§ 150. THE PELAGIAN SYSTEir. 803
of man to God, wlio would have no unwilling service. It con« Bists, according to Pelagius, essentially in the libernin arbi' triuin^ or the possihilitas honi et mali j the freedom of choice, and the absolutely equal ability at every moment to do good or evil.' The ability to do evil belongs necessarily to freedom, because we cannot will good without at the same time being able to will evil. Without this power of contrary choice, the choice of good itself would lose its freedom, and therefore itf> moral value. Man is not a free, self-determining moral subject, until good and evil, life and death, have been given into his hand.^
This is the only conception of freedom which Pelagius has, and to this he and his followers continually revert. He views freedom in its/brm alone, and in its Jlrst stage, and there fixes and leaves it, in pei-petual equipoise between good and evil, ready at any moment to turn either wsiy. It is without past or future ; absolutely independent of everything without or witliin ; a vacuum, which may make itself a plenum, and then becomes a vacuum again ; a perpetual tabula rasa, upon which
' De gratia Christi et de pecc. origin, c. 18 (§ 19, torn. x. foil. 238) where Augustine cites the following passage from the treatise of Pelagius, De libero arbitrio : "Habemus possibilitatem utriusque partis a Deo insitam, velut quamdam, ut ita dicam, radicem fructiferam et fecundam, quae ex voluntate hominis diversa gignat 3t pariat, et quae possit ad proprii cultoris arbitrium, vel nitere flore virtutum, vel sentibus horrere vitiorura." Against this Augustine cites the declaration of our Lord, Matt, viu 18, that "a good tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor a corrupt tree good fruit," that therefore there cannot be "una eademque radix bonorum et malorum."
^ Ep. ad Demet. cap. 3 : "In hoc enim gemini itineris discrimine, in hoc utriusque libertate partis, rationabilis animfe decus positum est. Hinc, inquam, totus naturiB nostraj honor consistit, hinc dignitas, hinc denique optimi quique laudem mcrentur, hinc prsemium. Nee esset omnino virtus ulla in bono perseverantis, si is ad malum transire non potuisset. Volena namque Deus rationabilem creaturam Foluntarii boni munere [al. munire] et liberi arbitrii potestate donare, utriusque partis possibilitatem homini inserendo, proprium ejus fecit esse quod velit, ut boni ac mali capax, naturaliter utrumque posset, et ad alterutrum voluntatem deflecteret. Neque enim aliter spontaneum habere poterat bonum, nisi aeque etiam ea cieatura malum habere potuisset. Utrumque nos posse voluit optimus Creator, se4 unum facere, bonum scilicet, quod et imperavit; malique facultatem ad hoc tantum dedit, ut voluntatem ejus ex nostra voluutate faceremus. Quod ut ita sit, hoc quoque ipsum, quia etiam mala facere possumus, bonum est. Bonum, inquam, quia boni partem meliorem facit. Facit enim ipsam voluntariam sui juris, nor ^ecesaita?s devinctam, sed judicio liberam."
804 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311 590.
man can write whatsoever he pleases; a restless choice, which, after every decision, reverts to indecision and oscilla tion. The human will is, as it were, the eternal Hercules a* the cross-road, who takes first a step to the right, then a step to the left, and ever returns to his former position. Pelagiua knows only the antithesis of free choice and constraint; no stages of development, no transitions. He isolates the will from its acts, and the acts from each other, and overlooks the organic connection between habit and act. Human liberty, like every other spiritual power, has its development ; it must advance beyond its equilibrium, bcj'ond the mere ability to sin or not to sin, and decide for the one or the other. When the will decides, it so far loses its inditierence, and the oftener it acts, the more does it become fixed ; good or evil becomes its habit, its second nature ; and the will either becomes truly free by deciding for virtue, and by practising virtue, or it becomes the slave of vice.* "Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin." Goodness is its own reward, and wickedness is its own punishment. Liberty of choice is not a power, but a weakness, or rather a crude energy, waiting to assume some positive form, to reject evil and commit itself to good, and to become a moral self-control, in whi(^h the choice of evil, as in Christ, is a moral, though not a physical, impossibility. Its impulse towards exercise is also an impulse towards self-annihilation, or at least towards self-limitation. The right use of the freedom of choice leads to a state of holiness ; the abuse of it, to a state of bondage under sin. The state of the will is afiected by its acts, and settles towards a permanent character
' Pelagius himself, it must be admitted, recognized to some extent the power of habit and its effect upon the will (Ep. ad Demctr. c. 8) ; but CoelesLius and JuUan carried out his idea of the freedom of choice more consistently to the conception of a purely qualitative or formal power which admits of no growth or change by actual exercise, but remains always the same. Comp. Niedner (in the posthumous edition of his Lchrbuch dcr Kirchengcsciiichte, Berlin, 186G, p. 345 f), who justly remarks, in opposition to Baur's defense of the Pelagian conception of freedom : " Preedom in its first stage, as the power of choice, is a moral (as well as a natural) faculty, and hence capable of development cither hy way of deterioration into a sinful incliiiatioo, or by rising to a higher form of freedom. This is the point wliich Cal<;stiu8 and Julian ignored : thev attached too li'tle weight to the itse of freedom."