Friday, March 15, 2024

Jerome Teaching Baptismal Regeneration and Justification Does Not Forgive Then-Future Sins in Dialogue Against the Pelagians (A.D. 415)

  

Atticus: This much you must know, that Baptism forgives past sins, but it does not safeguard future justice, which is preserved by labor and industry and diligence, and depends always and above all on the mercy of God. It is our part to seek. His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot. (Jerome, Dialogue Against the Pelagians 3.1, A.D. 415, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1979], 2:211)