Against this doctrine, Saint Augustine concluded his theories with a certain number of affirmations. Adam possessed immortality.28 He was free in that he had the "ability not to sin"29 and enjoyed already a certain divine grace. Original sin came to destroy that happy state. Scripture is strict on this point, and Saint Augustine himself relies on it.30 Our nature is tainted, and without baptism, man is destined for damnation (according to John II, 54). Saint Augustine sees proof of this in the universal desolation of the world and in the misery of our condition, of which he paints a powerful picture.31
But these are the secondary effects of original sin. Others more intimate and more irremediable will indicate the extent of our misfortune. First, we have lost the freedom of the "ability not to sin."
We depend on divine grace. On the other hand, damnation is, in principle, universal. Humankind as a whole is doomed to the flames. Its only hope is divine mercy.32 From this, there follows another consequence: the damnation of unbaptized children.33
Grace is then made more urgent. And we are dependent on this grace from three points of view: in order for us to preserve our tainted nature, in order to believe the truths of the supernatural order,34 and in order to make us act according to those truths.35 But this highest grace which is faith we do not merit by our works.
However, we can merit, to a certain extent, that of beneficence.36 In all cases, what determines our entire fate is Predestination. And Saint Augustine constantly returns to the gratuity of this doctrine.37 The number of the chosen, just as that of the outcasts, is set once and for all and invariably. Only then does God consider our merits and demerits in order to determine the degree of our punishment.
What we cannot know is the reason why this is so. Our freedom is a freedom to refuse the highest graces on the one hand, and to merit the secondary graces on the other. Our spontaneity applies only to the interior of divine omnipotence.38 
1. Enneads I, 5, On Beauty; III, 6, [sic] On Providence; III, 4, On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit; IV, 3, On Difficulties about the Soul; VI, [sic] On the Three Primary Hypostases; V, 6, On the Fact that That Which is beyond Being Does Not Think. [The reference for On Providence should be 3.2, 3, and for On the Three Primary Hypostases, 5.1.—Trans.)
2. Alfaric, L'Évolution intellectuelle de Saint Augustin.
3. Confessions VIII, C, IX: "Je lus . . . que le verbe était des le commencement; que le verbe était en Dieu et que le verbe était Dieu; qu'aussi des le commencement le verbe éta-it Dieu ... que le verbe de Dieu, qui est Dieu, est cette lumière véritable qui illumine tout homme venant en ce monde ... Mais je n'y lus pas le verbe a été fait homme et a habité parmi nous . . . mais je n'y lus pas qu'il s'est anéanti soi-même en prenant la forme d'un esclave; qu'il se soit rendu semblable a l'homme en se revêtant de ses informités; qu'il s'est humilié et a été obéissant jusqu'à la mort."[Saint Augustine, Confessions, 7.9, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961), 144-45.–Trans.]
4. 354, 430.
5. ConfessionsVIII, ch. 1: "Adhuc tenaciter colligabar ex femina." [Saint Augustine, Confessions, bk. 8, ch. 1: "I was still held firm in the bonds of woman's love," ibid., 158.–Trans.]
6. Cf. Salvian, De Gubernatore Dei, Patrologie Latine, VII, 16-17: "Débordants de vices, bouillonnants d'iniquité", des hommes engourdis par le vice et enflés de nourriture puaient la sale volupté."
[Salvian, On the Government of God, bk. 7, ch. 16, trans. E. M. Sanford (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), 211: "(For I see the city] overflowing with vice, boiling over with every sort of iniquity–full indeed of people, but even fuller of dishonor, full of riches but fuller still of vice." Camus' reference should be De Gubernatione Dei, Patrologia Latina. It seems odd that Camus would offer a French translation of this passage when he claims to be citing a Latin text.–Trans.]
7. ConfessionsVII, 67,24. Tes. col. 739 [sic]: "Il me persuadait que je devais me fier à des maîtres qui m'instruiraient plutôt qu'à ceux qui procéderaient par autorité."[Saint Augustine, Confessions: "He persuaded me that I must have confidence in the masters who instruct me rather than in those who would proceed by authority."–Trans.]*
8. De Beata vita 4 [sic] "Je cherchais d'où vient la mal et je n'en sortais pas." [Saint Augustine, Confessions, 7.7, trans. Pine-Coffin, 142. Nowhere in De Beata Vita have I been able to find the remark Camus cites. The passage I have offered in its place is found in the Confessions, which seems to be its real source.–Trans.]
9. Confessions LVII, col. 152 [sic], Patrologia Latina, vol. 33, col. 737: "J'étais rongé par la crainte de mourir sans avoir découvert la vérité." Cf. also his fear of death: Confessions VI, 16; VII, 19-26; Soliloquia I, 16; II, 1. [Saint Augustine, Confessions, 7.5, trans. Pine-Coffin, 139.–Trans.]
10. J. Martin, Philon, 1907, p. 67: "After St. Paul, the fathers naturally had to adopt the language that Greek and Alexandrian speculation had created; and by means of this language they expressed the truths that neither Philo nor any Alexandrian had conceived"; and Puech, Les Apologistes grecs du IIe siècle de notre ère: "The essential fact is that in principle, the doctrine of the Apologists is religious and not philosophical; they believe first of all in Jesus, the Son of God. And they thus understand his divinity by the pre-existenceof the word." And finally Le Breton, Les Origines du Dogme de la Trinité, 1910, p. 521: "If the Theology of the Logos appeared to be so profoundly transformed, it is because the person of Jesus to whom it had been applied imposed upon it these transformations."
11.DeNatura Boni IV, P.L. vol. 42, col. 553. [The full title of this work is De Natura Boni Contra Manichaeos.–Trans.}
12. Contre Julianum 111, 206, P.L. 45, col. 334. [The text to which Camus is referring is not Augustine's Contra lulianum but rather his Contrasecundam Iuliani responsionem imperfectum 111, 206, P.L. 45, col. 1334.–Trans.]
13. De libero arbitrio L 3, chap. 18, no. 51, P.L. 32-1268. [Saint Augustine, On Free Will, 3.51, in The Library of Christian Classics, vol.6, ed. J. Bailie and J. T. McNeill, trans. J. H. S. Burleigh (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 201.– Trans.]
14. In Johann. V, 1 [sic], P.L. 18, vol. 35, col. 414: "Nemo habet de suo nisi mendacium atque peccatum." Also, Sermones 156,11,12; P.L. vol. 38, col. 856: "Cumdico tibi: Sine adju-torio Dei nihil agis nihil boni dico, nam ad male agendum habes sine adjutorio Dei lib-eram voluntatem." [Saint Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John, 5.1, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, ed. P. Schaff, trans. J. Gibb and J. Innes (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1956), 31. The full Latin title of this work is loannis Evangelium.–Trans.]
15.De civitate Dei V, 18,3, P.L vol.41.col. 165 [sic];V, 19,P.L.vol.41,col. 165-66;Epistolae 138, II, 17, P.L. vol. 33, col. 33; De Patientia XXVIl, 25, P.L. vol. 40, col. 624. De gratia Christi XXIV, 25, P.L vol. 44, col. 376.
16. De civitate Dei XXl, 16, P.L, vol. 41, col. 730, and XIX, chap. 25, untitled: "Quod non possint ibi verae esse virtutes ubi non est vera religio" (vol. 41, col. 656). Cf. also De diver-sis quaestionibus 83, 66, P.L. vol. 40, col. 63.
17. Above all De diversis quaestionibus bk. I, 2, P.L. vol. 40, col. 111.
18. On the metaphysical plane. In psychology, Saint Augustine concedes free will.
19. De diversis quaestionibus 1, 2, 16, P.L. vol. 40, cols. 120, 121.
20. For the works of Pelagius (Commentarium in Epistulas Sancti Pauli; Epistula ad Demetriadem; Libellus Fidei ad Innocentium papam) and those of Julian and Celestius, see P.L. vol. 30.
21. Julian, according to Augustine, Contra lulianum I, 78, P.L. vol. 45, col. 1101. See also Pelagius, Libellus Fidei 13.
["Libertas arbitri qua a Deo emancipatus homo est, in admittendi peccati et abstinendi a peccato possibilitate consistit [sic]." This passage is not from Augustine's Contra lulianum, as Camus suggests, but rather from his Contra secundam luliani responsionem imperfectum 1.78. The passage should read: "Libertas arbitrii, qua a Deo emancipatus homo est, in admittendi peccati et abstinendi a peccato possibilitate consistit." There is no standard English translation of this text. The English translation I offer here is by Guy Chamberland, Laurentian University.–Trans.)
22. Pelagius, according to Augustine, De natura et Gratia. Cf. also De Gratia Christi 1,5, and De gestis Pelagii.["Ego dico posses esse hominem sine peccato." Saint Augustine, On Nature and Grace 8, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. P. Schaff, trans. P. Holmes and R. E. Wallis (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1956), 123.–Trans.]
23. According to Augustine, Degestis Pelagii 23. [Saint Augustine, On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 23, ibid., 193.–Trans.]
24. Epistula ad Demetriadem 8,17.
25. According to Augustine, De gratia Christi I, 27, 30: "ad operandum" "ad facilius operandum." [Saint Augustine, On the Grace of Christ, 1.27, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff, trans. Holmes and Wallis, 228.–Trans.]
26. According to Tixeront, Histoire des Dogmes dans l'antiquité chrétienne, ch. XI.
27. Romans 7:25 [sic] [The reference should read Rom. 7:24.–Trans.]
28. De Genesi contra manichaeos II, VIII, 32.
29. De concept, et gratia [sic], 33: "posse non peccare. [The title of this work is actually De correptione et gratia, or in English, On Rebuke and Grace.–Trans.]
30. Psalm 50; Job 19:4; Ephesians 2:3; above all Romans 5:12; John 3:5.
31. Contra lulianum I, 50, 54, P.L. vol. 45, col. 1072; De civitate Dei XXII, 22; I, 3.
32. "Universa massa perditione." De diversis quaestionibus ad simplicianum I, quaestione ll, 16.
33. Contra lulianum III, 199, P.L. vol. 45, col. 1333. [Camus mentions this teaching in a lecture he gave at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg entitled "The Unbeliever and Christians," later published in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, trans. Justin O'Brien (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 72. The context is Camus' defense of himself against the charge of pessimism: "I was not the one to invent the misery of the human being or the terrifying formulas of divine malediction. I was not the one to shout Nemo bonus or the damnation of unbaptized children."–Trans.]
34. De praedestione Sanctorum 5, 7, 22.
35. Epistulae CCXVII.
36. Epistulae CLXXXVI.
37. Enchiridion XCVIII and XCIX. Epistulae CLXXXVI, 15. De dono perseverantiae, 17.
38. De Gratia et libero arbitrio 4.
