Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. in. The Pelagian Controversy. 93
was the perfect one of a triumphantly sustained distance
from evil ! and that the force of ; example did not depend
on the identity of trial, but on the goodness of the example
itself, as was evident from the injunction in Scripture to
imitate God. 2
It must, indeed, be remarked, on this
reply,
that Scripture rests the force of our Lord s example ex
pressly on the ground that His trial was like our own. The
Pelagian, therefore, was right
in
insisting on this
similarity.
But he proceeded to argue from it upon the principles
of ordinary logic, and his conclusion degraded our Lord s
humanity, and endangered that balance of truths on which
the doctrine of the Incarnation rested. The doctrine of
our Lord s Divinity modifies the truths connected with His
humanity in this way, that He who was both God and man
cannot be thought of even as man exactly the same as if
He were not God. And the truth of our Lord s trial and
is in this sense a modified one.
temptation, among others,
To carry out, therefore, the conception of a human trial
to the full in the instance of our Lord, without respect to
other truth, was to trench on his
Divinity. To the idea of
trial, and of example on the ground of trial, pursued ex
clusively, the next idea is that of peccability, and the next
that of simple manhood. It was consistent with such ten-
1 Dicimus eum perfectione car- tur ut iraitemur te ? Nunquid nos
nis, et non per carnis conciipiscen- cle Spiritu Sancto et Virgine Maria
tiam procreata carne. cupiditatem nati sumus? Postremo nunquid
non habuisse vitiorum. . . . Illius tantanobis esse virtus potest quanta,
virtus haec erat earn non liabere ; tibi est, qui ita homo es, ut etiam
nostra virtus est ei non consentire. Deussis? Ideone non debuitsicnasci
Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 48. Sic igitur ut hominibus eum nolentibus imitari
Christus abstinuit a peccato, ut ab- talis excusatio daretur ? Sicut nobis
stineret etiam ab omni cupiditate ipse Patrem proposuit imitandum,
peccati : non ut ei existenti resis- qui certe homo fuit Nee
teret, sed ut ilia nunquam prorsus dicunt ei,Tuproptereahoc potesquia
existeret. C. 58. Deus es. . . Non itaque ideo debuit
*
Neque negare debemus ejus natus de Spiritu Sancto et Virgine
excellentiam, neque propter hanc Maria habere excellentiam nos excusare, ut non
eum pro modo nostro studeamus
imitari. Op. Imp.
concupiscentiam, qua
cuperet mala, etsi ei resistendo non
faceret, ne dicerent ei homines,
1. 4. c. 89. Habeto prius cupiditates malas, et
Quid enim, homo multum lo- eas vince, si potes, ut te imitari nosquens
et parum sapiens, si dicerent tras vincendo homines Christo, Quare nobis jubepossimus.
1. 4. c. 87.
Op. Imp.