EXTRACT FROM AUGUSTIN'S "RETRACTATIONS," BOOK II. CHAP. 23, ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE, "DE PECCATORUM MERITIS ET REMISSIONE.". sons; and those statements of his which I refuted, he had himself adduced in his writings, not indeed in his own name, but had quoted them as the words of other persons. However, when he was afterwards confirmed in heresy, he defended them with most persistent animosity. Cœlestius, indeed, a disciple of his, had already been excommunicated for similar opinions at Carthage, in a council of bishops, at which I was not present. In a certain passage of my second book I used these words: "Upon some there will be bestowed this blessing at the last day, that they shall not perceive the actual suffering of death in the suddenness of the change which shall happen to them;" A NECESSITY arose which compelled me to because I wished to connect it with the two prewrite against the new heresy of Pelagius. Our vious ones) I actually quoted Pelagius' name with previous opposition to it was confined to ser- considerable commendation, because his conduct mons and conversations, as occasion suggested, and life were made a good deal of by many perand according to our respective abilities and duties; but it had not yet assumed the shape of a controversy in writing. Certain questions were then submitted to me [by our brethren] at Carthage, to which I was to send them back answers in writing: I accordingly wrote first of all three books, under the title, "On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins," in which I mainly discussed the baptism of infants because of original sin, and the grace of God by which we are justified, that is, made righteous; but [I remarked] no man in this life can so keep the commandments which prescribe holiness of life, as to be beyond the necessity of using this prayer for his sins: "Forgive us our trespasses.' It is in direct opposition to these principles that they have devised their new heresy. Now throughout these three books I thought it right not to mention any of their names, hoping and desiring that by such reserve they might the more readily be set right; nay more, in the third book (which is really a letter, but reckoned amongst the books, 1 See Matt. vi. 12. reserving the passage for a more careful consideration of the subject; for they will either die, or else by a most rapid transition from this life to death, and then from death to eternal life, as in the twinkling of an eye, they will not undergo the feeling of mortality. This work of mine begins with this sentence: "However absorbing and intense the anxieties and annoyances.” 2 See Book ii. ch. 50. 12 CONTENTS OF THE TREATISE "ON THE MERITS AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS, AND ON THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS." BOOK I. 27. INFANTS MUST FEED ON CHRIST. 28. BAPTIZED INFANTS, OF THE FAITHFUL; UNBAPTIZED, Of the lost. 29. IT IS AN INSCRUTABLE MYSTERY WHY SOME ARE SAVED, AND OTHERS NOT 30. WHY ONE IS BAPTIZED AND ANOTHER NOT, NOT OTHERWISE INSCRUTABLE 7. THE LIFE OF THE BODY THE OBJECT OF HOPE, the life of the spirit being a prelude to it CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY, IN THE SHAPE OF AN INSCRIPTION TO HIS FRIEND MARCELLINUS 2. IF ADAM HAD NOT SINNED, HE WOULD NEVER HAVE DIED 3. IT IS ONE THING TO BE MORTAL, ANOTHER THING TO BE SUBJECT TO DEATH 4. EVEN BODILY DEATH IS FROM SIN PAGE 15 15 16 16 5. THE WORDS, MORTALE (CAPABLE OF DYING), MORTUUM (dead), AND MORITURUS (destined to die) 6. How IT IS THAT THE BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN 16 17 17 19. SIN IS FROM NATURAL Descent, as RIGHTEOUSNESS IS FROM REGENERATION; HOW ALL ARE SINNERS THROUGH ADAM, AND ALL" ARE JUST THROUGH CHRIST 20. ORIGINAL SIN ALONE IS CONTRACTED BY NATURAL BIRTH 21. UNBAPTIZED INFANTS DAMNED, BUT MOST LIGHTLY; THE PENALTY OF ADAM'S SIN, THE GRACE OF HIS BODY LOST 22. TO INFANTS PERSONAL SIN IS NOT TO BE ATTRIBUTED 23. HE REFUTES THOSE WHO ALLEGE THAT INFANTS ARE BAPTIZED NOT FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS, BUT FOR THE OBTAINING OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 24. INFANTS SAVED AS SINNERS. 25. INFANTS ARE DESCRIBED AS BELIEVERS AND AS PENITENTS. SINS ALONE SEPARATE Between God AND MEN 26. NO ONE, EXCEPT HE BE BAPTIZED, RIGHTLY COMES TO THE TABLE OF THE LORD 31. HE REFUTES THOSE WHO SUPPOSE THAT SOULS, ON ACCOUNT OF SINS COMMITTED IN ANOTHER STATE, ARE THRUST INTO BODIES SUITED TO THEIR MERITS, IN WHICH THEY ARE MORE OR LESS TORMENTED 32. THE CASE OF CERTAIN IDIOTS AND SIMPLETONS 34. BAPTISM IS CALLED SALVATION, AND THE EUCHARIST, LIFE, BY THE CHRISTIANS OF CARTHAGE 3. UNLESS INFANTS ARE BAPTIZED, THEY REMAIN IN DARKNESS. 30. INFANTS NOT ENLIGHTENED AS SOON AS THEY ARE BORN 37. How GOD ENLIGHTENS EVERY PERSON. 38. WHAT "LIGHTETH "" MEANS. 39. THE CONCLUSION DRAWN, THAT ALL ARE INVOLVED IN ORIGINAL SIN 65. IN INFANTS THERE IS NO SIN OF THEIR OWN COMMISSION 66. INFANTS FAULTS SPRING FROM THEIR SHEER IGNORANCE 67. ON THE IGNORANCE OF INFANTS, AND WHENCE IT ARISES. 68. IF ADAM WAS NOT CREATED OF SUCH A CHARACTER AS THAT IN WHICH WE ARE BORN, HOW IS IT THAT CHRist, although FREE FROM SIN, WAS BORN AN INFANT AND IN WEAKNESS?. 42. FROM THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 43. FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 44. FROM THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 45. FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 46. FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 47. FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS 48. FROM THE EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY FROM THE EPISTLE TO TITUS. 50. FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 51. FROM THE APOCALYPSE 52. FROM THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 53. THE UTILITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 54. BY THE SACRIFICES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, MEN WERE CONVINCED OF SINS AND LED TO THE SAVIOUR 55. HE CONCLUDES THAT ALL MEN NEED THE DEATH OF CHRIST, THAT THEY MAY BE SAVED. UNBAPTIZED INFANTS WILL BE INVOLVED IN THE CONDEMNATION OF THE DEVIL. How ALL MEN THROUGH ADAM ARE UNTO CONDEMNATION; AND THROUGH CHRIST UNTO JUSTIFICATION. NO ONE IS RECONCILED with God, exCEPT THROUGH CHRIST 56. NO ONE IS RECONCILED TO GOD Except through Christ 57. THE GOOD OF MARRIAGE: FOUR DIFFERENT CASES OF THE GOOD AND THE EVIL USE OF MATRIMONY 58. IN WHAT RESPECT THE PELAGIANS REGARDED BAPTISM AS NECESSARY FOR INFANTS 59. THE CONTEXT OF THEIR CHIEF TEXT 60. CHRIST, THE HEAD AND THE BODY; OWING TO THE UNION OF THE NATURES IN THE PERSON OF CHRIST, HE BOTH REMAINED IN HEAVEN, AND WALKED ABOUT ON EARTH: HOW THE ONE CHRIST COULD ASCEND TO HEAVEN; THE HEAD, AND THE BODY, THE ONE CHRIST 61. THE SERPENT LIFTED UP IN THE WILDERNESS PREFIGURED CHRIST SUSPENDED ON THE CROSS; EVEN INFANTS THEMSELVES POISONED BY THE SERPENT'S BITE 62. NO ONE CAN BE RECONCILED TO GOD, EXCEPT BY CHRIST. 63. THE FORM, OR RITE, OF BAPTISM. EXORCISM 64. A TWOFOLD MISTAKE RESPECTING INFANTS 31 70 HOW FAR SIN IS DONE AWAY IN INFANTS BY BAPTISM, ALSO IN ADULTS, AND WHAT ADVANTAGE RESULTS THERE FROM BOOK II. 12. CHAPTER 1. WHAT HAS THUS FAR BEEN DWELT ON; AND WHAT IS TO BE TREATED IN THIS BOOK. SOME PERSONS ATTRIBUTE TOO MUCH TO THE FREEDOM OF MAN'S WILL; IGNORANCE AND INFIRMITY 3. IN WHAT WAY GOD COMMANDS NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE. WORKS OF MERCY, MEANS OF WIPING OUT SINS. 4. CONCUPISCENCE, HOW FAR IN US; THE BAPTIZED ARE NOT INJURED BY CONCUPISCENCE, BUT ONLY BY CONSENT THEREWITH 5. THE WILL OF MAN REQUIRES THE Help of God 6. WHEREIN THE PHARISEE SINNED WHEN HE THANKED GOD; TO GOD'S GRACE MUST BE ADDED THE EXERTION OF OUR OWN WILL, FOUR QUESTIONS ON THE PERFECTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: (1) WHETHER A MAN CAN BE WITHOUT SIN IN THIS LIFE 8. (2) WHETHER THERE IS IN THIS WORLD A MAN WITHOUT SIN 7. 9. THE BEGINNING OF RENEWAL; RESURRECTION CALLED REGENERATION; THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD WHO LEAD LIVES SUITABLE 11. AN OBJECTION OF THE PELAGIANS: WHY DOES NOT A RIGHTEOUS MAN BEGET A RIGHTEOUS MAN? HE RECONCILES SOME PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE PAGE 44 44 44 45 45 46 47 47 48 48 49 49 16. JOB FORESAW THAT CHRIST WOULD COME TO SUFFER; THE WAY OF HUMILITY IN THOSE THAT ARE PERFECT 17. NO ONE RIGHTEOUS IN ALL THINGS AN OBJECTION OF THE PELAGIANS; PERFECTION IS RELATIVE; HE IS RIGHTLY SAID TO BE PERFECT IN RIGHTEOUSNESS WHO AN OBJECTION OF THE PELAGIANS. THE APOSTLE PAUL WAS NOT FREE FROM SIN SO LONG AS HE LIVED 54 54 55 55 30. ALL WILL IS EITHER GOOD, AND THEN IT LOVES RIGHTEOUSNESS, or EVIL, WHEN IT DOES NOT LOVE RIGHTEOUSNESS 35. 33. THROUGH GRACE WE HAVE BOTH THE KNOWLEDGe of good, and the delIGHT WHICH It affords 38. WHAT BENEFIT HAS BEEN CONFERRED ON US BY THE INCARNATION OF THE word; CHRIST'S BIRTH IN THE FLESH, WHEREIN 45. THE LAW OF SIN IS CALLED SIN; HOW CONCUPISCENCE STILL REMAINS AFTER ITS EVIL HAS BEEN REMOVED IN THE BAPTIZED, 46. GUILT MAY BE TAKEN AWAY BUT CONCUPISCENCE REMAIN. 62 63 47. ALL THE PREDESTINATED ARE SAVED THROUGH THE ONE MEDIATOR CHRIST, AND BY One and the saME FAITH 48. CHRIST THE SAVIOUR EVEN OF INFANTS; CHRIST, WHEN AN INFANT, WAS FREE FROM IGNORANCE AND MENTAL WEAKNESS 49. AN OBJECTION OF THE PELAGIANS 52. WHY CHrist, after his RESURRECTION, WITHDREW HIS PRESENCE FROM THE WORLD 53. AN OBJECTION OF THE PELAGIANS TO RECOVER THE RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH HAD BEEN LOST BY SIN, MAN HAS TO STRUGGLE, WITH ABUNDANT LABOUR AND SORROW, 56. THE CASE OF DAVID, IN ILLUSTRATION. TURN TO NEITHER HAND 58. "LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH" IMPLIES THE REALITY 88855 66 66 67 67 59. WHETHER THE SOUL IS PROPAGATED; ON OBSCURE POINTS, CONCERNING WHICH THE SCRIPTURES GIVE US NO ASSISTANCE, WE MUST BE ON OUR GUARD AGAINST FORMING HASTY JUDGMENTS AND OPINIONS; THE SCRIPTURES ARE CLEAR ENOUGH ON THOSE SUBJECTS WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO SALVATION 2. PELAGIUS' OBJECTION; INFANTS RECKONED AMONG the number of belIEVERS AND THE FAITHFUL 5. PELAGIUS PRAISED BY SOME; ARGUMENTS AGAINST ORIGINAL SIN PROPOSED BY PELAGIUS IN HIS COMMENTARY WHY PELAGIUS DOES NOT SPEAK IN HIS OWN PERSON PAGE 69 69 70 70 THE OPINIONS OF ALL CONTROVERSIALISTS WHATEVER ARE NOT, HOWEVER, CANONICAL AUTHORITY; ORIGINAL SIN, HOW ANOTHER'S; WE WERE ALL ONE MAN IN ADAM ORIGIN OF ERRORS; A SIMILE SOUGHT FROM THE FORESKIN OF THE CIRCUMCISED, AND FROM THE CHAFF OF WHEAT. 21. THE PRECEPT ABOUT TOUCHING THE MENSTRUOUS WOMAN NOT TO BE FIGURATIVELY UNDERSTOOD; THE NECESSITY OF THE SACRAMENTS A TREATISE ON THE MERITS AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS, AND ON THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS, BY AURELIUS AUGUSTIN, BISHOP OF HIPPO; IN THREE BOOKS, ADDRESSED TO MARCELLINUS, A.D. 412. BOOK I. IN WHICH HE REFUTES THOSE WHO MAINTAIN, THAT ADAM MUST HAVE DIED EVEN IF HE HAD NEVER SINNED; AND THAT NOTHING OF HIS SIN HAS BEEN TRANSMITTED TO HIS POSTERITY BY NATURAL DESCENT. HE ALSO SHOWS, THAT DEATH HAS NOT ACCRUED TO MAN BY ANY NECESSITY OF HIS NATURE, BUT AS THE PENALTY OF SIN; HE THEN PROCEEDS TO PROVE THAT IN ADAM'S SIN HIS ENTIRE OFFSPRING IS IMPLICATED, SHOWING THAT INFANTS ARE BAPTIZED FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF RECEIVING THE REMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN. 1 CHAP. 1 [1] INTRODUCTORY, IN THE SHAPE OF | hand, there is the fear of offending God in yourAN INSCRIPTION TO HIS FRIEND MARCELLINUS. self, who has given you so earnest a desire, in HOWEVER absorbing and intense the anxieties gratifying which I shall be only serving Him who and annoyances in the whirl and warmth of which has given it to you. And so strongly has this we are engaged with sinful men who forsake the impulse led and attracted me to solve, to the best law of God, even though we may well ascribe of my humble ability, the questions which you these very evils to the fault of our own sins,-I am have submitted to me in writing, that my mind unwilling, and, to say the truth, unable, any longer has gradually admitted this inquiry to an importo remain a debtor, my dearest Marcellinus, to that zealous affection of yours, which only enhances my own grateful and pleasant estimate of yourself. I am under the impulse [of a twofold emotion] on the one hand, there is that very love which makes us unchangeably one in the one hope of a change for the better; on the other This is probably an allusion to the Donatists, who were then fercely assailing the Catholics; [and over the conference between whom and the Catholics, Marcellinus had presided the previous year (411).-W.] (Flavius Marcellinus, a "tribune and notary," a Christian man of high character and devout mind, who was much interested in theoogical discussions. He was appointed by Honorius to preside over Le commission of inquiry into the disputes between the Catholics and Donatists in 411, and held the famous conference between the pares, that met in Carthage on the 1st, 3d, and 8th of June, 411. He discharged this whole business with singular patience, moderation, and judgment; which appears to have cemented the intimate friendhip between him and Augustin. Augustin's treatise on The Spirit and Letter is also addressed to him, and he undertook the City of God on his suggestion. See below, p. 80.-W.] tance transcending that of all others; [and it will now give me no rest] until I accomplish something which shall make it manifest that I have yielded, if not a sufficient, yet at any rate an obedient, compliance with your own kind wish and the desire of those to whom these questions are a source of anxiety. CHAP. 2 [II.] IF ADAM HAD NOT SINNED, HE WOULD NEVER HAVE DIED. They who say that Adam was so formed that he would even without any demerit of sin have died, not as the penalty of sin, but from the necessity of his being, endeavour indeed to refer that passage in the law, which says: "On the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die," 3 not to the death of 3 Gen. ii. 17. the body, but to that death of the soul which takes still in their natural and mortal body, I suppose, place in sin. It is the unbelievers who have died was granted even to those who were translated this death, to whom the Lord pointed when He hence without death. For Enoch and Elijah said, "Let the dead bury their dead." Now what were not reduced to the decrepitude of old age will be their answer, when we read that God, when by their long life. But yet I do not believe that reproving and sentencing the first man after his they were then changed into that spiritual kind sin, said to him, “Dust_thou art, and unto dust of body, such as is promised in the resurrection, shalt thou return?" 2 For it was not in respect and which the Lord was the first to receive; of his soul that he was "dust," but clearly by rea- only they probably do not need those aliments, son of his body, and it was by the death of the which by their use minister refreshment to the self-same body that he was destined to "return to body; but ever since their translation they so dust." Still, although it was by reason of his body live, as to enjoy such a sufficiency as was provided that he was dust, and although he bare about the during the forty days in which Elijah lived on the natural body in which he was created, he would, cruse of water and the cake, without substantial if he had not sinned, have been changed into a food; or else, if there be any need of such susspiritual body, and would have passed into the in- tenance, they are, it may be, sustained in Paradise corruptible state, which is promised to the faith- in some such way as Adam was, before he brought ful and the saints, without the peril of death.3 And on himself expulsion therefrom by sinning. And for this issue we not only are conscious in our-he, as I suppose, was supplied with sustenance selves of having an earnest desire, but we learn it against decay from the fruit of the various trees, from the apostle's intimation, when he says: "For and from the tree of life with security against old in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with age. our habitation which is from heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For CHAP. 4 [IV.]—EVEN BODILY DEATH IS FROM SIN. we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life." Therefore, if Adam had not sinned, he would not have been divested of his body, but would have been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption, that "mortality might have been swallowed up of life;" that is, that he might have passed from the natural body into the spiritual body. CHAP. 3 [.]-IT IS ONE THING TO BE MORTAL, ANOTHER THING TO BE SUBJECT TO DEATH. Nor was there any reason to fear that if he had happened to live on here longer in his natural body, he would have been oppressed with old age, and have gradually, by increasing age, arrived at death. For if God granted to the clothes and the shoes of the Israelites that "they waxed not old" during so many years, 5 what wonder if for obedience it had been by the power of the same [God] allowed to man, that although he had a natural and mortal body, he should have in it a certain condition, in which he might grow full of years without decrepitude, and, whenever God pleased, pass from mortality to immortality without the medium of death? For even as this very flesh of ours, which we now possess, is not therefore invulnerable, because it is not necessary that it should be wounded; so also was his not therefore immortal, because there was no necessity for its dying. Such a condition, whilst 66 11 2 But in addition to the passage where God in punishment said, " Dust thou art, unto dust shalt thou return,' a passage which I cannot understand how any one can apply except to the death of the body, there are other testimonies likewise, from which it most fully appears that by reason of sin the human race has brought upon itself not spiritual death merely, but the death of the body also. The apostle says to the Romans: But if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If therefore the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." I think that so clear and open a sentence as this only requires to be read, and not expounded. The body, says he, is dead, not because of earthly frailty, as being made of the dust of the ground, but because of sin; what more do we want? And he is most careful in his words: he does not say "is mortal,” but “dead.” CHAP. 5 [v.]-THE WORDS, MORTALE (CAPABLE OF DYING), MORTUUM (DEAD), AND MORITURUS (DESTINED TO DIE). Now previous to the change into the incorruptible state which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, the body could be mortal (capable of dying), although not destined to die (moriturus); just as our body in its present state can, so to speak, be capable of sickness, although not destined to be sick. For whose is the flesh which is 6 Gen. v. 24; 2 Kings ii. 11. 71 Kings xix. 8. 8 Rom. viii. 10, II. |