De Gratia Libri Duo

and therefore, when He prepared us from nothing, the Creator applied His own image; but when He repaired us after we were lost, the Restorer assumed the form of a servant, as the Apostle says: taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man. But if we were formed according to that species of the outer man, in whose members there is sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, what honor or grace will there be, if we partake of that image which we know to be common to us for the most part with the beast? Therefore, their error is grave who think that the first man was composed by the incorporeal Trinity according to that man who was to be taken from Mary. For neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit was to be clothed with the garment of flesh and the appearance of a man, so that, as if to the species and fashion of His own image, He might arrange the features and mold the limbs of the first man, so that He could say: let us make man to the image and likeness which we are about to take from this virgin. And therefore, whatever the Trinity bestows upon man in common is derived from the likeness of the divinity. Nor indeed could the first man be said to have received the image of the second Adam, even if the Son of God alone had created man.

But when the united Trinity says: "Let us make man in our image and likeness," mixing the singular with the plural and the plural with the singular, and again: "And God made man in his image and likeness," "He made him in the image of God," so often you read that man was created in the image of God, and by what authority do you presume to assert, contrary to divine utterances, that he was formed according to the form of a servant? Since, therefore, this image is conferred by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one divinity of the three persons undoubtedly bestowed the dignity of its own image upon the first man. Since this is so, you will not doubt at all that a diminished freedom of one's own will is present in man, if you consider the first grace by which he was honored by God. Man is therefore called the image of God, because truth, justice; reason, wisdom; and perpetuity, eternity were inserted into him indulgently and worthily. It is from the image of God that he understands, that he rightly knows, that he distinguishes between evil and good with an examining judgment. And since God is goodness, mercy, patience, and justice, the more just and patient anyone is found to be, the more he is approved as similar to God, whose likeness is certainly possessed not in faces, but in virtues. And for this reason it is said of God: subtle, simple, sincere. Simple indeed, because nothing external is added to him, nothing conferred from elsewhere, but in him virtue, essence, and substance are one.

And thus God is what he has, but man does not have these gifts unless he receives them. Therefore, since God is just and justice, merciful and mercy, pious and piety, man can be just, but cannot be justice; he can be merciful, but cannot be mercy; he can be pious, but cannot be piety, because he does not possess these things by nature, but by gift. For example, that one is gold, but man can be seen as a gilded vessel; and in man grace is what in God is nature, and in this creature is what in that one is proven uncreated. And therefore, according to this reasoning, the twofold state of man appears more clearly, to whom these things are so implanted that they are often separated and taken away. Therefore, those err who think that justice and the other virtues are the substance of the soul, without which it can somehow subsist by the vital vigor of its own nature, without which even the devil is known to remain in his own nature. For they are manifestly found to be added, since they are put off when faults intervene. But free will and immortality, which is also implanted in the wicked, is not taken away, although the dignity and blessedness of immortality can be taken away. Therefore, as far as pertains to freedom of the will and immortality, even the wicked can possess the image of God, though discolored from and within themselves, but they cannot possess the likeness unless they are good.

Since these things are so, since men were endowed with the image and likeness of God that many even merited to be called sons of God, it behooves us to touch briefly, with a few examples still, how many, before the law of the letter, with the law of nature—which, as we have said, is the first grace of God—instructing them, entered the vestibules of salvation, to be led through Christ into the very penetralia of life. But also Abel, substituted in place of God by similarity of character and merits, whence could he have rejected the profane institutions of his brother, whence could he have chosen better, unless understanding and reason had directed him into the right path, by which guide he transmitted holy traditions and praiseworthy disciplines as a hereditary gift to posterity, so that they were esteemed by the name of angels or sons of God through many ages? Who would doubt that countless families pleasing to God, endowed with freedom of choice, were saved from among the Gentiles, of whom very few, but illustrious and perfect, are revealed in sacred scriptures for the illumination of the age? Whence could Enoch have walked with God or pleased God, unless the law infused in his inmost being had enlightened him by secret teaching to such an extent that, wise in nothing earthly, he was miraculously snatched from the earth by God assuming him? He who, by the merit of faith, excelled all others in that first age of the world, thereby taught that faith itself had been handed down to him along with the law of nature, as we read: Enoch was translated by faith, so that he would not see death.

Before the translation, indeed, he had testimony that he had pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please God. Moreover, one who approaches God must believe, because He exists and becomes the rewarder of those who seek Him. Unless He were sought by voluntary devotion and intention, He would not confer reward upon man, unless He had granted him something of his own, whereby he could please. Now when it says: "Before the translation, indeed, he had testimony that he had pleased God," there is no doubt that life is first examined and thus election follows. In the persuasion of predestination, the approaching error will easily be turned aside, if the preceding cause is questioned. Therefore, He becomes the rewarder of those who seek Him: great is the fault of the one who does not seek, to whom He gave the means by which He may be sought. What and how great a law man received from God at his first creation, even the perfect righteousness of Noah declared, because he cultivated the general gifts of faith by a special zeal of virtues in himself. At whose time, when every flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth, condemnation would not have followed unless transgression from man's free will had preceded. Therefore, just as fault merits punishment, so punishment testifies to the fault, which is inflicted according to the equity of the moderator. Now when the divine word says: "Every flesh had corrupted its way," it imputes the iniquities of that time not to imposed definition, but to voluntary depravity.

Therefore, without doubt, the heavenly dispensation would not have given the law of the letter unless transgression, carried to the point of the wrath of the flood, had interrupted the law of nature. And so this law of Moses, which is believed to be first, is already second. Thus, that the work of the natural law was inscribed in the hearts of men is also pursued by the most blessed pontiff Augustine in a most learned discourse, speaking thus: "Both run together in that channel and torrent of the human race: the evil that is drawn from the parent, and the good that is bestowed by the Creator." Likewise, no vice is so contrary to nature that it erases even the last traces of nature. For this reason, even the impious think of eternal things and establish laws to be proclaimed even in the present age, and they rightly censure and rightly praise many things in human customs. By what rules, then, do they judge, if not by natural ones, in which they see how each person ought to live, even if they themselves do not live in the same way? This the Apostle also declares more clearly to the Romans, saying: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of those men who detain the truth in injustice, because what is known of God is manifest to them. For God has revealed it to them: for His invisible things are perceived, understood through the things that have been made, from the creation of the world. Also His eternal power and divinity, so that they are inexcusable.

because, although they had known God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they vanished in their own thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened. For, saying that they were wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of a corruptible human image. For unless the will had departed from the law of God, impiety would not have felt the wrath of God. And when he says: "because what is known of God is manifest in them. For God revealed to them," he clearly argues this: that through the internal teaching inscribed on the pages of the mind, the knowledge of God ought to have been manifest to them, and that the Creator could have been known through the magnificence of creation. For they would not be inexcusable before God unless they had had, both externally and internally, an abundance for perceiving the truth, with the Apostle adding: "because," he says, "although they had known God, they did not glorify Him as God." Therefore, he condemns the impious also for their understanding, which they abused, and accuses their injustice as contempt for the divinity.

The famous vast flood of the deluge—what else did it assert but the judgment of the human race through the condemnation of a guilty world? And thus Noah’s perfect righteousness both revealed and condemned the spontaneous errors of that age, just as we read: Noah, having received a response by faith concerning things not yet seen, in fear fitted the ark for the salvation of his household. Through this he condemned the world and was established as heir of the righteousness that comes through faith. Why did he condemn the world? Because the world’s wickedness neglected the example of righteousness. And thus he accuses the guilt of the disobedient, and he who pleased through obedience argues that others could likewise have pleased through effort. Certainly, no fatal decree had a place in that age. For because a universal transgression had preceded, a universal condemnation followed. How can you say that one is taken up and another left behind? See how, except for the just man’s family, the whole world is destroyed under the compulsion of iniquity. Therefore, that special decree which you assert is excluded by the general judgment, and he who is condemned for wickedness is proven to have been able to do good.

X. CONCERNING THE ASSERTION THAT THE LAWS OF NATURE PERISHED IN THE FIRST MAN AND DID NOT FLOURISH THROUGH DESCENDANTS UNTIL THE COMING OF THE SAVIOR. But you say that the goods of nature are not to be mentioned, because it is manifest that before the coming of Christ the Gentiles in no way pertained to salvation. He who denies that nature ought to be praised in its goods surely does not know that the author of nature is the same as the author of grace. He who most imprudently denies this denies the good of nature apart from the work of God, and either the divinity which he supposes or fate. But since the same one is the creator who is the restorer, the one and the same is blessed in the praise of both works, the one and the same is celebrated in the proclamation of both works. Rightly, therefore, I assert the gift of each, because I know that I owe to him that I was born, to whom I owe that I was reborn. And for that reason I will not deny the gifts of the creator because I lost them, but I will not equate the former with the latter, because I have received them restored manifold for the better. I will extol the benefits of the creator, but I will infinitely prefer those of the redeemer.

Not even in this matter shall I seem incautious, if I profess that, in our dispositions—not indeed in the beginnings of our life, but only in the midst of them—special graces, coming from an additional generosity, are sometimes preceded by our will, with God so ordaining. Let us consult the sacred Scriptures to see whether this is so. We read in the Gospel the Lord saying: "What do you wish me to do for you?" and again: "Do you wish to be healed?" You see that the gift of salvation is not bestowed unless the desire of the will is first inquired into. But also when it comes to baptism, the will of the one approaching is first sought, so that the grace of regeneration may follow. And in the case of the centurion Cornelius, because the will preceded grace, therefore grace also preceded regeneration. Nothing here, I think, smacks of presumption, since I incessantly assert that I owe even this will itself to God, especially as I refer all its movements—whether the beginnings of inception or the final points of completion—to the work of grace.

Abraham, advancing from the midst of paganism, is not only called to salvation together with his entire household, but is also made the father of many nations by the testimony of Truth itself. It is from God’s goodness that he is called, from his own will that he promptly obeys. Job likewise, without freedom of spirit, could not have withstood the enemy pressing upon him, but he joins magnanimity of heart with the help of a protector. And thus the justice of the rewarder reveals the devotion of the fighter. In spiritual warfare, the struggle seems to pertain to human effort, just as the outcome is referred to God. The fact that Job’s friends came from among the Gentiles, at a time when the law had not yet been promulgated, shows; and while the same Job is recorded to have prayed for them at the Lord’s command and to have been heard, salvation is conferred without doubt on these also, still living in paganism. Rahab likewise was so much of the pagan nation that she prefigured the type of the Church to be gathered from the Gentiles. She too is received into salvation with her entire household, through the working of faith, concerning whom we read: “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish with the unbelievers.” Why, then, are the unbelievers placed outside the law accused, except because they refused to keep the law of nature, to which faith is joined? Why is unbelief charged, except because the capacity to believe was at hand? Thus the principle of free will makes it so that the believer is rewarded and the unbeliever condemned.

We read in the book of Genesis—for the sins of the Amorites were not yet complete—the Lord foretells that the sons of Israel are to be humbled in the land of Egypt and from there led out, through signs and miracles, to destroy the impious nations and take possession of the promised lands. But He testifies that this cannot happen before the nations, which He was to hand over to them, make way by the magnitude of their growing sins for the deserved punishments and compel, by the mass of their consummated iniquity, the hand of extreme affliction to be stretched out against them. Where the multiplication of sins is awaited, the depravity of wills is exposed. He who, setting aside the law of a precept for a pagan, imposes a sentence based on equity, proves that the law of nature has been trampled upon, and at the same time the forbearance of the one who sustains justice is shown to manifest the one who condemns. For no one who intends to punish by predestination permits a delay out of moderation. "Not yet," He says, "are the sins of the Amorites complete." When the cause of destruction is recalled in the fullness of sins, the reproach of a predetermined necessity is removed. Recognize here the virtue of divine patience. The people of Israel, who are to be freed and to overthrow the impious nations, are meanwhile held in servitude until the iniquity of the nations is completed. The wrath of judgment postpones vengeance for as long as the measure of sin grows into a heap, so that, with goodness and severity concurring at one and the same time, on the one hand the absolution of the son is exercised, on the other the crushing of the enemy.

Against this, what they say, that before the time of grace knowledge of the one God was not granted to the Gentiles. They wallow in a great depth of ignorance who say that the Gentiles could not have had knowledge of the one God before the coming of the Savior, since the Apostle asserts that the maker of the world could have been known through the magnificence of his own creation, saying: "What is known of God is manifest in them." For his invisible attributes are understood and perceived from the creation of the world through the things that have been made. His eternal power and divinity also, so that they are inexcusable. How can you call excusable those whom God declares inexcusable on the ground that they are proven to have abused what they received and could have known the sublimity of the maker without difficulty, if they had questioned the work? This is far from all reason, and without piety, that man should be thought to have been recently instructed to know God, to whom the whole world from the beginning of things is a witness; and therefore in the same epistle the Apostle says: "For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, naturally do the things that are of the law." Therefore, he is not believed to have been imbued by recent teaching to comprehend the law of God, who received what he naturally has in the condition of the first man. "They changed," says the Apostle, "the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents.

While the imprudent man venerates base and unworthy things, he declares that he ought by all means to profess worship to more worthy beings, and while he adores wood and stone, he had readily at hand the means to know to adore the creator of earthly and heavenly things. For while man proves that something is to be worshipped, the very understanding of worship reveals the crime against the creator. For how did he have the sense of religion? He would have found God without doubt, if he had wished to apply the effort of inquiry, as the Lord says: seek and you will find. For when the human mind opens its eyes to see, the sought light immediately presents itself to the one desiring it. And therefore the law implanted within taught veneration, but negligence and contumacy did not merit finding the truth. And for that reason, while it prostrates the celestial creation before dead images and insensible figures, it inflicted injury not only on the maker, but also on its own making, and afflicted itself with shameful contumelies, forgetful of its own nobility, and from that error itself received the penalty of error, as the apostle says: and they received in themselves the reward which their error deserved. And just as they did not acknowledge God in their knowledge, God delivered them to a reprobate mind. This rebellious mind was spontaneously corrupted, not violently taken away. Just as, he says, they did not acknowledge God in their knowledge, God delivered them to a reprobate mind. He who is abandoned because of preceding causes is not oppressed by fate, but is reprobated by judgment.

If you ask whence comes sin to untaught nations in their innate savagery, whence except through a movement of the spirit and consent of the mind? Finally, cattle and brute animals are wholly free from sin, because they are ignorant of discernment and devoid of reason. You make man worse than a beast. For why do you leave him sin, while you take away his free choice? Or if you subject him to sin, do not deprive him of judgment. Therefore let iniquity not lie to itself. The Knower of hidden things knows what He gave to man in secret. And so when anyone is rebuked and condemned for an evil deed, he is convicted of having been able to do good. Great, therefore, is the power of the spirit in either direction, while it is both ashamed of honor and ashamed of dishonor. And so it is said through the prophet: His eyelids interrogate the sons of men; the Lord interrogates the just and the unjust. Why does a judge by birth interrogate me about sin, if it is by His own definition that I transgress? Thus He who fashioned the hearts of men one by one, the secret examiner, interrogates the ways of men and the merits of consciences. But if you yourself examine yourself, if ever you wished to turn to the left, did not a trembling conscience warn you not to sin? Did not a sad thought chastise you like a secret censor? And thus men cannot hide from themselves, with conscience bearing witness to them and with thoughts accusing or even defending among themselves.

Amid these things, if you ask where the freedom of the will is placed, where the will of man is established, where if not in the intellect, in reason and wisdom? Since these things are so, you will first have to deny wisdom to man, to take away reason, in order to be able to take away free will. For this reason, if ever the soul, captive within its own dwelling, meditates some offense, the secrets of its thoughts cry out against it, its inner offices forbid it, but the habit of sinning withdraws the strength to resist. But you turn back and say that the wicked and those who are drawn to perdition have not received the freedom of the will. First we must know that the freedom of the will is endowed with a twofold service, now ready for salvation, now ready for its own perdition. But you object that the freedom of the will pertains only to those who are to be freed and to those established in the benefit of redemption. It is not so. Liberation pertains to the gift of grace and to the purpose of the consenting life, but the freedom of the will is not a matter of an arriving beneficence, but of nature. To those who seek it, the former is either granted or preserved; the latter is conferred even to those not seeking it. The former is ministered to the reborn, the latter to the born. Freedom pertains to the operation of God alone; liberation pertains also to the service of the subject man. The former is confirmed in the good, the latter is implanted even in the wicked. The former befits those who have acquired and persevere, the latter is available even to the lost. The former is of the one who establishes, the latter also of the one who obeys.

that of power, this of mercy. That of origin and kind, this of gift and virtue. XI. THAT THE NATIONS HAVE KNOWN GOD NATURALLY. Full of the Holy Spirit, the prophet Daniel, knowing that God has placed in man's mind the appetite for good and evil, thus addresses Nebuchadnezzar, saying: "Why, O king, may my counsel please you, and redeem your sins with alms and your iniquities with mercies to the poor." And he says, "Redeem your sins with alms." Whatever can be redeemed cannot be seen as predetermined. Certainly, he is not excluded from health to whom a remedy is urged. At the same time, free will is not denied to him from whom consent is required. He has not lost the office of a free mind who is judged to have been able to receive counsel. He is not found alien to salvation to whom the material of salvation is presented. And to whom the prophet offers the opportunity of obtaining forgiveness, he asserts that the power of will is present in him.

But also this, that Baltasar, a Gentile, is reproached by the prophet saying: you have praised gods of silver and gold and wood and stone, and the god in whose hand your breath is, you have not praised. You see, this foreigner was able both to know and to praise God, but he was unwilling. The understanding of God and worship are inherent in man. Therefore the prophet recalled this, because he knew that the law of nature thrives without distinction within the sense of every man. And for this reason, when Daniel had revealed the meaning of the dream to the aforementioned King Nebuchadnezzar, the king, however profane, showed that he did not ignore God, speaking thus: truly your God is the god of gods and the lord of kings. But also Darius, who taught him to think and speak thus about God, if not the force of reason and law with Daniel? God is appeased by conversion. XII. (CONCERNING THE NINEVITES). Whence came it, that they knew God to be angry with a condition? For that great city did not come to its senses through the instruction of Jonah, nor did it receive from his warnings the understanding of seeking salvation, nor did the prophet teach the people, but terrified them, nor did he promise mercy, but announced an immutable sentence, and yet that city, as it is written, believed against hope in hope. And it promised to itself remedies, in a manner of speaking forbidden, which would be very pleasing to God, even if it had sought the promises.

These remedies are indeed sometimes withheld by the Lord so that they may be preserved more intensely when acquired. And at the same time, by the difficulty of obtaining them interposed, while the munificence is hidden, faith is tested, ambition is exercised, affection is manifested, and all this in man is worked by the inner fire placed in him by God and nourished by man with God's grace. That people therefore shows that those things which pertain to man's salvation were placed within man by God through the very ordering of creation, and that before the gifts of the Redeemer, the gifts of the Author always flourished around the rational creature, bestowed indeed by the supreme Creator through nature, but to be confirmed through grace. Through grace, I say, in whose time the salvation of past ages was to be consummated, because nothing was brought to perfection by the law, whether of the letter or of nature. In the Ninevites, therefore, the voice of the Lord, full of clemency and goodness, is clearly manifested, speaking thus: I will speak suddenly to the people and the kingdom, that I may uproot and destroy and eradicate. If that people does penance for its sin, then I also will do penance for the evil that I have spoken, that I would do to it. The merciful judge chooses to change the heavenly decrees of the council by a pious falsehood, if the defendant hastens to apply medicine to the sin. Unwillingly does he impose the weight of condemnation on man, he who shows the remedy of satisfaction and awaits the diligent obedience of service.

And therefore that perfect providence, which in this world delights in the exercises of the virtues, judged it most orderly and most worthy of its wisdom that man, established in the dignity of the sacred image, should here first be tested by struggles and afflictions, but there be fulfilled by gifts and rewards, so that when the servant had shown obedience in labor, the master might show justice in recompense, so that when human weakness had offered humble devotion, divine power might display ineffable generosity. Therefore we must labor continually, but not depart from grace, and we must say: God, direct your help to me. Indeed, the very word "help" requires the office of one who labors. Thus the term "help" indicates two persons: one working and one cooperating, one asking and one promising, one knocking and one opening, one seeking and likewise one rewarding. This alone is ours: that we, who are not fit due to frailty, may at least please by the importunity of seeking and knocking. Where will the diligence of the merciful God be, if, when the person of the unworthy merits nothing, desires come to him who is idle? And therefore, unless the zeal of service and indefatigable obedience have preceded, justice will have no place to remain. And for this reason, the divine word describes the farmer placed in the hope of his labor, saying thus: Behold, the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the earth, that he may receive the early and the late rain.

What is early, what is late? The early fruits are those which we acquire by the wages of our present service. The late fruits are those which we will seize in the reward of that age after our service has been completed. The early fruits are faith and sincerity of heart, benevolence, temperance of the body, contempt for evil, desire for good, the tranquility of gentleness, the purity of chastity. The late fruits are the acquisition of immortal things, the inheritance of heavenly things, the possession of eternal things, concerning which it is said: neither the eye has seen nor the ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him. Concerning which it is said through the apostles and martyrs: the sufferings of this time are not worthy of the future glory which will be revealed in us. Therefore the early fruits are in the virtues, the late fruits in the reward of the virtues. The early fruits are those which works here seize in the precepts, the late fruits are those which vows will pursue there in the rewards.

How much, then, does God delight, if we make a wall, that is, a very strong barrier of supplication against the offense of God, as did that man of whom we read: for the man hastened without complaint to intercede for the people, proffering the shield of his service, he withstood the wrath and put an end to the necessity. "Who would stand," he said, "opposed against me, lest I destroy her?" He shows how His wrath is overcome, how in a certain way, placated, He becomes angry. Amid these things, whoever says that man was so made by the most powerful and just Creator that one is assigned to the left without his own fault, by the mere impulse of foreknowledge, and another is drawn to the right by unquestioned merits, is clearly understood to assert that the arrangements of both the maker and the judge are disordered or unjust. But at this point, let the attentive hearer consider the supreme Author, when He was preparing to fashion man, the supreme Author, I say, to whose ministry and counsel for making man four virtues attended. Which four? Surely, power, goodness, wisdom, and justice. You see which of these four you presume to assert was lacking to God. Therefore, to gather the understanding more clearly, let each of these virtues, if you please, put forward their own treatises and addresses. Let Power say: let us make, after the kingdom of heaven, a second wonderful creature, lest in the possession of our empire, which are the first, these also seem to be the last.

Let us complete this beautiful machine of the world, so that in it we may make man, and set him over it, through whom the world may be ordered, possessed, and adorned. Goodness says: It is not right that only the heavenly beings should enjoy our benefits. Let us also make man on earth, on whom we may exercise the abundance of our grace, on whom we may lavish the gifts of our benevolence, into whom we may pour the riches of our innate piety. Wisdom says: Let us not only make him, but also honor him with the sense of reason and discernment, fill him with the light of prudence, make him simple, make him shrewd. Simple, so that he may not cunningly inflict evil; shrewd, so that he may not rashly fall into it. Let us instill in him an affection for good, an understanding of evil, and, under our governance, let us leave him in the hand of his own counsel and in the freedom of his own judgment. Meanwhile, Power, in whom foreknowledge also resides, deliberates within itself. What are we doing, if we leave him free in his own will, when we foresee that he will stray into the byways of sin and that he will turn the precious gifts of our creation into instruments of wickedness? And therefore, if we wish our work in him to be perpetual, let us remove from him the power to sin. Justice says: It is not so. It does not accord with our laws that he, who must be tested by opposites, should not be able to know himself from his own strengths.

It does not befit our laws," I say, "that we should deny the material and cause of glory to one whom we wish to be glorified even by his own office, that we should make him, whom we desire to reward through naked grace, merit nothing from his own labor. Rather, let those allied and kindred virtues each perform their parts in him. Let it be the role of Power to create him sublime, destined to dwell among all visible things, especially among enemies; of Wisdom to order him prudent; of Goodness to aid him as he strives; of Justice to crown him as he conquers. Let us therefore make man such, for his own benefit and for the dignity of our own image, that he is drawn to the right side not by necessity but by will, who understands evil through reason and thoroughly knows good through virtue. Let us make him such that goodness is in his nature, but malice is outside his nature; that he has good in his will, evil in his power; that he naturally wills the good, and can actually do evil; that he guards our commands voluntarily and cannot be imperiled unwillingly; for whom this is the first occasion of praise: that he can sin and yet does not wish to. Let it suffice that among the quadrupeds and brutes, which are to be subject to man, we have already made such an animal, which, while not liable to fault, cannot have the fruit of justice. But this one ought not to be like a beast, to whom we are about to entrust the dignity of our image. Let us question those things which we have formed ignorant of sin and devoid of reason, without any honor of prudence.

Will the simplicity of a beast profit it, or the fecundity of a tree profit it? Concerning our human being, shall we not be able to bestow the palm of praise, if we wish nature to serve necessity? It is fitting, therefore, for us to order this being—subject by condition, free by discretion, perfected by reason—under a power that is permitted and a law that is proposed, so that the observance of the precept is the access and the cause of the reward. For if he has not had the abundance and license of evil, he will not have the glory of good. If, according to our benevolence, he does not also hold health praiseworthy by his own zeal or labor, it will not be innocence, but inertia; and moreover, the reward perishes where merit does not precede. He cannot preserve our goods who does not know how to acquire them. Unless devotion to obedience has been sent ahead, the offering of grace becomes cheap. And at the same time, it is a shame for the one who rewards if the idle man is honored, if the slothful man is remunerated. Rather, with cooperating assistance and also his own work, let him become worthy and, with a good conscience, be blessed. For unless the liberality of the giver is just, there will not be perfect happiness for the receiver; and unless the eagerness of the seeker has first been explored, in what will the kindness of the giver rejoice?

Again, foreknowledge joins words with justice and speaks thus: It is better that the human race not come into being, than that it should appear to be made in such a way that it perishes. Goodness and justice reply: It is not so. Because of the impious Cain, will the pious Abel not exist in the world? Because of increasing wickedness, will the world not see the justice of Noah? Because of Judas, will we not have Peter? Because of those who are to be overcome by vice that flatters, will those who are to be crowned by a just judgment through the stern magnanimity of austere virtue not come into life? Because of the multitude of transgressors, will the ages of the righteous, the thousands of martyrs, and the kingdom of the saints be consigned to nothing? Because of those whom we foreknow will sin by their own crime, will we not make those whom we foreknow will also please by their own merit? If it is so, foreknown evil will defraud our power more than consummated evil will harm it, since the foreknown generation of the wicked will harm the good—the good who, because of it, will not be created, whereas, once created, it could at some time have harmed only itself. But let goodness say: Let us make the human race such that it cannot sin. To this, circumspect justice replies in turn: How shall we give to earthly beings what we have not granted to heavenly ones? How shall the fragility of men have what the nature of angels did not obtain? Since these things are so, let not the creature dare to dispute concerning the work of the creator.

It was, therefore, a matter of power that He should create man immortal from nothing, of wisdom that He should make him capable of reason, of goodness that He should prepare him for blessedness, of justice that He should not choose him before testing him. But amidst these things someone persists and says: if it is established that sinners in that world are to be consigned to punishments and handed over to eternal fires, man ought to have been made in such a way that he cannot sin at all. Why do you anticipate, O man, the dispensations of your author? Why do you seek the condition of immortality in the region of death? Why do you seek in the militia what is prepared in glory? Why do you demand before earned labor what is prepared after labor? This will be given, but to one already justified for eternity, when that which has been conferred cannot perish. This will be given, but in the time of blessedness, where it is no longer necessary either to overcome sin or to know it, where there will be no will to sin, no possibility, where to live holily, chastely, piously will not be diligence, not industry, but nature dispensing divine mercy and justice in such a way that he who has striven for integrity here can no longer be corrupted by any stain there. For it will be judged fitting that man who, being weak, did not wish to sin, cannot sin when eternal, but that in ages rolling on without end there be joy without fear, reward without envy, a kingdom without an enemy.

Fragments Pertaining to the Lacunae in the Books On Grace. From the earlier book On Grace, chapter XIV, near the end of which there is a lacuna, words have been taken which John Maxentius cites in his little work entitled ‘Response to the Letter of Hormisdas’ (Migne, Patrologia Graeca LXXXVI 1, p. 109) (cf. what we have set forth in the book ‘Studies on the Writings of Faustus, Bishop of Reii’ p. sq.): Again, in the heading of the same book, chapter XV, arguing (scil. Faustus) against those who assert that the gift of belief is not general but special, he speaks among other things as follows: But you say, he says, that it is not given to all, but that belief is a personal gift and that the ability to believe is available only to those to whom God has specially granted that they should believe. It is not so. For when the Lord demands it even from unbelievers, he shows that it is implanted in all. For to whom does it not avail to believe even by the law of nature itself, when even demons believe and tremble?

II. In the same place, Maxentius (Migne, loc. cit., p. 111) appears to refer to chapter XI of the later book of Faustus On Grace, which today is for the most part lost, saying (cf. what we have set forth in the book cited above, p. sq.): 'Whence also in the eleventh chapter (of the second book) he (scil. Faustus) shamelessly and impudently asserts that many, by natural vigor without the aid of grace, not only before the coming of the Lord, but also even before the law of the letter, were saved and attained to full purity of heart and perfect righteousness, and merited to become sons of God.