In 405 AD, a British monk named Pelagius attended a public reading of one of the best-selling of books of that decade – and of all time. And he didn’t like what he heard. … It was Augustine’s awareness of his continuing inward struggles after conversion and baptism that lay behind the famous statement that aroused the ire of the British monk, Pelagius, “Give me what you command and command what you will.”

In 405 AD, a British monk named Pelagius attended a public reading of one of the best-selling of books of that decade – and of all time. And he didn’t like what he heard.

Published seven years before, the “Confessions” of Augustine was a new sort of book; it did not fit into any of the established genres of the time. It was a poignant autobiographical account of his conversion to Christianity delivered in the form of an extended prayer, and interwoven with theological reflections of remarkable and penetrating originality.

Especially compelling – for modern readers, at least – is Augustine’s candor. He displays a self-awareness that is disarmingly contemporary. When I first read Confessions in my early twenties it was almost as if this classical rhetorician and catholic bishop from the closing years of the Roman Empire was in the room with me, telling me a story similar to my own, and using words that I might have chosen myself.

Augustine had a profound sense of his own moral fragility. At one point he says, “I became a problem to myself.” It would hardly be surprising to hear that said by an introspective college student today, but in Late Antiquity such statements were rare, especially from Christian bishops. In large measure, Augustine worked out the “problem” of himself in the course of his conversion. But the acuity of his self-awareness was such that he always recognized that his conversion was work in progress.

It was Augustine’s awareness of his continuing inward struggles after conversion and baptism that lay behind the famous statement that aroused the ire of the British monk, Pelagius, “Give me what you command and command what you will.”

“No Excuses”
Pelagius was a rigorist who strove to lead a holy life with unyielding resolve. Even Augustine, his implacable opponent, admitted that Pelagius was “‘a holy man, who, I am told, has made no small progress in the Christian life.” Pelagius took with the utmost seriousness the admonition to “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” He believed that for a Christian, there was no excuse for anything less than perfection; “since perfection is possible for man, it is obligatory.”

For Augustine to pray that God would “give what he commands,” was, in Pelagius view, to make excuses for his own moral failures. He recognized quite correctly the implication embedded in Augustine’s prayer, that apart from God’s help it was not possible fully to obey God’s commandment. For Pelagius this was a ridiculous assertion that masked a lack of zeal and genuine religious conviction. He regarded it as a fact of simple common sense that human nature was capable of fulfilling God’s commands no matter how demanding.

“Whenever I have to speak of laying down rules for behavior in the conduct of a holy life, I always point out, first of all, the power and functioning of human nature, and what it is capable of doing….lest I should seem to be wasting my time, by calling on people to embark on a course which they consider impossible to achieve.”
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