{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050495.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050495.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050495.htm","text":"Chapter 40 [XXXVII]\u2014The Help of Grace Placed by Pelagius in the Mere Revelation of Teaching.\n\u201cLet them read moreover\u201d says he, \u201cwhat I wrote, 1881 when I was in the East, to Christ\u2019s holy virgin Demetrias, and they will find that we so commend the nature of man as always to add the help of God\u2019s grace.\u201d Well, I read this letter too; and it had almost persuaded me that he did acknowledge therein the grace about which our discussion is concerned, although he did certainly seem in many passages of this work to contradict himself. But when there also came to my hands those other treatises which he afterwards wrote for more extensive circulation, I discovered in what sense he must have intended to speak of grace,\u2014concealing what he believed under an ambiguous generality, but employing the term \u201cgrace\u201d in order to break the force of obloquy, and to avoid giving offence. For at the very commencement of this work (where he says: \u201cLet us apply ourselves with all earnestness to the task which we have set before us, nor let us have any misgiving because of our own humble ability; for we believe that we are assisted by the mother\u2019s faith and her daughter\u2019s merit\u201d 1882 ) he appeared to me at first to acknowledge the grace which helps us to individual action; nor did I notice at once the fact that he might possibly have made this grace consist simply in the revelation of teaching.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}