Answer to the Pelagians

Saint Augustine · Roland J. Teske

ມ.ກ. 1999 · New City Press

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The four works printed in this volume reply to a series of problems which various Catholic monks of Africa and Gaul found with Augustine's doctrine of grace and predestination. They do not deal directly with Pelagianism, but are clearly related to the anti-Pelagian works of Augustine in their discussions of the doctrines on grace and predestination. The monks who raised these questions, however, posed them as difficulties they faced in accepting these doctrines, not as an overt desire to contradict Augustine and the Church, as the heretics did.

The first two works, Grace and Free Choice and Rebuke and Grace, respond to problems at Hadrumetum where a group of monks thought that Augustine's teaching on grace destroyed free choice and human merits and eliminated the possibility of anyone giving rebukes and exhortations.

The second two works, The Predestination of the Saints and The Gift of Perseverance, reply to the letters of Prosper of Aquitaine and Hilary. They reported to Augustine the objections of various persons in monastic groups in Gaul who held that the beginning of faith and the initiative for salvation came from the human will, not from God. These monks also rejected Augustine's doctrine that divine predestination and the grace of final perseverance are utterly gratuitous gifts of God.

In his responses to the monks' concerns, Augustine depends on Scripture to prove his points. He encourages his questioners to pray for understanding and to thank God for the understanding they have so far--which is surely a free gift of God, as are, he emphasizes, grace and eternal life.

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Saint Augustine was born to a Catholic mother and a pagan father on November 13, 354, at Thagaste, near Algiers. He studied Latin literature and later taught rhetoric in Rome and Milan. He originally joined the Manicheans, a religious sect, but grew unhappy with some of their philosophies. After his conversion to Christianity and his baptism in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war. His thoughts greatly influenced the medieval worldview. One of Augustine's major goals was a single, unified church. He was ordained a priest in 391 and appointed Bishop of Hippo, in Roman Africa, in 396. Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than one hundred separate titles. His writings and arguments with other sects include the Donatists and the Pelagians. On the Trinity, The City of God, and On Nature and Grace are some of his important writings. Confessions, which is considered his masterpiece, is an autobiographical work that recounts his restless youth and details the spiritual experiences that led him to Christianity. Many of Augustine's ideas, such as those concerning sin and predestination, became integral to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinians. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, and theologians. Augustine died on August 28, 430.