league, Julian of Eclanum, the early widowed Bishop, was more active and aggressive than the reserved and prudent Pelagius, [302] more circumspect than Cælestius, the agitator, and more cultured than either. Overbearing in manner, he had a talent for dialectics, and, more stubborn than earnest, was endowed with an insatiable delight in disputing, and a boyish eagerness to define conceptions and construct syllogisms. He was no monk, but a child of the world, and jovial by nature. He was, indeed, the first, and up to the sixteenth century, the unsurpassed, unabashed representative of a self-satisfied Christianity. Pelagius and Cælestius required the aid of Julian, if the moralistic mode of thought was not to be represented from one side alone--the religious view needed only one representative. Certainly no dramatist could have better invented types of these two contrasted conceptions of life than those furnished by Augustine on the one hand, and the two earnest monks, Pelagius and Clestius, and the daring, worldly bishop Julian on the other. [303]

We have thus already indicated the origin of Pelagianism. It is the consistent outcome of the Christian rationalism that had long been wide spread in the West, especially among the more cultured, that had been nourished by the popular philosophy influenced by Stoicism and Aristotelianism, [304] and had by means of Julian received a bias to (Stoic) naturalism. [305] (We may not overlook the fact that it originally fell back upon monachism, still in its early stages in the West, and that the two phenomena at first sought a mutual support in each other.) [306] Nature, free-will, virtue and law, these--strictly defined and made independent of the notion of God--were the catch-words of Pelagianism: self-acquired virtue is the supreme good which is followed by reward. Religion and morality lie in the sphere of the free spirit; [307] they are won at any moment by man's own effort. The extent to which this mode of thought was diffused is revealed, not only by the uncertain utterances of theologians, who in many of their expositions show that they know better, [308] but above all by the Institutes of Lactantius. [309] In what follows we have first to describe briefly the external course of the controversy, then to state the Pelagian line of thought, and finally to expound Augustine's doctrine. [310]

I. We first meet with Pelagius in Rome. In every century there have appeared preachers in Italy who have had the power of thrilling for the moment the vivacious and emotional Italians. Pelagius was one of the first (De pecc. orig. 24: "He lived for a very long time in Rome"). Roused to anger by an inert Christendom, that excused itself by pleading the frailty of the flesh and the impossibility of fulfilling the grievous commandments of God, he preached that God commanded nothing impossible, that man possessed the power of doing the good if only he willed, and that the weakness of the flesh was merely a pretext. "In dealing with ethics and the principles of a holy life, I first demonstrate the power to decide and act inherent in human nature, and show what it can achieve, lest the mind be careless and sluggish in pursuit of virtue in proportion to its want of belief in its power, and in its ignorance of its attributes think that it does not possess them." [311] In opposition to Jovinian, whose teaching can only have encouraged laxity, he proclaimed and urged on Christians the demands of monachism; for with nothing less was this preacher concerned. [312] Of unquestioned orthodoxy, [313] prominent also as exegete and theologian in the capital of Christendom, [314] so barren in literary work, he was so energetic in his labour that news of his success penetrated to North Africa. [315] He took to do with the practical alone. Apparently he avoided theological polemics; but when Augustine's Confessions began to produce their narcotic effects, he opposed them. Yet positive teaching, the emphasising of the freedom of the will, always remained to him the chief thing. On the other hand, his disciple and friend Cælestius [316] seems to have attacked original sin (tradux peccati) from the first. His converts proclaimed as their watchword that the forgiveness of sin was not the object of infant baptism. [317] When Alaric stormed Rome, the two preachers retreated by Sicily to North Africa. They intended to visit Augustine; but Pelagius and he did not meet either in Hippo or Carthage. [318] Probably the former left suddenly when he saw that he would not attain his ends in Africa, but would only cause theological strife. On the other hand, Cælestius remained, and became candidate for the post of Presbyter in Carthage. But as early as A.D. 412 (411) he was accused by Paulinus, Deacon in Milan (afterwards Ambrose's biographer), at a Synod held in Carthage before Bishop Aurelius. [319] The points of the complaint, reduced to writing, were as follows:--He taught "that Adam was made mortal and would have died whether he had or had not sinned--that Adam's sin injured himself alone, and not the human race--infants at birth are in that state in which Adam was before his falsehood--that the whole human race neither dies on account of Adam's death or falsehood, nor will rise again in virtue of Christ's resurrection--the law admits men to the kingdom of heaven as well as the gospel--even before the advent of our Lord there were impeccable men, i.e., men without sin--that man can be without sin and can keep the divine commands easily if he will." [320] Cælestius declared at the conference that infants needed baptism and had to be baptised; that since he maintained this his orthodoxy was proved; that original sin (tradux peccati) was at any rate an open question, "because I have heard many members of the Catholic Church deny it, and also others assent to it." [321] He was, nevertheless, excommunicated. In the Libellus Brevissimus, which he wrote in his own defence, he admitted the necessity of baptism if children were to be saved; but he held that there was a kingdom of heaven distinct from eternal life. He would not hear of forgiveness of sin in connection with infant baptism. [322] He was indisputably condemned because he undid the fixed connection between baptism and forgiveness, thus, as it were, setting up two baptisms, and offending against the Symbol. He now went to Ephesus,
[323] there became Presbyter, and afterwards betook himself to Constantinople.

Pelagius had gone to Palestine. He followed different tactics from his friend, who hoped to serve the cause by his maxim of "shocking deeply" (fortiter scandalizare). Pelagius desired peace; he wrote a flattering letter to Augustine, who sent him a friendly but reserved answer. [324] He sought to attach himself to Jerome, and to give no public offence. He plainly felt hampered by Cælestius with his agitation for the sinlessness of children, and against original sin. He wished to work for something positive. How could anyone thrust a negative point to the front, and check the movement for reform by precipitancy and theological bitterness? He actually found good friends. [325] But his friendly relations with John, Bishop of Jerusalem, could not please Jerome. Besides, reports of Pelagius' questionable doctrines came from the East, where, in Palestine, there always were numerous natives of the West. Jerome, who at the time was on good terms with Augustine, broke with Pelagius, [326] and wrote against him the Ep. ad Ctesiphontem (Ep. 133), and the Dialogi c. Pelag., writings which constitute a model of irrational polemics. He put in the foreground the question, "whether man can be without sin," and at the same time did all he could to connect Pelagius with the "heretic" Origen and other false teachers. But still greater harm was done to Pelagius [327] by the appearance, at this precise moment, of the work already known to us, in which Cælestius played so regardlessly the rôle of the enfant terrible of the party (see above). [328]

Augustine's disciple, the Spanish priest Orosius, who had come to Jerome in order to call his attention to the dangers of Pelagianism, ultimately succeeded in getting John of Jerusalem to cite Pelagius, and to receive a formal report on his case in presence of his presbyters (A.D. 415). But the inquiry ended with the triumph of the accused. Orosius referred to the authority of his celebrated teacher, and to that of Jerome and the Synod of Carthage, but without success, and when Pelagius was charged with teaching that man could be sinless and needed no divine help, the latter declared that he taught that it was not possible for man to become sinless without divine grace. With this John entirely agreed. Now since Orosius for his part would not maintain that man's nature was created evil by God, the Orientals did not see what the dispute was all about. The conference, irregular and hampered by Orosius' inability to speak Greek, was broken off: it was said that the quarrel might be decided in the West, or more precisely in Rome. [329] Pelagius had repelled the first attack. But his opponents did not rest. They succeeded, in December, 415, in getting him brought before a Palestinian Synod, presided over by Eulogius of Cæsarea, at Diospolis, where, however, he was not confronted by his accusers. [330] He was at once able to appeal to the favourable testimonies of many Bishops, who had warmly recognised his efforts to promote morality. He did not disown the propositions ascribed to him regarding nature and grace, but he succeeded in explaining them so satisfactorily, that his judges found him to be of blameless orthodoxy. The extravagant sentences taken from the letter to Livania he in part set right, and in part disowned, and when the Synod required him expressly to condemn them, he declared: "I anathematise them as foolish, not as heretical, seeing it is no case of dogma." [331] Hereupon the Synod decided: "Now since with his own voice Pelagius has anathematised the groundless nonsense, answering rightly that a man can be without sin with the divine help and grace, let him also reply to the other counts." [332] There were now laid before him the statements of Cælestius as to Adam, Adam's sin, death, new-born children, the perdition of the rich, sinlessness of God's children, the unessential character of divine assistance--in short, all those propositions which had either been already condemned at Carthage, or were afterwards advanced by Cælestius in a much worse form. Pelagius was in an awkward position. He hated all theological strife; he knew that Christian morality could only lose by it; he wished to leave the region of dogma alone. [333] Cælestius had only said, indeed, what he himself had described as correct when among his intimate friends; but the former had spoken publicly and regardlessly, and--"the tone makes the music." Thus Pelagius considered himself justified in disowning almost all those statements: "but the rest even according to their own testimony was not said by me, and for it I am not called upon to give satisfaction." But he added: "I anathematise those who hold or have held these views." With these words he pronounced judgment on himself; they were false. The Synod rehabilitated him completely: "Now since we have been satisfied by our examination in our presence of Pelagius the monk, and he assents to godly doctrines, while condemning those things contrary to the faith of the Church, we acknowledge him to belong to our ecclesiastical and Catholic Communion." [334]

No one can blame the Synod: [335] Pelagius had, in fact, given expression to its own ideas; Augustinianism was neither known nor understood; and the "heresy of Cælestius" [336] was condemned. [337]

But Pelagius now found it necessary to defend himself to his own adherents. While on the one hand he was zealous in promoting in the West the effect of the impression produced by the decision in his favour, he wrote to a friendly priest, [338] that his statement, "that a man can be without sin and keep the commands of God easily [339] if he will," had been recognised as orthodox. His work, De natura, made its appearance at the same time, and he further published four books, De libero arbitrio, [340] which, while written with all caution, disclosed his standpoint more clearly than his earlier ones. [341]

But North Africa [342] did not acquiesce in what had taken place. The prestige of the West and orthodoxy were endangered. Synods were held in A.D. 416 at Carthage and Mileve, Augustine being also present at the latter. Both turned to Innocent of Rome, to whom Cælestius had appealed long before. Soon after the epistles of the two Synods (Aug. epp. 175, 176,) the Pope received a third from five African Bishops, of whom Augustine was one (Ep. 177). [343] It was evidently feared that Pelagius might have influential friends in Rome. [344] The letters referred to the condemnation, five years before, of Cælestius; they pointed out that the Biblical doctrine of grace and the doctrine of baptism were in danger, and demanded that, no matter how Pelagius might express himself, those should be excommunicated who taught that man could overcome sin and keep God's commands by virtue of his own nature, or that baptism did not deliver children from a state of sin. It was necessary to defeat the enemies of God's grace. It was not a question of expelling Pelagius and Cælestius, but of opposing a dangerous heresy. [345]

The Pope had, perhaps, never yet received petitions from North African Synods which laid such stress on the importance of the Roman Chair. Innocent sought to forge the iron while it was hot. In his four replies (Aug. Epp. 181-184 = Innoc. Epp. 30-33) he first congratulated the Africans on having acted on the ancient rule, "that no matter might be finally decided, even in the most remote provinces, until the Roman Chair had been informed of it, in order that every just decision might be confirmed by its authority;" for truth issued from Rome, and thence was communicated in tiny streams to the other Churches. The Pope then praised their zeal against heretics, declared it impious to deny the necessity of divine grace, or to promise eternal life to children without baptism; he who thought otherwise was to be expelled from the Church, unless he performed due penance. "Therefore (Ep. 31, 6) we declare in virtue of our Apostolic authority that Pelagius and Cælestius are excluded from the communion of the Church until they deliver themselves from the snares of the devil;" if they did so, they were not to be refused readmission. Any adherents of Pelagius who might be in Rome would not venture to take his part after this condemnation; besides, the acquittal of the man in the East was not certain; nothing indubitably authentic had been laid before him, the Pope, and it appeared even from the proceedings, if they were genuine, that Pelagius had got off by evasions; if he felt himself to be innocent, he would have hastened to Rome that he might be acquitted by us; he would not summon him, however; those among whom he resided might try him once more; if he recanted, they could not condemn him; there lurked much that was blasphemous, but still more that was superfluous, in the book, De Natura; "what orthodox believer might not argue most copiously about the potentiality of nature, free-will, the whole grace of God and daily grace?" [346] He who can read between the lines will readily observe that the Pope left more than one back-door open, and had no real interest in the controversy. [347]

Pelagius now sent his remarkably well-composed confession of faith
[348] to Rome, along with an elaborate vindication of himself. [349] The accusation that he refused baptism to children, or promised them admission to heaven without it, and that he taught that men could easily fulfil the divine commands, he declared to be a calumny invented by his enemies. As already at Diospolis, so now he guarded himself against the worst charges, though they were not indeed unwarranted, partly by mental reservations, and partly by modifications; but we cannot say that he was unfaithful to his main conception. He declared that all men had received the power to will aright from God, but that the divine aid (adjutorium) only operated in the case of Christians. It was blasphemous to maintain that God had given impossible commands to men. He took his stand between Augustine and Jovinian. This letter did not reach Innocent, he having died. It was thus received by his successor Zosimus. Cælestius, who had come to Rome and submitted a Libellus fidei that left nothing to be desired in point of submission to the Pope, vindicated himself to the latter. Cælestius, on the whole, seems now, when matters had become critical, to have sounded the retreat; [350] he at least modified his statements, and took care not to come into conflict with the theory, deducible from the Church's practice, that infant baptism did away with sin. [351] After these similar declarations of the two friends, Zosimus did not see that the dogma or Church practice of baptism was endangered in any respect. At a Roman Synod (417), Cælestius, who was ready to condemn everything banned by the Pope, was rehabilitated; [352] and Pelagius, for whom Orientals interceded, was likewise declared to have cleared himself. The complainants were described as worthless beings, and the Africans were blamed for deciding too hastily; they were called upon to prove their charges within two months. This result was communicated in two letters [353] to the African Bishops. [354] They were told that Pelagius had never been separated from the Church, and that if there had been great joy over the return of the lost son, how much greater should be the joy of believing that those about whom false reports had been circulated were neither dead nor lost (Ep. 4, 8)!

The Carthaginians were indignant, but not discouraged. A Synod (417) determined to adhere to the condemnation until it was ascertained that both heretics saw in grace not merely an enlightenment of the intellect, but the only power for good (righteousness), without which we can have absolutely no true religion in thought, speech, and action.
[355] This resolution was conveyed to Zosimus. Paulinus of Milan declared at the same time in a letter to the Pope that he would not come to Rome to prosecute Cælestius, for the case had been already decided. [356] This energetic opposition made the Pope cautious. In his reply, [357] he glorified Peter and his office in eloquent language, but changed his whole procedure, declaring now that the Africans were under a mistake if they believed that he had trusted Cælestius [358] in everything, and had already come to a decision. The case had not yet been prejudiced, and was in the same position as before (March, 418). Immediately after the arrival of this letter in Africa, a great Council was held there--more than 200 Bishops being present--and Pelagianism was condemned, without consulting the Pope, in 8 (9) unequivocal Canons; [359] indeed, such was the indignation felt against Zosimus--and on different grounds--that the Council, in its 17 Canon, threatened with excommunication any appeal to Rome. [360] But it had first assured itself of the Emperor's support, who had published on the 30th April, 418, an edict to the Prefect of the Prætorium, banishing the new heretics with their followers from Rome, permitting their prosecution, and threatening the guilty with stringent penalties. [361]

Zosimus, whose action had been hitherto influenced by the strength of Pelagius' party in Rome, now laid down his arms. In his Ep. tractatoria to all the Churches, [362] he informed them of the excommunication of Cælestius and Pelagius, was now convinced that the doctrines of the absolute importance of justifying grace, and of original sin, belonged to the faith (de fide), and required all Bishops to signify their assent by their signatures. But eighteen Bishops refused; [363] they appealed to a General Council, and recalled with reason the fact that the Pope had himself formerly considered a thorough conference to be necessary. In their name Julian of Eclanum wrote two bold letters to the Pope, [364] while also rejecting the propositions once set up by Cælestius. [365] From now onwards the stage was occupied by this "most confident young man," for whom Augustine, a friend of his family, possessed so much natural sympathy, and whom, in spite of his rudeness, he always treated, as long as the case lasted, affectionately and gently. [366] At the instigation of the new Pope, Boniface, Augustine refuted one of the letters sent to Rome and circulated in Italy, as well as another by Julian (addressed to Rufus of Thessalonica) in his work c. duas epp. Pelagianorum (420). Julian, who had resigned or been deposed from his bishopric, now took up his sharp and restless pen. No one else pressed Augustine so hard as he; he compelled him to work out the consequences of his line of thought; he displayed inexorably the contradictions in his works, and showed how untenable was the great man's doctrine when it was fully developed; he pointed out the traces of a Manichæan type of thinking in Augustine, traces of which the latter tried in vain to get rid. He could indeed explain that he did not mean them, but could not show that they were not there. Julian's charge that Augustine's teaching desecrated marriage had made an impression on the powerful Comes Valerius in Rome. Augustine sought to weaken the force of the charge in his writing, De nuptiis et concupiscentia, Lib. I.; but Julian now wrote a work in four volumes against the treatise. Augustine based a reply on extracts from the latter (De nupt. et concup., 1. II.), and when he received the work itself, he substituted, for this preliminary answer, a new work: Libri sex c. Julianum hæresis Pelagianæ defensorem. Julian replied to the "Preliminary pamphlet" with a work in eight volumes (written already in Cilicia). Augustine was engaged with the answer to this work, Opus imperf. c. Julianum (l. sex), up to his death. Since he follows Julian almost sentence by sentence, we possess the most accurate information as to the latter's positions. [367] In his latest years, Augustine composed other four writings which are not aimed directly at the Pelagians, but discuss objections raised against his own doctrine by Catholics or Semi-Pelagians [368] (De gratia et libero arbitrio; De correptione et gratia: to the monks of Hadrumetum; De prædestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiæ: to Prosper and Hilary as against the Gallic monks). In these works the doctrine of predestinating grace is worked out in its strictest form.

The Pelagians nowhere came to form a sect or schismatical party. [369] They were suppressed in the years after A.D. 418, without it being necessary to apply any special force. The Emperor once more published a sharp edict. Cælestius, who had hitherto escaped punishment, was still chiefly dealt with. He was forbidden to reside in Italy, and sentence of exile was pronounced on anyone who should harbour him. Pelagius is said to have been condemned by a Synod in Antioch. But this information, given by Marius, is uncertain. He disappears from history.
[370] Julian and other Pelagians took refuge with Theodore in Cilicia. There they were at first left in peace; for either the controversy was not understood, or the attitude to Augustinianism was hostile. The indefatigable Cælestius was able in A.D. 424 to demand once more an inquiry in Rome from Bishop Cælestine, but then betook himself, without having obtained his object, to Constantinople, where, since Julian and other friends were also assembled, the party now pitched their headquarters. [371] The Patriarch Nestorius joined hands with them, a proceeding fatal to both sides; for Nestorius thereby incurred the displeasure of the Pope, and the Pelagians fell into the ranks of the enemies of the dominant party in the East (Cyril's). Marius Mercator agitated successfully against them at the Court, and in the comedy at Ephesus Cyril obliged the Roman legates by getting the Council to condemn the doctrine of Cælestius, Rome having concurred in his condemnation of Nestorius. [372] Thus Pelagianism had brought upon itself a kind of universal anathema, while in the East there were perhaps not even a dozen Christians who really disapproved of it, [373] and the West, in turn, was by no means clear as to the consequences to which it would necessarily be led by the condemnation of the Pelagians.

II. As regards the history of dogma, the "system" of Pelagianism, i.e. of Julian of Eclanum, is tolerably indifferent; for it was only produced after the whole question was already decided, and its author was a theologian, who, by renouncing his ecclesiastical office, had himself thrown away much of his claim to be considered. From the standpoint of the history of dogma, the controversy closed simply with rejection of the doctrines, (1) that God's grace (in Christ) was not absolutely necessary--before and after baptism--for the salvation of every man, and (2) that the baptism of infants was not in the fullest sense a baptism for remission of sins (in remissionem peccatorum). The contrary doctrines were the new "dogmas." But, since those two doctrines and the main theses of Pelagianism involved a multitude of consequences, and since some of these consequences were even then apparent, while others afterwards occupied the Church up till and beyond the Reformation, it is advisable to point out the fundamental features of the Pelagian system, and the contrary teaching of Augustinianism. [374] In doing so we have to remember that Pelagius would have nothing to do with a system. To him "De fide" (of the faith) meant simply the orthodox dogma and the ability of man to do the good. All else were open questions which might be answered in the affirmative or negative, among the rest original sin, which he denied. He laid sole stress on preaching practical Christianity, i.e., the monastic life, to a corrupt and worldly Christendom, and on depriving it of the pretext that it was impossible to fulfil the divine commands. Cælestius, at one with his teacher in this respect, attacked original sin more energetically, and fought by the aid of definitions and syllogisms theological doctrines which he held to be pernicious. But Julian was the first to develop their mode of thought systematically, and to elevate it into a Stoic Christian system. [375] Yet he really added nothing essential to what occurs scattered through the writings of Pelagius and Cælestius. He only gave it all a naturalistic tendency, i.e., he did away with the monastic intention of the type of thought. But even in Pelagius, arguments occur which completely contradict the ascetic monastic conception. In his letter to Demetrius he shows that fasting, abstinence and prayer are not of such great importance; they should not be carried to excess, as is often done by beginners; moderation should be observed in all things, therefore even in good works. The main thing is to change one's morals and to practise every kind of virtue. And thus no one is to think that the vow of chastity can let him dispense with the practice of spiritual virtues and the fight with anger, vanity, and pride, etc. It was the actual development of the character in goodness on which he laid stress. The monastic idea appears subordinate to this thought, which in some passages is expressed eloquently. The ancient call to wise moderation has not a naturalistic impress in Pelagius. In treating the thought of these three men as a whole we have to remember this distinction, as also the fact that Pelagius and Cælestius for the most part paid due heed to Church practice, and besides avoided almost entirely any appeal to the ancient philosophers. [376] They were all actuated by a courageous confidence in man's capacity for goodness, along with the need for clearness of thought on religious and moral questions.

1. God's highest attributes are his goodness and justice, and, in fact, righteousness is the quality without which God cannot be thought of at all; indeed, it can even be said that there is a God, because there is righteousness. [377] "Justice, as it is wont to be defined by the learned (s. Aristotle) and as we can understand, is (if the Stoics will allow us to prefer one to the other) the greatest of all virtues, discharging diligently the duty of restoring his own to each, without fraud, without favour." [378] Its genus is God; its species are the promulgation and administration of the laws; its difference consists in its being regulated by circumstances; its modus in its not requiring from anyone more than his powers permit, and in not excluding mercy; its quality in sweetness to pious souls. This notion of righteousness is so sure that it appears also to be ideally superior to Holy Scripture (see Op. imperf. II. 17): "Nothing can be proved by the sacred writings which righteousness cannot support." [379]

2. It follows, from the goodness and righteousness of God, that everything created by him is good--and that not only at the beginning--but what he now creates is likewise good. [380] Accordingly, the creature is good, and so also are marriage, the law, free will, and the saints. [381]

3. Nature, which was created good, is not convertible, "because the things of nature persist from the beginning of existence (substance) to its end." [382] "Natural properties are not converted by accident."
[383] Accordingly, there can be no "natural sins" (peccata naturalia); for they could only have arisen if nature had become evil.

4. Human nature is thus indestructibly good, and can only be modified accidentally. To its constitution belongs--and that was very good--the will as free choice; for "willing is nothing but a movement of the mind without any compulsion." [384] This free choice, with which reason is implied, [385] is the highest good in man's constitution, "he who upholds grace praises human nature." [386] We know that Pelagius always began in his sermons by praising man's glorious constitution, his nature which shows itself in free will [387] and reason, and he never wearied of extolling our "condition of willing" (conditio voluntatis), as contrasted with the "condition of necessity" (conditio necessitatis) of irrational creatures. "Nature was created so good that it needs no help." [388] With reason as guide (duce ratione) man can and should do the good, i.e., righteousness (jus humanæ societatis). [389] God desires a voluntary performer of righteousness (voluntarius executor justitiæ); it is his will that we be capable of both, and that we do one. According to Pelagius freedom of will is freedom to choose the good; according to Julian it is simply freedom of choice. The possibility of good as a natural faculty is from God, [390] willing and action are our business; [391] the possibility of both (possibilitas utriusque) is as a psychological faculty inevitable (a necessario); for this very reason a continual change is possible in it. [392]

5. Evil, sin, is willing to do that which righteousness forbids, and from which we are free to abstain, [393] accordingly what we can avoid.
[394] It is no element or body, no nature--in that case God would be its author; nor is it a perverted nature (natura conversa), but it is always a momentary self-determination of the will, which can never pass into nature so as to give the to an evil nature. [395] But if this cannot happen, so much the less can evil be inherited; for that would do away with the goodness and righteousness of God, the notion of sin (as that which can be avoided), and the notion of redemption; a "natural" guilt could never be got rid of. [396]

6. Pelagius deduced the actual existence of sin from the snares of the devil and sensuous lusts (gula and libido), and condemned concupiscence accordingly. It was necessary to overcome it by virginity and continence. It sprang not from the substance of the flesh (de substantia carnis), but from its works (ex operibus carnis), otherwise God would be its author. Pelagius took a serious view of this whole matter; but he was certain, on the other hand, that the body was subject to the soul, and that thus the relationship willed by God could be restored. [397] But Julian felt that this was a vexed point. Whence came the evil desires of the flesh (desideria carnis mala) if the substance was good, and if it was yet manifest that they frequently did not spring from the will? The case of marriage, which is unthinkable without sexual desire, showed Julian that libido was permitted by God, and he attacked inexorably the artificial distinctions which Augustine sought and was compelled to make between nuptiæ and concupiscentia.
[398] Julian taught that concupiscence was in itself indifferent and innocent; for the actual creation was of all conceivable kinds the best; but this creation embraced sexual and all other desires. [399] Libido was guilty non in genere suo, non in specie, non in modo, but only in excessu; genus and species were from God, the modus depended on an honest decision (arbitrium honestatis), excess followed from a fault of will (vitium voluntatis). [400] If it were otherwise, then baptism would necessarily eradicate, and not merely regulate, concupiscence.
[401] Accordingly the latter, within limits (intra modum), was good;
[402] he who used it moderately, used a blessing rightly; he who indulged in it immoderately, used a blessing badly; but he who from love to virginity despised even moderate indulgence, did not thereby use a good thing better. [403] The shame alluded to by Augustine, which is felt even at the lawful enjoyment of desire, was explained by Julian, following the Cynics, as mere convention and custom. [404] Christ himself possessed concupiscence. [405]

7. It follows from this teaching that there can always have been sinless men: [406] Pelagius, indeed, argued further that since every man could resist sin (easily), he who sinned passed into hell at the Judgment; [407] for every sin was really mortal, the sinner having acted against his ability to do better. Julian, moreover, taught that every excess was a mortal sin, since it was done absolutely without compulsion. [408] In the end, it is said, God punishes the wicked and rewards the virtuous. But it remains wholly obscure how there can exist virtue (righteousness) and sin at all if, in practising them, a character can never be gained, if we are only concerned with fragmentary actions from which no deposit is left or sum-total formed.

In the foregoing the fundamental conceptions of the Pelagians are described. But they were also, of course, Catholic Christians; they were accordingly compelled to harmonise these doctrines of theirs with Holy Scripture and its historical contents, with Christ and the teaching of the Church. How they did so we have still briefly to discuss in what follows. It is apparent that the difficulties in showing this agreement were extraordinarily great, and, indeed, not only for them, but for everyone who would harmonise a coherent rational doctrine with Gen. I.-III., and with hundreds of passages in Scripture.

8. Adam was created with free will--according to Pelagiusalso with "what is called natural holiness" (naturalis quæ dicitur sanctitas), which consisted just in free will and reason. Julian considered this state to be morally very high and intellectually low. [409] All are, however, agreed that Adam's endowments were the peculiar and inalienable gift of divine grace (gratia).

9. Adam sinned through free will (Julian esteemed this sin of slight account); [410] but by this sin his nature was not corrupted. Nor was natural death a consequence of it, for it is natural; but spiritual death, the condemnation of the soul on account of sin, was the result of sin. [411]

10. Natural death was accordingly not inherited from Adam; moreover, spiritual death was only in so far as his descendants likewise sinned. If all men died through Adam's death, then all would necessarily rise again through the resurrection of Christ. [412]

11. Still much less was Adam's sin or guilt transmitted. The doctrine of transmitted and original sin (tradux peccati and peccatum originis) is Manichæan and blasphemous; it is equally absurd whether viewed in relation to God, or man, or the notion of sin, or Christ, or Holy Scripture. In relation to God, for his righteousness is annulled by imputing the sins of others, and regarding as sinful a nature that has not yet sinned, just as much as it would be by ushering into the world, laden with sin, human beings born after Adam's fall. In relation to man, for a vitiated nature is then equivalent to a bad nature; if a nature possesses evil, it is bad; but in that case the guilt falls upon God, for he is responsible for our nature; further, sin could only propagate itself, if we assumed a procreation of souls; but this assumption is absurd; finally, if sin is propagated through marriage, so that desire in marriage is and transmits sin, marriage is thereby condemned. In relation to the notion of sin, for sin is absolutely embraced by the will, so that it does not exist at all, where there is no free-will; further, even if it could propagate itself, it could not be transmitted by baptised parents; lastly, Augustine's contention that sin is itself used by God as a punishment of sin, that there is a divine law of sin, etc., is absurd and immoral. In relation to Christ, for were nature bad, it could not be redeemed, or, were there an inherited sin which became natural to man, Christ also must have possessed it. In relation to Holy Scripture, as countless passages show that sin is a matter of the will, and that God punishes each for his own sins alone. Rom. V. 12, merely asserts that all die because they themselves sin like Adam, or something similar; in any case it contains nothing to support inherited sin. [413]

12. Thus all men created by God are in the position in which Adam was before the fall. [414] An unessential difference exists only in so far as Adam possessed at once the use of reason, while children do not; that Adam was still untaught, while children are born into a society in which the custom of evil prevails. Pelagius at least teaches this.
[415] The mere capacity city of either (mera capacitas utriusque) is the original innocence. [416]

13. The habit of sinning, working by example, according to Pelagius, weakens the will (?). Yet nothing can be said as to how it really works; for otherwise the indifference of the will [417] is destroyed. Probably the meaning was that the possibility of good remained wholly intact, but the habit of sinning darkened reason. [418]

14. It is when we come to discuss grace that it is hardest to reproduce the view of the Pelagians; for it was here that they found it most necessary to accommodate their opinions. Very strong assertions occur in Pelagius and Julian--Cælestius was more reserved [419] --as to the necessity of divine grace (adjutorium) for every good work. [420] We also find statements to the effect that grace facilitated goodness.
[421] Finally, others occur which teach that grace is superfluous, nay, strictly speaking, in itself impossible. [422] It is no injustice to the Pelagians to take the two latter positions, which, to a certain extent can be combined, as giving their true opinion; for it was assuredly the chief intention of Pelagius to deprive Christians of their indolent reliance on grace, and Julian's main object was to show that the human constitution bore merit and salvation in its own lap. The proposition "homo libero arbitrio emancipatus a deo" really contains the protest against any grace. [423]

15. By grace we have throughout to understand in the first place the grace of creation; [424] it is so glorious that there have been perfect men even among heathens and Jews. [425]

16. In the second place, it denotes the law (lex) of God; indeed, all grace, in so far as it is not nature, can at bottom have no other character than that of illumination and instruction (doctrina). This facilitates the doing of the good. [426]

17. Thirdly, grace means the grace of God through Christ. This also is at bottom illuminatio et doctrina; [427] Christ works by his example.
[428] Pelagius and Julian admit that the habit of sinning was so great that Christ's appearance was necessary. [429] Julian's conception of this appearance was that Christ owed what he became to his free will.
[430] But it was necessary, over and above instruction (doctrina), to assume, in conformity with Church teaching and practice, an effective action through Christ on the part of God. The Pelagians did not deny that this was represented in baptism and the remissions granted by God; they taught the forgiveness of sins through baptism. But they could not show wherein this forgiveness consisted without coming into conflict with freedom. As regards infant baptism, they dared no longer dispute its necessity; indeed, they dared no longer flatly declare that it was not given for the remission of sins. They derived a certain consecration and sanctification from it, but they disputed the doctrine that children dying unbaptised were lost; these would only fail to enter the kingdom of heaven, the highest grade of felicity. [431]

18. Finally, the Pelagians taught that this grace through Christ was compatible with the righteousness (justitia) of God, because the latter did not preclude an increase of benefits, [432] but that grace was given secundum merita (according to the merits of the rational spirit) because in any other case God would have been unjust. [433] The contention, however, that it was absolutely necessary was never seriously advocated by them, and was frequently denied, and in the thesis that the operation of the gospel is not different from that of the law, the former is in point of fact completely reduced to the level of the latter. But the law is itself nothing but a crutch not necessary to everyone. Man is to be sinless: this state we can attain by our will; but sinlessness (impeccantia) is rendered easy to the Christian; for by looking to Christ he can easily turn, and in baptism, the mysteries, dogmas, and the commandments, he from the first possesses nothing but means to promote virtue. All that Christ did and the Church does is considered not as action but as teaching.

The Pelagians deserve respect for their purity of motive, their horror of the Manichæan leaven and the opus operatum, their insistence on clearness, and their intention to defend the Deity. [434] But we cannot but decide that their doctrine fails to recognise the misery of sin and evil, that in its deepest roots it is godless, that it knows, and seeks to know, nothing of redemption, and that it is dominated by an empty formalism (a notional mythology) which does justice at no single point to actual quantities, and on a closer examination consists of sheer contradictions. In the form in which this doctrine was expressed by Pelagius--and in part also by Julian--i.e., with all the accommodations to which he condescended, it was not a novelty. [435] But in its fundamental thought it was; or, rather, it was an innovation because it abandoned, in spite of all accommodations in expression, the pole of the mystical doctrine of redemption, which the Church had steadfastly maintained side by side with the doctrine of freedom. [436]

III. The fundamental notion of Pelagianism is nature embracing free will (liberum arbitrium); the fundamental notion of Augustinianism is grace, and in the Pelagian controversy the grace of God through Christ.
[437] In Pelagianism the doctrine of grace amounts to an "appendix" badly connected with the main subject; in Augustinianism the doctrine of nature is beset with contradictions, because it is impossible to give a rational account of nature and history from the standpoint of the grace of experience. For it is absolutely impossible to develop as a rational doctrine the conviction of the transforming grace of God who is also the creator; it must begin and end with the confession: "How incomprehensible are God's judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" Augustine, sneered at as "Aristoteles Poenorum" as "philosophaster Poenorum" (Op. imperf. III. 198, V. 11), knew this also. But living in an age when it was held to be culpable ignorance and unbelief not to answer all possible questions, and penetrated by the vulgar conviction that Holy Scripture solved all problems, he, too, made the highest facts and the feelings of the inner life which he had gained in the gospel the starting-point of a description of "primitive history" and the history of mankind that could not but end in contradictions. At the same time, the pathological experiences of the course of his life are mirrored in this description. The stream of living water still bears in its depths traces of the gloomy banks past which it once had flowed, and into which it had almost sunk. [438]

1. Mankind is, as experience shows, a "mass of sin" [massa peccati (perditionis)], waited on by death, and incapable of raising itself to the good; for having revolted from God, it could no more return to him than an empty vessel could refill itself. But in Christ the Redeemer--and in him alone--the grace of God manifested itself and entered on the work of man's deliverance. Christ by his death removed the gulf between God and mankind--breaking the rule of the devil--so that the grace of God, which for that reason is gratia per (propter) Christum, could pursue its work. [439] This free grace (gratia gratis data) [440] working in the Church, is beginning, middle, and end. Its aim is the rescue from the massa perditionis, that as guilty falls justly a prey to eternal death, of a fixed number of elect (certus numerus electorum), who enter eternal life. They are saved because God, in virtue of his eternal decree of salvation, has predestinated, chosen, called, justified, sanctified, and preserved them. [441] This is done through grace, which thus is (1) prevenient; [442] for it must first create the good will (faith). [443] (This prevenient grace can be combined with "the call" (vocatio); [444] but we must even here remember that the call comes to some who are not "called according to the purpose." [445] In the strict sense the whole transactions of grace apply only to those who are predestinated; [446] in the wider sense, grace operates as far as sanctification in a much greater circle, who, however, finally perish, because they have not received its last work.)
[447] Augustine has inserted his whole religious experience in the confession of free and prevenient grace. He nowhere speaks with greater conviction, more simply and grandly, than where he praises the grace that snatches man from his sinful condition. But grace (2) works co-operatively. [448] This work evolves itself in a series of stages, since naturally it is only possible slowly and gradually to reach the goal whose attainment is desired, viz., the perseverance and complete and actual regeneration of man [449] --re-creation into good men--accordingly his being rendered capable of doing good works of piety and possessing merit. The calling (vocatio) first results in faith as God's gift. This faith is itself subject to growth, i.e., it begins as unquestioning acceptance based on the authority of the Church and Scripture; it presents itself further as obedience, then trust (fiducia) believing God, belief about God, belief on God (credere deum, credere de deo, credere in deum) and as such passes into love. [450] Parallel with this goes the effective (visible) action of grace in the Church, [451] which begins with the remission of sins. [452] This is administered in baptism, and since the latter removes the guilt of original sin, [453] and blots out sins previously committed, it is the "bath of regeneration." But it is so only as an initiatory act; for the actual justification, which corresponds to co-operating grace, is not yet gained, where sin is no longer imputed, but only where the irreligious man has become just, where accordingly an actual renovation has taken place. This is effected through the infusion of love into the heart by the Holy Spirit, and this love substitutes good for evil desire (concupiscence). That is, the man now not only makes the joyful confession: "To me to cleave to God is a good thing," and delights in God as the summum bonum, instead of in perishable possessions (the humility of faith, love and hope in place of pride of heart), but gains also the power to do good works. This new frame of mind and capacity, which grace begets through the gift of the Holy Spirit, is the experience of justification by faith (justificatio ex fide). [454]

Justification is an act that takes place once for all, and is completed sub specie æternitatis, and with reference to the fact that everything can be comprised in faith. As an empirical experience, however, it is a process never completed in this world, because the being replenished with faith, which through love labours to effect the complete transformation of man, is itself subject to limitation in our present life. [455] This operation of the spirit of love has its parallel in the effective (visible) dealings of grace in the Church, and that in the Lord's Supper (the incorporation into the love and unity of Christ's body) as well as in the Eucharistic sacrifice, penance, and Church works, so far as these are capable of blotting out sin. [456] These works, however, possess still another value. Renunciation of worldly pleasure is only completed in asceticism, and since at the Judgment God will deal with us in accordance with our works, the completion of justification can only consist in the sanctification, in virtue of which particular possessions--marriage, property, etc.--are wholly abandoned. It is not, indeed, absolutely necessary for everyone to fulfil the counsels of the gospel (consilia evangelica); we can live in faith, hope, and love without them. God's grace does not make everyone a saint, [457] to be worshipped, and to be implored to intercede for us. But everybody who is to be crowned must ultimately possess merits in some degree; for, at the Judgment, merits will alone be crowned, these ever being, indeed, like all good, God's gifts. [458] But the perseverance of the elect in love through the whole course of their life until the Judgment is (3) the highest and last gift of grace, which now appears as irresistible. Perseverance to the end is the good, without which all that went before is nothing. Therefore, in a sense, it alone is grace; for only those are finally saved who have obtained this irresistible grace. The called who do not possess it are lost. But why only a few obtain this gift, though it is bestowed secundum merita, is God's secret. [459] Eternal life and eternal damnation are decreed by one and the same justice. [460]

2. The doctrine of sin, the Fall, and the primitive state is sketched from the standpoint of free and prevenient grace. It follows from the doctrine of grace that sin characterises mankind as they now exist. Sin presents itself essentially as being without God (carentia dei), the voluntary diminution of strength of being. [461] The failure to possess God (privatio boni), the non inhærere deo, constitutes sin, and, indeed, the two thoughts--the one metaphysical, that sin is defect of being, the other ethical, that it is defect of goodness--coincide as we reflect on them, [462] just as in the examination of grace the metaphysical (the finding of being from not-being) and the ethico-religious elements always accord. This sin is a state: the wretched necessity of being unable to refrain from sinning (misera necessitas non posse non peccandi). Freedom in the sense of free choice is not destroyed; [463] but the freedom still existing always leads to sin; and this state is all the more dreadful, as there exists a certain knowledge of the good, nay, even a powerless desire for it, which invariably succumbs. [464] Positively, however, the sinful state presents itself as the rule of the devil over men, as pride [465] and concupiscence. [466] From that rule it follows that man must be redeemed from without before he can be helped. [467] Pride in relation to God and concupiscence show that man is sinful in soul and body. Yet the emphasis falls on concupiscence; [468] it is the lower desire, sensuous lust, which shows itself above all in the lust of the flesh. The motus genitalium, independent even of the will, teaches us that nature is corrupt; it has not become vice (vitium), but it is vitiated (natura vitiata). [469] It therefore propagates sin. That it does so is attested by the evidence of the senses, the sensuous, and therefore sinful pleasure in the act of procreation, and by Holy Scripture (Rom.
V. 12 f.). Thus mankind is a massa perditionis also in the sense that it procreates sin in itself from a corrupt nature. But since the soul in all probability is not procreated at the same time, it is in each case created by God, [470] so the body, begotten in the lust of the flesh, is quite essentially the bearer of sin. [471] That the latter thus descends is decreed by God; for sin is not always merely sin, but also, or often only, the punishment of sin (peccatum and malum combine in the sense of evil). [472] The sin which descends in the massa perditionis (peccatum originis, tradux peccati) is at once sin and sin's punishment. This has been ordained by him who decreed sins (the "ordinator peccatorum)." Every desire involves infatuation. It is the penalty of sin that we do the evil we would not. Every sin carries with it dissolution, the death of the sinner. It rends and dismembers him, it empties him and exhausts him, until he no longer exists. Thus death reigns in its various forms, till it reaches eternal death, in the massa perditionis. This humanity which is subject to the dreary necessity of not being able to refrain from sin (non posse non peccare) is therefore also and at the same time subject to the dreadful necessity of not being able to escape death (non posse non mori). [473] No power of its own can rescue it. Its best deeds are all stained from the roots; therefore they are nothing but splendid vices. Its youngest offspring, even if they have done nothing sinful, must necessarily be lost; for since they possess original sin, i.e., are destitute of God, and are burdened with concupiscence, they pass justly into damnation.
[474] This is attested also by the Church when it baptises newly-born children. [475]

How did this state arise--a state which could not have been due to God the creator? Scripture and the Church answer: through Adam's Fall. The magnitude of this Fall had already been depicted in the Church; but from his standpoint Augustine had rightly to say that Adam's sin, and therewith sin in general, had not yet been duly perceived--yet the Church, as its institutions prove, had, it was alleged, appreciated it truly; writers, however, had fallen short of this estimate. Adam's Fall was inconceivably great. [476] When, in the hope of becoming like God, he transgressed God's command not to eat the apple, all conceivable sins were compressed into his sin: the revolt to the devil, pride of heart, envy, sensuous lust--all in all: self-love in place of love of God. [477] And it was all the more dreadful, as it was easy for Adam to refrain from sin. [478] Therefore also came the unspeakable misery, viz., the punishment of sin, with and in sin, working itself out in death. Adam lost the possession of God. [479] This was followed by complete deprivation (defectio boni), which is represented as the death of the soul; for the latter without God is dead (spiritual death).
[480] The dead soul is now drawn downwards; it seeks its blessings in the mutable and perishable, and is no longer capable of commanding the body. The latter then asserted itself with all its wanton impulses, and thus corrupted the whole human nature. [481]

The corruption is manifest in sexual lust, whose sinfulness is evidenced by compulsion and shame, and it must be inherited since the central seat of nature is disordered. [482] It indeed still continues to be capable of redemption--it does not become an evil substance--but it is so corrupt that even grace can only blot out the guilt (reatus) of original sin; it cannot completely extirpate concupiscence itself in the elect, as is proved by the survival of the evil sexual lust. This inheriting of sin and of Adam's death is, however, not merely a fact, but it is just, because Scripture says that we have all sinned in Adam,
[483] because all owe their life to sinful lust, [484] and because--God is just.

Adam's Fall presupposes that his previous constitution had been good. This is taught, too, by Scripture, and it follows likewise from the assurance that God is the creator, and the good creator, of all things.
[485] If Adam was created good, then he possessed not only everything that a rational creature needs (body and soul and their due relationship as servant and master, reason and free will), but, above all, grace ever supporting and preserving him, the adjutorium, that is the bond of union with the living God; for the virtuous man is not independent of God; he is only independent when completely dependent on God. Adam, accordingly, not only had a free will, but this will was influenced in the direction of God. [486] For this very reason he was free (in God); but he was also free (able) to will evil; for evil springs from freedom. If Adam had not possessed a free will, he would have been unable to sin; but in that case he would not have been a rational creature. So he possessed the power not to sin, or die, or forsake the good (posse non peccare, --mori,--deserere bonum), but this through the adjutorium (auxiliary grace) went so far in the direction of inability to sin (non posse peccare) that it would have been easy for Adam to attain it. [487] Had he attained it by means of free will (liberum arbitrium), he would have received perfect blessedness in return for the merit involved in his perseverance, he would have remained, and escaped death, in Paradise, and would have begotten children without sinful lust. We see that the primitive state was meant to be portrayed in accordance with the state of grace of the present; but an important difference prevailed, since in the former case, the adjutorium was only the condition, under which Adam could use his free will lastingly in being and doing good, while in the latter, it is the power, that, being irresistible, brings fallen man to perfection. __________________________________________________________________

Contemporary criticism on this system may here be briefly summed up. Augustine contradicted himself in maintaining that all ability to attain goodness had been lost, and in yet admitting that freedom of choice--the decisive thing--remained. His notion of freedom was self-destructive, since he defined freedom as lasting dependence on God. His conception of original sin was self-contradictory, because he himself admitted that sin always springs from the will. He was compelled to teach Traducianism, which, however, is a heresy. And his Scriptural exegesis was arbitrary. In particular, God provokes sins, if he punishes sin with sin, and decrees the reign of sin; he is unjust if he imputes to men the sins of others, while forgiving them their own, and, further, if he accepts some, and not others, just as he pleases. This contention leads to despair. Above all, however, the doctrine of original sin leads to Manichæan dualism, which Augustine never surmounted, and is accordingly an impious and foolish dogma. For, turn as he will, Augustine affirms an evil nature, and therewith a diabolic creator of the world. His doctrine of concupiscence conduces to the same view. Besides, he depreciates the glorious gift of human freedom, nay, even divine grace in Christ, since he holds that original sin is never entirely removed. Finally, his doctrines of the exclusive efficacy of grace and predestination put an end not only to asceticism and the meritoriousness of good works, but also to all human doings. It is useless to exhort, intercede for, or blame sinners, etc. In the end, even the connection with the Church, which Augustine insisted on so energetically in the Donatist controversy, seemed to be superseded.

Truth and error exist side by side in these observations. Perhaps the following considerations will be more pertinent. (1) The impossibility of determining the fate of the whole body of mankind and of every separate individual from the stand-point of gratia gratis data, is shown in the thesis of the damnation of children who die unbaptised. Here Augustine impugns the thought of God's righteousness. But this thought must become worthless altogether if everything is overruled by predestinating and irresistible grace. Thereby a grave injury is inflicted on piety. (2) The carrying out of the conception of predestinating grace, which should be no more than a sentiment, confined to himself, of the redeemed, leads to a determinism that conflicts with the gospel and imperils the vigour of our sense of freedom. Besides, the assumption of irresistible grace rests above all experience, even above that of the believer, and the doctrine of God's twofold will (see de grat. et lib. arb. 45) makes everything affecting faith uncertain. (3) Augustine did not by any means hold so certainly that grace was grace through Christ, as that it proceeded from the secret operation of God. The acosmic Neoplatonic element in the doctrine of predestination imperilled not only the efficacy of the Word and Sacrament (vocatio and justificatio), but also redemption through Christ in general. (4) The religious tendency in the system, the belief that the decisive point was cleaving or not cleaving to God, received in the sequel a new version, and the moral attitude became rather the crucial question--the will, of course when freed, was an efficient cause of righteousness. For this reason the meaning of forgiveness, of the new fundamental relation to God, and of the assurance of faith, was misunderstood. The former became an act of initiation, the relation became temporary, and the assurance of faith, which even according to the doctrine of predestination need not arise, was lost in the conception of a process of sanctification never or almost never completed in this world, a process to which various grades of salvation, just as there were various degrees of damnation, corresponded in the world beyond. What a proof of moralism! [488] Between the thesis of the ancient (Greek) Church: "Where the knowledge of God is, come also life and salvation," and Luther's principle: "Where we have forgiveness of sins, we have also life and salvation," we find Augustine's: "Where love is there also follows a salvation corresponding to the measure of love." Augustine examined the equation remission of sins = grace through Christ, and expressly rejected it. This turn he gave his doctrine also explains the contention that God, in the end, crowns our merits, a view that conflicts with predestinating grace, and opens the door to a refined form of righteousness by works. [489] (5) The Neoplatonic notion of God and the monastic tendency demand that all love should at the same time present itself in the form of asceticism. Thereby love drifts still further apart from faith (as fiducia), threatens the sovereignty of the latter, and gives free scope for all sorts of popular Catholic conceptions. (6) The conception--necessary in the system--of Adam's Fall and original sin contains--apart from the mythology which here takes the place of history--a bundle of inconsistencies and extremely questionable ideas. The latter Augustine also perceived, and he tried, but without success, to guard against them. Absolutely Manichæan is the view that man sins because he was created from nothing, "nothing" being here treated as an evil principle. (The Neoplatonic doctrine also sees in this "nothing" the ground of sin; but to it sin is merely finitude. Augustine took a more profound view of sin, but he had also to conceive the nilhil as "more evil" in proportion, i.e., to convert it into the evil substance of Manichism.) Manichæan also is the opinion that sexual desire is sinful, and that inherited sin is explained simply from procreation as the propagation of a vitiated nature (natura vitiata). [490] Absolutely contradictory are the positions that all sin springs from freedom (the will), and that children just born are in a state of sin. It is extremely suspicious to find that, when sin is more minutely dealt with, concupiscence is practically ranked above alienation from God (deo non adhærere), this also, indeed, resulting from uncertainty as to Traducianism. It again raises our doubts when we see original sin treated as if it were more serious than actual sin; for while the former can only be washed out by baptism, the latter can be atoned for by penance. The whole doctrinal conception at this point shows that the conviction of the redeemed, that without God he is lost and unfit to do any good work, is a verdict of the believer on himself, a verdict that marks a limit, but can never become a principle by which to consider the history of mankind. At this point, just because the contradictions were so enormous, the development of dogmatic with Augustine was on the verge of casting off the immense material in which it had been entangled, and of withdrawing from the interpretation of the world and history; but as Augustine would not abandon that material, so men will not, even at the present day, let it go, because they suppose that the Bible protects it, and because they will not learn the humility of faith, that shows itself in renunciation of the attempt to decide on God's government of the world in history. [491] (7) But apart from original sin, Augustine's notion of sin raises doubts, because it is constructed at least as much on the thought of God as the supreme and true being (summum and verum esse) as on that of his goodness (bonum esse). Although the stamp of guilt is not wholly misunderstood, yet it is the thought of the misery produced by sin with its destructiveness and hideousness that comes to the front. Hence we understand why Augustine, passing over justifying faith, perceived the highest good in "infused love" (caritas infusa). (8) Finally the doctrine of the primitive state is beset by inconsistency, because Augustine could not avoid giving grace another meaning in that state from that it possessed in the process by which the redeemed is justified. With him grace is ultimately identical with irresistible grace--anything else is a semblance of it; but though Adam possessed grace, it was not irresistible.

But all these grave objections cannot obscure the greatness of the perception that God works in us "to will and to accomplish," that we have nothing that we have not received, and that dependence on God is good, and is our possession. It is easy to show that in every single objectionable theory formulated by Augustine, there lurks a true phase of Christian self-criticism, which is only defective because it projects into history, or is made the foundation on which to construct a "history." Is not the doctrine of predestination an expression of the confession: "He who would boast, let him boast in the Lord"? Is not the doctrine of original sin based on the thought that behind all separate sins there resides sin as want of love, joy, and divine peace? Does it not express the just view that we feel ourselves guilty of all evil, even where we are shown that we have no guilt? __________________________________________________________________

[295] De praed. 7; De dono persev. 55; c. Jul. VI. 39; also the Retract.

[296] De dono persev. 53: "Cum libros Confessionum ediderim ante quam Pelagiana hæresis exstitisset, in eis certe dixi deo nostro et sæpe dixi: Da quod jubes et jube quod vis. Quæ mea verba Pelagius Romæ, cum a quodam fratre et episcopo meo fuissent eo præsente commemorata, ferre non potuit et contradicens aliquanto commotius pæne cum eo qui commemoraverat litigavit.

[297] De doctr. Christ. III. 46: "Hæresis Pelagiana multum nos, ut gratiam dei quæ per dominum nostrum Jesum Christum est, adversus eam defenderemus, exercuit."

[298] Pelagius and his friends were always convinced that the disputed questions, while extremely important, were not dogmatic. We can once more, therefore, study very clearly what at that time was held to be dogma; (see De gestis Pelag. 16: Pelagius denied at the Synod at Diospolis that statements of high dogmatic import were his; when it was proposed that he should anathematise those who taught them, he replied: "Anathematizo quasi stultos, non quasi hæreticos, si quidem non est dogma." Cælestius says of Original sin (De pecc. orig. 3): "licet quæstionis res sit ista, non hæresis." He also declared in the Libellus fidei (26) submitted at Rome: "si quæ vero præter fidem quæstiones natæ sunt . . . non ego quasi auctor alicujus dogmatis definita hæc auctoritate statui." Hahn, § 134. This was also the view at first of Pope Zosimus (Ep. 3, 7). Julian (Op. imp. III. 106) saw dogmas in the doctrine of the Trinity and Resurrection, "multisque aliis similibus."

[299] Augustinianism and Pelagianism were akin in form, and opposed to the previous mode of thought, in that both conceptions were based on the desire for unity. They sought to get at the root of religion and morality, and had ceased to be satisfied with recognising freedom and grace as independent and equivalent original data, as if religion with its blessings were at the same time superior and subordinate to moral goodness. The "either--or" asserted itself strongly.

[300] Pelagius, a monk leading a free life--Cælestius, "naturæ vitio eunuchus matris utero editus," both laymen, Cælestius auditorialis scholasticus. Pelagius was a Briton (an Irishman? called Morgan?), but in view of the intercourse between different countries at the time, the birthplace is somewhat indifferent. Cælestius was won over by Pelagius in Rome, and then gave up his worldly career.

[301] It is uncertain whether Pelagius had been in the East before he appeared in Rome. Cælestius had heard Rufinus in Rome, and stated that the latter would have nothing to do with the "tradux peccati" (De pecc. orig. 3). Marius Mercator has even sought to deduce Pelagianism from Theodore of Mopsuestia's teaching, and supposed that Rufinus "the Syrian" (identical (?) with Rufinus of Aquileia) brought it to Rome. Others have repeated this. While the direct points of contact at the beginning are problematical, it is certain (1) that Pelagianism and Theodore's teaching approximate very closely (see Gurjew, Theodor v. Mopsu. 1890 [in Russian] p. 44 ff.); (2) that Theodore took up sides in the controversy against the teaching of Augustine and Jerome: he wrote a work "against those who maintain that men sin by nature, and not at their own discretion;" (see Photius cod. 177); (3) that the Pelagians looked to him as a protector and Julian of Eclanum fled to him; (4) that the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians were convinced that they could count on the East (and even on the Church of Constantinople) for support, and that some of them studied in Constantinople. Theodore's distinctive doctrine of Grace is not found in Pelagian writings; for this reason he could not ally himself thoroughly with Julian (see Kihn, Theodor v. Mopsu. p. 42 ff.). But their affinity was unquestionable. It is therefore no mere inference that leads Cassian (c. Nestor. I. 3 sq.) to combine the Nestorians with the Pelagians ("cognata hæresis"). The interests and methods of both were the same. The comparison with Eunomius and Aetius is also pertinent.

[302] De pecc. orig. 13: "Quid inter Pelagium et Cælestium in hac quæstione distabit, nisi quod ille apertior, iste occultior fuit; ille pertinacior, iste mendacior, vel certe ille liberior, hic astutior." "Cælestius incredibili loquacitate." Many adherents of the new teaching preferred to be called "Cælestiani."

[303] The earnestness and "holiness" of Pelagius are often attested, especially by Augustine himself and Paulinus of Nola. His untruthfulness, indeed, throws a dark shadow on his character: but we have not the material to enable us to decide confidently how far he was entrapped into it, or how far he reserved his opinion in the legitimate endeavour to prevent a good cause being stifled by theology. Augustine, the truthful, is here also disposed to treat charitably the falsehoods of his opponent. But we must, above all, reflect that at that time priests and theologians lied shamelessly in self-defence, in speeches, protocols, and writings. Public opinion was much less sensitive, especially when accused theologians were exculpating themselves, as can be seen from Jerome's writings, though not from them alone. The people who got so angry over Pelagius' lies were no small hypocrites. Augustine was entitled to be wroth; but his work De gestis Pelagii shows how considerate and tolerant he remained in spite of everything. Pelagius and Cælestius must have belonged to those lucky people who, cold by nature and temperate by training, never notice any appreciable difference between what they ought to do and what they actually do. Julian was an emotional character, a young man full of self-confidence (c. Julian II. 30: "itane tandem, juvenis confidentissime, consolari te debes, quia talibus displices, an lugere?"), who, in his youth, had had dealings with the Roman Bishop Innocent (c. Julian I. 13) and Augustine, "vir acer ingenio, in divinis scripturis doctus, Græca et Latina lingua scholasticus; prius quam impietatem Pelagii in se aperiret, clarus in doctoribus ecclesiæ fuit" (Gennad. script. eccl. 46). In particular, he was unusually learned in the history of philosophy. Early author and bishop, he seems, like so many precocious geniuses, never to have got beyond the stage reached by the clever youth. Fancy and passionate energy checked his growth, and made him the fanatical exponent of the moralistic theory. In any case he is not to be taken lightly. The ancient Church produced few geniuses so hold and heedless. His criticism is often excellent, and always acute. But even if we admitted that his whole criticism was correct, we would find ourselves in the end in possession of nothing but chaff. We also miss in his case that earnest sense of duty which we do not look for in vain in Pelagius. For this very reason, the delightful impression produced by a serene spirit, who appeared to avenge despised reason and authoritative morality, is always spoiled by the disagreeable effect caused by the creaking sound of a critical chopping-machine. An excellent monograph on Julian by Bruckner will appear immediately in the "Texten and Unters."

[304] Cicero's words: "virtutem nemo unquam acceptam deo retulit," could be inscribed as a motto over Pelagianism.

[305] Pelagianism and Augustinianism are also akin in form, in that in both the old dramatic eschatological element, which had hitherto played so great a rôle in the West, and had balanced moralism, wholly disappears. But Julian was the first to secularise the type of thought.

[306] The Antiochene theologians also were notoriously zealous defenders of monachism.

[307] Here we have a third point (see p. 170, n. 1) in which Pelagianism and Augustinianism are akin in form. Neither is interested in the mysticism of the cultus; their authors rather strive to direct spiritual things in spiritual channels, though Augustine, indeed, did not entirely succeed in doing so.

[308] See the remarks on Ambrose, p. 50. Perhaps the three rules of Tichonius best show the confusion that prevailed (Aug. de doctr. Christ. III. 46: "opera a deo dari merito fidei, ipsam vero fidem sic esse a nobis ut nobis non sit a deo." Yet Augustine sought (c. Julian.
L. I.) to give traditional evidence for his doctrine.

[309] One passage (IV. 24 sq.) became famous in the controversy: "oportet magistrum doctoremque virtutis homini simillimum fieri, ut vincendo peccatum doceat hominem vincere posse peccatum . . . ut desideriis carnis edomitis doceret, non necessitatis esse peccare, sed propositi ac voluntatis."

[310] Our sources are the writings of Pelagius, Cælestius, and Julian (chiefly in Jerome and Augustine) Augustine's works (T. X. and c. 20, letters among which Epp. 186, 194 are the most important), Jerome, Orosius, Marius Mercator, and the relevant Papal letters. Mansi T. IV:, Hefele, Vol. II. For other literature see above, p. 61. Marius was the most active opponent of the Pelagians towards the close of the controversy, and obtained their condemnation in the East (see Migne, T. 48, and the Art. in the Dict. of Chr. Biog).

[311] Pelag. Ep. ad Demetr.: "ne tanto remissior sit ad virtutem animus ac tardior, quanto minus se posse credat et dum quod inesse sibi ignorat id se existimet non habere."

[312] He was, perhaps, not the first; we do not know whom Augustine meant in De pecc. orig. 25 ("Pelagius et Cælestius hujus perversitatis auctores vel perhibentur vel etiam probantur, vel certe si auctores non sunt, sed hoc ab aliis didicerunt, assertores tamen atque doctores"), and De gest Pelag. 61 ("post veteres hæreses inventa etiam modo hæresis est non ab episcopis seu presbyteris vel quibuscumque clericis, sed a quibusdam veluti monachis"). Pelagius and Cælestius may themselves be understood in the second passage.

[313] The Confession of Faith, afterwards tendered (Hahn, § 133), is clear and confident in its dogmatic parts. The unity of the Godhead is not so strongly pronounced in the doctrine of the Trinity as with Augustine; Pelagius resembled the Greeks more strongly in this respect also.

[314] At Rome Pelagius wrote the Ep. to Paulinus of Nola, the three books De fide trinitatis, his Eulogia and Commentaries on Paul's Epistles, to which Augustine afterwards referred. The latter have been preserved for us among Jerome's works; but their genuineness is suspected. Augustine mentions, besides, an Ep. ad Constantium episc. (De grat. 39); it is not known when it was written.

[315] De gestis Pelag. 46: "Pelagii nomen cum magna ejus laude cognovi."

[316] By him are three works de monasterio. "Cælesti opuscula," De gratia, 32.

[317] So Augustine heard when in Carthage; see De pecc. mer. III. 12.

[318] De gestis Pelag. 46.

[319] Marius Merc. Common. and Aug., De pecc. orig., 2 sq. It is worthy of note that the complaint came from a disciple of Ambrose. This establishes the continuity of the Antipelagian teaching.

[320] "Adam mortalem factum, qui sive peccaret sive non peccaret moriturus fuisset--peccatum Adæ ipsum solum læsit, non genus humanum--parvuli qui nascuntur in eo statu sunt, in quo fuit Adam ante prævaricationem--neque per mortem vel prævaricationem Adæ omne genus hominum moritur, nec per resurrectionem Christi omne genus hominum resurget--lex sic mittit ad regnum coelorum quomodo et evangelium--et ante adventum domini fuerunt homines impeccabiles, i.e., sine peccato--hominem posse esse sine peccato et mandata dei facile custodire, si velit." On the transmission of these propositions, see Klasen, Pelagianismus, p. 48 f.

[321] "Quia intra Catholicam constitutos plures audivi destruere nec non et alios adstruere."

[322] De pecc. mer. I. 58, 62.

[323] He is said to have stayed before this in Sicily, but that is merely a guess on Augustine's part, an inference from the spread of Cwlestian heresies there. See Augustine's interesting letters, Epp. 156, 157, 22, 23 sq. From these we learn that Cælestius actually taught: "divitem manentem in divitiis suis regnum dei non posse ingredi, nisi omnia sua vendiderit; nec prodesse eidem posse, si forte ex ipsis divitiis mandata fecerit." In the "definitiones Cælestii" a document which came to Augustine from Sicily, and whose origin is indeed uncertain, the Stoic method of forming definitions is noteworthy. In it there also occurs the famous definition of sin--"that which can be let alone"--(Goethe gives the converse description: "What, then, do you call sin? With everyone I call it what can not be let alone.") The whole argument serves to prove that since peccatum vitari potest, man can be sinless (De perfect. just. 1 sq.). In the passage just cited, and again at Diospolis (De gestis Pelag. 29-63) a work by Cælestius is mentioned, whose title is unknown. Not a few sentences have been preserved (l.c.): "Plus facimus quam in lege et evangelis jussum est--gratiam dei et adjutorium non ad singulos actus dari, sed in libero arbitrio esse, vel in lege ac doctrina--dei gratiam secundum merita nostra dari, quia si peccatoribus illam dat, videtur esse iniquus--si gratia dei est, quando vincimus peccata, ergo ipse est in culpa, quando a peccato vincimur, quia omnino custodire nos aut non potuit aut noluit--unumquemque hominem omnes virtutes posse habere et gratias--filios dei non posse vocari nisi omni modo absque peccato fuerint effecti--oblivionem et ignorantiam non subjacere peccato, quoniam non secundum voluntatem eveniunt, sed secundum necessitatem--non esse liberum arbitrium, si dei indigeat auxilio, quoniam in propria voluntate habet unusquisque aut facere aliquid aut non facere--victoriam nostram non ex dei esse adjutorio, sed ex libero arbitrio--si anima non potest esse sine peccato, ergo et deus subjacet peccato, cujus pars, hoc est anima, peccato obnoxia est--pænitentibus venia non datur secundum gratiam et misericordiam dei, sed secundum merita at laborem eorum, qui per pænitentiam digni fuerint misericordia." We readily see, what indeed has not hitherto been clearly perceived, that this writing of Cælestius must have been the real cause of offence. It could not but open the eyes even of the waverers. We return to it in the text.

[324] De gestis Pelag. 51, 52. The interpretation added by Augustine to a few conventional phrases used in the letter seems to us superfluous and laboured. He, besides, spared Pelagius in Carthage itself; for in his first great work against Pelagianism, De pecc. mer. et remiss. et de bapt. parvulorum ad Marcellinum (412), the name of Pelagius is not yet mentioned. Before this, Augustine had sought to influence the Church only by sermons and discourses. Even the Tractate De spiritu et litera, which followed immediately, is not directed against Pelagius.

[325] I am disposed to regard as a forgery the letter of condolence to the widow Livania (Fragments in Aug. De gestis Pel. 16, 19, Hieron. and Marius; partly reported in the indictment at Diospolis). Yet we cannot decide with certainty. We must allow the possibility of Pelagius having so expressed himself in a flattering letter, not meant to be published, to a sanctimonious widow. Indeed, words like the following sound like mockery: "Ille ad deum digne elevat manus, ille orationem bona conscientia effundit qui potest dicere, tu nosti, domine, quam sanctæ et innocentes et mundæ sunt ab omni molestia et iniquitate et rapina quas ad te extendo manus, quemadmodum justa et munda labia et ab omni mendacio libera, quibus offero tibi deprecationem, ut mihi miserearis." Pharisee and Publican in one!

[326] The latter afterwards complained (c. Jul. II. 36), "quod Hieronymus ei tamquam æmulo inviderit." That is very credible.

[327] From motives of prudence he did not answer Jerome publicly; for he wished to avoid all controversy. Jerome was, for the rest, much more akin to him really than Augustine. The former maintained, e.g., in a later controversial work, that it was orthodox to teach that the beginning of good resolves and faith is due to ourselves.

[328] Pelagius himself wrote to the nun Demetrias (A.D. 413 or 414) a letter still preserved, and forming the clearest memorial of his doctrine, and shortly before the Synod of Diospolis he composed his book De natura, in which there is much that he abjured at the Synod. It is extremely probable that this book also was not meant for the public, but only for his friends (against the charges of Jerome). Augustine, as soon as he got it, refuted it in his tractate De natura et gratia (415). Pelagius had essayed to give a dialectical proof of his anthropology in the book. Augustine's work, De perfectione justitiæ, composed also in A.D. 415, was aimed at Cælestius.

[329] See Orosii Apolog.

[330] The indictment was composed by two Gallic Bishops, Heros and Lazarus, who had been forced to fly from their own country. It was very comprehensive; but no strict line was drawn between what Pelagius had himself said, and what belonged to Cælestius. The two Bishops were, for the rest, afterwards treated as under suspicion at the conferences in Rome.

[331] "Anathematizo quasi stultos, non quasi hæreticos, si quidem non est dogma."

[332] "Nunc quoniam propria voce anathematizavit Pelagius incertum stultiloquium, recte respondens, hominem cum adjutorio dei et gratia posse esse sine peccato, respondeat et ad alia capitula."

[333] The above quoted phrase, "non est dogma," is extremely characteristic. It shows how painfully anxious Pelagius was not to extend the sphere of dogma. In this he quite shared the feeling always entertained even to the present day by the Greeks. A Greek priest once said to the author that the great freedom of the Greek Church, compared with the Western, consisted in the possibility of holding very different views of sin, grace, justification, etc., if only the dogmas were adhered to. Pelagius accordingly opposed the introduction of a great new tract being included in the dogmatic sphere. He saw merely the inevitable evils of such an advance. We must judge his whole attitude up to his death from this point of view. Seeberg (Dogmengesch. I., p. 282 f.) holds that the phrase, "non est dogma," was merely meant to provide a means of defence; but if we consider Pelagius' whole attitude, we have no ground for taking any such view.

[334] De gestis Pelag. 44: "Reliqua vero et secundum ipsorum testimonium a me dicta non sunt, pro quibus ego satisfacere non debeo." "Anathematizo illos qui sic tenent aut aliquando tenuerunt." "Nunc quoniam satisfactum est nobis prosecutionibus præsentis Pelagii monachi, qui quidem piis doctrinis consentit, contraria vero ecclesiæ fidei anathematizat, communionis ecclesiasticæ eum esse et catholicæ confitemur."

[335] "Synodus miserabilis," Jerome, Ep. 143, 2.

[336] Jerome, Ep. 143, 1.

[337] In his work, De gestis Pelagii, Augustine, following a written account, criticises the proceedings of the Synod, and shows that Pelagius uttered the falsehood. The latter, always anxious to keep peace, addressed a report of his own after the Synod to Augustine (l.c. 57 sq.), in order to influence him in his favour. But Augustine rightly gave the preference to the other account, since Pelagius had omitted from his the "anathematizo." Again in the work De pecc. orig., Augustine shows, from the writings of Pelagius with which he was acquainted, that the latter had got off by evasions at Diospolis, and that he really held the same opinions as Cælestius.--We can only excuse the man by repeating that he wished to do practical work, and felt himself put out by dogmatic questions as to original sin, etc.

[338] De gestis, 54 sq.

[339] There was no word of "easily" at Diospolis.

[340] Augustine's tractates, De gratia Christi et De peccato originali, are directed against this book.

[341] De pecc. orig. 20: "Denique quomodo respondeat advertite et videte latebras ambiguitatis falsitati præparare refugia, offundendo caliginem veritati, ita ut etiam nos cum primum ea legimus, recta vel correcta propemodum gauderemus. Sed latiores disputationes ejus in libris, ubi se quantumlibet operiat, plerumque aperire compellitur, fecerunt nobis et ipsa suspecta, ut adtentius intuentes inveniremus ambigua."

[342] Orosius had carried there information of the events.

[343] The letter was accompanied by Pelagius' work De natura and Augustine's reply.

[344] Ep. 177, 2.--To about this date belong, according to Caspari's investigations, the Pelagian letters and tractates published by him A.D. 1890 (Briefe, Abhandlungen and Predigten, etc. pp. 3-167, 223-389, Christiania), and ascribed on good grounds to Agricola, of Britain. The fragments were written, however, in Italy. They add nothing new to our knowledge of Pelagianism. But they confirm the fact that the earliest Pelagianism--before Julian--was associated with the most stringent monastic demands, and was extremely rigorous. In particular, Agricola flatly forbids the possession of wealth. He also regards ignorance of the divine will as no excuse for the sinner, but as an aggravation.

[345] Epp. 177, 3: "Non agitur de uno Pelagio, qui jam forte correctus est." The consideration for him is very remarkable; it is explained by his prestige and his justification at Diospolis. The letter of the five Bishops composed by Augustine and sent afterwards was obviously meant thoroughly to instruct the Pope, who was held to be insufficiently informed as to the importance of the question. Yet we have at the close, (c. 19): "Non rivulum nostrum tuo largo fonti augendo refundimus."

[346] Ep. 183, 2-5: "Nam de naturæ possibilitate, de libero arbitrio, et de omni dei gratia et quotidiana gratia cui non sit recte sentienti uberrimum disputare?"

[347] This is not the view that has hitherto been taken of the letters; Zosimus has rather been simply contrasted with Innocent. Seeberg (p.
283) sees in the letter a monument of the Pope's helplessness in dogma: he was so ignorant as to admit that the Africans were right, and yet to make them talk like Pelagians. That seems to me an exaggeration.

[348] Hahn. 133. In it we have the words "liberum sic confitemur arbitrium, ut dicamus nos indigere dei semper auxilio" (but in what does the auxilium consist?), and "baptismum unum tenemus quod iisdem sacramenti verbis in infantibus, quibus etiam in majoribus, asserimus esse celebrandum."

[349] Fragments in Aug., De Gratia Christi et de pecc. orig.

[350] Fragments of the Libellus in Aug., De pecc. orig. 5 sq.

[351] L.c.: "Infantes debere baptizari in remissionem peccatorum secundum regulam universalis ecclesiæ et secundum evangelii sententiam confitemur, quia dominus statuit, regnum coelorum non nisi baptizatis posse conferri; quod, quia vires naturæ non habent, conferri necesse est per gratiæ libertatem. In remissionem peccatorum baptizandos infantes non idcirco diximus, ut peccatum ex traduce firmare videamur (he thus clung to this point), quod longe a catholico sensu alienum est, quia peccatum non cum homine nascitur, quod postmodum exercetur ab homine, quia non naturæ delictum, sed voluntatis esse demonstrator. Et illud ergo confiteri congruum, ne diversa baptismatis genera facere videamur, et hoc præmunire necessarium est, ne per mysterii occasionem ad creatoris injuriam malum, antequam fiat ab homine, tradi dicatur homini per naturam."

[352] He wisely refused to discuss the separate points of complaint.

[353] Zosim., Epp. 3, 4.

[354] The Bishops are arrogantly rebuked. For the rest, the whole question in dispute is regarded as due to an epidemic of curiosity, as superfluous and pernicious: one ought to abide by Scripture. No wonder that Rome hesitated to declare a question important in which the disputants were agreed as regards Holy Scripture, dogma, and Church practice. The Church only took hesitatingly the momentous step involved in acknowledging anything outside of these to be of equal importance to "dogmas."

[355] Prosper, c. collat. 5.
[356] Zosim., Ep. 10.
[357] Zosim., Ep. 15.

[358] It was with Cælestius that he was chiefly concerned.

[359] Let him be condemned: who derives death from natural necessity; who denies the presence of original sin in children and rebels against Paul (Rom. V. 12); who assigns any form of salvation to unbaptised children; who refers God's justifying grace in Christ merely to past sins; who applies grace to knowledge alone, while not perceiving in it the power necessary to us; who sees in grace merely a means of rendering the good easier, but not its indispensable condition; or who derives the confessions of sin by the pious from humility alone, and interprets their prayer for pardon of guilt as applying solely to the guilt of others.

[360] The proceedings in Mansi III., p. 810 sq.

[361] The edict in Aug. Opp. X. app., p. io5. It is certainly doubtful whether the Africans effected this; perhaps it was instigated from Milan or by Italian Anti-Pelagians. The attempt has been made to prove that Zosimus' change of front was independent of the edict.

[362] Aug. Opp. X. app., p. 108.
[363] C. duas epp. Pel. I. 3.
[364] See Op. imperf. I. 18. Fragments in Marius.

[365] The confession of faith contained in one of the letters (Hahn, § 135) shows also that Julian wished to stand by Pelagius.

[366] We must remember in excuse of Julian's violent and unmeasured polemics that he was defending an already hopeless case. He himself knew this--Op. imp. I. 1, 2: "magnis impedimentis angoribus, quos intuenti mihi hac tempestate ecclesiarum statum partim indignatio ingerit partim miseratio"--"labentis mundi odia promeremur"--"rebus in pejorem partem properantibus, quod mundi fini suo incumbentis indicium est" (l.c. I. 12). His violence is in any case not explained from secret uncertainty, for there certainly have been few theologians so thoroughly convinced as he of being on the right path. Religious pioneers, besides, have as a rule surpassed their opponents in strength of conviction. They also possess it more readily; for the certainty of religion and morality, as they understand it, is involved for them in personal assurance.

[367] When we realise the exceptional qualities of two such outstanding opponents, we wish that nature had rolled them into one. What a man that would have been!

[368] This name appears first in the Middle Ages. In ancient times men spoke of the "reliquiæ Pelagianorum."

[369] They still hoped for their rehabilitation up to A.D. 430, and urged it in Rome on every new Pope.

[370] It is noteworthy that Julian speaks in his works as if he now alone represented the destituta veritas, a claim that Augustine tells him shows extreme arrogance (see c. Jul. II. 36).

[371] I do not here discuss more minutely the history of Julian, who once more paid a passing visit to Rome; see art. in the Encycl. of Christ. Biogr.

[372] Julian's name was expressly mentioned; perhaps he was in Ephesus with Nestorius. It is maintained by Marius that he had been already condemned in his absence (with Theodore's concurrence) at a Cilician Synod.

[373] Bishop Atticus of Constantinople was undoubtedly a decided enemy of the Pelagians; but we do not know his motives.

[374] This is also necessary because the mode of thought at the root of Pelagianism never reappeared--up to the time of Socinianism--in so pure a form as in Julian.

[375] Augustine says very gracefully (c. Jul. VI. 36): "Quæ tu si non didicisses, Pelagiani dogmatis machina sine architecto necessario remansisset."

[376] As regards form (Klasen, pp. 81-116), i.e. in their teaching as to Scripture, tradition, and authority, no innovations occur in Pelagius and Cælestius. Pelagianism, indeed, implicitly involves the rejection of every doctrine, quæ ratione defendi non potest, and he interpreted Scripture accordingly (see examples of exegesis in Klasen l.c.). In his treatise, De natura, he quotes the Fathers in support of his form of doctrine, as Augustine did for his (Chrysostom was especially often quoted, but so also were Jerome, Ambrose, and Lactantius). Julian, on the contrary, expressly gave the first place to ratio: "Quod ratio arguit, non potest auctoritas vindicare" (Op. imp. II. t6). With Origen--in sharp contrast to Augustine--he observes the rule not that a thing is good, because God wills it and it stands in Scripture, but that reason establishes what is good: "Hæreat hoc maxime prudentis animo lectoris, omnibus scripturis sacris solum illud, quod in honorem dei catholici sapiunt, contineri, sicut frequentium sententiarum luce illustratur, et sicubi durior elocutio moverit quæstionem, certum quidem esse, non ibi id quod injustum est loci illius auctorum sapuisse; secundum id autem debere intelligi, quod et ratio perspicua et aliorum locorum, in quibus non est ambiguitas, splendor apparuerit" (l.c. II. 22; cf. I. 4). "Sanctas quidem apostoli esse paginas confitemur, non ob aliud, nisi quia rationi, pietati, fidei congruentes erudiunt nos" (II. 144). Julian declares time and again that "wrong" and right must be the standard to be applied to all traditions regarding God. Now if the interpretations of Scripture given by Pelagius and Cælestius are "shallow," Julian's are sometimes quite profane. Our first parents clothed themselves after the Fall, because they were cold, and had learned for the first time the art of making clothes (c. Jul. IV. 79 sq.). But the rationalist standpoint of historical criticism appears most clearly in Julian's attitude to tradition. He is the author of the famous saying that we ought to weigh and not count opinions (c. Julian, II. 35: "non numerandas, sed ponderandas esse sententias; ad aliquid inveniendum multitudinem nihil prodesse cæcorum"). He says boldly that in dogmatic questions we must set aside the strepitus turbarum de omni ordine conversationis hominum, all de plebeia fæce sellularii, milites, scholastici auditoriales, tabernarii, cetarii, coqui, lanii, adolescentes ex monachis dissoluti, and further the turba qualiumcumque clericorum; "honorandam esse paucitatem, quam ratio, eruditio, libertasque sublimat." Compare Op. imperf. I. 41, where Julian says "et si philosophorum ego senatum advocavero, tu continuo sellularios, opifices omneque in nos vulgus accendas," and II. 14 "Traduciani pro se sursum deorsum plebecularum aut ruralium aut theatralium scita commendant." He justifies the setting aside of laymen and the uneducated clergy; he says: "quia non possunt secundum categorias Aristotelis de dogmatibus judicare." Here (c. Julian. II. 36, 37) Julian's chief interest becomes clearly evident. Without Aristotle, no theology; everything else is clod-hoppers' theology; but we have the cultured on our side (l.c. V. 1., Augustine suggests that is a contention of all heretics, already soiled and worn by frequent use). Julian adhered to Aristotle and Zeno; he knew their ethics thoroughly and reflected on their differences (c. Jul. II. 34; VI. 36; VI. 64: "de scholis Peripateticorum sive Stoicorum;" Op. impf. I, 35, 36). In contents and method his teaching was closely related to that of these philosophers--Augustine alludes very often to this. Besides, he quotes (c. Jul. IV .75) Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Leucippus, Democritus, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Melissus, Plato, and Pythagoras ("quis non ipso nominum sectarumque conglobatarum strepitu terretur?" remarks Augustine). Of these philosophers--along with whom Sallust and Cicero are quoted--Julian says (l.c.), while granting they were idolaters ("licet in scholis aliud disserentes"), that they had enjoyed, in the midst of many errors, "de naturalibus aliquas veritatis partes," and that these were rightly to be preferred to the dogma of original sin. Augustine justly speaks of "nebulæ de Aristotelicis categoriis;" but the Stoic element prevails in Julian. The whole conception of ratio and Nominalism is Stoic. The mania for definitions is also Stoic and Ciceronian. Without definition no knowledge (Op. imp. II. 30, said against Augustine: "Ad quid ergo persuadendum aut scripturas releges aut conscios nominabis, qui adhuc quod sentis non potes definire"). But these definitions never rise out of the actual and thoroughly observed case--and that was indeed also usual in the Stoa--but glide over it. Julian by no means despised altogether the appeal to the Fathers. Here also he proved himself reasonable. It was only their formal authority that he would have nothing to do with. His standpoint is most clearly expressed in c. Jul. I. 29: "Cum igitur liquido clareat hanc sanam et veram esse sententiam, quam primo loco ratio, deinde scripturarum munivit auctoritas et quam sanctorum virorum semper celebravit eruditio, qui tamen veritati auctoritatem non suo tribuere consensu, sed testimonium et gloriam de ejus suscepere consortio, nullum prudentem conturbet conspiratio perditorum." Here we perceive the descending series of authorities, which is yet only authoritative, in so far as the witnesses are rational. The "Fathers" he really regarded as nothing, and well he knew how to make use of the admissions wrung from Augustine regarding their authority (Op. imp. IV. 112): "Sed bene quod nos onere talium personarum prior levasti. Nam in libro ad Timasium cum s. Pelagius venerabilium virorum tam Ambrosii quam Cypriani recordatus fuisset, qui liberum arbitrium in libris suis commendaverant, respondisti nulla te gravari auctoritate talium, ita ut diceres eos processu vitæ melioris, si quid male senserant, expiasse." "Numquid"--exclaims Julian (l.c. IV. 110)--"legi dei aut operi dei scripta disputatorum præjudicant!" Julian felt most acutely his having to call to its senses the West, in bondage to "stupid and godless" dogma; in the East alone did he now see salvation. The rock on which he stood was reason; his winged organ was the word. He knew that God would honour him for having alone to lead the cause of righteousness. He confronted, as the most resolute "Aufklärer" of the ancient Church, its greatest religious personality.

[377] Cælestius in Aug., De perf. just. 15; Julian in the Op. imp. I. 27-38 and often. The thought of goodness--characteristically enough--is dropped, or accompanies it, as it were, incidentally. The idea of righteousness as legislative, distributive, and social, governs the whole system. "Lex dei fons ac magistra justitiæ," Op. imp. I. 4.

[378] Op. imp. I. 35: "Justitia est, ut ab eruditis definiri solet (s. Aristoteles), et ut nos intelligere possumus, virtus (si per Stoicos liceat alteri alteram præferre), virtutum omnium maxima fungens diligenter officio ad restituendum sua unicuique, sine fraude, sine gratia." By this is gained for religion and morality the supreme principle by which man confronts God as judge in complete independence.

[379] "Nihil potest per sanctas scripturas probari, quod justitia non possit tueri."

[380] Op. imp. VI. 16.

[381] Aug. c. duas epp. Pelag. III. 24: "Hae sunt nebulæ Pelagianorum de laude creaturæ, laude nuptiarum, laude legis, laude liberi arbitrii, laude sanctorum, IV. 1, 2.

[382] "Quia naturalia ab initio substantiæ usque ad terminum illius perseverant." (Op. imp. II. 76).

[383] Naturalia per accidens non convertuntur." "Quod innascitur usque ad finem ejus, cui adhæserit, perseverat." L.c. I. 61.

[384] "Voluntas est nihil aliud quam motus animi cogente nullo" (Op. imp. 1. V. ). More precisely (I. 78-82): "Libertas arbritii, qua a deo emancipatus homo est, in admittendi peccati et abstinendi a peccato possibilitate consistit . . . Posse bonum facere aula virtutis est, posse malum facere testimonium libertatis est. Per hoc igitur suppetit homini habere proprium bonum, per quod ei subest posse facere malum. Tota ergo divini plenitudo judicii tam junctum habet negotium cum hac libertate hominum, ut harum qui unam agnoverit ambas noverit. . . . Sic igitur et libertas humani custodiatur arbitrii, quemadmodum divina æquitas custoditur . . . Libertas igitur arbitrii possibilitas est vel admittendi vel vitandi peccati, expers cogentis necessitatis, quæ in suo utpote jure habet, utrum surgentium partem sequatur, i.e., vel ardua asperaque virtutum vel demersa etpa lustria voluptatum."

[385] The Pelagians were very silent as to the relation of ratio and liberum arbitrium. They did not even notice that it involved a main difficulty. All that they found it necessary to say consisted in quite childish arguments. Even the above definition of the will is absolutely untenable. After all, reason impels to what is bad as well as good; the wicked man does not act, at least, without reason. But what does justitia mean, if the separate acts of will always pass into vacancy? The original equilibrium, forsooth, remains fixed.

[386] Op. imp. III. 188: "Qui gratiam confirmat, hominum laudat naturam."

[387] "Libertas utriusque partis."
[388] Ep. ad Demetr.

[389] Op. imp. I. 79. Here the humanist notion of the good is clear. To this Julian adhered, in so far as he followed out the thought at all.

[390] De grat. Christi 5; de nat. et gratia, passim. (Expositions by Pelagius).

[391] The notion of freedom taught by the Pelagians lies in the possibilitas, and that according to Julian, the possibilitas utriusque, not merely boni. In Pelagius the possibilitas boni, and therewith responsibility, are more prominent. He does not merely say that man has freedom of choice, but also (ep. ad Demetr.) that "in animi nostris naturalis quædam sanctitas est."

[392] Klasen (pp. 229-237) distinguishes a threefold possibilitas in the Pelagians' teaching, i.e., so many distinctions are, in fact, required, if we would escape the contradictions covered by the notion.

[393] Op. imp. I. 44; V. 28, 43; VI. 17 and often.

[394] Cælest. in Aug. de perfect. 1.

[395] Besides the indefiniteness of the relation of reason to freedom, the wrong definition of the will, the obscurity as to the notion of ratio, and the contradictions in the notion of possibilitas, especially characteristic are the inability to give a concrete definition of evil, and the mythological fashion in which nature and will are distinguished. Why should will and nature be so completely divided, if the possibilitas belongs to nature? What is nature in general over and above will, since it is by no means held to be merely the flesh?

[396] To this point the Pelagians applied their greatest acuteness, and made just objections, see under. Pelag. in Aug. de pecc. orig. 14: "Omne bonum ac malum, quo vel laudabiles vel vituperabiles sumus, non nobiscum oritur, sed agitur a nobis: capaces enim utriusque rei, non pleni nascimur, et ut sine virtute ita et sine vitio procreamur atque ante actionem propriæ voluntatis id solum in homine est, quod deus condidit."

[397] See the Ep. ad Demetr.; De nat. et grat. 60-71. A grave experience is revealed in the confession (Ep. ad Demetr. 26) that the devil may often fill even those who are separated from the world with such foul and impious thoughts, that they imagine they are as wicked as when they loved the res sæculi.

[398] With his distinction of marriage as good and had, Augustine resembles the charlatan who would exhibit a beast that devours itself; Jul. III. 47.

[399] See especially Op. imp. Book V., and c. Julian, Book V. Augustine calls him "laudator concupiscentia;" c. Jul. III. 44.

[400] C. Jul. IV. 7; III. 27.
[401] L.c. IV. 8.
[402] L.c. IV. 52.

[403] Asceticism is thus declared to be superfluous, l.c. III. 42.

[404] Op. imp. IV. 37-43. There undoubtedly occur other passages in Julian in which the "blessing" of libido appears small, and virginity is admired.

[405] L.c. IV. 45-64, and elsewhere.

[406] We must here, indeed, remember the twofold meaning of posse.

[407] De gest. Pelag. 11.

[408] On this Pelagius laid great stress (see Op. imp. V.), expressly denying (against Augustine) that man sins because he was created ex nihilo. By referring evil to the will, every possibility of explaining its origin comes to an end; for any such explanation means proving its necessity. V. 41: "Quæritis necessitatem rei quæ esse non potest si patitur necessitatem. Huic motui animi libero, sine coactu originis inquieto, si causa ipso motu detur antiquior, non gignitur omnino sed tollitur." V. 57-60: "ideo habuit voluntatem malam, quia voluit."

[409] Op. imp. VI. 14-23.

[410] Op. Imp. VI. 23; VI. 14, he lets it appear plainly enough that the Fall was an advantage for Adam: "porro ignorantia quam profunda quamque patiendi ejus dura conditio, ut liberari ab ea nisi prævaricatione non posset, scientiam quippe boni malique absque ansa condemnabili nequaquam capessiturus."

[411] Thus first Cælestius (Karthago, s. Diospolis; de pecc. mer. 2). So also Julian, op. imp. II. 66. Common death is natural. Yet here Julian has tried to compromise. He will not deny that natural death has a connection with sin; i.e., it had really to be annulled by merits; but his explanations in Book II. are very tortuous. Without sin death would have been "levissima"; but God cannot do away with it entirely even for saints, for (VI. 30): "non est tanti unius meritum, ut universa quæ naturaliter sunt instituta perturbet."

[412] Thus already Cælestius.

[413] It is superfluous to quote passages; see the detailed account in Klasen, pp. 116-182. Julian's explanation of Rom. V. 12 occurs in c. Jul. VI. 75-81. Besides charging him with Manichæism, Julian also accused Augustine of Traducianism, though he was no Traducian. The heretical name of "Traduciani" was originated by Julian (Op. imp. I. 6).

[414] De pecc. orig. 34.

[415] Ep. ad Demetr. The reign of sin in the world is also elsewhere strongly emphasised by Pelagius.

[416] This talk of primitive innocence is already in Julian a case of accommodation; for innocence of course always remains really the same.
C. Jul. III. 36: "homo igitur innocentia quidem plenus, sed virtutis capax nascitur, aut laudem aut reprehensionem ex proposito accedente meriturus . . . nec justos nasci parvulos nec injustos, quod futuri sunt actibus suis, sed tantummodo infantiam innocentiæ dote locupletem." But the same chapter shows what is after all meant by this "innocence": Perfecta ignorantia (in scripturis justitia nominatur).

[417] Op. imp. I. 91: "liberum arbitrium et post peccata tam plenum est quam fuit ante peccata."

[418] Here, as in Stoicism, there is a gap in the system. Why is rational man irrational and bad? How can he possess ratio and an evil will at the same time? And how is the sinful habit explained?--Julian also says, besides (Op. imp. I. 16) "consuetudo peccati amorem delicti facit et exstinguit pudorem;" but he means in the teaching of Augustine.

[419] "The will is not free, if it needs God's help" (De gestis 42). "Si per gratiam (De gestis 30) omnia facimus, quando vincimur a peccato, non nos vincimur, sed dei gratia, quæ voluit nos adjuvare omni modo et non potuit."

[420] We can, indeed, exemplify almost all the principles of Augustinianism from the utterances of Pelagius and Julian. The number of passages in their works which sound like good Church doctrine is very great. We should require to quote these also in order to give an idea of the figure presented by the two men to the world; but this would carry us beyond our present limits. We do not, however, do injustice to their thought by omitting them; for they are only characteristic of their mode of expression. Pelagius never denied publicly that man always needed the divine grace, that he could only adjuvante gratia esse sine peccato (see De gestis 16, 22, 31; De gratia 2: "anathemo qui vel sentit vel dicit, gratiam dei, qua Christus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere, non solum per singulas horas aut per singula momenta, sed etiam per singulos actus nostros non esse necessariam, et qui hanc conantur auferre, poenas sortiantur æternas"; see also his Confession to the Pope). Julian used, if possible, still stronger expressions; but both very often said exactly the opposite of what is here given. But they never did say that the grace of God through Christ established freedom from sin and salvation.

[421] These are the usual ones: free will exists in all men, but it is only supported by grace in the case of Christians (De gratia, 34); the rest only possess the "nudum et inerme conditionis bonum." Similarly Julian, but still more strongly (Op. imp. I. 40): "quos fecit quia voluit nec condemnat nisi spretus; si cum non spernitur, faciat consecratione meliores, nec detrimentum justitiæ patitur et munificentia miserationis ornatur." I. 111: "malæ voluntati veniam pro inæstimabili liberalitate largitur et innocentiam, quam creat bonam, facit innovando adoptandoque meliorem" (but can anything be better than good?). III. 106: "Quod ais, ad colendum recte deum sine ipsius adjutorio dici a nobis sufficere unicuique libertatem arbitrii, omnino mentiris. Cum igitur cultus dei multis intelligatur modis, et in custodia mandatorum et in execratione vitiorum et in simplicitate conversationis et in ordine mysteriorum et in profunditate dogmatum . . . qui fieri potest, ut nos in confuso dicamus, sine adjutorio dei liberum arbitrium sufficiens ad ejus esse culturam . . . cunt utique ista omnia, tam quæ dogmatibus quam quæ mysteriis continentur, libertas arbitrii per se non potuerit invenire, etc." There we see clearly how we are to understand the "adjutorium"; it consists solely in the law of dogmas and mysteries given by God and not discovered by man, but not in a power. Therefore, because God had invented so many institutions, Julian can proceed: "hominem innumeris divinæ gratiæ speciebus juvari . . . præcipiendo, benedicendo, sanctificando, coercendo, provocando, illuminando."

[422] Impossible as a power, since the will cannot actually be determined. On this point Cælestius has alone expressed himself clearly, but Julian holds the same view, as he is never tired saying: "cunctarum origo virtutum in rationabili animo sita est."

[423] This proposition of Julian's is properly the key to the whole mode of thought: man created free is with his whole sphere independent of God. He has no longer to do with God, but with himself alone. God only re-enters at the end (at the judgment).

[424] The statements of the Pelagians as to grace are very often rendered intentionally (e.g., De gestis Pel. 22) ambiguous, by their understanding it to mean the grace of creation, and accordingly nature. Yet this is not the rule. Pelagius and Julian distinguish three states: ex natura, sub lege, sub gratia (Christi); see C. duas epp., I. 39.

[425] "Perfecta justitia" also in the old covenant (l.c.) and among "antiqui homines." Julian often cites the perfect heathens, and sneers at Augustine's "splendida vitia." If the virtues of the heathens are not virtues, their eyes are not eyes (c. Jul. IV. 26-30). Pelagius has made wholly contradictory statements on this point; Julian afterwards became more prudent; but, finally, he always held the opinion that there was no difference between a good Christian and a good heathen.

[426] The law was the first augmentum beneficiorum dei; but it was at the same time the fundamental form of all that God could further do after creation. Pelagius has expressed himself very plainly (De gestis 30): "gratiam dei et adjutorium non ad singulos actus dari (in other places he says the opposite) sed in libero arbitrio esse vel in lege ac doctrina." That accordingly is all. Augustine therefore says very rightly that Pelagius only admitted the grace "qua demonstrat et revelat deus quid agere debeamus, non qua donat atque adjuvat ut agamus."

[427] See preceding note and Cælestius' statement: "lex sic mittit ad regnum cælorum quomodo et evangelium."

[428] Example and imitation, see Op. imp. II. 146 sq. C. Jul. V. 58: "tolle exempli causam, tolle et pretii, quod pro nobis factus est." Julian also ultimately reduced the death of Christ to a type, Op. imp. II. 223.

[429] Op. imp. II. 217-222.

[430] It is very instructive that to Julian (as to Augustine) it is the man that forms the personality in Jesus. He is distinguished from Augustine by saying that the man Jesus was chosen by God and united with Christ secundum merita. The profectus is also more plainly marked: Jesus was gradually adopted by the Word of God; the filius hominis gradually became the filius dei through the achievement of his will. Accordingly, unless Augustine has greatly exaggerated, this still might be taught with impunity at that time in the West (see Op. imp. IV. 84).

[431] The evasions in the case of baptism are so numerous that it is not worth while mentioning separate instances. The notion of forgiveness was in itself very irksome to the Pelagians; it could be at most a kind of indulgence, with difficulty compatible with justice. They also touched on the question whether baptism extirpates sin or removes guilt; but for them the question was senseless. As regards infant baptism, all their statements are to be derived from the fact that they would neither abolish it, nor admit baptisms of different value. The distinction between regnum cælorum and vita æterna was an eschatological rudiment, in this case welcome.

[432] Op. imp. I. 72, III. 163: "augmenta beneficiorum divinorum utilia esse et necessaria omnibus in commune ætatibus dicimus, ita tamen ut nec virtus nec peccatum sine propria cuiquam voluntate tribuatur."

[433] De gestis 30: "De gratiam secundum merita nostra dari, quia si peccatoribus illam det, videtur esse iniquus." This destroys the notion of grace; for it is only as gratuitous that it is grace. Here it takes the form of a means of rewarding the good. But if grace is neither gratis nor a power, it is nothing but an empty word.

[434] That Augustinianism is identical with Manichæism runs through Julian's polemic like a red line. "Sub laude baptismatis eructat Augustinus Manichæorum sordes ac naturale peccatum, ut ecclesiæ catholicæ pura hactenus sacramenta contaminet" (Op. imp. I. 9).

[435] His condemnation was, therefore--from a legal standpoint--not above question; the rejection of his energetic appeal to freedom in Church instruction not in every respect salutary.

[436] But from this point of view it could not be thoroughly opposed. Augustinianism could alone overcome it. Augustine's criticism of this system will be best given through an exposition of his own.

[437] Therefore the Pelagians attacked Augustine's doctrine of nature, and he their doctrine of grace. Everything that Augustine has to say to the Pelagians springs properly from the proof that they were ignorant of the nature of grace, and therefore also of that of sin.

[438] Since Augustine's fundamental theological conceptions have been already discussed above (see p. 94 ff. ), we have here only to examine the doctrine of grace, and that of sin and the primitive state. This order is self-evident, while Pelagianism started at the doctrine of an indestructible nature.

[439] Expositions of the death of Christ as the ground of salvation are frequent in Augustine. But they refer mostly to the reign of the devil, which was legally abrogated by Christ's death; on the other hand, they are much rarer when Augustine speaks of positive redemption. This deliverance from the devil's power was the common conception of Christ's death; it was the pretium paid for us to the devil, which he could not, however, retain. But it plays a subordinate part in Augustine's whole system; even the thought that God must be propitiated, of which we have echoes in Augustine, is not strictly carried out. The grace of God to him means, as a rule, the annulling of the state of sin. It is involved, however, in the nature of the case, that the reference is uncertain; for it is hard to demonstrate how a "state" is changed effectively by the death of Christ. But the looseness of connection was also a result of Augustine's conception of God; for grace, at bottom, emanated from the inscrutable decree of God, or the bonum esse. Augustine rarely connects gratia infusa in his thought with Christ, but with caritas, which is the essence of the Good. Here we have once more to remember that Christ himself, as a historical manifestation, was an instance in Augustine's view of predestinating grace (see above, p. 129). "Therefore the activity of Christ, who, as living eternally, works directly in us, is loosely connected with the historical process of propitiation" (Dorner, p. 182). That is, this "ever living Christ" is himself nothing but grace. In Enchir. 108, Augustine has summed up all he had to say on the import of Christ's work; but it will be found that, although the reconciliatio cum deo--only, indeed, as restoration to God--is not wanting, what is called "objective redemption" is left pretty much in the background. Augustine accordingly conceived the import of Christ spiritually: "Neque per ipsum liberaremur unum mediatorem dei et hominum hominem Jesum Christum, nisi esset et deus. Sed cum factus est Adam homo, scil. rectus, mediatore non opus erat. Cum vero genus humanum peccata longe separaverunt a deo, per mediatorem, qui solus sine peccato natus est, vixit, occisus est, reconciliari nos oportebat deo usque ad carnis resurrectionem in vitam æternam, ut humana superbia per humililatem dei argueretur (that is the main thought, see above, p. 131 f.) ac sanaretur et demonstraretur homini quam longe a deo recesserat (to-day this conception of Christ's work would be called rationalistic), cum per incarnatum deum revocaretur et exemplum obedientiæ per hominem-deum (this expression, "homo-deus" was not used, so far as I know, before Augustine) contumaci homini præberetur, et unigenito suscipiente formam servi, quæ nihil ante meruerat, fons gratiæ panderetur et carnis etiam resurrectio redemptis promissa in ipso redemptore præmonstraretur, et per eandem naturam quam se decepisse lætabatur, diabolus vinceretur, nec tamen homo gloriaretur, ne iterum superbia nasceretur, etc."

[440] Enchir. 107: "Gratia vero nisi gratis est, gratia non est."

[441] See the writings De corrept. et gratia, De dono perseverantiæ, De prædest. sanctorum, as well as expositions in all the works of Augustine's last years; for they never fail to prove that he more and more recognised the doctrine of predestinating grace to be the main one. Predestination does not rest on the foreknowledge that those particular men would follow grace, but it effects this result. The scriptural proof is Rom. IX. (see De prædest. 34).

[442] Enchir. 32: "Nolentem prævenit ut velit, volentem subsequitur, ne frustra velit." De gratia et lib. arb. 33: "præparat voluntatem et cooperando perficit, quod operando inficit. Quoniam ipse ut velimus operatur incipiens." There are countless other passages.

[443] De spir et litt. 34: "Non credere potest quodlibet libero arbitrio, si nulla sit suasio vel vocatio cui credat; profecto et ipsum velle credere deus operatur in homine et in omnibus misericordia ejus prævenit nos: consentire autem vocationi dei vel ab ea dissentire propriæ voluntatis est." Augustine's favourite text was, "Quid habes, quod non accepisti."

[444] See preceding note.

[445] See Augustine's last writings, e.g., De corr. 39; De præd. 32. The means of grace are uncertain; the universal vocatio should be successful, but it is not.

[446] Here it is true that "deus ita suadet ut persuadeat." De prædest. 34: "Electi sunt ante mundi constitutionem ea prædestinatione, in qua deus sua futura facta præscivit; electi sunt autem de mundo ea vocatione, qua deus id, quod prædestinavit, implevit. Quos enim prædestinavit, ipsos et vocavit, illa scilicet vocatione secundum propositum, non ergo alios sed quos prædestinavit ipsos et vocavit, nec alios, sed quos prædestinavit, vocavit justificavit, ipsos et glorificavit, illo utique fine, qui non habet finem."

[447] Therefore it was possible for Augustine to conceive the means of grace as acting in the case of heretics, because he felt their efficacy in general to be in the end uncertain.

[448] See above, note 1. The commonest term is "adjutorium," which the Pelagians also used, but with a quite different meaning. They thought of a crutch, Augustine of a necessary power.

[449] That is, this regeneration, surpassing forgiveness of sin and faith, is always considered the goal. That is the moral phase of the religious movement. Renovatio = justificatio = sanctificatio = sanctitas. Thus even regeneration is only perfect at the close. Enchir. 31: "We become free when God fashions us into good men."

[450] On faith as an advancing process of faith see Dorner, pp. 183-195. Originally, faith is contrasted with knowledge; it is the acceptance on authority of things we cannot know, nay, of what is contrary to reason; but it grows into assensus, fiducia, and spiritual perception, and thus passes into love, or, according to Paul and James, into the faith that works in love.

[451] Yet, as follows from the above exposition, the whole process of grace is completely subjective, although the parallel of the rites of the Church is maintained.

[452] Augustine was the first to make baptism a real act of initiation (Ench. 64: "a baptismate incipit renovatio"). The forgiveness of sins has an independent value only for the baptised child if it dies; otherwise it is an initiation. Here, and for this reason, we have Luther's divergence in the notion of faith. De grat. et lib. arb. 27: "neque scientia divinæ legis, neque natura neque sola remissio peccatorum est illa gratia per Christum, sed ipsa facit, ut lex impleatur."

[453] For Augustine's system it is a grave defect, sufficiently animadverted on also by the Pelagians, that baptism only removes the guilt of inherited sin; for with him removal of guilt is really a slight matter, in any case not the chief concern. But in the formulas the "non imputare," as well as fides, undoubtedly appears as the chief thing. In reality, while the removal of guilt is the object of fides historica, sin is blotted out by gratia infusa. Where Augustine seeks to retain guilt as the supreme conception, he always turns to its punishment. Man is emptied by sin. Thus sin bears its punishment in itself. Man despoiled, however, is much too dependent, too much of a cipher, to be able to possess guilt.

[454] The formula justificatio ex fide is very frequent in Augustine. De spiritu et litt. 45: "cum dicat gratis justificari hominem per fidem sine operibus legis, nihil aliud volens intelligi in eo, quod dicit gratis, nisi quia justificationem opera non præcedunt. . . Quid est aliud justificati quam justi facti ab illo scilicet qui justificat impium ut ex impio fiat justus." 15: "non quod sine voluntate nostra justificatio fiat, sed voluntas nostra ostenditur infirma per legem, ut sanet gratia voluntatem et sanata voluntas impleat legem." C. Jul. II. 23: "justificatio in hac vita nobis secundum tria ista confertur: prius lavacro regenerationis, quo remittuntur cuncta peccata, deinde congressione cum vitiis, a quorum reatu absoluti sumus, tertio dum nostra exaudiatur oratio, qua dicimus, Dimitte nobis debita nostra." The whole process up to the meritis and vita æterna in De gratia et lib. arb. 20. Love alone decides salvation, because it alone replenishes the man despoiled by sin. Man receives his final salvation by being restored through the spirit of love to goodness, being, and God, and by being united with him mystically yet really. The depreciation of faith follows necessarily from the notions of God, the creature and sin, all three of which have the mark of the acosmic. Since there is no independence beside God, the act of faith on the part of a subject in the presence of God only obtains any value when it is transformed into union with God--the "being filled" by God. This union, however, is a product of the freed will and gratia (cooperans).

[455] This is argued very often by Augustine. The bona concupiscentia can, as experience shows, never wholly supplant on earth the mala. (De spiritu 6: "adjuvat spiritus sanctus inspirans pro concupiscentia mala concupiscentiam bonam, hoc est caritatem diffundens in cordibus nostris.") For this very reason diffusio caritatis (gratia infusa, inspiratio dilectio--Augustine has many synonyms for this power of justification) is never perfected. Thus justification, which is identical with sanctification, is never completed because "opera" also are essential to it. Augustine appealed expressly to James. Gratia, however, is never imparted secundum merita bonaæ voluntatis, let alone bonorum operum; it first calls them forth.

[456] See above, p. 155. We have to notice here also the juxtaposition of the two processes, the outer and inner. For the rest, the whole account of the process of salvation is not yet reduced to a strict plan. Augustine still confuses the stages, and, fortunately, has no fixed terminology. Scholasticism first changed all this.

[457] No one can wholly avoid sin; but the saints can refrain from crimes (Enchir. 64).

[458] The work "De fide et operibus" is especially important at this point. Augustine expressly denies, c. 40, that faith and knowledge of God suffice for final blessedness. He holds by the saying: "Hereby we know him, if we keep his commandments." Against reformers like Jovinian, and not only against them, he defended the consilia, monachism, the higher morality, and the saints. De gratia et lib. arb. 1: "per gratiam dei bona merita comparamus quibus ad vitam perveniamus æternam." By these merita, works thoroughly ascetic are to be understood; see also the writings, De sancta virgin., and De bono viduit., in which, for the rest, Augustine is still more favourable to marriage than at a later date. His writings are at all times marked by a lofty appreciation of almsgiving.

[459] That grace is gratis data only appears certain to Augustine from the contention that it is irresistibilis, and embraces the donum perseverantiæ. The doctrine that the election of grace is unconditioned thus appears most plainly at the close of the whole line of thought; see De corrept et grat. 34, and the writings De dono persev. and De prædest. sanct. But, according to Augustine, no one can be certain that he possesses this grace. Therefore with all his horror of sin, Augustine had not experienced the horror of uncertainty of salvation. For this reason Christ can take so secondary a place in the working out of the process of grace. Christ is for him the Redeemer, and is actively present in the Sacraments; but he is not the pledge of the inner assurance of salvation.

[460] But Augustine assumes different degrees also in definitive salvation and perdition. That is characteristic for his moral theory.

[461] Dorner, p. 124 ff.
[462] See above, p. 114 f.
[463] This was constantly admitted by Augustine.

[464] We find in Augustine the two positions, that sinful man does not will goodness, and that he yet, under a blind impulse, pursues blessings, nay, even the good, but without ever attaining them.

[465] The inclination to nothing (not-being) is always at the same time a striving for independence, which is false, and ends in being resultless.

[466] Pride is the sin of the soul, concupiscence essentially that of the body which masters the soul. The inner evolution of sin from privatio (defectus) boni to ignorantia, concupiscentia, error, dolor, metus, delectatio morbida, see Enchir. 23. What Augustine always regarded most in sin was the infirmity, the wound.

[467] The work of the historical Christ is essentially redemption from the power of the devil.

[468] Here enters the popular Catholic element, still further accentuated, however, by Augustine. Enchir. 117: "Regnat carnalis cupiditas, ubi non est dei caritas."

[469] The extremely disgusting disquisitions on marriage and lust in the polemical writings against Julian (also De civ. dei XIV.) are, as the latter rightly perceived, hardly independent of Augustine's Manichæism: (Julian, indeed, traces Traducianism to Manichæism; see Op. imperf. III. 172). (Manichæism, besides, already appears, in the treatment of the "ex nihilo," as if it were an evil substance; Neoplatonism alone does not, in my opinion, explain this conception; yet the above dependence cannot be strictly proved--see Loofs, D.-Gesch., 3 Ed., p. 215.) And the disquisitions are by no means a mere outwork in Augustine's system; they belong to its very centre. The most remarkable feature in the sexual sphere was, in his view, the involuntariness of the impulse. But instead of inferring that it could not therefore be sinful--and this should have been the inference in keeping with the principle "omne peccatum ex voluntate"--he rather concludes that there is a sin which belongs to nature, namely, to natura vitiata, and not to the sphere of the will. He accordingly perceives a sin rooted in natura, of course in the form which it has assumed, a sin that propagates itself with our nature. It would be easy now to prove that in thinking of inherited sin, he always has chiefly in view this very sin, the lust of procreation; but it is impracticable to quote his material here. It is clear that inherited sin is the basis of all wickedness, and that it is in quite a different position front actual sins, because in it nature, having become evil, infects the whole being. But it is obvious that this was an unheard of novelty in the Church, and must be explained by reference to Manichæism. Of course Augustine did not intend to be a Manichæan. He distinguishes sharply between vitium and natura vitiate (De nupt. 36; Op. imp. III. 188, etc., etc.,); he strives to introduce the "voluntarium" even into inherited sin (Retract. I. 13, 5); but dualism is not surmounted simply by supposing nature to have become "mala," and yet to propagate itself as evil, and the voluntarium is a mere assertion. The dualism lies in the proposition that children possess original sin, because their parents have procreated them in lust--and by this proposition stands or falls the doctrine of original sin (De nupt. II. 15). So also Christ has sinlessness attributed to him, because he was not born of marriage (Ench. 41, 34), and Augustine imagined paradisaical marriages in which children were begotten without lust, or, as Julian says jestingly, were to be shaken from trees. All that he here maintains had been long ago held by Marcion and the Gnostics. One would have, in fact, to be a very rough being not to be able, and that without Manichæism, to sympathise with his feeling. But to yield to it so far as Augustine did, without rejecting marriage in consequence, could only happen at a time when doctrines were as confused as in the fifth century. Those, indeed, have increased the confusion still further, who have believed that they could retain Augustine's doctrine of inherited sin while rejecting his teaching as to concupiscence. But the history of dogma is the history of ever increasing confusions, and of a growing indifference not only to the absurd, but also to contradictions, because the Church was only with difficulty capable of giving up anything found in tradition. It cannot also be said that Augustine by his theory simply gave expression to the monastic tendency (Jerome, indeed, has gone just as far in his rejection of marriage--see lib. adv. Jovin.); for this was a tendency and not a theory. The legitimate point in Augustine's doctrine lies in the judgment passed by the child of God on himself, viz., that without God he is wretched, and that this wretchedness is guilt. But this paradox of the verdict of faith is no key to the understanding of history.

[470] See the correspondence with Jerome on this point which was never settled by Augustine.

[471] This destroys the beautiful proposition (pride and humility) out of which, of course, no historical theories could be constructed.

[472] On sin and sin's punishment (inherited sin is both), see Op. imp. I. 41-47, but even in the Confessions often, and De pecc. mer. II. 36.

[473] Even inherited sin is quite enough for damnation, as Augustine has very often maintained--and rightly, if there is such a thing.

[474] "Mitissima poena" (Enchir. 103)--thus the man permits himself to soften the inscrutable righteousness of God which he teaches elsewhere. He answered the question why then should God continue to create men if they must almost all be lost, by referring to baptism, and the peculiar power of Divine Omnipotence to make good out of evil. Had God not been omnipotent, then he could not have permitted evil (Enchir. 11); "melius judicavit, de malis bene facere, quam mala nulla esse permittere" (c. 27, 100). But he himself was shaken by the problem presented by the death, unbaptised, of Christian children (De corr. et gr. 18), All who are lost are juste prædestinati ad poenam (mortem)--see Enchir. 100; De civ. XXII. 24. Whether God damns all, or pardons some--nulla est iniquitas; for all have deserved death (Enchir. 27). "Tenebatur justa damnatione genus humanum et omnes erant iræ filii" (c. 33). Here in the later writings arises the doctrine of God's twofold will (judicium), the secret and the manifest. God does not will that all be blessed (Enchir. 203).

[475] It was very incorrect to derive Augustine's whole conception of original sin from the practice of infant baptism. It was, of course, very important to him as a means of proof.

[476] The description of the magnitude of Adam's Fall is in most of the anti-Pelagian writings, but also elsewhere.

[477] In the case of Adam's Fall Augustine gives the greatest prominence to the sin of the soul: "in paradiso ab animo coepit elatio" (c. Jul. V. 17). We have "amor sui" as chief and radical sin in the Confessions; Enchir. 45 gives a precise enumeration of all the sins committed in one act by Adam.

[478] That is, he was not only created good, but grace stood by him also as adjutorium: see under.

[479] The grace supporting him (adjutorium).

[480] Augustine always thinks first of this death. That the Pelagians accepted for their own purposes, since they held natural death to be natural. Augustine never maintained that formal freedom had been lost by Adam's sin, nay, in C. duas epp. Pelag. I. 5 he distinctly disputed this: "libertas periit, sed illa, quæ in paradiso fuit, non liberum arbitrium." But Augustine has represented the latter to be hopelessly hampered. See also the writing De gratia et lib. arb. In it he says (c. 45): "deus induravit per justum judicium, et ipse Pharao per liberum arbitrium. But (Enchir. 105): "Multo liberius erit arbitrium, quod omnino non poterit servire peccato."

[481] Thus sensuousness appears as the main detriment.

[482] Enchir. 26: "Hinc post peccatum exul effectus stirpem quoque suam, quam peccando in se tamquam in radice vitiaverat, poena mortis et damnationis obstrinxit, ut quidquid prolis ex illo et simul damnata per quam peccaverat conjuge per carnalem concupiscentiam, in qua inobedientiæ poena similis [so far as the flesh here is not obedient to the will, but acts of itself] retributa est, nasceretur, traheret originale peccatum, quo treheretur per errores doloresque diversos ad illud extremum supplicium."

[483] Augustine's exposition of the eph' ho in De pecc. mer. I. 11; c. Jul. VI. 75 sq.; Op. imp. II. 48-55 (against mere imitation). The translation "in quo" was received by Augustine from tradition, and in general his doctrine of original sin is at this point closest to tradition. If he had contented himself with the mystical, i.e., the postulated, conception that all are sinners, because they somehow were all in Adam, his theory would have been no novelty. But this "in quo" does not include, but excludes, original sin in the strict sense; all are sinners personally, because they were all in Adam, or were Adam. The conception that Adam's sin passed to all as actual sip, and affected them through contagion (by means of the parents who infect their children, Enchir. 46; doubts as to the extent of descent by inheritance, 47), is the complete antithesis of that mystical conception.

[484] See above, p. 210 f.

[485] On the doctrine of the primitive state, see Dorner, p. 114 ff.

[486] Both formal freedom and the true freedom which established Adam's obedience as the mater omnium virtutum are very strongly emphasised by Augustine as belonging to the primitive state; De civ. XIV. 12; De bono conjug. 32. On the primitive state, l.c. XI.-X1V.; De corrept. 28-33.

[487] This "ease" is strongly emphasised in De civ. XIV. 12-15. The whole doctrine of the primitive state, like all teaching on this subject, is full of contradictions; for we have here a grace that is meant to be actual, and is yet merely a condition, i.e., it by no means makes a man good, but only leaves scope to the will. Thereby the whole doctrine of grace is upset; for if there is a grace at all which only produces the posse non peccare, is not this the sole significance of all grace? and if that is correct, were not the Pelagians right? They, of course, maintained that grace was only a condition. Augustine's doctrine of grace in the primitive state (the adjutorium) is Pelagian, and contradicts his doctrine of grace elsewhere. We have here the clearest proof that it is impossible to construct a history from the standpoint of predestinating grace. Augustine falls back on the assumption that God wished to bestow on man a higher good than that he had received at first. Enchir. 25, 105: "Sic enim oportebat prius hominem fieri, ut et bene velle posset et male, nec gratis si bene, nec impune, si male; postea vero sic erit, ut male velle non possit, nec ideo libero carebit arbitrio . . . ordo prætermittendus non fuit, in quo deus ostendere voluit, quam bonum sit animal rationale quod etiam non peccare possit, quamvis sit melius quod peccare non possit." But how does that accord with irresistible grace? Therefore the question rightly arises (De corrept. et gratia): "Quomodo Adam non perseverando peccavit, qui perseverantiam non accepit?" Is not the whole doctrine of grace upset if we have to read (Enchir. 106): "Minorem immortalitatem (i.e., posse non mori) natura humana perdidit per liberum arbitrium, majorem (i.e., non posse mori) est acceptura per gratiam, quam fuerat, si non peccasset, acceptura per meritum, quamvis sine gratia nec tunc ullum meritum esse potuisset?" Accordingly, at the beginning and end (the primitive state and the Judgment) the moral view is set above the religious. The whole doctrine of predestinating irresistible grace is set in a frame incompatible with it. Thus Augustine is himself responsible if his Church in after times, arguing from the primitive state and the Judgment (secundum merita), has eliminated practically his doctrine of gratia gratis data. He, indeed, said himself (107): "ipsa vita æterna merces est operum bonorum," That would have been the case with Adam, and it is also ours. The infralapsarian doctrine of predestination, as understood by Augustine, is very different from Calvin's.

[488] Enchir. 93: "Tanto quisque tolerabiliorem ibi habebit damnationem, quanto hic minorem habuit iniquitatem!" Also 111.

[489] Augustine attempted, in opposition to Pelagianism, to exhibit the difference between the law and faith: "fides impetrat quod lex imperat." He also succeeded as far as the difference can he evolved from the notion of grace as the exclusive operation of God. But since he had not obtained an insight into the strict and exclusive cohesion of grace and faith, he did not succeed in thinking out and holding fast the distinction between law and faith to the end. He had no assured experience that the law prepared the way for wrath and despair. At this point Luther intervened.

[490] It is perhaps the worst, it is at any rate the most odious, consequence of Augustinianism, that the Christian religion in Catholicism is brought into particularly close relations to the sphere of sex. The combination of grace and sin (in which the latter takes above all the form of original sin identified with the sexual impulse and its excesses) became the justification of that gruesome and disgusting raking up of human filth, which, as is proved by the moral books of Catholicism, is a chief business of the priest, the celibate priest and monk, in the confessional. The dogmatic treatises of mediæval and modern times give, under the heading "sin," a wholly colourless idea of what is really considered "sin," of that which incessantly occupies the imagination of common Christians, priests, and, unfortunately, also many "saints." We have to study the mirrors of the confessional, the moral books and legends of the saints, and to surprise the secret life, to perceive to what point in Catholicism religious consolation is especially applied. Truly, the renowned educational wisdom of this Church makes a sad shipwreck on this rock! It seeks here also to oppose sin; but instead of quieting the imagination, which is especially interested in it, it goes on exciting it to its depths, drags the most secret things shamelessly to the light in its dogmas of the virgin, etc., and permits itself to speak openly of matters of which no one else ventures to talk. Ancient naturalism is less dangerous, at any rate for thousands less infectious, than this seraphic contemplation of virginity, and this continual attention to the sphere of sex. Here Augustine transmitted the theory, and Jerome the music. But how far the beginnings reach back! Tertullian had already written the momentous words (De pudic. 17): "Quid intelligimus carnis sensum et carnis vitam nisi quodcunque pudet pronuntiare?" Later writers were nevertheless not ashamed to utter broadly what the far from prudish African only suggested.

[491] We have at the same time to notice that no Church Father was so keenly conscious as he of the limitations of knowledge. In almost all his writings--a bequest of the Academy and a result of his thought being directed to the main matter--he exhorts his hearers to refrain from over-curiousness, a pretence of knowledge that runs to seed. He set aside as insoluble very many problems that had been and were afterwards often discussed, and he prepared the way for the concentration of the doctrinal system on its own material. __________________________________________________________________

4. Augustine's Interpretation of the Symbol (Enchiridion ad Laurentium). The New System of Religion.

After the exposition given above p. 106 f., we shall best conclude our account of Augustine's rôle in the history of dogma, by reviewing the expositions given in the Enchiridion of the contents of the Catholic religion. Everything is combined in this book to instruct us as to the nature of the revision (and on the other hand of the confirmation) by Augustine of the popular Catholic dogmatic doctrine that gave a new impress to the Western Church. We shall proceed first to give a minute analysis of the book, and then to set down systematically what was new and at the same time lasting.

Augustine begins by saying that the wisdom of man is piety ("hominis sapientia pietas est" or more accurately "theosebeia") (2). The answer to the question how God is to be worshipped, is--by faith, hope, and love. We have accordingly to determine what is meant by each of these three virtues (3). In them is comprised the whole doctrine of religion. They cannot, however, be established by reason or perception, but must be derived from Holy Scripture, and be implicitly believed in on the testimony of the sacred writers (4). When the soul has attained this faith, it will, if faith works in love, strive to reach that vision by which holy and perfected souls perceive the ineffable beauty, the complete contemplation of which is supreme blessedness. "The beginning in faith, the completion in sight, the foundation Christ." But Christ is the foundation only of the Catholic faith, although heretics also call themselves by his name. The evidence for this exclusive relationship between Christ and the Catholic Church would carry us too far here (5). We do not intend to enter into controversy, but to expound (6). The Symbol and the Lord's Prayer constitute the contents of faith (symbol), and of hope and love (prayer); but faith also prays (7). Faith applies also to things which we do not hope for, but fear; and further to our own affairs and those of others. So far as it--like hope--refers to invisible, future blessings, it is itself hope. But without love it profits nothing, because the devils also believe. Thus everything is comprehended in faith, which works by love and possesses hope (8)

Augustine now passes to the Symbol (the ancient Apostolic creed), in order to state the contents of faith. In § 9-32, he deals with the first article. The knowledge of nature and physics does not belong to faith--besides, scholars conjecture rather than know in this matter (opinantes quam scientes). It is enough for the Christian to believe that the goodness of the creator is simply the first cause of all things, so that there is no nature unless either it is he himself, or is of him. Further, that this creator is the "Trinity, supremely and equally, and unchangeably good" (trinitas summe et æquabiliter et immutabiliter bona), and that while created things do not Possess this quality, they are good; nay, everything collectively is very good, and produces a wonderful beauty, in which evil, set in its right place, only throws the good into relief (9, 10). Augustine at once passes to the doctrine of evil. God permits it only because he is so powerful that he can make good out of evil, i.e., he can restore the defect of the good (privatio boni), evil being represented as such defect (morbus [disease] vulnus [wound]). In the notion of that which is not supremely good (non summum bonum esse) we have the capacity for deterioration; but the good, which is involved in the existence of any substance, cannot be annihilated, unless the substance itself be destroyed. But in that case corruption itself also ceases, since it can never exist save in what is good: evil can only exist in what is good (in a bonum). This is expounded at length (11-15). The causes of good and evil must be known, in order to escape the errors and infirmities (ærumnæ) of this life. On the other hand, the causes of great movements in nature--Augustine returns to § 9--need not be known; we do not even know the conditions of our health, which yet lie nearest us (16)!

But is not every error an evil, and what are we to think of deception, lying? These questions are minutely discussed in §§ 17-22. Every case of ignorance is not an error, but only supposed knowledge is, and every error is not hurtful; there is even a good error, one that is of use. But since it is unseemly (deforme atque indecens) for the mind to hold the truth to be false, and the uncertain certain, our life is for that very reason wretched, because at times we need error that we may not lose our life. Such will not be that existence, "where truth itself will be the life of our soul" (ubi ipsa veritas vita animæ nostræ erit). But the lie is worst, so bad that even liars themselves hate being lied to. But yet falsehood offers a difficult problem. (The question of lying in an emergency, whether it can become a duty for a righteous man, is elaborately discussed.) Here again the most important point is to determine wherein one errs: "it is far more tolerable to lie in those things that are unconnected with religion than to be deceived in those without belief in, or knowledge of, which God cannot be worshipped" (18). [492] Looked at accurately, every error is an evil, though often, certainly, a small one. It is possible to doubt whether every error is also sinful--e.g., a confusion about twins, or holding sweet to be bitter, etc.; at all events, in such cases the sin is exceedingly small and trivial (minimum et levissimum peccatum), since it has nothing to do with the way that leads to God, i.e. with the faith that works in love. Error is, indeed, rather an evil than a sin, a sign of the misery of this life. In any case, however, we may not, in order to avoid all error, seek to hold nothing to be true--like the Academicians; for it is our duty to believe. Besides the standpoint of absolute nescience is impracticable; for even he who knows not must deduce his existence from this consciousness of nescience (20). We must, on the contrary, avoid the lie; for even when we err in our thought, we must always say what we think. [493] Even the lie which benefits another is sinful, although men who have lied for the general advantage have contributed a great deal to prosperity (22). Augustine returns to § 16: we must know the causes of good and evil. The sole first cause of the good is the goodness of God; the cause of evil is the revolt of the will from the unchangeable God on the part of a being, good but changeable, first, an angel, then man (23). From this revolt follow all the other infirmities of the soul [ignorance, concupiscence, etc.] (24). But the craving for blessedness (appetitus beatitudinis) was not lost.

We now have an exposition of Adam's endowment, the Fall, original sin, the sentence of death, the massa damnata, which suffers along with the doomed angels, etc. God's goodness is shown, however, in his grant of continued existence to the wicked angels, for whom there is no conversion besides, and in his preservation of men. Although it would have been only justice to give them also over to eternal punishment, he resolved to bring good out of evil (25-27). It was his merciful intention, i.e., to supplement from mankind the number of the angels who persevered in goodness, rendered incomplete by the fall of some, in order that the heavenly Jerusalem might retain its full complement, nay, should be increased by the "sons of our Holy Mother" [filii sanctæ matris] (28-29). But the men chosen owe this not to the merits of their own works (to free will); for in themselves they are dead like the rest (suicides), and are only free to commit sin. Before they are made free, accordingly, they are slaves; they can only be redeemed by grace and faith. Even faith is God's gift, and works will not fail to follow it. Thus they only become free, when God fashions them anew (into the nova creatura), producing the act of will as well as its accomplishment ("quamvis non possit credere, sperare, diligere homo rationalis, nisi velit"--although rational man cannot believe, hope, or love, unless he will). [494] That is, God makes the will itself good (misericordia præveniens) and constantly assists it [miseric. subsequens] (30-32).

The exposition of the second article follows in §§ 33-55. Since all men are by nature children of wrath, and are burdened by original sin and their own sins, a mediator (reconciliator) was necessary, who should appease this wrath (justa vindicta) by presenting a unique sacrifice. That this was done, and we from being enemies became children, constitutes the grace of God through Jesus Christ (33). We know that this mediator is the "Word" that became flesh. The Word was not transformed, but assumed our complete human nature from the virgin, being conceived not by the libido matris, but by faith--and therefore sinlessly. [495] The mother remained a virgin in giving birth (in partu) (34). We have now a short discussion on Christ as "God and man in unity of person, equal to God, and as man less than God" (35). Christ, the man who was deemed worthy to be assumed by God to form one person with him, is the most splendid example of grace given gratis, and not according to merits. The same grace that fell to the man Christ and made him sinless falls to us in justification from sins. It also revealed itself in Christ's miraculous birth, in connection with which, besides, the Holy Ghost did not act like a natural father. It was rather the whole Trinity that created the offspring of the virgin: the man Jesus, like the world, is the creation of the Trinity. But why precisely the Holy Ghost is named, it is hard to say. In any case, the man Jesus was not the son of the Spirit, but the latter is probably named in order to point to the grace that, existing without any preceding merits, had become in the man Jesus an attribute which in some way was natural (quodammodo naturalis); for the Holy Spirit is "so far God that he may be called the gift of God" [sic deus, ut dicatur etiam dei donum] (36-40). This is followed again by a long section (41 to 52) on sin and the relation of Christ to it. Christ was free from original and actual sin, but was himself--on account of similarity to sinful flesh--absolutely called sin. That is, he became a sacrifice for sin, representing our sin in the flesh in which he was crucified, "that in some way he might die to sin, in dying to the flesh," [496] and from the Resurrection might seal our new life (41). That is bestowed on us in baptism. Everyone dies to sin in baptism--even the children, who die to original sin--and in this respect sin is to be understood collectively; for even in Adam's sin many forms of sin were contained. But children are obviously infected not only by Adam's sin, but also by those of their parents. For their birth is corrupt, because by Adam's sin nature was perverted; moreover the actual sins of parents "although they cannot thus change nature, impose guilt on the children" (etsi non ita possunt mutare naturam, reatu tamen obligant filios). But Augustine refrains from deciding how far the sins of ancestors project their influence in the chain of descent. It is all expiated by the mediator, the man Jesus Christ, who was alone equipped with such grace as not to need regeneration; for he only accepted baptism by John in order to give a grand example of humility, just as he also submitted to death, not from compulsion, but in order to let the devil receive his rights (42-49). Christ is thus Adam's anti-type; but the latter only introduced one sin into the world, while Christ took away all that had since been committed. All were condemned in Adam; none escapes the condemnation without Christ. Baptism is to be solemnised as "the grand mystery in the cross of Christ" (mysterium grande in cruce Christi); for according to Paul baptism is "nothing but the similitude of Christ's death; but the death of Christ crucified is nothing but the similitude of the remission of sin, that as in him a true death took place, so in us a true remission of sins." [497] This is elaborated in accordance with Rom. VI; we are dead to sin through baptism (50-52). The clauses of the Symbol are now enumerated down to the "sitting at the right hand" with the observation: "It was so carried out that in these matters the Christian life which is borne here should be typified not only mystically by words but also by deeds." [498] That is established in connection with each separate article. Thus the "sitting at the right hand" means: "set your affections on those things that are above" (quæ sursum sunt sapite). On the other hand, the Return of Christ has no reference to our earthly life. It belongs entirely to the future. The judgment of the living and dead may also suggest to us the just and unjust (53-55).

To the third article §§ 56-113 are devoted; it is accordingly most elaborately elucidated. §§ 56-63 treat of the Holy Ghost, who completes the Trinity, and so is no part of creation, and also of the Holy Church. This is the temple and city of the Trinity. But it is here regarded as a whole. That is, it includes the section which exists in heaven and has never experienced a fall--the angels who aid the pilgrim part (pars peregrinans) being already united with it by love (56). The Church in heaven is void of evil and unchangeable. Augustine admits that he does not know whether there are degrees of rank among the angels, whether the stars belong to them, or what the truth is as to their bodily form (57-59). It is more important to determine when Satan invests himself in the form of an angel of light (60). We shall only know the state of the heavenly Church when we belong to it ourselves. The Church of this world, for which Christ died, we do know; for the angels he did not die; yet the result of his work also extends to them, in so far as enmity to them is at an end, and their number is once more complete. Thus by the one sacrifice the earthly host is again united with the heavenly, and the peace is restored that transcends all thought--not that of angels, but of men; but even angels, and men who have entered the state of felicity, will never comprehend the peace of God as God himself does (61-63).

Augustine now passes to the "remission of sins" (64-83): "by this stands the Church on earth" (per hanc stat ecclesia qua in terris est). So far as our sins are forgiven, "the angels are even now in harmony with us" (concordant nobiscum angeli etiam nunc). In addition to the "great indulgence," there is a continuous remission of sins, which even the most advanced of the righteous need, for they often descend to their own level and sin. Certainly the life of the saints may be free from transgressions, but not from sin (64). But even for grave offences there is forgiveness in the Church after due penance; and the important point is not the time of penance, but the anguish of the penitent. But since this emotion is concealed from our fellow-men, and cannot be inspected, the bishops have rightly instituted penitential seasons "that the Church may also be satisfied," the Church beyond whose pale there is no forgiveness; for it alone has received the pledge of the Holy Ghost (65). Evils remain in this world in spite of the salutaria sacramenta, that we may see that the future state is their goal. There are punitive evils; for sins last on, and are punished in this life or the next (66). We must certainly not fancy that faith by itself protects from future judgment (hos dia puros), it is rather only the faith that works in love (faith and works). By "wood and stubble" we are not to understand sins, but desires after earthly things lawful in themselves (67, 68). It is credible that a purifying fire exists for believers even after death (69)--sinners can only be saved by a corresponding penance combined with almsgiving. Almsgiving is now discussed in detail (69-77). At the Last Judgment the decision turns on it (Mat. XXV. 34 ff.). Of course we are at the same time to amend our lives; "God is to be propitiated for past sins by alms, not by any means to be bribed that we may always be allowed to commit sins with impunity." [499] God blots out sins "if due satisfaction is not neglected" (si satisfactio congrua non negligatur), without giving permission to sin (70). Daily prayer furnishes satisfaction for small and light daily sins (71). [500] The forgiveness, also, that we bestow on others is a kind of alms. Speaking generally, everything good we give to others, advice, comfort, discipline, etc., is alms. By this we besides help to gain forgiveness of our own sins (72). But the highest stages of almsgiving are forgiveness of sins and love of our enemies (73). [501] Those virtues everyone must practise, that he himself may be forgiven (74). But all these alms fail to benefit us unless we amend ourselves; that is, the alms we give to ourselves are the most important. Of him alone who has mercy on himself is the saying true: "Give alms and all is right (pure) with you." We must love ourselves with the love that God has bestowed on us; this the Pharisees, who only gave outward alms, did not do, for they were the enemies of their own souls (75-77). The divine judgment, however, can alone determine what sins are light or grave. Many things permitted by the apostles--e.g., matrimonial intercourse prompted by desire--are yet sinful; many sins which we consider wholly trifling (e.g., reviling), are grave; and many--e.g., unchastity--which custom has brought us to look on lightly, are dreadful, even though Church discipline itself has become lax in dealing with them (78-80). All sin springs either from ignorance or weakness. The latter is the more serious; but divine grace alone aids us to overcome either (81). Unfortunately, from false weakness and shame, public penance is frequently withheld. Therefore God's mercy is not only necessary in the case of penitence, but also that men may resolve to show penitence. But he who disbelieves in and despises the forgiveness of sin in the Church commits the sin against the Holy Ghost (82, 83).

The resurrection of the body is dealt with in §§ 84-113. First, the resurrection of abortions and monstrosities is discussed (85-87); then the relation of the new body to its old material--every particle of which need not pass into the former; and further, the corporeal difference, the stainlessness and spirituality of bodies in the future state (88-91). We must not concern ourselves with the constitution of the bodies of the lost who also rise again, although we are here confronted by the great paradox that a corruptible body does not die nor an incorruptible feel pain). [502] (92). Those will have the mildest punishment who have only original, but not actual, sin. Damnation in general will be marked by degrees, depending in each case on the measure of sin (93). Augustine now comes to speak of predestination in detail (94-108): "no one is saved except by undeserved mercy, and no one is condemned except by a deserved judgment." [503] That is the theme. It will become manifest in eternal life why of two children the one is accepted out of mercy, and the other rejected in accordance with justice. God's refusal of salvation is not unjust, though all might have been saved if he had willed; for nothing happens without his will or permission (95). Even in permitting evil his action is good, or the first article of the Symbol would no longer hold true (96). But if God's will cannot be frustrated by any choice of his creatures, how does the fact that all are not saved agree with the assurance that "he wills that all should be saved" (1 Tim. II. 4)? The usual answer, that men will not, is obviously false; for they cannot hinder God's will, as he can certainly turn even the bad into a good will. Accordingly, God does not will that all be saved, but he justly sentences sinners to death (Rom. IX.), that he who receives salvation may boast in the Lord. God is free in his election to grace; he would not have been to be blamed if he had redeemed no one after Adam's Fall; so neither is he to be blamed if in his mercy he redeems only a few, that none may boast of his own merits, but in the Lord. God's will is expressed in the case of the lost as much as in that of the saved ("in the very deed by which they opposed his will, his will regarding them was done"). [504] So great are the works of the Lord that nothing that takes place against his will happens outside (præter) of it. A good son wishes his father to live, but God, whose will is good, decides that he should die. Again, a bad son wishes his father to die, and God also wills this. The former wills what God does not; the latter what he does. Yet the former stands nearer God; for in the case of men it is the final intention that counts, while God accomplishes his good will even through the bad will of men. He is always just and always omnipotent (97-102). Therefore 1 Tim. II. 4 can only mean that God wills all classes of men to be saved, or that all those whom he resolves to save will be saved. In any case it is not to be imagined that he desires to save all, but is prevented (103).

Had God foreknown that Adam, in keeping with his constitution, would have retained forever the will to avoid sin, he would have preserved him in his original state of salvation. But he knew the opposite, and therefore shaped his own will to effect good through him who did evil. For man must have been so created originally as to be able to do good and evil. Afterwards he will be changed, and will no longer be able to will evil; "nor will he therefore be without free choice" (nec ideo libero carebit arbitrio); for free will still exists, even if a time comes when we cannot will evil, just as it even now exists, although we can never will our own damnation. Only the order of things had to be observed, first the "posse non," then the "non posse." But grace is always necessary, and would have been even if man had not sinned; for he could only have attained the "non posse" by the co-operation of grace. (Men can indeed starve voluntarily, but mere appetite will not keep them alive; they require food.) But since sin entered, grace is much greater, because the will had itself to be freed in order that it might co-operate with grace (104-106.) Eternal life, though a reward of good works, is also a gift of grace, because our merits are God's gifts. God has made one vessel to honour and another to dishonour, that none should boast. The mediator who redeemed us required also to be God, "that the pride of man might be censured by the humility of God" (ut superbia humana per humilitatem dei argueretur), and that man might be shown how far he had departed from God, etc. (107, 108). After this long excursus, Augustine returns to § 93, and deals (log) with the intermediate state (in abditis receptaculis), and the mitigation obtained by departed souls through the Mass, and the alms of survivors in the Church; for there are many souls not good enough to be able to dispense with this provision, and not bad enough not to be benefited by it. "Wherefore here (on the earth) all merit is acquired by which anyone can be relieved or burdened after this life." [505] What the Church does for the dead (pro defunctis commendandis) is not inconsistent with Rom. XIV. 10; II. Cor. V. 10. For those who are wholly good it is a thanksgiving, for those not altogether bad an atonement, for those entirely wicked it is resultless, but gives comfort to the survivors; nay, while it makes remission complete (plena), it renders damnation more tolerable (110). After the Judgment there are only two states, though there are different grades in them. We must believe in the eternal duration of the pains of hell, although we may perhaps suppose that from time to time God lightens the punishment of the lost, or permits some sort of mitigation. "Death will continue without end, just as the collective eternal life of all saints will continue" (111-113). [506]

Following his programme, Augustine ought now to have discussed in detail hope and love (prayer); but he omits doing so, because he has really touched on everything already. He therefore confines himself to affirming that hope applies solely to what we pray for in the Lord's Prayer, that three petitions refer to eternal, four to temporal, benefits, and that Matthew and Luke do not really differ in their versions of the Prayer (114-116). As regards love, he points out that it is the greatest of all. It, and not faith and hope, decides the measure of goodness possessed by a man. Faith and hope can exist without love, but they are useless. The faith that works in love, i.e., the Holy Spirit by whom love is infused into our hearts, is all-important; for where love is wanting, fleshly lust reigns (117). There are four human conditions: life among the deepest shades of ignorance (altissimis ignorantiæ tenebris), under the law (which produces knowledge and conscious sin), under grace or good hope, and under peace (in the world beyond). Such has also been the history of God's people; but God has shown his grace even at the first and second stages (118), and thus even now man is laid hold of sometimes at the first, sometimes at the second, stage, all his sins being forgiven in his regeneration (119), so that death itself no longer harms him (120). All divine commands aim at love, and no good, if done from fear of punishment or any other motive than love, is done as it ought. All precepts (mandata) and counsels (consilia) given by God are comprised in the command to love God and our neighbour, and they are only rightly performed when they spring, at present in faith, in the future in immediate knowledge, from love. In the world of sight each will know what he should love in the other. Even now desire abates as love increases, until it reaches the love that leads a man to give his life for another. But how great will love be in the future state, when there no longer exists any desire to be overcome! __________________________________________________________________

No one can mistake the popular Catholic features of this system of religion. It is based on the ancient Symbol. The doctrines of the Trinity and the Two Natures are faithfully avowed. The importance of the Catholic Church is strictly guarded, and its relation to the heavenly Church, which is the proper object of faith, is left as indefinite as the current view required. Baptism is set in the foreground as the "grand mystery of renovation," and is derived from Christ's death, in which the devil has obtained his due. Faith is only regarded as a preliminary condition; eternal life is only imparted to merits which are products of grace and freedom. They consist of works of love, which are summed up in almsgiving. Almsgiving is freely treated; it constitutes penance. Within the Church forgiveness is to be had for all sins after baptism, if only a fitting satisfaction is furnished (satisfacere ecclesiæ; satisfactio congrua). There is a scale of sins, from crimes to quite trivial daily offences. For this reason, wicked and good men are graded; but even the best (sancti, perfecti) can only be sinless in the sense that they commit none but the lightest sins. The saints are the perfect ascetics; asceticism is the culmination of love; but all do not need to practise it; we must distinguish between commands and counsels. In the future state both felicity and perdition will also be graded. Departed souls, if at death they have only left trivial sins unatoned for by penance, will be benefited by the masses, alms, and prayers of survivors. They are placed in a purgatory that cleanses them in the form of a decreed punishment. [507] If here popular Catholic elements are already strengthened, and the way prepared for their future elaboration, that is equally true of the doctrines of the intermediate state, the temporary mitigation of the punishment of the lost, the help afforded by holy angels to the Church of the present world, the completion--by means of redeemed mortals --of the heavenly Church reduced in number through the Fall of the wicked angels, the virginity of Mary even in partu, [508] and the grace of Christ as being greater than Adam's sin. This also applies to the opinion that the ignorant adherence to a false religion is worse than the knowing utterance of a lie, and to many other doctrines developed by Augustine in other writings. Finally, the conception of salvation that holds it to consist in "vision" and "fruition" is at the root of and runs through everything. Yet the most spiritual fact, the process of sanctification, is attached to mysteriously operating forces.

But on the other hand, this system of religion is new. The old Symbol--the Apostles interpreted by the Nicene--was supplemented by new material which could only be very loosely combined with it, and which at the same time modified the original elements. In all three articles the treatment of sin, forgiveness, and perfecting in love is the main matter (10-15; 25-33; 41-52; 64-83). Everything is presented as a spiritual process, to which the briefly discussed old dogmatic material appears subordinated. Therefore, also, the third article comes into the foreground; a half of the whole book is devoted to the few words contained in it. Even in the outline, novelty is shown: religion is so much a matter of the inner life that faith, hope, and love are all-important (3-8). No cosmology is given in the first article; indeed, physical teaching is expressly denied to form part of dogmatics (9, 16 f.). Therefore any Logos doctrine is also wanting. The Trinity, taught by tradition as dogma, is apprehended in the strictest unity; it is the creator. It is really one person; the "persons," as Augustine teaches us in other writings, are inner phases (moments) in the one God; they have no cosmological import. Thus the whole Trinity also created the man Christ in Mary's womb; the Holy Ghost is only named because "spiritus" is also a term for "God's gift" (donum dei). Everything in religion relates to God as only source of all good, and to sin; the latter is distinguished from error. Hereby a breach is made with ancient intellectualism, though a trace of it remains in the contention that errors are very small sins. Wherever sin is thought of, so is free, predestinating grace (gratia gratis data). The latter is contrasted with the sin inherited from Adam; it first gives freedom to the enslaved will. The exposition of the first article closes with the reference to prevenient and subsequent mercy. How different would have been the wording of this article if Augustine had been able to give an independent version!

The case is not different with the second article. The actual contents of the Symbol are only briefly touched on--the Second Advent is merely mentioned without a single Chiliastic observation. On the other hand, the following points of view come to the front. On the one side we have the unity of Christ's personality as the man (homo) with whose soul the Word united itself, the predestinating grace, that introduced this man into personal unity with the Deity, although he possessed no merits (hence the parallel with our regeneration); the close connection of Christ's death with redemption from the devil, atonement, and baptism (forgiveness of sins). But on the other side we find the view of Christ's appearance and history as loftiness in humility, and as the pattern of the Christian life. Christ's significance as redeemer [509] is quite as strongly expressed for Augustine in this humility in splendour, and in his example of a Christian life (see S. Bernard and
S. Francis), as in his death. He fluctuates between these two points of view. The Incarnation wholly recedes, or is set in a light entirely unfamiliar to the Greeks. Thus the second article has been completely changed.

The chief and novel point in the third article consists in the freedom and assurance with which Augustine teaches that the forgiveness of sins in the Church is inexhaustible. When we consider the attitude of the ancient Church, Augustine, and Luther, to the sins of baptised Christians, an external criticism might lead us to say that men grow more and more lax, and that the increasing prominence given to grace (the religious factor) was merely a means of evading the strict demands made by the gospel on morality--the Christian life. And this view is also correct, if we look at the great mass of those who followed those guides. But in their own case their new ideas were produced by a profounder consciousness of sin, and an absorption in the magnitude of divine grace as taught by Paul. Augustine stands midway between the ancient Church and Luther. The question of personal assurance of salvation had not yet come home to him; but the question: "How shall I get rid of my sins, and be filled with divine energy?" took the first place with him. Following the popular Catholic view, he looked to good works (alms, prayer, asceticism); but he conceived them to be the product of grace and the will subject to grace; further, he warned Christians against all external doing. As he set aside all ritualistic mysticism, so he was thoroughly aware that nothing was to be purchased by almsgiving pure and simple, but that the issue depended on an inner transformation, a pure heart, and a new spirit. At the same time he was sure that even after baptism the way of forgiveness was ever open to the penitent, and that he committed the sin against the Holy Ghost who did not believe in this remission of sins in the Church. That is an entirely new interpretation of the Gospel saying. The concluding section of the Symbol (resurrectio carnis) is explained even more thoroughly than the forgiveness of sins in its third treatment in the third article. But after a short discussion of the subject proper--the doctrine of predestination [510] and a view which as doctrine is likewise virtually new, and takes the place of Origen's theory of Apokatastasis--the main theme is the supposition of an intermediate state, and of a cleansing of souls in it, to which the offerings and prayers of survivors can contribute.

Piety: faith and love instead of fear and hope. Theory of religion: something higher than aught we call doctrine, a new life in the power of love. The doctrine of Scripture: the substance--the gospel, faith, love and hope--God. The Trinity: the one living God. Christology: the one mediator, the man Jesus into union with whose soul the Deity entered, without that soul having deserved it. Redemption: death for the benefit of enemies and humility in greatness. The Sacraments: the Word side by side with the Symbols. Salvation (felicity): the beata necessitas of the good. The good: blessedness in dependence on God. History: God works everything in accordance with His good pleasure. With that compare the dogmatics of the Greeks! [511]

The extent and position of dogma were also modified by this revolution. The old dogmas of the undivided Church, simply because they passed into the background, and were no longer expressive of piety itself, became more rigid; they more and more received the character of a legal system. The new dogmas, on the contrary, the doctrines of sin and grace in which piety lived, did not yet receive in their positive form the position and value of the old, nor were they definitely stated in rounded formulas. [512] Thus, through the instrumentality of Augustine, the extent and importance, in the history of dogma, of the doctrine of the Church became more uncertain. On the one hand, that doctrine was referred back to the gospel itself; on the other, it was much less sharply marked off than before from theology, since the new thoughts were not enclosed in fixed formulas. There was formed round the old dogma, which held its ground as an inflexible authority, a vast indefinite circle of doctrines, in which the most important religious conceptions lived, and which yet no one was capable of examining and weaving into a fixed connection. That is the state of dogma in the Middle Ages. Side by side with the growing inflexibility, the process of internal dissolution had already begun.

During the storms of the tribal migrations, just before the power of barbarianism broke in, God bestowed on the Church a man who judged spiritual things spiritually, and taught Christendom what constituted Christian piety. So far as we can judge, the young Germano-Roman peoples, like the Slays, would have remained wholly incapable of ever appropriating independently and thoroughly the contemporary Christian religion, the Church system transmitted to them as law and cultus in fixed formulas, they would never have pierced through the husk to the kernel, if along with that system they had not also received Augustine. It was from him, or rather from the Gospel and Paulinism under his guidance, that they derived the courage to reform the Church and the strength to reform themselves. __________________________________________________________________

[492] "Longe tolerabilius est in his quæ a religione sunt sejuncta mentiri, quam in iis, sine quorum fide vel notitia deus coli non potest, falli." E.g., to tell anyone falsely that a dead man is still alive is a much less evil than to believe erroneously that Christ will die once more.

[493] C. 22. "Et utique verba propterea sunt instituta, non per quæ se homines invicem fallunt, sed per quæ in alterius quisque notitiam cogitationes suas perferat." (Compare Talleyrand).

[494] C. 32: "Ex utroque fit, id est, ex voluntate hominis et misericordia dei."

[495] Augustine's whole conception of the sinfulness mingled with all procreation, and his view that sexual desire is due not to nature as originally cleated, but to sin, have admittedly their roots in the earliest period. But they were expressed with Augustine's thoroughness only by the Gnostics, Marcion and--the author of the fragment De resurrectione ascribed to Justin. The parallel offered by the latter (c. 3) is extremely striking. There is not yet, naturally, any question of sin being propagated through sexual union; that union is held simply to be sinful; metras estin energeia to kuiskein kai moriou andrikou to spermainein; hosper de, ei tauta mellei energein tautas tas energeias, houtos ouk anankaion autois estin to ten archen energein (horomen goun pollas gunaikas me kuiskousas, hos tas steiras, kai metras echousas), houtos ouk eutheos kai to metran echein kai kuiskein anankazei; alla kai me steirai men ex arches, partheneuousai de, katergesan kai ten sunousian, heterai de kai apo chronou; kai tous arsenas de tous men ap'arches partheneuontas horomen, tous de apo chronou, hoste di' auton kataluesthai ton di' epithumias anomon gamon; There are also beasts that refrain from having connection, hoste kai di anthropon kai di alogon katargoumenen sunousian prin tou mellontos aionos horasthai; kai ho kurios de hemon Iesous ho Christos ou di' allo ti ek parthenou egennethe, all' hina katargese gennesin epithumias anomou kai deixe to archonti kai dicha sunousias anthropines dinaten einai to theo ten anthropou plasin;

[496] "Ut quodammodo peccato moreretur, dum moritur carni."

[497] "Nihil aliud nisi similitudo mortis Christi; nihil autem aliud mortem Christi crucifixi nisi remissionis peccati similitudinem, ut quemadmodum in illo vera mors facta est, sic in nobis vera remissio peccatorum."

[498] "Ita gestum est, ut his rebus non mystice tantum dictis sed etiam gestis configuraretur vita Christiana quæ hic geritur."

[499] "Per eleemosynas de peccatis præteritis est propitiandus deus, non ad hoc emendus quodam modo, ut peccata semper liceat impune committere." Accordingly some Catholics must even then have looked on alms as conferring a license.

[500] "Delet omnino hæc oratio minima et quotidiana peccata."

[501] Augustine here says with great truth that love of our enemies is possible only to a small minority (the perfect). But even those who do not attain it are heard if they utter the fifth petition in faith.

[502] In hell "mors ipsa non moritur."

[503] "Nisi per indebitam misericordiam nemo liberatur et nisi per debitum judicium nemo damnatur."

[504] "Hoc ipso quod contra voluntatem fecerunt ejus, de ipsis facta est voluntas ejus."

[505] Quocirca hic (in terra) omne meritum comparatur, quo possit post hanc vitam relevari quispiam vel gravari.

[506] Manebit sine fine mors, sicut manebit communiter omnium vita æterna sanctorum.

[507] The Enchiridion is not the only work in which Augustine has spoken of this ignis purgatarius.

[508] The growing Marian dogma (see Vol. IV., p. 314) was thus strengthened rather than weakened by Augustine. He agreed entirely with Ambrose and Jerome (against Jovinian). By a woman came death, by a woman came life; Mary's faith conceived the Saviour. Julian's remarkable objection to the doctrine of original sin, that it made Mary to be subject to the devil (nascendi conditione), Augustine met by saying (Op. imp. IV. 122): "ipsa conditio nascendi solvitur gratia renascendi." We may not maintain it to be certain (see Schwane II., p. 691 f.) that Augustine thus implicitly taught Mary's immaculate conception. On the other hand, he undoubtedly held her to be without active sin; see De nat. et gr. 36: "Excepta itaque s. virgine Maria, de qua propter honorem domini nullam prorsus, cum de peccatis agitur, haberi volo quæstionem; unde enim scimus, quid ei plus gratiæ collatum fuerit ad vincendum omni ex parte peccatum, quæ concipere et parere meruit, quem constat nullum habuisse peccatum? hac ergo virgine excepta si omnes illos sanctos et sanctas, cum hic viverent, congregare possimus et interrogare, utrum essent sine peccato, quid fuisse responsuros putamus, utrum hoc quod ista dicit an quod Johannes apostolus?" Gen. ad litt. X. 18-21. Augustine helped to give Mary a special position between Christ and Christians, simply because he first emphasised strongly the sinfulness of all men, even the saints, and then excepted Mary. Mary's passive receptivity in relation to grace is emphasised with the same words as that of the man Jesus.

[509] Sin and original sin are again discussed in §§ 41.52, but they are now looked at from the standpoint of their removal through the baptism that emanates from Christ's death.

[510] The doctrine of predestination--before Augustine almost unheard of in the Catholic Church--constituted the power of his religious life, as Chiliasm did that of the post-apostolic, and mysticism that of the Greek Church. In Augustine, in addition to its Biblical and Neoplatonic supports, the doctrine had indeed a strong religious root--free grace (gratia gratis data). But the latter by itself does not explain the importance which the doctrine had gained in his case. As everything that lives and works in nature is attached to something else, and is never found in an independent state, so, too, there is no distilled piety, On the contrary, so long as we men are men, precisely the most vital piety will be least isolated and free. None but the dogmatist can construct such a religion. But history teaches that all great religious personalities have connected their saving faith inextricably with convictions which to the reflecting mind appear to be irrelevant additions. In the history of Christianity there are the three named--Chiliasm, mysticism, and the doctrine of predestination. It is in the bark formed by these that faith has grown, just as it is not in the middle of the stem, but at its circumference, where stem and bark meet, that the sap of the plant flows. Strip the tree, and it will wither! Therefore it is well-meant, but foolish, to suppose that Augustine would have done better to have given forth his teaching without the doctrine of predestination.

[511] An excellent comparison between Origen and Augustine occurs in Bigg, The Christian Platonists, pp. 284-290. He has sharply emphasised the inconsistencies in Augustine's doctrine of the primitive state, original sin, and grace, but he has not overlooked the advance made by Augustine on Origen. If we evolve Augustine's doctrine from predestination, then Bigg is right when he says: "Augustine's system is in truth that of the Gnostics, the ancestors of the Manichees. For it makes no real difference whether our doom is stamped upon the nature given to us by our Creator, or fixed by an arbitrary decree."

[512] The resistance of the Pelagians and their associates was also a resistance to the formation of new dogmas in general. Exactly like the Eusebians in the Arian conflict, they also fought against the new construction of dogmas by the North African Church on formal grounds. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________