De Praedestinatione Sanctorum. Admonitio Petita Ex Lovaniensium Editione

THE BOOK OF SAINT AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO, ON THE PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS, FIRST BOOK, ADDRESSED TO PROSPER AND HILARY.

In this book the truth of predestination and grace is defended against the Semi-Pelagians, that is, men who by no means depart entirely from the Pelagian heresy, in that they wish the beginning of salvation and of faith to be from ourselves, so that by this as a preceding merit they may obtain the other goods as a gift of God. Augustine shows that it is a gift of God not only to increase faith but also to begin it. He does not deny that he once thought otherwise on this matter, and erred in the small works written before his episcopate, as in that Exposition of Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans which they object against him. But afterward he indicates that he was convinced, especially by this testimony: What do you have that you did not receive? And he proves that this testimony must be understood even of faith itself. He denies that faith is to be numbered among the works by which the Apostle says the grace of God is preceded, when he says, Not of works; and that the hardness of the heart is taken away, and that all who are taught by the Father come to Christ so as to come: those whom he teaches, he teaches by mercy; and those whom he does not teach, he does not teach by judgment. The passage from his own Epistle 102, question 2, concerning the time of the Christian religion, which the Semi-Pelagians cite, can be rightly explained while the doctrine of grace and predestination remains intact. He teaches what the difference is between grace and predestination. Furthermore, by predestination God foreknew those things which he himself was going to do.

He marvels that the adversaries of predestination, who are said to claim that they do not wish to be led into uncertainty regarding God's will, prefer to entrust themselves to their own weakness rather than to the firmness of God's promise. He shows that they misuse the authority of the saying, "If you believe, you will be saved." The truth of grace and predestination shines forth in the little ones who are saved, distinguished by no merits of their own from the rest who perish. For they are not discerned among them by the foreknowledge of merits, which, if they lived longer, they would have had. He complains that the testimony which he adduced for this matter—"He was caught up lest malice," etc.—was unjustly rejected by the adversaries as though it were not canonical. He shows that the most illustrious example of predestination and grace is the Savior himself, in whom man was taken up by the coeternal Word of the Father into the unity of person, so that he might be Savior and only-begotten Son of God, not by any preceding merits either of works or of faith. The predestined are called by a certain proper calling of the elect; and they were chosen before the foundation of the world, not because they were foreknown as about to believe and to become holy, but so that they might be such through that very election of grace, etc.

CHAPTER ONE. i. We know indeed that the Apostle said in his Epistle to the Philippians: To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe (Phil. 3:1). Yet the same Apostle, writing to the Galatians, when he perceived that he had accomplished enough among them in what he saw to be necessary for them through the ministry of his preaching, said: For the rest, let no man trouble me; or, as it is read in most manuscripts, let no man be troublesome to me (Gal. 6:17). But although I confess that I am grieved that the divine utterances by which the grace of God is preached—which is altogether nothing if it is given according to our merits—are not yielded to by so many and such manifest testimonies, nevertheless your zeal and brotherly love, most beloved sons Prosper and Hilary, by which you do not wish those who are such to err, and by which, after so many books of mine on this matter, or letters, you still desire me to write to you about it—I love this as much as I cannot express; and that I love it as much as I ought, I do not dare to say. Wherefore behold, I write to you, and although I am no longer with you, yet even through you I still act, which I believed I had already accomplished sufficiently.

i. For when I have considered your letter, I seem to myself to see that those brothers, for whom you bear a pious care, must be dealt with in the same way as the Apostle dealt with those to whom he said, And if in anything you are otherwise minded, this also God will reveal to you. For they are still in darkness concerning the question of the predestination of the saints; but they have the means, if in that matter they are otherwise minded, for God to reveal this also to them, if they walk in that which they have attained. For this reason the Apostle, when he had said, If in anything you are otherwise minded, this also God will reveal to you, said: Nevertheless, let us walk in that which we have attained (Phil. 3:15-16). But these our brothers, for whom your pious charity is solicitous, have attained to this: that they believe with the Church of Christ that the human race is born liable to the sin of the first man, and that no one is freed from this evil except through the righteousness of the second man. They have also attained to this: that they confess that the wills of men are preceded by the grace of God, and they agree that no one is sufficient of himself to begin or to complete any good work. Therefore, by retaining these things in which they have attained, they are distinguished very greatly from the error of the Pelagians.

Accordingly, if they walk in these things and pray to him who gives understanding, if they think otherwise concerning predestination, he himself will reveal this also to them; nevertheless, let us also bestow upon them the affection of love and the service of speech, as he grants it, whom we have asked that in this letter we might say those things which would be fitting and useful for them. For how do we know whether perhaps our God wishes to accomplish it through this our service, by which we serve them in the free love of Christ?

CHAPTER II. — 3. First, therefore, we ought to show that the faith by which we are Christians is the gift of God: if indeed we can do this more diligently than we have already done in so many and such great volumes. But now I see that we must respond to those who say that the divine testimonies which we have adduced concerning this matter are of value for this purpose, that we may know that we indeed have faith itself from ourselves, but that its increase is from God: as if faith were not given to us by him, but only increased in us by him, by that merit by which it began from us. Therefore there is no departure from that opinion which Pelagius himself, in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, as the same Acts testify, was compelled to condemn, "that the grace of God is given according to our merits," if it does not pertain to the grace of God that we have desired to believe, but rather that which is added to us on account of this, so that we may believe more fully and perfectly; and through this, we give to God the first beginnings of our faith, so that its supplement may be repaid to us, and whatever else we faithfully ask.

But why do we not rather hear these words against them: Who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things (Rom. 11:36)? Therefore the very beginning of our faith—from whom is it, if not from him? For it is not that all other things are from him with this one exception; but from him, and through him, and in him are all things. And who would say that one who has already begun to believe merits nothing from him in whom he has believed? Hence it comes about that to one who already merits, the rest are said to be added by divine recompense; and by this means the grace of God is given according to our merits—a charge which Pelagius, to avoid being condemned, himself condemned. Whoever, then, wishes to avoid this damnable opinion in every respect, let him truly understand what the Apostle said: To you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him (Phil. 1:29). He shows that both are the gift of God, because he said that both have been granted. Nor did he say, "that you may believe in him more fully and perfectly," but "that you may believe in him." Nor did he say that he obtained mercy so as to be more faithful, but so as to be faithful (1 Cor. 7:25), because he knew that he had not first given to God the beginning of his own faith, and had the increase of it repaid to him by him; but that he had been made faithful by him, by whom he was also made an apostle. For the beginnings of his faith have also been written (Acts 9), and they are very well known through the Church's frequent reading.

For, having turned away from the faith which he was laying waste, and fiercely hostile to it, he was suddenly converted to it by a more powerful grace, by the action of him to whom it was said through the prophet, "Thou, turning, shalt quicken us" (Ps. 84:7)—so that he not only became from unwilling willing to believe, but also from a persecutor suffered persecution in defense of that faith which he had been persecuting. For it had been granted to him by Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

And therefore, commending this grace, which is not given according to any merits but produces all good merits, he says: "Not that we are sufficient to think anything as if from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5). Let those attend here and weigh these words who think that the beginning of faith is from us and the supplement of faith is from God. For who does not see that to think is prior to believing? For no one believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be believed. For although certain thoughts run ahead of the will to believe swiftly, although most rapidly, and soon follow it so as to accompany it as though most closely joined, it is nevertheless necessary that all things which are believed be believed with thought going before. And indeed, to believe itself is nothing other than to think with assent. For not everyone who thinks believes, since many think for the very reason that they may not believe; but everyone who believes thinks, and in believing thinks, and in thinking believes.

What therefore pertains to religion and piety (of which the Apostle was speaking), if we are not fit to think anything as though from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, then certainly we are not fit to believe anything as though from ourselves, which we cannot do without thinking, but our sufficiency, by which we begin to believe, is from God. Wherefore, just as no one is sufficient for himself to begin or to complete any good work whatever—which these brothers now agree to be true, as your writings indicate—so that in every good work, both in beginning and in completing it, our sufficiency is from God, so no one is sufficient for himself either to begin or to complete faith, but our sufficiency is from God; since faith, if it is not thought, is nothing; and we are not fit to think anything as though from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.

We must be on guard, brothers beloved of God, lest a man exalt himself against God when he says that he himself does what God has promised. Was not faith of the Gentiles promised to Abraham, and did he not, giving glory to God, most fully believe that what God had promised, He is able also to perform? Therefore He Himself makes the faith of the Gentiles, who is able to do what He has promised. Moreover, if God works our faith, acting in a wondrous way in our hearts so that we believe, is it to be feared that He cannot bring the whole to pass, and that therefore man claims for himself the first parts of it, so as to deserve to receive the last parts from Him? See whether by this means anything else is done than that the grace of God is given according to our merits in some way or other, and thus grace is no longer grace. For by this arrangement it is rendered as a debt, not bestowed freely: for it is owed to the believer that his faith itself be increased by the Lord, and that the increased faith be the reward of the faith begun; nor is it observed, when this is said, that this reward is imputed to believers not according to grace but according to debt. But why the whole is not ascribed to man, so that he who was able to establish for himself what he did not have might himself increase what he established, I do not see at all: except that the most manifest divine testimonies cannot be resisted, by which even faith, from which the beginning of piety is taken, is shown to be a gift of God; such as that which says, God has distributed to each one a measure of faith.

XII, 3); and that saying, Peace to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. VI, 23); and other such things. Therefore, unwilling to fight against these testimonies so clear, and yet wishing that what he has by which he believes be from himself, man, as it were, makes a compact with God, so as to claim a part of faith for himself and leave a part to him; and—what is more arrogant—he himself takes the first part and gives him the following part; and in that he says it is of both, he makes himself first and God last.

- CHAPTER III. — 7. Not so did that pious and humble teacher think—I speak of the most blessed Cyprian, who said, "We must glory in nothing, since nothing is ours" (To Quirinus, Book 3, Chapter 4). To show this, he brought forward the Apostle as a witness, saying, What do you have that you did not receive? But if you also received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it (I Cor. IV, 7)? By this testimony in particular I myself was also convicted, when I was erring in a similar way, thinking that the faith by which we believe in God was not a gift of God, but was from ourselves and in ourselves, and that through it the gifts of God were obtained by us, by which we live temperately and justly and piously in this world. For I did not think that faith was preceded by the grace of God, so that through it there might be given to us what we should ask for profitably; but only that we could not believe unless the proclamation of the truth went before—yet that we should consent to the Gospel when it had been preached to us, I judged to be our own proper act and to be from ourselves and in ourselves.

My error in this matter is indicated by several of my little works written before my episcopate. Among them is that one which you have mentioned in your letters, where there is an exposition of certain propositions from the Epistle which is to the Romans. In short, when I was reviewing all my little works, and pursuing that review with my pen—of which work I had already completed two books before I had taken up your longer writings—when in the first volume I had come to review this book, I spoke of it as follows: "Again, disputing," I said, "what God chose in the one not yet born, to whom He said that the greater would serve him; and what in the same greater one, similarly not yet born, He rejected: concerning which things, on this account, the prophetic testimony is recalled—though brought forth long afterwards—Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated; I brought my reasoning to this point, that I should say: Therefore God did not choose anyone's works in foreknowledge, which He Himself would give; but He chose faith in foreknowledge, so that whomever He foreknew would believe in Him, Him He would choose, to whom He would give the Holy Spirit, so that by doing good works he might also obtain eternal life. I had not yet inquired more carefully, nor had I yet discovered, what the election of grace is; of which the same apostle says, The remnant have been saved through the election of grace.

which is certainly not grace, if any merits precede it: so that what is given may not be rendered according to grace, but according to debt, being repaid to merits rather than bestowed as a gift. Therefore, what I said next—For the same apostle says, The same God who works all things in all (1 Cor 12:6); but it is nowhere said, God believes all things in all—and then I added, Therefore, that we believe is ours; but that we work good is his who gives the Holy Spirit to those who believe—I would not say this, if I already knew that this very thing is also found among the gifts of God which are given in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, both are ours because of the free choice of the will, and yet both are given through the Spirit of faith and love. For it is not love alone, but, as it is written, Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 6:23). And what I said a little later—That to believe and to will is ours; but to give to those who believe and will the ability to work well through the Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts—is indeed true, but by the same rule; and both are his, because he himself prepares the will; and both are ours, because it is not done except when we will. And through this, what I also said afterward—That we cannot will unless we are called; and when after the calling we have willed, it is not enough—

our will and our running, unless God both supplies strength to those who run and leads them to where he calls; and then I added, "It is manifest, therefore, that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. 9:16), that we do good: this is altogether most true. But I discoursed too little about that calling itself, which is made according to the purpose of God: for it is not such in all who are called, but only in the elect. Therefore what I said a little later—"For just as in those whom God has chosen, it is not works but faith that begins merit, so that through God's gift they may do good; so in those whom he condemns, unbelief and impiety begin the merit of punishment, so that through that very punishment they may also do evil"—I said most truly, but that the merit of faith is itself also a gift of God, I did not think needed to be asked, though I said it with my mouth. And in another place: "For he whom he has mercy on," I said, "he makes to do good; and whom he hardens (Ibid., 18), he leaves to do evil": but both that mercy is attributed to the preceding merit of faith, and that hardening to preceding iniquity. This indeed is true; but it still had to be asked whether the merit of faith also comes from the mercy of God; that is, whether that mercy is wrought in a man only because he is faithful, or was wrought even so that he might be faithful. For we read the Apostle saying, "I obtained mercy, that I might be faithful" (1 Cor. 7:25); he did not say, "because I was faithful." To the faithful, therefore, it is indeed given, but it was also given that he might be faithful.

Most rightly, therefore, did I say elsewhere in the same book: "For if it is not from works, but by the mercy of God, that we are both called to believe and, believing, are granted to do good, that mercy is not to be envied by the Gentiles, although there I treated less diligently of that calling which is made according to the purpose of God" (Retract. book i, chap. 23, nos. 3, 4).

CHAPTER IV. — 8. You surely see what I then thought concerning faith and works, although I was laboring to commend the grace of God; and I see that these our brothers are now of that opinion, because they have not taken care, as they read my books, so also to make progress in them with me. For if they had taken care, they would have found this question solved according to the truth of the divine Scriptures in the first of the two books which I wrote to Simplicianus, of blessed memory, bishop of the Church of Milan, successor of Saint Ambrose, at the very beginning of my episcopate. Unless perhaps they do not know them; but if that is so, it is easy for them to know them. Concerning this first of those two books I spoke first in the second book of the Retractations; and my statement there is as follows: "The first two of the books," I say, "which I labored over as bishop are addressed to Simplicianus, overseer of the Church of Milan, who succeeded the most blessed Ambrose, on various questions, two of which I gathered from the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans into the first book. The first of these is concerning what is written, What then shall we say? Is the law sin?

Far be it from this; up to that point where he says, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:7-25). In that passage those words of the Apostle, "The law is spiritual, but I am carnal" (ibid., 14), and the rest by which the flesh is shown to strive against the spirit, I expounded in such a way as if a man were being described as still under the law, not yet established under grace. For long afterward I learned that those words can also be—and this is more probable—those of a spiritual man. The question in this book comes later, from the place where he says, "Not only so, but also Rebecca, having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac," up to that place where he says, "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become as Sodom, and would have been like Gomorrha" (ibid., 9:10-29). In the solution of this question, indeed, labor was expended on behalf of the free choice of the human will; but the grace of God prevailed, nor could it be arrived at otherwise than that the Apostle is understood to have spoken with the clearest truth: "For who distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7). Wishing also to show this, the martyr Cyprian defined the whole matter by its very title, saying: "In nothing is glorying to be done, since nothing is ours" (Retract. book 1, chap. 1, no. 1).

Behold why I said above that I too had been especially convicted by this apostolic testimony, when I once thought otherwise about this matter, which God revealed to me in resolving this question when I was writing to Bishop Simplicianus, as I said. This testimony of the Apostle, then, where he said to restrain man's puffing up, "For what do you have that you did not receive?" does not allow any of the faithful to say, "I have faith which I did not receive." All the loftiness of this reply is utterly checked by the apostolic words. But not even this can be said: "Although I do not have perfect faith, I have at least its beginning, by which I first believed in Christ." For here too it is answered: "But what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you glory as if you did not receive it?" (1 Cor. 4:7).

CHAPTER V. —9. But as for what they think—that this cannot be said of this faith, "For what do you have that you did not receive?" because it remained in the same nature, though corrupted, which was first given sound and perfect (In the Epistle of Hilary, n. [. . .] above, col. [. . .])

It is understood that this has no bearing on what they will, if one considers why the Apostle said this. For he was dealing with the matter so that no one should glory in man, since dissensions had arisen among the Corinthian Christians, so that each one was saying, "I indeed am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," and another, "I am of Cephas." And from this it came about that he said, "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong; and the base things of the world and the things despised has God chosen, and the things that are not, as though they were, to bring to nothing the things that are; so that no flesh should glory before God." Here certainly, against human pride, the Apostle's intention is clear enough, that no one should glory in man, and by this very fact not in himself either. Finally, when he had said, "so that no flesh should glory before God," in order to show in what man ought to glory, he immediately added, "But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who was made for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: so that, as it is written, 'He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.'" Then his intention comes to this, that afterward he says in rebuke, "For you are still carnal: for since there is among you envy and strife, are you not carnal, and walking according to man? For while one says, 'I indeed am of Paul,' and another, 'I am of Apollos,' are you not men? What then is Apollos? What indeed is Paul?

Ministers through whom you believed, and to each one as the Lord gave. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither the one who plants is anything, nor the one who waters, but God who gives the increase. Do you see that the Apostle does nothing except that man be humbled and God alone exalted? Since indeed in those who are planted and watered, he says that not even the planter and the waterer himself is anything, but God who gives the increase; although even this very thing—that the one plants and the other waters—he attributes not to themselves but to the Lord, saying: To each one as the Lord gave. I planted, Apollos watered. Therefore, persisting in the same intention, he comes to this, that he should say: Therefore let no one glory in man. For he had already said: Whoever glories, let him glory in the Lord. After this and certain other things that are connected to these, that same intention is brought to this, that he should say: But these things, brothers, I have transferred to myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you may learn not to be puffed up one against another beyond what is written. For who distinguishes you? But what do you have that you did not receive? But if you also received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?

In this most evident intention of the Apostle, in which he speaks against human pride, so that no one should glory in man but in the Lord, it is, in my judgment, far too absurd to suspect that the gifts of God are natural gifts—whether the whole perfect nature itself, such as was given in the first creation, or whatever remnants of corrupted nature. For is it not by these gifts, which are common to all men, that men are distinguished from men? But here he first said, Who is it that distinguishes you? and then added, What do you have that you did not receive? For a man puffed up against another could say, My faith distinguishes me, my righteousness, or whatever else. Meeting such thoughts, the good teacher says, What do you have that you did not receive? From whom, if not from him who distinguishes you from another, to whom he did not give what he gave to you? But if you also received it, he says, why do you glory as if you had not received it? Does he, I ask, do anything other than that he who glories should glory in the Lord? But nothing is so contrary to this understanding as for anyone to glory in his own merits as though he himself had made them for himself, not by the grace of God—but by the grace that distinguishes the good from the evil, not the grace that is common to the good and the evil.

Let grace, then, be attributed to nature, by which we are rational living beings and are distinguished from cattle; let grace also be attributed to nature, by which among men themselves the beautiful are distinguished from the deformed, or the clever from the dull, and whatever else of this kind there is; but the man whom the Apostle was restraining was not puffed up against cattle, nor against another man on account of some natural gift that could be present even in a very wicked man; but he was puffed up by attributing to himself and not to God some good that pertained to a good life, when he deserved to hear, Who is it that distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive? For to be able to have faith is of nature; is it also to have it? For faith is not of all, whereas to be able to have faith is of all. But the Apostle did not say, What can you have that you did not receive, so as to have it; but he said, What do you have that you did not receive? Accordingly, to be able to have faith, just as to be able to have charity, is of the nature of men; but to have faith, just as to have charity, is of the grace of the faithful. That nature, therefore, in which the possibility of having faith is given to us, does not distinguish one man from another; but faith itself distinguishes the faithful from the unbeliever. And therefore, where it is said, Who is it that distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive?

Whoever dares to say, “I have faith from myself, and therefore I did not receive it,” plainly contradicts this most open truth: not that to believe or not to believe is not within the power of the human will, but that in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord (Prov. 8, according to the Septuagint). Therefore this too pertains to faith itself, which is in the will: “For who distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive?”

CHAPTER VI. — 11. Many hear the word of truth, but some believe and others contradict. These, then, wish to believe; those do not wish to. Who does not know this? Who denies it? But since the will is prepared by the Lord in some and not prepared in others, it must certainly be discerned what comes from his mercy and what from his judgment. “What Israel sought,” says the Apostle, “it did not obtain; but the election obtained it; the rest were blinded, as it is written, God gave them a spirit of compunction, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, even to this present day.” And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a recompense and a stumbling block to them: let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and let their back be bowed down always.” Behold mercy and judgment: mercy in the election which obtained the righteousness of God; judgment in the rest who were blinded; and yet those believed because they willed, and these did not believe because they willed not. Mercy, therefore, and judgment were wrought in their very wills.

For that election is of grace, not certainly of merits. For he had said above: So then also at this present time, the remnant are saved according to the election of grace. But if by grace, it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace (Rom. 11:5-10). Therefore election has obtained freely what it has obtained; nothing on their part preceded, which they might give first and be repaid; he saved them for nothing. But for the rest who were blinded, as is not left unsaid there, it was done in retribution. All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps. 24:10). But his ways are past finding out (Rom. 11:33). Past finding out, therefore, are both the mercy by which he freely delivers and the truth by which he justly judges.

CHAPTER VII. — 12. But perhaps they may say that the Apostle distinguishes faith from works, and says that grace is not of works, but does not say that it is not of faith. So indeed it is; but Jesus also says that faith itself is the work of God, and commands us to do it. For the Jews said to him: What shall we do, that we may work the work of God? Jesus answered and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent (John 6:28-29). So then the Apostle distinguishes faith from works, just as in the two kingdoms of the Hebrews Judas is distinguished from Israel, although Judas himself also is Israel. But he says that a man is justified by faith, not by works (Gal.

For that first grace is given, from which the rest are obtained—the things properly called works, in which one lives justly. For he himself also says: By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God—that is, even the faith, which I said is through faith, is not from yourselves but is the gift of God. Not from works, he says, lest perhaps anyone be puffed up. For it is commonly said: Therefore he deserved to believe, because he was a good man even before he believed. This can be said of Cornelius, whose alms were accepted and whose prayers were heard before he had believed in Christ; and yet he was not giving and praying without some faith. For how could he call upon one in whom he had not believed? But if he could be saved without faith in Christ, the apostle Peter would not have been sent as an architect to build him up—although unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. And it is said to us: Faith is from ourselves, the rest from the Lord, pertaining to the works of righteousness—as if faith did not pertain to the building; as if, I say, the foundation did not pertain to the building. But if it pertains first and most of all, the builder labors in vain in preaching if the Lord does not build faith within by his mercy. Whatever therefore Cornelius did well, both before he believed in Christ and when he believed and when he had believed, must all be ascribed to God, lest perhaps anyone be puffed up.

CHAPTER VIII — 13. Accordingly, the one Master and Lord himself, when he had said what I recalled above—that is, It is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent—says a little later in that same discourse of his: I told you that you have both seen me and have not believed. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me. What is "will come to me" but "will believe in me"? But in order that it happen, the Father gives it. Likewise a little later: Do not murmur among yourselves, he says; no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets: And they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me. What is "Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me" but "There is no one who hears from the Father and learns and does not come to me"? For if everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes, then certainly everyone who does not come has not heard from the Father nor learned; for if he had heard and learned, he would come. For no one has heard and learned and does not come; but everyone, as the Truth says, who has heard from the Father and learned comes. This school, in which the Father is heard and teaches so that one comes to the Son, is far removed from the senses of the flesh. There the Son himself is also present, because he is his Word, through which he thus teaches; and he does this not with the ear of the flesh, but of the heart.

At the same time, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son is there as well; for he himself does not fail to teach, nor does he teach separately, since we have learned that the works of the Trinity are inseparable. And he is certainly the Holy Spirit of whom the Apostle says, "Having the same Spirit of faith" (2 Cor 4:13). But this is attributed especially to the Father because the Only-begotten is begotten from him, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from him; to dispute this at length is a drawn-out task, and I think my labor on the Trinity, which is God, has already reached you in fifteen books. This school, I say, in which God is heard and teaches, is far removed from the senses of the flesh. We see many come to the Son, because we see many believe in Christ; but where and how they have heard this from the Father and learned it, we do not see. This grace is exceedingly secret; but who would doubt that it is grace? And so this grace, which is bestowed on human hearts by divine generosity in secret, is not rejected by any hard heart. For it is bestowed precisely so that the hardness of the heart may first be taken away. Therefore, when the Father is heard within and teaches, so that one comes to the Son, he takes away the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh, as the prophet promised in his preaching (Ezek 11:19). For thus he makes sons of promise, and vessels of mercy which he has prepared for glory.

Why then does he not teach all to come to Christ, except that those whom he teaches, he teaches by mercy; but those whom he does not teach, he does not teach by judgment? Because he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens: but he has mercy by bestowing good things; he hardens by repaying what is deserved. Or if these too, as some have preferred to distinguish, are the words of him to whom the Apostle says, You say therefore to me—so that it is taken as if he himself said, Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens; and what follows, that is, Why does he still complain? For who resists his will?—was it perhaps answered by the Apostle, Man, what you have said is false? No: but the answer was, Man, who are you to answer God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me thus? Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump, and the rest, which you know very well. And yet in a certain manner, the Father teaches all to come to his Son. For it is not in vain that it is written in the Prophets, And they shall all be taught by God. And when he had set this testimony before them, he then added, Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. Therefore, just as we speak correctly when we say of some teacher of letters who is the only one in the city, This man teaches everyone here letters—not because everyone learns, but because no one learns letters there except from him—so we rightly say, God teaches all to come to Christ, not because all come, but because no one comes otherwise.

But why he does not teach all, the Apostle has revealed, as far as he judged it ought to be revealed: because, willing to show his wrath and to demonstrate his power, he bore with much patience vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy which he prepared for glory (Rom. 9:18-23). Hence it is that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing; but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18). All these God teaches to come to Christ; for he wills all these to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). For if he had willed to teach even those to whom the word of the cross is foolishness, so that they might come to Christ, without doubt they too would come. For he does not deceive nor is he deceived who says, Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes to me. Far be it, therefore, that anyone who has heard from the Father and has learned should not come.

Why, then, they say, does he not teach all? If we say that those whom he does not teach are unwilling to learn, we will be answered, And where is that which is said to him, O God, you will turn and give us life (Ps. 84:7)? Or if God does not make the willing out of the unwilling, why does the Church pray, according to the command of the Lord, for its persecutors (Matt. 5:44)? For thus also Saint Cyprian wished what we say to be understood, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10): that is, as in those who

...have believed, and are as it were heaven; so also in those who do not believe, and for this reason are still earth. What then do we pray for those unwilling to believe, except that God may work in them even to will (Philippians 2:15)? Concerning the Jews certainly the Apostle says: Brethren, my heart's good will and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation (Romans 10:1). He prays for those who do not believe—for what, except that they may believe? For they do not otherwise obtain salvation. If therefore the faith of those who pray precedes the grace of God, does the faith of those for whom it is prayed that they may believe precede the grace of God? Since it is prayed for them precisely that faith itself may be given to those not believing, that is, not having faith. When therefore the preacher of the Gospel speaks, some believe, some do not believe: but those who believe, while the preacher sounds outwardly, hear and learn inwardly from the Father; those who do not believe, hear outwardly, but do not hear or learn inwardly: that is, to the former it is given that they may believe, to the latter it is not given. Because, he says, no one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Which is said more openly afterwards. For after some time, when he was speaking of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and certain even of his disciples said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? Jesus, knowing within himself that his disciples were murmuring about this, said to them: Does this scandalize you?

And a little later: The words, he says, that I have spoken to you are spirit and life; but there are some of you who do not believe. And soon after the Evangelist says: For Jesus knew from the beginning who were the believers, and who was to betray him, and he said: For this reason I said to you, that no one can come to me unless it has been given to him by my Father (John 6:44-66). Therefore to be drawn by the Father to Christ, and to hear and learn from the Father so as to come to Christ, is nothing other than to receive from the Father the gift by which one believes in Christ. For he was not distinguishing those who hear the Gospel from those who do not hear, but believers from unbelievers, when he said: No one comes to me unless it has been given to him by my Father.

Faith, therefore, both begun and perfected, is a gift of God; and that this gift is given to some and not to others, let no one doubt who does not wish to oppose the most manifest sacred Scriptures. But why it is not given to all ought not to disturb the faithful man, who believes that all have gone into condemnation from one man, a condemnation without doubt most just; so that there would be no just reproach of God, even if no one were delivered from it. Hence it is evident that it is a great grace that very many are delivered, and that in those who are not delivered they recognize what was owed to themselves: so that he who glories may glory not in his own merits, which he sees to be the same as those of the damned, but in the Lord. But why he delivers this one rather than that one, his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out (Rom. 11:33).

For here it is better that we too hear or say, "Man, who are you to answer back to God?" (Rom 9:20), than that we dare to say, as if we knew, what he wished to be hidden—he who nevertheless could not wish anything unjust.

CHAPTER IX. — 17. But as for what you recall that I said in a certain little work of mine against Porphyry, under the title On the Time of the Christian Religion: I said it in such a way as to pass over this more careful and more laborious discussion concerning Grace—not, indeed, without indicating that I had been unwilling to explain it in that place, since it could be explained elsewhere or by others.

For I spoke thus among other things, responding to the question that was proposed—why Christ came after so long a time: "Accordingly," I said, "since they do not object to Christ that not all follow his teaching (for they themselves perceive that this cannot rightly be objected either to the wisdom of the philosophers or even to the divinity of their gods), what will they answer if, setting aside that height of the wisdom and knowledge of God, where perhaps another divine counsel lies hidden far more secretly—without prejudice also to other causes that can perhaps be investigated by the prudent—we say this alone to them, for the sake of brevity, in the discussion of this question: that Christ wished to appear to men, and his teaching to be preached among them, at the time when he knew, and where he knew, that there would be those who were going to believe in him. For in those times and in those places in which his Gospel was not preached, he foreknew that all such persons would be, under his preaching, such as—not indeed all, but yet many—were in his bodily presence, who, even after the dead had been raised by him, were unwilling to believe in him; such as also now we see many to be, when the proclamations of the Prophets concerning him are being fulfilled with such great manifestation, still unwilling to believe, and preferring to resist with human cunning rather than to yield to authority so clear and perspicuous, so sublime and so sublimely made known, as long as the intellect of man is small and weak, to approach the divine truth.

What wonder, then, if Christ knew the whole world to be so full of unbelievers in earlier ages that he rightly willed neither to appear to them nor to be preached to those whom he foreknew would believe neither his words nor his miracles? For it is not incredible that all men then were such as we marvel that so many have been and are from his advent even to this time. And yet from the beginning of the human race, sometimes more hiddenly, sometimes more evidently, as it seemed divinely fitting to the times, he did not cease to be prophesied, nor were there lacking those who believed in him, both from Adam to Moses and in the people of Israel itself, which by a certain special mystery was a prophetic people; and among other nations before he came in the flesh. For since certain ones are commemorated in the holy Hebrew books, even from the time of Abraham, neither of the stock of his flesh, nor of the people of Israel, nor of the foreign company associated with the people of Israel, who nevertheless were partakers of this sacrament, why should we not believe that among the other nations here and there there were others at different times, although we do not read that they were commemorated in those same authorities? Thus the salvation of this religion, through which alone true salvation is truly promised, never failed anyone who was worthy; and if it failed anyone, he was not worthy. And from the beginning of human propagation even to the end, it is preached to some for a reward, to some for judgment.

And for this reason, those to whom it was not proclaimed at all were foreknown as not going to believe; and those to whom it was proclaimed though they would not believe are shown forth as an example to those others; but those to whom it is proclaimed as going to believe, these are prepared for the kingdom of heaven and the fellowship of the holy angels.

Do you see that, without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God and other causes, I wished to say this concerning Christ's foreknowledge, which would seem sufficient to refute the unbelief of the pagans who had raised this question? For what is truer than that Christ foreknew who were going to believe in him, and when, and in what places? But whether they were going to have faith in Christ preached to them of themselves, or were going to receive it by God's gift—that is, whether God merely foreknew them or also predestined them—I did not then think it necessary to inquire and discuss. Hence what I said, that Christ willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among them, when he knew and where he knew there were those who were going to believe in him, can also be put thus: that Christ willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among them, when he knew and where he knew there were those who had been chosen in him before the foundation of the world.

But since, if it were said thus, it would make the reader intent on inquiring into those matters which now, by the admonition of the Pelagian error, must needs be disputed more copiously and laboriously, it seemed to me that what was then sufficient should be stated briefly, with the exception, as I said, of the height of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and without prejudice to the other causes concerning which I thought it should be disputed not then, but more opportunely at another time.

CHAPTER X. — 19. Likewise, what I said, that the salvation of this religion has never been lacking to anyone who was worthy, and that he was not worthy to whom it was lacking: if it be discussed and inquired whence anyone is worthy, there are those who say, by human will; but we say, by the grace or predestination of God. Now between grace and predestination there is this much difference only, that predestination is the preparation of grace, but grace is the gift itself. Therefore what the Apostle says, Not of works, lest perhaps anyone be puffed up: for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works; is grace: but what follows, which God prepared, that we might walk in them (Eph. 2:9, 10); is predestination, which cannot be without foreknowledge: but foreknowledge can be without predestination. For by predestination God foreknew those things which he himself was going to do: whence it is said, He made the things that are to come (Isa. 45, according to the LXX).

But to foreknow is possible even for things which he himself does not do, such as any sins whatsoever; because although there are certain things which are sins in such a way that they are also punishments of sins, whence it is said, God handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do things which are not fitting (Rom 1:28), there the sin is not there, but the judgment. Wherefore the predestination of God which is in good is, as I said, the preparation of grace; but grace is the effect of predestination itself. When therefore God promised to Abraham in his seed the faith of the nations, saying, I have made you the father of many nations (Gen 17:4-5), whence the Apostle says, Therefore it is of faith, that the promise may be firm according to grace to all the seed: he promised not from the power of our will, but from his own predestination. For he promised what he himself was going to do, not what men would do. Because even if men do the good things which pertain to the worship of God, he makes them do what he commanded, not they make him do what he promised; otherwise, for God's promises to be fulfilled, it would be in the power not of God but of men, and what was promised by the Lord would be rendered to Abraham by them. But Abraham did not believe in this way, but he believed, giving glory to God, because what he promised he is also able to do (Rom 4:16-21): he did not say, To foretell; he did not say, To foreknow; for he can foretell and foreknow even the deeds of others; but he said, He is also able to do; and through this, deeds not of others, but his own.

Or did God perhaps promise to Abraham in his seed the good works of the Gentiles, so that he would promise what he himself does; but he did not promise the faith of the Gentiles, which men make for themselves; but in order to promise what he himself does, did he foreknow that men would make that faith? The Apostle certainly does not speak thus; for God promised to Abraham children who would follow in the footsteps of his faith: this he says most openly. But if he promised the works of the Gentiles, not faith, then certainly, since there are no good works except from faith (for the just man lives by faith [Habakkuk 2:4]; and, Whatever is not of faith is sin [Romans 14:23]; and, Without faith it is impossible to please [Hebrews 11:6]), nevertheless, in order that God may fulfill what he promised, it lies within man's power. For unless man does what pertains to man without God's giving it, God himself will not do what he gives: that is, unless man has faith from himself, God does not fulfill what he promised, that works of righteousness be given from God. And by this reasoning, in order that God may be able to fulfill his promises, it is not in God's power but in man's. But if truth and piety forbid us to believe this, let us believe with Abraham that he is able also to do what he has promised. But he promised children to Abraham; and they cannot be such unless they have faith: therefore he himself also gives faith.

CHAPTER XI — 21. Indeed, since the Apostle says, Therefore it is of faith, that according to grace the promise might be firm, I marvel that men prefer to commit themselves to their own weakness rather than to the firmness of God's promise. "But," he says, "the will of God concerning me is uncertain." What then? Is your own will concerning yourself certain, and do you not fear, Let him who seems to stand take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12)? Since, therefore, both are uncertain, why does a man not commit his faith, hope, and charity to the stronger rather than to the weaker?

"But when it is said," they say, "'If you have believed, you will be saved' (Rom 10:9), one of these is demanded, the other is offered. What is demanded lies in man's power; what is offered lies in God's power." Why not both in God's power—both what he commands and what he offers? For let him be ruled and let him give what he commands: believers pray that faith may be increased in them; they pray for those who do not believe, that faith may be given to them; and so faith is God's gift both in its increases and in its beginnings. Now "If you have believed, you will be saved" is said just as it is said, "If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you will live." For here too, of these two, one is demanded, the other is offered. "If by the Spirit," he says, "you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you will live": that we mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit is therefore demanded; but that we live is offered.

Does it please us, then, to say that the mortifying of the deeds of the flesh is not a gift of God, and not to confess that it is a gift of God, because we hear it demanded of us with the reward of life offered if we do it? Far be it from the partakers and defenders of grace that this should please them. This is the damnable error of the Pelagians, whose mouths the Apostle at once stopped, adding, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Rom. 8:13-14), lest we should believe that we mortify the deeds of the flesh not through the Spirit of God but through our own spirit. Of this Spirit of God he was also speaking there, where he said: But all these things works one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally as he wills (1 Cor. 12:11). Among all these things, as you know, he also named faith. Therefore, just as the mortifying of the deeds of the flesh, although it is a gift of God, is nevertheless demanded of us with the reward of life set before us, so faith also is a gift of God, although when it is said, If you believe, you will be saved, it is demanded of us with the reward of salvation set before us. For this is why these things are both commanded to us and shown to be gifts of God, so that it may be understood that we both do them and God makes us do them, as he says most openly through the prophet Ezekiel. For what is more open than where he says, I will make you do them (Ezek. 36:27)? Attend to that very passage of Scripture, and you will see that God promises that he will bring it about that they do the things which he commands to be done.

Indeed, he does not there pass over their merits in silence, but their evil merits; by which he shows that he renders good things for evil things, in that very act by which he makes them thereafter to have good works, since he himself makes them to do the divine commandments.

CHAPTER XII — 23. But all this reasoning, by which we defend that the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord is truly grace, that is, is not given according to our merits, although it is asserted most evidently by the testimonies of the divine utterances, nevertheless among those who, unless they assign something to themselves which they may give first so that it may be repaid to them, think that they are restrained from every zeal of piety—it labors somewhat in the age of the elders who already use the free choice of the will. But when one comes to little children, and to the very Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5), every assertion of human merits preceding the grace of God fails; because neither are those children distinguished from the rest by any good merits preceding, so as to belong to the liberator of men; nor was he made the liberator of men by any human merits preceding, since he himself also is man.

For who would listen to the claim that little children are baptized in that very age of infancy on account of their future merits, and are therefore taken out of this life; and that others, unbaptized, die at the same age because their future merits also were foreknown, but evil merits; God rewarding or condemning not a good or evil life of theirs, but no life at all? Indeed, the Apostle has fixed a limit which a man's incautious suspicion—to speak more gently—ought not to transgress. For he says, We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil. He has done, he says; he did not add, or was going to do. But why this notion came into the minds of such men I do not know, that the future merits of little children—merits that are not going to be—should be punished or honored. But why is it said that a man is to be judged according to what he has done through the body, when many things are done by the mind alone, not through the body nor through any member of the body, and often so great that a most just punishment is owed for such thoughts—as, to pass over other examples, that which the fool said in his heart, There is no God? What then does according to what he has done through the body mean, except according to what he has done during the time when he was in the body, so that by through the body we understand through the time of the body?

But after the body no one will be in a body except at the final resurrection; not to acquire any merits, but to receive rewards for good merits and to pay punishments for evil ones. In this intermediate time, however, between the laying down and the receiving back of the body, according to what they have done during the time of the body, souls are either tormented or at rest. To this time of the body belongs also what the Pelagians deny but the Church of Christ confesses: original sin—whether it is loosed by God's grace or, by God's judgment, not loosed—when infants die, they either pass from evils to good things by the merit of regeneration, or pass from evils to evils by the merit of their origin. This the catholic faith knows; in this even certain heretics agree without any contradiction. But that anyone should be judged not according to the merits he had as long as he was in the body, but according to the merits he would have had if he had lived longer in the body—from which men could have formed the opinion, men whose talents your writings show to be not contemptible—I cannot, marveling and astonished, discover; nor would I dare to believe it, were it not that I dare not disbelieve you. But I hope God will be present, so that, once admonished, they may quickly see that the sins which they say would have been future, if by God's judgment they can rightly be punished in the unbaptized, can also by God's grace be forgiven to the baptized.

For whoever says that future sins can only be punished by God's judgment but cannot be forgiven by God's mercy ought to consider how great an injury he does to God and to His grace, as if a future sin could be foreknown but could not be forgiven. But if this is absurd, then rather, sinners who would have sinned in the future if they had lived long, when they die in infancy, ought to have been helped by the laver by which sins are washed away.

CHAPTER XIII. — 25. But if perhaps they say that sins are forgiven to the penitent, and therefore these little ones who die in infancy are not baptized because they were foreknown as not going to perform repentance if they lived, while those who are baptized and depart from the body as little ones God foreknew as going to perform repentance if they lived, let them attend and see that, if this is so, then in little ones dying without baptism it is no longer original sins that are punished, but each one's own future sins if he had lived; and likewise in the baptized it is not original sins that are washed away, but their own future sins if they had lived, since they could not sin except at a greater age; but some were foreseen as going to perform repentance, others as not going to perform it; and therefore some departed baptized, others without baptism. If the Pelagians dared this, they would no longer labor at denying original sin, at seeking for little ones outside the kingdom of God some place of their own felicity, especially since they are convicted that they cannot have eternal life because they have not eaten the flesh nor drunk the blood of Christ (John

(VI, 54); and because in those who have no sin at all, the Baptism that is given for the remission of sins would be false. For they would say outright that there is no original sin at all, but that infants who depart from the body are either baptized or not baptized according to their own future merits, if they were to live; and that according to their own future merits they either receive or do not receive the body and blood of Christ, without which they plainly cannot have life; and that they are baptized into the true remission of sins, although they draw none from Adam; since there are forgiven them the sins of which God foreknew that they would repent. Thus they would most easily make and win their case, by which they deny that there is original sin, and contend that the grace of God is not given except according to our merits. But because the future things of men, which are not future, are without doubt no merits at all, and this is most easy to see: therefore neither could the Pelagians say this; and much more ought these men not to have said it. For it cannot be said how grievously I bear it, that what the Pelagians saw to be most false and most absurd, these men have not seen, who with us condemn the error of those heretics by catholic authority.

CHAPTER XIV. — 26. Cyprian wrote the book On Mortality, commendably well known to many and almost all who love the literature of the Church; in it he shows that death is not only not useless to the faithful, but even found to be useful, since it withdraws a man from the dangers of sinning and establishes him in the security of not sinning. But what does it profit, if even future sins, which have not been committed, are punished? Yet he argues most copiously and excellently that the dangers of sinning are not lacking in this life, nor do they survive after it. There too he sets down that testimony from the book of Wisdom: He was taken away, lest wickedness should change his understanding. You said that our brothers rejected this, when I too had set it down, as though it had not been cited from a canonical book: as if, apart from the testimony of this book, the matter itself were not clear, which we wished to be taught from it. For what Christian would dare to deny that a just man, if he has been overtaken by death, will be in a place of refreshment (Wis. 4:11, 7)? Whoever said this, what man of sound faith would think it must be resisted? Likewise, if he said that a just man, if he has withdrawn from his own righteousness, in which he lived long, and has died in that impiety in which—I do not say one year, but one day—he lived, will go from here into the punishments owed to the wicked, and his past righteousness will profit him nothing (Ezek. 8:24): who among the faithful will contradict this manifest truth?

Furthermore, if it should be asked of us whether, if he had died at that time when he was just, he would have found punishment or rest, shall we hesitate to answer, rest? This is the whole reason why it was said, by whomever it was said, "He was taken away, lest wickedness should change his understanding." For this was said according to the perils of this life, not according to God's foreknowledge, who foreknew what was going to be, not what was not going to be: that is, that he was going to bestow on him an untimely death, so that he might be withdrawn from the uncertainty of temptations; not that he was going to sin, since he was not going to remain in temptation. Concerning this life, indeed, it is read in the book of Job, "Is not human life a trial upon earth?" But why it is granted to some that, while they are just, they are taken away from the perils of this life, while others, just until they fall from justice, are held in the same perils by a more prolonged life, who has known the mind of the Lord? And yet from this it is given to be understood that even those just who keep good and pious conduct even to the maturity of old age and the last day of this life must glory not in their own merits, but in the Lord: since he who took away the just man by the brevity of life, lest wickedness should change his understanding, himself, in however great a length of life, guards the just man, lest wickedness change his understanding. But why he kept here a just man who was going to fall, whom he could have taken away from here before he fell, are judgments altogether most just, but his judgments are unsearchable.

Since these things are so, the judgment of the book of Wisdom ought not to have been repudiated, which deserved to be read in the Church of Christ from the rank of readers of the Church of Christ for so many years, and to be heard by all Christians, from bishops all the way to the lowliest lay faithful, penitents, and catechumens, with the veneration due to divine authority. For certainly, if I were to bring forward, from the expositors of the divine Scriptures who were before us, a defense of this judgment which we are now urged, with the greater diligence and fullness that is now due, to defend against the new error of the Pelagians—namely, that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, and is given freely to whom it is given; because it is neither of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy; but by a just judgment it is not given to whom it is not given, because there is no iniquity with God—if, therefore, I were to produce a defense of this judgment from the catholic expositors of the divine utterances who preceded us, then surely these brothers, on whose behalf we are now acting, would acquiesce; for this is what you indicated in your letters. What need is there, then, for us to search through the little works of those who, before this heresy arose, had no necessity to engage with this question, which is difficult to resolve? They would undoubtedly have done so, if they had been compelled to respond to such people. Hence it came about that they touched only briefly and in passing, in certain places of their writings, on what they thought concerning the grace of God; but they dwelt at length on those matters which were against the enemies.

They disputed from the Church's Scriptures, and in exhortations to every virtue by which the living and true God is served for obtaining eternal life and true felicity. Moreover, from the frequent practice of prayers it plainly appeared what the grace of God availed: for they would not ask of God the things which He commands to be done, unless it were granted by Him that they be done.

But those who wish to be instructed by the opinions of the expositors ought to place this book of Wisdom, where it is read, "He was caught up, lest malice should change his understanding," before all expositors: since even the distinguished expositors nearest to the times of the Apostles placed it before themselves, who, citing it as a witness, believed that they were citing nothing other than divine testimony. And certainly it is established that the most blessed Cyprian disputed in order to commend the benefit of a swifter death, that those who end this life in which it is possible to sin be snatched from the dangers of sins. In the same book he says among other things: Why do you not, being about to be with Christ and secure concerning the Lord's promise, embrace the fact that you are called to Christ; and rejoice that you are free from the devil? And in another place: Children, he says, escape the danger of slippery age. Likewise in another place: Why, he says, do we not hasten and run, that we may see our fatherland, that we may be able to greet our parents? There a great number of our dear ones awaits us—parents, brothers, children; a crowded and abundant throng longs for us, already secure concerning their own safety, still anxious concerning our salvation.

By these and like opinions, that teacher, in the most clear light of the catholic faith, testifies sufficiently and openly that the dangers and temptations of sinning are to be feared until the laying aside of this body; and that thereafter no one will suffer any such things. And even if he did not testify to this, when would any Christian, however ordinary, doubt it? How, then, for a man who has fallen, and who miserably ends this life in that same fall, and goes into the punishments due to such things—how, I say, would it not be of the greatest and highest benefit to him, if from this place of temptations, before he fell, he were snatched away by death?

And for this reason, if a too inconsiderate contention be absent, this whole question is settled concerning him who was taken away, lest malice should change his understanding. Nor on that account ought the book of Wisdom, which by so great a number of years has deserved to be read in the Church of Christ, in which this also is read, to suffer injury, because it resists those who are deceived by the merits of men, so that they come against the most manifest grace of God: which appears especially in little children; of whom, since some are baptized and some not baptized when they reach the end of this life, they indicate sufficiently mercy and judgment; mercy indeed free, judgment due.

For if men were judged according to the merits of their own life, which they did not have when overtaken by death, but would have had if they had lived, it would have profited him nothing who was snatched away lest malice change his understanding; it would have profited those nothing who fall and die, if they had died earlier—something no Christian will dare to say. Wherefore our brothers, who together with us fight against the destruction of the Pelagian error for the catholic faith, ought not to favor to such an extent this Pelagian opinion, by which they suppose that the grace of God is given according to our merits, as to strive to destroy—what those men dare not do—the true and plainly from ancient times Christian sentence, "He was snatched away, lest malice change his understanding," and to assert that—which we would think no one would not only believe but even dream—each of the dead is judged according to those things which he would have done if he had lived a longer time. For thus it is clearly evident that what we say is invincible—that the grace of God is not given according to our merits—since clever men contradicting this truth are compelled to say these things, which must be driven away from the ears and thoughts of all.

CHAPTER XV — 30. There is also a most illustrious light of predestination and grace: the Savior himself, the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. That he should be this, by what preceding merits of his own works or faith did he, in the nature of man that is in him, obtain it? Let it be answered, I ask: that man, in order to be assumed by the Word coeternal with the Father into the unity of person, and to be the only-begotten Son of God—from what did he merit this? What good of his preceded, of whatever kind? What did he do beforehand, what did he believe, what did he ask, that he should attain to this ineffable excellence? Was it not by the Word doing and receiving it that this man himself, from the moment he began to exist, began to be the only-begotten Son of God? Did not that woman full of grace conceive the only Son of God? Was not the only Son of God born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, not by the desire of the flesh, but by a singular gift of God? Was it to be feared that, as age advanced, that man would sin by free will? Or was free will therefore not in him, and not rather so much the more in him as he was the more unable to serve sin? Surely all these things, singularly to be wondered at, and any others that can most truly be called his own, our human nature—that is, our nature—received singularly in him, with no preceding merits of its own. Let this man answer God here, if he dares, and say, Why not I also? And if he hears, O man, who are you that you answer God (Rom. 9:20)? let him not restrain himself, but increase his impudence, and say, How do I hear, You who are, O man?

Since I am what I hear—that is, a man, which is also what he is of whom I speak—why am I not what he also is? But indeed, by grace he is such and so great. Why is grace different, where nature is common? Surely there is no respect of persons with God (Col. 3:25). Who—I do not say a Christian, but a madman—would say these things?

Let that very fountain of grace, then, appear to us in our Head, from which it pours itself out through all his members according to the measure of each one. By that grace does any Christian whatsoever become a man from the beginning of his faith, by which grace that man was made Christ from his own beginning: the one here reborn of the very Spirit of whom the other was born; by the same Spirit is remission of sins given to us, by which Spirit it was brought about that he should have no sin. God certainly foreknew that he would do these things. This, therefore, is the predestination of the saints, which shone forth most of all in the Holy of holies: who of those who rightly understand the words of truth can deny it? For we have learned that the very Lord of glory himself, insofar as he was made a Son of God as man, was predestined. The Teacher of the Gentiles cries out, at the beginning of his Epistles: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined to be the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of sanctification by the resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:1-4).

Jesus, therefore, was predestined so that he who was to be a son of David according to the flesh would nevertheless be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctification, because he was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary. This is that singular, ineffable taking up of a man by God the Word, so that he might be truly and properly called both Son of God and son of man—son of man because of the man he took up, and Son of God because of the only-begotten God who took him up—lest there be believed not a Trinity but a quaternity. Predestined was this so great and so lofty and supreme uplifting of human nature, that it had nowhere higher to be raised; just as for us the divinity itself had nowhere lower to stoop than the nature of man it took up with the weakness of the flesh, even to the death of the cross. As, therefore, that one man was predestined to be our head, so we many have been predestined to be his members. Let human merits here fall silent, which perished through Adam; and let that grace of God reign which reigns through Jesus Christ our Lord, the only Son of God, our one Lord. Whoever finds in our head the preceding merits of that singular generation, let him himself seek in us, his members, the preceding merits of a multiplied regeneration. For that generation was not repaid to Christ but bestowed, so that, being free from every obligation of sin, he might be born of the Spirit and the Virgin.

Thus for us too, to be reborn of water and the Spirit was not repaid as due to any merit, but freely given; and if faith led us to the laver of regeneration, we must not therefore think that we gave something first, so that the regeneration of salvation might be repaid to us. For he himself made us believe in Christ, who made for us the Christ in whom we believe; he himself works in men the beginning of faith and its perfection in Jesus, who made man the author of faith and Jesus its perfecter—for so he is called, as you know, in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

CHAPTER XVI. — 32. For God calls many predestined sons of his own, so as to make them members of his only predestined Son—not by that calling by which those were called who were unwilling to come to the wedding feast; for by that calling the Jews too were called, to whom Christ crucified is a stumbling block, and the Gentiles, to whom the crucified one is foolishness. But he calls the predestined by that calling which the Apostle distinguished when he said that he preached Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, to the called Jews and Greeks themselves. For he says, "But to those who are called"; so as to show that the others were not called—knowing that there is a certain calling of those who have been called according to his purpose, whom he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Signifying this calling, he says: "It was said to her, not of works, but of him who calls, 'The elder shall serve the younger'" (Id. IX, 12, 13). Did he say, "Not of works, but of the one who believes"? Indeed, he even took this away from man, so as to give everything to God. He said, therefore, "but of him who calls"—not of any calling whatsoever, but of that calling by which one becomes a believer.

53. This is what he was also looking at when he said: "The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance." For attend briefly to what was being done there as well. For when he had said, "For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, that you should not be wise in your own conceits: that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved; as it is written, 'There shall come out of Zion he who shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them, when I shall take away their sins'": he immediately added what must be carefully understood, "According to the Gospel indeed, enemies for your sake, but according to election, beloved for the fathers' sake" (Rom. XI, 25-29). What is "According to the Gospel indeed, enemies for your sake," except that their enmity, by which they killed Christ, profited the Gospel, as we see, without doubt? And he shows that this came about by God's disposition, who knows how to use even evils well: not that the vessels of wrath profit him, but that, while he uses them well, they profit the vessels of mercy. For what could have been said more openly than what was said, "According to the Gospel indeed, enemies for your sake"?

It is therefore in the power of evil men to sin; but that by sinning they should do this or that evil thing is not in their power, but in the power of God, who divides the darknesses and orders them, so that even in this—that they do what is against the will of God—nothing is fulfilled except the will of God. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that when the Apostles, having been dismissed by the Jews, came to their own people and reported how many things the priests and elders had said to them, they all with one accord lifted up their voice to the Lord and said: "Lord, you are the one who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them; who by the mouth of our father David, your holy servant, said, 'Why did the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together in one against the Lord and against his Christ'? For truly in this city they gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed—Herod and Pilate, and the people of Israel—to do whatever your hand and your counsel had predestined to be done" (Acts IV, 24–28). Behold what was said: "According to the Gospel, indeed, enemies for your sake." For God's hand and counsel predestined to be done by the hostile Jews as many things as were necessary for the Gospel on our account. But what is it that follows: "But according to election, beloved for the sake of the fathers"? Are those enemies, who perished in their enmities and who, opposing Christ, still perish from that same people—are they themselves the elect and the beloved?

Far be it! Who, even the most foolish, would say this? But both things, though contrary to each other—that is, the enemy and the beloved—apply, though not to the same individuals, yet to the same people of the Jews, and to the same carnal seed of Israel: to some of them for a stumbling, to others for a blessing, as belonging to Israel itself. For he explained this meaning more openly above, where he said, "What Israel sought, this it did not obtain; but the election obtained it, and the rest were blinded" (Rom. 11:7). Yet in both groups it is the same Israel. Where, therefore, we hear, "Israel did not obtain," or, "the rest were blinded," there the enemies are to be understood because of the fathers; but where we hear, "But the election obtained it," there the beloved are to be understood because of the fathers—to which fathers, certainly, these promises were made. For the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed (Gal. 3:16). Hence also into this olive tree the wild olive of the Gentiles is grafted. Now, moreover, as to what election he means—since it is according to grace, not according to debt—it must certainly occur to us; for "the remnant were made through the election of grace" (Rom. 11:5). This election obtained it, while the rest were blinded. According to this election the Israelites are beloved because of the fathers. For they were not called by that calling of which it is said, "Many are called" (Matt. 20:16), but by that by which the elect are called.

Hence here too, after he had said, "But according to election, beloved for the sake of the fathers," he immediately added what we are dealing with: "For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance"—that is, they are firmly fixed without change. All who belong to this calling are taught of God, and no one among them can say, "I believed so that I might thus be called"; for the mercy of God went before him, because he was thus called so that he might believe. For all who are taught of God come to the Son, since they have heard and learned from the Father through the Son, who says most evidently, "Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes to me." But none of these perishes, because of all that the Father has given him, he will not lose any of it (John 6:45, 39). Whoever, therefore, is of that number does not perish at all; nor was he of that number who perished. For this reason it was said, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would certainly have remained with us" (1 John 2:19).

CHAPTER XVII. 34. Let us therefore understand the calling by which men are made elect: not those who are chosen because they believed, but those who are chosen in order that they may believe. For this the Lord himself also sufficiently discloses, when he says: "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). For if they had been chosen for the reason that they had believed, then surely they themselves had first chosen him by believing in him, so that they might deserve to be chosen. But he who says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you," entirely takes this away. And indeed they without doubt chose him, when they believed in him. Hence it is for no other reason that he says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you," except that they did not choose him so that he might choose them, but he chose them so that they might choose him: because his mercy went before them (Psalm 58:11), according to grace, not according to debt. He chose them therefore out of the world when he was already bearing flesh, but already chosen in himself before the foundation of the world. This is the unchangeable truth of predestination and grace. For what is it that the Apostle says, "As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4)? If this was certainly said for the reason that God foreknew that they would believe, and not because he himself was going to make them believers, then the Son speaks against this foreknowledge, saying, "You did not choose me, but I chose you"—when God had rather foreknown this, that they themselves were going to choose him, so that they might deserve to be chosen by him. They were chosen therefore before the foundation of the world by that predestination.

in which God foreknew his future deeds: but they were chosen out of the world by that calling by which God fulfilled what he predestined. For those whom he predestined, he also called; by that calling, namely, according to his purpose: therefore not others, but those whom he predestined, he also called; nor others, but those whom he so called, he also justified; nor others, but those whom he predestined, called, and justified, he also glorified (Rom. 8:30): with that end, certainly, which has no end. God therefore chose the faithful, but that they might be, not because they already were. The Apostle James says: Did not God choose the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God promised to those who love him (James 2:5)? By choosing, therefore, he makes them rich in faith, as heirs of the kingdom. For rightly is that said to be chosen in them which he chooses them in order to make in them. I ask, who that hears the Lord saying, You did not choose me, but I chose you, would dare to say that men believe in order that they may be chosen, when rather they are chosen in order that they may believe, lest they be found to have chosen Christ first, contrary to the sentence of the Truth, to whom Christ says, You did not choose me, but I chose you?

CHAPTER XVIII. 35. Who can hear the Apostle saying, Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless in his sight in love, predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, in which he made us accepted in his beloved Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, that he might show us the mystery of his will, according to his good will, which he purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times to gather up all things in Christ, both the things in the heavens and the things on earth, in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to his purpose, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we should be to the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:3-12): who, I say, can hear these things carefully and intelligently, and dare to doubt that truth, so clear, which we defend? God chose in Christ, before the foundation of the world, his members: and how would he choose those who did not yet exist, except by predestining them? He chose us, therefore, by predestining us. Would he choose the ungodly and the unclean?

For if the question is put, whether he chooses these men, or rather saints and spotless ones, what would one seek for him to answer here, and not immediately bring forward a judgment in favor of the saints and the spotless?

"He therefore foreknew," says the Pelagian, "who would be saints and spotless through the free choice of the will; and therefore he chose them before the foundation of the world in that very foreknowledge of his, by which he foreknew that they would be such. He chose them, then," he says, "before they existed, predestining as sons those whom he foreknew would be saints and spotless; surely he himself did not make them, nor was he going to make them, but he foresaw that they would be such." Let us therefore consider the words of the Apostle, and see whether he chose us before the foundation of the world because we were going to be saints and spotless, or in order that we might be. "Blessed," he says, "be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we might be saints and spotless." Not, therefore, because we were going to be, but in order that we might be. Surely it is certain, surely it is manifest: for indeed we were going to be such because he himself chose us, predestining us so that we might be such through his grace.

He has therefore blessed us with a spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and spotless in his sight, predestining us in love to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ into himself. Then attend to what he adds: according to the good pleasure, he says, of his will; lest in so great a benefit of grace we should glory in the good pleasure of our own will. In which, he says, he has graced us in his beloved Son: in which will of his, certainly, he has graced us. For “he has graced” is said from “grace,” as “he has justified” is said from “justice.” In whom, he says, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, that he might show us the mystery of his will, according to his good will. In this mystery of his will he has placed the riches of his grace, according to his good will, not according to ours: which could not be good unless he himself, according to his good will, came to its aid so that it might become good.

But when he had said, According to the good pleasure of his will, he added, which he purposed in him, that is, in his beloved Son, in the dispensation of the fullness of times to restore all things in Christ, both the things that are in heaven and the things that are on earth in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we should be to the praise of his glory.

It is too long to dispute about each point. But you see without doubt, you see with what great manifestation of the apostolic utterance this grace is defended, against which human merits are extolled, as though man gives something first, so that it may be repaid to him. God therefore chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestining us unto adoption as sons: not because we were going to be holy and spotless through ourselves, but he chose and predestined us that we might be. But he did this according to the good pleasure of his will, so that no one may glory in his own will, but in his will toward himself: he did this according to the riches of his grace, according to his good will, which he purposed in his beloved Son, in whom we have obtained an inheritance, predestined according to the purpose, not of ourselves, but of him who works all things, to such an extent that he himself works in us even to will. But he works according to the counsel of his will, that we may be to the praise of his glory. Hence it is that we cry out that no one should glory in man.

III, 21), and therefore neither in himself; but he who glories, let him glory in the Lord (Id. I, 31), that we may be to the praise of his glory. For he himself works according to his purpose, that we may be to the praise of his glory, namely holy and unblemished, for which he has called us, predestining before the foundation of the world. From this purpose of his comes that calling proper to the elect, for whom all things work together unto good: because they were called according to his purpose (Rom. VIII, 28), and the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

CHAPTER XIX.—38. But these men of ours, about whom and on behalf of whom we are now treating, perhaps say that the Pelagians are refuted by this apostolic testimony, where he says that we were therefore chosen in Christ and predestined before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. For they themselves think that "once the commandments have been received, we are made holy and unblemished in his sight in love by the free decision of our own will; and because God foreknew that this would happen," they say, "he therefore chose and predestined us in Christ before the foundation of the world." Whereas the Apostle says, not that he foreknew that we would be such, but that we should be such through that very election of his grace, by which he made us gracious in his beloved Son. When, therefore, he predestined us, he foreknew his own work, by which he makes us holy and unblemished. Hence the Pelagian error is rightly refuted by this testimony.

But we say," they assert, "that God foreknew only our faith, by which we begin to believe, and therefore chose us before the foundation of the world, and predestined us, so that by his grace and work we might be holy and blameless." But let them also hear in this testimony, where it says, We have obtained a lot, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. Therefore he himself works that we begin to believe, who works all things. For that calling of which it is said, For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance (Rom. XI, 29); and of which it is said, Not of works, but of him who calls (Id. ix, 12); when he could have said, But of him who believes: and the election which the Lord signified, saying, You did not choose me, but I chose you (John xv, 16); not even faith itself precedes. For it is not because we believed, but so that we might believe, that he chose us: lest we be said to have chosen him first, and so be made false—which God forbid—that saying, You did not choose me, but I chose you. Nor is it because we believed, but so that we might believe, that we are called: and by that calling, which is without repentance, it is precisely brought about and continued, that we may believe. Nor must all the many things we have said on this matter be repeated.

Finally, also in the subsequent words of this testimony. The Apostle gives thanks to God for those who believed—not, of course, because the Gospel was announced to them, but because they believed. For he says: "In whom you also, hearing the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, in whom believing you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of acquisition, unto the praise of his glory: for this reason I also, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and in all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you" (Eph. 1). Their faith was new and recent, [received] when the Gospel was preached to them; and having heard of this faith, the Apostle gives thanks to God for them. If he were giving thanks to a man for something that he either thought the man had not bestowed or knew he had not bestowed, it would more truly be called flattery or mockery than thanksgiving. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7): for even the faith that begins is his gift, lest the Apostle's thanksgiving be judged by its merit to be false or deceitful. What of this? Does not the beginning of faith among the Thessalonians appear, concerning which the same apostle nevertheless gives thanks to God, saying, "For this reason we also give thanks to God without ceasing, because when you had received from us the word of the hearing of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which works in you who have believed" (1 Thess. 2:13)? What is it that he gives thanks to God for here? Surely it is vain and empty if the one to whom he gives thanks did not himself do this?

But because this is not vain and empty, surely God, to whom he gives thanks for this work, himself brought it about that when they had received from the Apostle the word of the hearing of God, they welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God. God therefore works in the hearts of men, by that calling according to his purpose about which we have said much, so that they do not hear the Gospel in vain, but having heard it are converted and believe, receiving it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God.

CHAPTER XX. — 40. He also admonishes us that the very beginning of faith in men is a gift of God, when the Apostle signifies this, saying in the Epistle to the Colossians: Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving, praying at the same time also for us, that God may open to us a door of his word to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak (Col. IV, 2-4). How is the door of the word opened, except when the understanding of the hearer is opened so that he believes, and, with the beginning of faith having been made, he admits those things which are preached and discussed for building up sound doctrine; lest through unbelief, with his heart closed, he disapprove and reject the things that are said? Hence he also says to the Corinthians: But I will remain at Ephesus until Pentecost; for a great and evident door has been opened to me, and there are many adversaries (I Cor. XVI, 8, 9).

What else can be understood here, except that when the Gospel was first preached there by him, many believed and many became adversaries of the same faith, according to that saying of the Lord, No one comes to me unless it has been given to him by my Father (John 6:66); and, To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; but to them it has not been given (Matthew 13:11)? The door, then, was opened in those to whom it was given, but many adversaries arose from among those to whom it was not given.

And again, to the same people, in his second Epistle, the same apostle says: When I came to Troas for the Gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking leave of them, I went out into Macedonia. Whom did he take leave of, but those who had believed, in whose hearts, surely, the door was opened to him as he preached the Gospel? But attend to what he adds: But thanks be to God, he says, who always makes us triumph in Christ, and manifests the odor of his knowledge through us in every place; for we are the good odor of Christ to God, in those who are saved and in those who perish; to some indeed the odor of death unto death, but to others the odor of life unto life. Behold why that most vigorous soldier and most invincible defender of grace gives thanks; behold why he gives thanks, because the Apostles are a good odor of Christ to God, both in those who are saved by his grace and in those who perish by his judgment.

But so that those who understand this too little may not be angered, he himself gives warning when he adds and says, And who is sufficient for these things? But let us return to the opening of the door, by which the Apostle signified the beginning of faith in those who hear. For what is it, Praying together also for us, that God may open to us a door of the word, except a most clear demonstration that even the very beginning of faith is a gift of God? For it would not be sought from him in prayer, unless it were believed to be given by him. This year of heavenly grace had descended upon that woman in purple, to whom, as the Scripture says in the Acts of the Apostles, God had opened her heart, and she was attentive to the things that were being said by Paul. For thus she was called, so that she might believe. For God works what he wills in the hearts of men, either by helping or by judging, so that even through them may be fulfilled what his hand and counsel predestined to be done.

In vain, therefore, they have also said that that example which we proved by the testimony of the Scripture of Kings and Chronicles—that when God wills something to be done which ought to be done only by willing men, He inclines their hearts to will it (1 Kings 26, and 1 Chronicles 12:18)—does not pertain to the cause we are discussing, since He inclines them who in a wondrous and ineffable manner works in us even to will. What is this but to say nothing and yet to contradict? Unless perhaps they have given you some reason why this seemed so to them, which you preferred to keep silent in your letters. But what that reason could be, I do not know. Or is it perhaps that, because we have shown that God did this in the hearts of men, and brought to this point the wills of those whom it pleased Him—so that Saul or David should be made king—they therefore think that these examples do not fit this cause, since to reign temporally in this world is not the same as to reign eternally with God; and accordingly they suppose that God inclines wills to establish earthly kingdoms, but does not incline the wills of whom He wills to obtain the heavenly kingdom? But I think that it was said on account of the kingdom of heaven, not on account of an earthly kingdom: Incline my heart to your testimonies (Psalm 119:36); or, The steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and he will desire his way (Psalm 37:23); or, The will is prepared by the Lord (Proverbs 8, according to the Septuagint).

or, Let the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers: let Him not forsake us, nor turn away from us; let Him incline our hearts to Himself, that we may walk in all His ways (3 Kings 8:57-58); or, I will give him a heart to know Me, and ears that hear (Baruch 2:31); or, I will give them another heart, and a new spirit will I give them (Ezekiel 11:19). Let them hear also that saying, I will give My Spirit in you, and I will cause you to walk in My justifications, and to observe and do My judgments (ibid. 36:27); let them hear, The steps of a man are directed by the Lord; but how does a mortal understand his own ways (Proverbs 20:24)? let them hear, Every man seems just to himself; but the Lord directs the hearts (ibid. 21:2); let them hear, As many as were ordained to eternal life believed (Acts 13:48). Let them hear these things, and whatever else I have not cited, by which it is shown that God prepares and turns the wills of men even for the kingdom of heaven and eternal life. But consider what a thing it is that we should believe that God works the wills of men for the establishing of earthly kingdoms, and that men work their own wills for obtaining the kingdom of heaven.

CHAPTER XII. — 43. We have said many things, and perhaps we have already been able to persuade our adversary of what we wish, and yet we still speak to such good minds as though they were dull, to whom even what is excessive is not enough. But let them pardon us; for a new question has compelled us to this. For when in our earlier little works we had treated with sufficiently suitable testimonies that faith also is a gift of God, it was found that it was contradicted, that those testimonies are of value for this purpose, to show that the gift of God is in the perseverance of faith; but that the beginning itself by which one first believes in Christ is from man himself, and is not a gift of God, but that God demands this, so that when it has come, the rest may be obtained as if by this merit, which are the gifts of God; nor is any of them given freely, since in them the grace of God, which is not grace unless it is gratuitous, is proclaimed. You see how absurd this is; on account of which we have insisted, as much as we could, that we might show that even the beginning itself of faith is a gift of God. And although we have done this at greater length than perhaps those on whose account we did it might wish, we are prepared to be reproved by them for this: provided that, even if at much greater length than they wish, even if with the disgust and weariness of those who understand, they admit that we have done what we have done, that is, that we have taught that even the beginning of faith, just as continence, patience, justice, piety, and the rest, concerning which there is no contention with them, is a gift of God. Let this, then, be the end of this volume, lest the excessive length of one book give offense.

HERE ENDS THE FIRST PART OF THE TENTH VOLUME.

At Paris. — From the Press of J.-P. MIGNE.