§ 151. THE PELAGIAN SYSTEM CONTENUED 80S
sin of Satan was a pride that aimed at equality witli 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 mail is, according to the Pelagian sj^stem, in all respects the same as that of Adam before the fall. Every cliild 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 dilfei-ence 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 — sue* 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 tbe 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
* Pelagius, in Aug. De gratia Christi, c. 31 (x. 244): '' Liberi arbitiii potestatem dicimus iu omnibus esse generaliter, in Christianis, Judaeis atque gentilibus. Is omnibus est liberum arbitrium aequaliter per naturam, sed in solis Christianis juvatur gratia."
810 THniD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
eyes of the heathen could not see ; that grain which grew ii their fields was no grain."
Augustine justly ascribed the value of a moral act to th€ 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 bostowed 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 bruad 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 en oidy bo overcome by the intervention of divine grace. \et Augustine also touches an extreme, when, on a false application of the passage of St. Paul : " Whatsoever is not of faith, ia bin" (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 distinguisiies 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
' De civit. Dei, v. 13-20 and xix. 25. In tlie 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 thu sentcnc so often attributed to Augustine: "The virtues of the heathen ere splendid vices," which, however, in this form and generality, does no«, to my knowledge occur in his writings. More on this point, see below, § 156.
^ De Genesi ad lit. viii. 14 ; lietraet. ii. 24. Comp. Wiggers, L p. 120 ff.