Mind of the Church

The mind of the Church, faithfully rendered into English

Library / Annotations on the Old Testament

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Annotatio VI — Genesis 1:2

“And the earth was void and empty.”

Annotatio VI

”And the earth was void and empty.” — Genesis 1:2

Augustine, in the first book On Genesis, allegorically, chapter 3, explaining this, seems to assent somewhat to the Pelagian heresy,1 when he says: “All men can believe God, and can turn themselves from the love of visible and temporal things to fulfilling the precepts, if they will.” Which words Augustine, in the first book of the Retractations, chapter 11, says are not true unless our will is first prepared by God, and charity so increased by him that we are able to accomplish the precepts.

Footnotes

  1. Left margin: Whether faith and charity are from ourselves. (Fides, & charitas an sint ex nobis.) — and: St. Augustine retracts himself. (D. August. se retractat.) ↩