isolated act of disobedience to the divine command. Julian compares it to the insignificant offence of a child, which allowa itself to be misled by some sensual bait, but afterwards repents its fault. Rude, inexperienced, thoughtless, having not yet learned to fear, nor seen an example of virtue,"1 Adam allowed himself to be enticed by the pleasant look of the forbidden fruit, and to be determined by the persuasion of the woman. This single and excusable act of transgression brought no consequences, either to the soul or the body of Adam, still less to his posterity, who all stand or fall for themselves.

There is, therefore, according to this system, no originai sin, and no hereditary guilt. Pelagius merely conceded, that Adam, by his disobedience, set a bad example, which exerts a more or less injurious influence upon his posterity. In this view he condemned at the synod of Diospolis (415) the assertion of Cœlestius, tat Adam's sin injured himself alone, not the human race.' He was also inclined to admit an increasing corruption of mankind, though he ascribed it solely to the habit of evil, which grows in power the longer it works and the farther it spreads.' Sin, however, is not born with man; it is not a product of nature, but of the will. Man is born both without virtue and without vice, but with the capacity for either. The universality of sin must be ascribed to the power of evil example and evil custom.

1 "Rudis, imperitus, incautus, sine experimento timoris, sine exemplo justitiæ.” "Adæ peccatum ipsi soli obfuisse, et non generi humano; et infantes qui nascuntur, in eo statu esse, in quo fuit Adam ante prævaricationem.” In Augustine's De pecc. orig. c. 13 (f. 258).

Ep. ad Demet. cap. 8: "Longa consuetudo vitiorum, quæ nos infecit a parro paulatimque per multos corrupit annos, et ita postea obligatos sibi et addictos tenet, ut vim quodammodo videatur habere natura." He also says of consuetudo, that it "aut vitia aut virtutes alit."

Cœlestius, Symb. fragm. i.: “In remissionem autem peccatorum baptizando infantes non idcirco diximus, ut peccatum ex traduce [or, peccatum naturæ, pecca tum naturale] firmare videamur, 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 demonstratur."

* Pelagius, in the first book of the Pro libero arbitrio, cited in Augustine's De pecc. orig. cap. 13 (§ 14, tom. x. f. 258): "Omne bonum ac malum, quo vel laudabiles vel vituperabiles sumus, non nobiscum oritur, sed agitur a nobis: capacer enim utriusque rei, non pleni nascimur, et ut sine virtute, ita et sine vitio procras

And there are exceptions to it. The "all" in Rom. v. 12 is to be taken relatively for the majority. Even before Christ there were men who lived free from sin, such as righteous Abel, Abraham, Isaac, the Virgin Mary, and many others.' From the silence of the Scriptures respecting the sins of many righteous men, he inferred that such men were without sin. In reference to Mary, Pelagius is nearer the present Roman Catholic view than Augustine, who exempts her only from actual sin, not from original.' Jerome, with all his rev erence for the blessed Virgin, does not even make this exception, but says, without qualification, that every creature is under the power of sin and in need of the mercy of God.*

With original sin, of course, hereditary guilt also disap pears; and even apart from this connection, Pelagius views it

mur; atque ante actionem propriæ voluntatis id solum in homine est, quod Deus condidit." It is not, however, very congruous with this, that in another place he speaks of a natural or inborn holiness. Ad Demet. c. 4: "Est in animis nostris naturalis quædam, ut ita dixerim, sanctitas."

1 Comp. Pelagius, Com. in Rom. v. 12, and in August. De natura et gratia, cap. 36 (§ 42, Opera, tom. x. fol. 144): "Deinde commemorat [Pelagius] eos, qui non modo non peccasse, verum etiam juste vixisse referuntur, Abel, Enoch, Melchisedech, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesu Nove, Phineas, Samuel, Nathan, Elias, Joseph, Elizeus, Micheas, Daniel, Ananias, Agarias, Meisael, Ezechiel, Mardochæus, Simeon, Joseph, cui despondata erat virgo Maria, Johannes. Adjungit etiam feminas, Debboram, Annam, Samuelis matrem, Judith, Esther, alteram Annam filiam Phanuel, Elizabeth, ipsam etiam Domini ac Salvatoris nostri matrem, quam dicit sine peccato confiteri necesse esse pietati."

* "De illis, quorum justitiæ meminit [Scriptura sacra] et peccatorum sine dubio meminisset, si qua cos peccasse sensisset." In Aug. De nat. et grat. c. 37 (§ 43; tom. x. fol. 145).

In the passage cited, Augustine agrees with Pelagius in reference to Mary 'propter honorem Domini," but only as respects actual sin, of which the connectior: shows him to be speaking; for in other passages he affirms the conception of Mary in sin. Comp. Enarratio in Psalmum xxxiv. vs. 13 (ed. Migne, tom. iv. 335): "Maria ex Adam mortua propter peccatum, Adam mortuus propter peccatum, et caro Domini ex Maria mortua est propter delenda peccata." De Genes: ad literam, lib. x. c. 18 (§ 32), where he discusses the origin of Christ's soul, and says: “Quid incoinquinatius illo utero Virginis, cujus caro etiamsi de peccati propagine venit, non tamen de peccati propagine concepit. . .?" See above, § 80, p. 418.

4

✦ Adv. Pelag. 1. ii. c. 4 (tom. ii. 744, ed. Vallarsi): “'Avaμápτntov, id est sine peccato esse [hominem posse] nego, id enim soli Deo competit, omnisque creatura peccato subjacet, et indiget misericordia Dei, dicente Scriptura: Misericordi Domini plena est terra."

as irreconc..able with the justice of God. From this position a necessary deduction is the salvation of unbaptized infants. Pelagius, however, made a distinction between vita æterna, or a lower degree of salvation, and the regnum cœlorum of the baptized saints; and he affirmed the necessity of baptism for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.'

In this doctrine of the fall we meet with the same disintegrating view of humanity as before. Adam is isolated from his posterity; his disobedience is disjoined from other sins. He is simply an individual, like any other man, not the representative of the whole race. There are no creative startingpoints; every man begins history anew. In this system Paul's exhibitions of Adam and Christ as the representative ancestors of mankind have no meaning. If the act of the former has merely an individual significance, so also has that of the latter. If the sin of Adam cannot be imputed, neither can the merit of Christ. In both cases there is nothing left but the idea of example, the influence of which depends solely upon our own free will. But there is an undeniable solidarity between the sin of the first man and that of his posterity.

In like manner sin is here regarded almost exclusively as an isolated act of the will, while yet there is also such a thing as sinfulness; there are sinful states and sinful habits, which are consummated and strengthened by sins of act, and which in turn give birth to other sins of act.

There is a deep truth in the couplet of Schiller, which can easily be divested of its fatalistic intent:

"This is the very curse of evil deed,

That of new evil it becomes the seed." *

Finally, the essence and root of sin is not sensuality, as Pelagius was inclined to assume (though he did not express himself very definitely on this point), but self-seeking, including pride and sensuality as the two main forms of sin. The

1

August. De peccatorum meritis et remissione, lib. i. c. 21 (§ 30, tom. x. £. 17); De hæresibus, cap. 88.

2 "Das eben ist der Fluch der bösen That,

Dass sie, for zeugend, immer Böses muss gebären.”

sin of Satan was a pride that aimed at equality with God rebellion against God; and in this the fall of Adam began, and was inwardly consummated before he ate of the forbidden fruit.

§ 151. The Pelagian System Continued: Doctrine of Human Ability and Divine Grace.

III. The PRESENT MORAL CONDITION of man is, according to the Pelagian system, in all respects the same as that of Adam before the fall. Every child is born with the same moral powers and capabilities with which the first man was created by God. For the freedom of choice, as we have already seen, is not lost by abuse, and is altogether the same in heathens, Jews, and Christians, except that in Christians it is aided by grace.' Pelagius was a creationist, holding that the body alone is derived from the parents, and that every soul is created directly by God, and is therefore sinless. The sin of the father, inasmuch as it consists in isolated acts of will, and does not inhere in the nature, has no influence upon the child. The only difference is, that, in the first place, Adam's posterity are born children, and not, like him, created full-grown; and secondly, they have before them the bad example of his disobedience, which tempts them more or less to imitation, and to the influence of which by far the most-but not all-suc cumb.

Julian often appeals to the virtues of the heathen, such as valor, chastity, and temperance, in proof of the natural goodness of human nature.

He looked at the matter of moral action as such, and judged it accordingly. "If the chastity of the heathen," he objects to Augustine's view of the corrupt nature of heathen virtue, were no chastity, then it might be said with the same propriety that the bodies of unbelievers are no bodies; that the

66

1 Pelagius, in Aug. De gratia Christi, c. 81 (x. 244): "Liberi arbitrii potestatem dicimus in omnibus esse generaliter, in Christianis, Judæis atque gentilibus. In omnibus est liberum arbitrium æqualiter per naturam, sed in solis Christianis juva. tur gratia."

eyes of the heathen could not see; that grain which grew in their fields was no grain."

Augustine justly ascribed the value of a moral act to the inward disposition or the direction of the will, and judged it from the unity of the whole life and according to the standard of love to God, which is the soul of all true virtue, and is bestowed upon us only through grace. He did not deny altogether the existence of natural virtues, such as moderation, lenity, benevolence, generosity, which proceed from the Creator, and also constitute a certain merit among men; but he drew a broad line of distinction between them and the specific Christian graces, which alone are good in the proper sense of the word, and alone have value before God.

The Holy Scriptures, history, and Christian experience, by no means warrant such a favorable view of the natural moral condition of man as the Pelagian system teaches. On the contrary, they draw a most gloomy picture of fearful corruption and universal inclination to all evil, which can only be overcome by the intervention of divine grace. Yet Augustine also touches an extreme, when, on a false application of the passage of St. Paul: "Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin" (Rom. xiv. 23), he ascribes all the virtues of the heathen to ambition and love of honor, and so stigmatizes them as vices. And in fact he is in this inconsistent with himself. For, according to his view, the nature which God created, remains, as to its substance, good; the divine image is not wholly lost, but only defaced; and even man's sorrow in his loss reveals a remaining trace of good."

Pelagius distinguishes three elements in the idea of good: power, will, and act (posse, velle, and esse). The first appertains to man's nature, the second to his free will, the third to his conduct. The power or ability to do good, the ethical

1 De civit. Dei, v. 13–20 and xix. 25. In the latter place he calls the virtues, which do not come from true religion, vices. "Virtutes... nisi ad Deum retulerit, etiam ipsa vitia sunt potius quam virtutes." From this is doubtless derived the sentence so often attributed to Augustine: "The virtues of the heathen are splendid vices," which, however, in this form and generality, does not, to my knowledge occur in his writings. More on this point, see below, § 156.

* De Genesi ad lit. viii. 14; Retract. ii. 24. Comp. Wiggers, i. p. 120 f