Sermon 348A

Sermon 348/A

On the Heresy of Pelagianism, from a Sermon to the People

The Pelagians try to distort the petitions of the Lord's Prayer.

Those two: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors and: Lead us not into temptation, when they are objected to by the Pelagians, what do you think they respond? I shuddered, my brothers, when I heard. Indeed, I did not hear with my own ears, but my holy brother and fellow bishop Urbanus, who was a presbyter here and is now the bishop of Sicca, when he returned from the city of Rome and there contended with someone holding such views, or reported to have contended, when pressed by the weight of the Lord's Prayer - for he pressed him and said: - what do you think he responded? he said he said.

The Pelagian heresy is refuted by the very words of Christ.

You see, brothers, how malignant heresy is. You see how all of you shudder. Beware, lest you be caught. For I know the cunning and evasions of impious men turned away from the truth, and since they have already fallen into their own opinions, they will not want to be conquered; see, I beseech you. For behold, they have found what to say, therefore we say: Lead us not into temptation, lest something happen to us which we have no control over according to bodily temptation. Therefore the Lord was saying: Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation? Was he saying this: Watch and pray, lest you break a leg or lest your head ache or lest you incur a loss? He was not saying this. But what was he saying? What he said to Peter: I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. I have prayed, he says, for you, says God to man, the master to the servant, the doctor to the sick: I have prayed for you. What so that it may not fail? What? Your hand, your foot, your eye, your tongue, some paralysis, that is, disintegration of limbs? No, but that your faith may not fail. According to them, we have, in our power, that our faith may not fail.

Prayers are also offered which are of Christian custom, and a certain passage of Paul.

Why is God asked on our behalf to grant us what they say we should not seek from the eternal majesty, but have in our own power. Blessings, my brothers, the blessings we bestow upon you, they nullify, exhaust, and crush. You have heard me, I believe, my brothers, when I say: turned towards the Lord, let us bless his name, may he grant us to persevere in his commandments, to walk in the right way of his teaching, to please him in every good work, and other such things. Indeed, they say, all this is constituted in our power. Therefore, we wish such things to you in vain. Let us defend both ourselves and you, lest we bless without reason and you subscribe "amen" without reason. My brothers, your "amen" is your subscription, your agreement, your attestation. Lest some of them condemn both us and you, let us defend ourselves with the apostle Paul, let us see if he wished such things for his people - listen to what he said - such as we pray over you. Listen to what he said in a certain place. I speak of a brief matter. What do you say, O new heretic, whoever you are who hears me if you are present? What do you say? Do we have the power not to sin such that we can accomplish this without the help of divine grace? Do you say this? he says. Therefore, do we have the power not to sin without God's help? he says. What then is it that the Apostle says writing to the Corinthians? We pray to God that you do nothing evil. You have paid attention, you have heard, you have received, and because it is most evident, you have undoubtedly understood what the Apostle prayed. We pray, he says, to God that you do nothing evil. He could have said: We admonish you that you do nothing evil, we teach you that you do nothing evil, we command you, we instruct you. Which indeed, if he had said, he would certainly have said rightly, because our will also does something; for our will does not do nothing. It alone is not sufficient. He preferred, however, to say: We pray, so that he might commend grace itself, so that they might understand, that when they do nothing evil, they avoid evil not by their own will alone, but by fulfilling what is commanded with the help of God.

The choice of will does not oppose the benefit of grace.

Therefore, brothers, when it is commanded, recognize the will's judgment, when what is commanded is prayed for, recognize the benefit of grace. For both are found in the Scriptures: both it is commanded and it is prayed for. What is commanded, this is prayed for. See what I say. It is commanded that we understand. How is it commanded that we understand? Do not be like the horse and mule, having no understanding. You heard that it was ordered; ask that you may be able to fulfill what was ordered. you ask. Listen to the Scripture. What was ordered to you? Do not be like the horse and mule, having no understanding. Since it was ordered, you recognized the will. Listen, since it is prayed for, that you may recognize grace: Give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments. It was ordered that we have wisdom: since it was ordered, I read. he says. Listen: You fools among the people, and you simple ones, understand wisdom. Now what does he say? See how God commands us to be wise. Therefore, is wisdom in our power? I have already said, I heard the command, I recognized the will. Listen to the prayer, that you may recognize grace. It is about wisdom, which was commanded to us. Let us hear what the apostle James says: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously. Continence is commanded to us. Where is it commanded? The apostle to Timothy: Keep yourself. It is a command, an instruction; it must be heard and done. But unless God helps, we remain. We indeed try to do by will and the will strives something; power should not presume, unless weakness is helped. Certainly, it was commanded: Keep yourself. Listen to another place in Scripture: And when I knew, he says, that no one can be continent, unless God grants it, and this itself was wisdom, to know whose gift this was. And what, he says, did I do? I went to the Lord and prayed. What need is there to run through many things, my brothers? Whatever is commanded to us, we must pray that it be fulfilled: but not so that we let ourselves be and lie back like the sick and say: Let God rain food upon our faces, that we may do nothing at all and, when the food has been showered upon our mouth, say: Also let God swallow for us. We also must do something. We must study, we must strive and in that which we could manage, give thanks, in that which we could not, pray. When you give thanks, beware lest you be condemned as ungrateful; but when you seek what you do not yet have, beware lest you remain empty, because you are hindered.

Concerning a certain objection of the Pelagians. The absolution of Pelagius does not absolve heresy.

Therefore, consider these things, my brothers: whoever comes to you and tells you, you already see, that he comes from that vein. It is a vein, but it has poison; for it has been struck by a serpent, it is not healthy. For this is what Satan does today, in the same way he ejects from the Church through the poison of heretics, just as he then ejected from paradise through the poison of the serpent. Let no one say that he is absolved by the bishops. He is absolved, but the confession itself is absolved as if it were correction, because what he said before the bishops seemed Catholic, but what he wrote in his books, the bishops who absolved him did not know. And perhaps he is corrected. For we should not despair of a man who perhaps preferred to join himself to the Catholic faith and fled to its grace and help. Perhaps this was done. Yet heresy is not absolved, but the man denying heresy.