Cap. 7 Rat. 11 close: Prosper/Hilary/Augustine/Fulgentius on special saving purpose
That it is Pelagian to shift the fruit of Christ’s death—eternal life—from God’s special intention to a special act of free choice is plain from Prosper’s Letter to Augustine. Hilary’s Letter to Augustine shows the same: the Pelagian remnants treat eternal life in Christ’s death as so set before all that they flatly deny any singular purpose of God to save the elect by that death, and put the whole divide between the saved and the unsaved down to human wills. Against them, the orthodox saw a special hidden purpose in God accepting Christ’s death-sacrifice and in Christ offering it—toward efficacious fruitful application to certain persons. That is clear from Augustine’s On the Predestination of the Saints, On the Good of Perseverance, and his other anti-Pelagian and anti-Semipelagian books, where the special will to save the elect through Christ is if not the only then the chief conclusion. Prosper and Fulgentius say the same throughout: efficacious obtaining of salvation in Christ comes from God’s efficacious special will destinating Christ to the elect in a special way, not from human free choice applying Christ’s death and merits to itself as chance may have it.
Latin
Quod Pelagianum sit, fructum mortis Christi, id est, vitam aeternam, a speciali intentione Dei ad specialem operationem liberi arbitrii transferre, patet ex Prosperi Epistola ad Augustinum. Patet etiam ex Hilarii ad eundem Augustinum Epistola, ubi Reliquiae Pelagianorum in morte Christi vitam aeternam sic omnibus propositam & expositam opinantur, ut singulare aliquod sive speciale propositum Dei de salvandis electis per hanc mortem Christi prorsus pernegent, & totum hoc discrimen servatorum per mortem Christi & non-servatorum ad humanas voluntates revocent. Jam & contra, orthodoxos speciale & arcanum propositum agnovisse in Deo acceptante sacrificium mortis Christi, Christoque illud offerente, de applicatione ejusdem efficaci & fructuosa ad certas personas, non minus clarum est ex libris Augustini De Praedestinatione sanctorum, De Bono perseverantiae, aliisque contra Pelagianos & Semipelagianos conscriptis, in quibus haec, de speciali voluntate salvandi electos per Christum, si non unica, primaria tamen conclusio est. De Prospero & Fulgentio idem dici potest, qui passim asserunt efficacem salutis consecutionem in Christo ab efficaci & speciali voluntate Divina Christum electis speciali modo destinante, non a libero hominum arbitrio Christi mortem ac merita sibi, prout contigerit, applicante.
About this text
John Davenant — Dissertationes duae from the 1650 Cambridge Latin. Honest partial through De praedestinatione Cap. 1 subject tip; Cap. 1 mid-Thesis and remainder remain; De praedestinatione Cap. 1 Prolegomena IV distinguishing conditions tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Variae (Pelagian opening) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Scholastici / Vasquez Arg. 1 tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 2 praescientia tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 3 (1 Cor. 2:9) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 4 (2 Tim. 2:21) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 5 (1 Tim. 2:4) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 6 (James 2:5) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 7 (Apoc. 3:11) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 1 (common inefficacious will) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 2 (Vasquez physical vs moral media) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 3 (king/prize / victory foresight) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 4 (optimum modus / crown of justice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 5 (acceptor personarum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 6 (misericordia/congruitas) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 7 (equal disposition) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 8 (few saved / major part) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 9 (Stephen / glory from others' sins) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 10 (mere beneplacitum / Predestinati) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III reprobation ratio (foresight of sin) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 12 (efficacious election / free choice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 13 (hortation/prayer) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 14 (decree/execution conformity) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arminianorum open tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 7 (τρόπος; Rom. 9:22) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 8 (ordo exsecutionis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 9 (Christus fundamentum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 1 (amor ad salutem) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 2 (actualis vitae datio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 3 (qualis existens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 4 (justitiae satisfactio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 5 (natura vitae aeternae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 6 (Christus a decreto) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 7 (Evangelium invertitur) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 8 (arcana/revelata) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI (Orthodoxa sententia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 2 (gratia specialis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 3 (Scripturae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 4 (vocatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 5 (adjutorium) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 7 (inconveniens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 8 (perseverantia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 9 (unica ratio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 10 (abyssus) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 11 (efficacia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 12 (segregativum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 13 (pura gratia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII open (reprobatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII Junius trifariam tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VIII open (adversariorum) tip; Cap. VIII peccata-causa tip; Cap. VIII fewer-reprobates tip; Cap. VIII Argentina tip; Cap. VIII dives-misericordia tip; Cap. VIII Corvinus tip into Cap. IX; Cap. IX Ab Adae tip; Cap. IX Ab Adae Christus omnibus+Minor tip; Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol tip; Cap. IX vocatione Evangelica tip; Cap. IX vocatione Sol cont. tip; Cap. IX Arg. 6 Sol cont. tip.
English follows locked 1650 Cambridge Latin of De morte Christi Cap. 1-6 opening (origin + Thesis 1 + Cap. 2 Rat. 1-ultima + Cap. 3 Satisfit through Obj. 17 + Cap. 4 Thesis 2 tip through Mem. 1 close + Cap. 4 Mem. 2 through Mem. 3 tip + Cap. 4 Mem. 3 possible-faith through Thesis 2 close + Cap. 5 Thesis 3 tip through Mem. 2 Scripture close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 1-4 + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers tip + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Huberiana objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 elect-from-eternity objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect objections tip through Cap. 5 thesis close + Cap. 6 opening tip through Arg. 1 close before Arg. 2), reconstructed from the Internet Archive PDF (pdftotext + tesseract) of the Roger Daniel folio with DjVu OCR check. The 1683 reprint was not used as copy-text. No modern English was copied.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De morte Christi Cap. 1-5 densify through Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers tip (Daniel 1650) (Latin)
- Print Facsimile Internet Archive PDF of the 1650 Cambridge folio (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive DjVu OCR of the 1650 Cambridge folio (Latin)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.