Both by nature and by grace, Augustine was very specially fitted to be the champion of truth in this controversy. Of a naturally philosophical temperament, he saw into the springs of life with a vividness of perception to which most men are strangers. And his own experiences in his long resistance and final yielding to the drawings of grace gave him a clear apprehension of the great evangelic principle that God seeks men, not men God, such as no sophistry could cloud. Whatever change his philosophy or theology might undergo in other particulars, there was one conviction too deeply imprinted upon his heart ever to fade or alter,—the conviction of the ineffableness of God’s grace. Grace,—man’s absolute dependence on God as the source of all good,—this was the common and even the formative element in all stages of his doctrinal development, which was marked only by the ever growing consistency with which he built his theology around this central principle. Already in 397,—the year after he became bishop,—we find him enunciating with admirable clearness all the essential elements of his teaching, as he afterwards opposed them to Pelagius.1 It was inevitable, therefore, that although he was rejoiced when he heard, some years later, of the zealous labours of this pious monk in Rome towards stemming the tide of luxury and sin, and although he esteemed him for his devout life and loved him for his Christian activity, he yet was deeply troubled when subsequent rumours reached him that Pelagius was “disputing against the grace of God.”
He tells us over and over again, that this was a thing no devout heart could endure. And we perceive that, from this moment, Augustine was only biding his time, and awaiting a fitting opportunity to join issue with the denier of the holy of holies of his whole, we need not say theology merely, but life. “Although I was grieved by this,” he says, “and it was told me by men whom I believed, I yet desired to have something of such sort from his own lips or in some book of his, so that, if I began to refute it, he would not be able to deny it.”2 Thus he actually apologises for not entering into the controversy earlier. When Pelagius came to Africa, then, it was almost as if he had deliberately sought his fate. Circumstances secured a lull before the storm. He visited Hippo; but Augustine was absent, though he did not fail to inform himself on his return that Pelagius while there had not been heard to say “anything at all of this kind.” The controversy against the Donatists was now occupying all the energies of the African Church, and Augustine himself was a ruling spirit in the great conference now holding at Carthage with them. While there, he was so immersed in this business that, although he once or twice saw the face of Pelagius, he had no conversation with him. His ears were wounded by a casual remark which he heard, to the effect “that infants were not baptized for remission of sins but for consecration to Christ,” but he allowed himself to pass the matter over, “because there was no opportunity to contradict it and those who said it were not such men as could cause him solicitude for their influence.’”3
Early Anti-Pelagian Sermons.
It appears from these facts, given us by himself, that Augustine was not only ready but was looking for the coming controversy. It can scarcely have been a surprise to him when Paulinus accused Cœlestius (412). He was not a member of the council which condemned him, but it was inevitable that he should at once take the leading part in the consequent controversy. Cœlestius and his friends did not silently submit to the judgment that had been passed upon their teaching. They could not openly propagate their heresy, but they were diligent in spreading their plaints privately and by subterraneous whispers among the people.4 This was met by the Catholics in public sermons and familiar colloquies held everywhere. But this wise rule was observed,—to contend against the erroneous teachings but to keep silence as to the teachers, that so (as Augustine explains5) “the men might rather be brought to see and acknowledge their error through fear of ecclesiastical judgment than be punished by the actual judgment.” Augustine was abundant in these oral labours. Many of his sermons directed against Pelagian error have come down to us, though it is often impossible to be sure as to their dates. For one of them (170) he took his text from Phil. iii. 6–16, “As touching the righteousness which is by the law blameless; howbeit what things were gain to me, those have I counted loss for Christ.” He begins by asking how the apostle could count his blameless conversation according to the righteousness which is from the law as dung and loss, and then proceeds to explain the purpose for which the law was given, our state by nature and under law, and the kind of blamelessness that the law is able to produce, ending by showing that man can have no righteousness except from God, and no perfect righteousness except in heaven.