Anti-Arian Works 15 part 1/2

CHAPTER ONE. When in the sacred volumes of the Scriptures—whether those pronouncing something of things future by a prophetic spirit, or narrating things past with historical truth, or delivering counsels of life with apostolic authority—some passage, as it were sounding differently in its sentence, either moves the reader or troubles the hearer, it must be held with sure and unshaken faith as known that the mysteries of one and the same Spirit—and of Him besides whom there is nothing of truth—sound forth more openly in one place, a little more hiddenly in another.

And rightly, if anything is left suspended by a hidden signification, or briefly indicated by the writer and expounded less than the dullness of the human heart demanded, let him know that here it appears more clearly, there it lies more deeply hidden, but that nowhere is the truth lacking. But if, on account of the greatness of the matter concerning which the inquiry is made, the understanding does not easily meet the senses of the inquirer—especially if concerning the immutable will of almighty God each sentence of canonical authority sounds differently—then all those things are to be directed to the rule of piety, so that it be held by unshaken definition that God is neither unjust, nor one who loosens the merits of individuals by a certain confused respect of persons, nor weak, so as to be unable to accomplish whatever He has willed.

CHAPTER TWO. Under the yoke, therefore, of this definition, lest our badly free necks run riot into sacrilegious rashness, let us recall, as far as by God's gift we are able, the hidden things of this question, which the blessed apostle Paul in various places, with words not a little discrepant, sets before diligent examiners, and through it speaks to them the truth. For, concluding thus a sentence about the grace of God going before, wrought out with a very broad and very robust disputation, he says: 'Therefore He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth' (Rom. 9:18); while in another Epistle he himself speaks thus concerning the divine benevolence: 'Who willeth all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth' (1 Tim.

2:4). For the question arises: why some of these perish, when almighty God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth? and then why He again hardens others, having had mercy on some? or in what manner He wills all men to be saved, when He Himself hardens some so that they may not be saved. This, as far as human justice is concerned, seems unjust. But who would be so foolish, or rather who would so blaspheme, as to say concerning the justice of God that it must be disputed by the law of human justice? which indeed, if it is opposed to the justice of God, is unjust. For from Him who is supremely just, it is manifest that everything which is in any way just flows forth.

Who then will there be who would make the wisdom of God—abiding immutably, and founding, ruling, and preserving all things that are—hang upon the judgment of human wisdom? Concerning which the same apostle says that 'the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God' (Rom. 8:7). And elsewhere: 'The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God' (1 Cor. 3:19). It is not therefore to be disputed concerning that majesty of divine wisdom by the judgment of human vanity. CHAPTER THREE. But if anyone, by thus nourishing his sins, is deceived by the figure or shadow, or by the swelling of pride flattering him, so as to say what the blessed apostle Paul at once saw that some would say—for he added: 'Someone will say: If He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth, why doth He yet complain?'

'For who resisteth His will?' (Rom. 9:19)—let him know that by this sentence we are rather driven and constrained to humility and piety. For when the most ample teacher, referring the whole to God, denies it to human powers, what else does he exhort but that, suspended upon God with our whole heart, we should ask from Him the helps of salvation? Whom, therefore, this diversity in the dispensation of divine grace moves, and who thinks it unjust that to one is denied what another has received, let him understand how the Psalmist divinely said: 'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth' (Ps. 25:10); and let him acknowledge that God governs human affairs by such a judgment that He either justly renders the due punishments, or mercifully remits them.

For the stain of the corrupted root has so been spread through the shoots by the propagation of generations that not even an infant of one day is free from the guilt of the first transgression (Job 14:4, according to the Septuagint), unless he has been freed by the undeserved grace of the Savior. But if not even he is without sin who could not have any of his own, it follows that he has drawn that alien sin concerning which the Apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so it passed unto all men, in whom all have sinned' (Rom. 5:12). And whoever denies this, denies indeed that we are firstly mortal. For if, as the Apostle says, 'By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death:'

death could not enter except by sin entering. And since death is not a condition of nature, but the punishment of sin, it necessarily follows that the punishment follows the sin. But since death passed unto all men, of necessity sin must have passed unto all. In what manner sin is born as original with the little ones, we cannot see with the eyes of the flesh. But since we see all who are born carnally from Adam—and even those who are already reborn in Christ—bound by the law of death, through this—that we see the little ones always dying—we are compelled to confess that the little ones are always born with original sin.

For it could more easily happen that, although sin passed over, the punishment should by no means follow, than that one who has no guilt should take a part of the punishment with no communication of sin. If therefore, as has appeared, we are all born debtors from the seed of the transgressor—since in him all, as the Apostle says, have sinned, and the very mass from which we descend was already condemned in the beginning—let no one dare to complain of his own hardness, no one of his own punishment, which is owed by the mere condition of being born, even when there are no sins of one's own. But that God bestows undeserved mercy upon others converted by gratuitous calling, is to be referred not to the justice of the dispensation,

but to the most merciful bounty (elsewhere: liberty) of the Giver, and is to be referred by the reasoning of truth. Will a debtor dare to accuse a creditor of iniquity, if, giving to another, he exacts from him what was owed? If therefore, among the contracts of men, there is no ground of prescription such that a debtor may say that it is unjustly exacted from him because he knows that it was forgiven by the same creditor to another debtor what he owed; who would burst forth into such madness of profane speech as to accuse God of injustice, if to one He has given undeserved grace, and to another rendered the deserved punishment? CHAPTER FOUR. And so, from the earlier part of this sentence, which says: 'On whom He will He hath mercy,' I think that no one, unless unworthy of mercy, would dare to dispute. But as for what follows:

'Whom He will He hardeneth,' there the intention of the human mind is a little confounded by the novelty of the word. But it is not to be so understood, as if God works in a man that very hardness of heart which did not exist. For what else is hardness, than to oppose the commandments of God? Whence blessed Stephen said to the people: 'Stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit' (Acts 7:51). And whoever thinks this to be done by God, on account of what is said: 'Whom He will He hardeneth,' let him look upon the very beginning of transgression, and let him attend to the commandment given by God, through which the guilt of transgression was wrought in the heart—although not even by that tempter could man have been compelled, if he had refused his assent.

Therefore whatever the man born to punishment suffers on account of that transgression, let him confess that it is justly rendered and deservedly. For God is said to harden him whom He has been unwilling to soften. So too He is said to blind him whom He has been unwilling to enlighten. So too He is said to repel him whom He has been unwilling to call. 'For whom He predestinated, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified' (Rom. 8:30). For He Himself gave that we should be, He Himself that we should be able to be good. CHAPTER FIVE. For His divinity foreknew us, His wisdom founded us, His justice condemned us, His grace freed us. For the world, although it began in time from the moment it was made, could have no beginning in that light of divine foreknowledge in which it was to be made;

and however many men have been born, whether from Adam even to the present day, or shall be born after our age by the propagation of generation, they have already been born with God, and, the time of their whole life having run its course, they have passed away, yet nonetheless remaining in that light of the divine gaze. For God, who is neither enclosed by place nor forestalled by time, is full of the memory of all things, both past and of the knowledge of things impending: nor is He turned back in remembering into the past, nor is He stretched forward in hoping into the future. And whatsoever things there are at all, which are agitated by the motions of times, from that beginning in which 'was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1), even unto the end of all the ages. Concerning which end, when blessed Moses said:

'O Lord,' he says, 'who reignest for ever and ever' (Exod. 15:18)—and still neither are things future hoped for, nor have things past passed away, but in the presence of the divinity, with the ever-present Leader, they are discerned. From Him therefore, because He is eternal and foreknowing, because He is both just and merciful—who exercises the due severity and displays the undeserved mercy, and has, in creating and choosing men, as the potter over the clay, the power—some vessels indeed have been made unto honor, but others unto dishonor. Before He made us, He foreknew us, and in that very foreknowledge, while He had not yet made us, He chose us. But by whom could this have been done, except by Him who 'calleth those things that are not, as those that are' (Rom. 4:17)?

For the Apostle says: 'Who chose us before the constitution of the world' (Eph. 1:4). Within the world we were made, and before the world we were chosen: and thus in one and the same time—neither passing nor future, but continuous—or if it can be said in any other way, if only it is with God, both to foreknow, and to make, and to choose, and, His foreknowledge remaining immutably, to choose those to be made whom He was going to make as those to be chosen: these things indeed, as far as pertains to the rule of faith, let them be said with God enlightening us. CHAPTER SIX. But now I see what calumnious depravity may here also object. For it follows that, if those whom He predestinated, them He also called, and if those whom He called, them He also justified (Rom.

8:30), then those who were neither predestinated, nor called, and by this neither justified, ought to be innocent of all guilt, and it would be unjust that punishments should be demanded from them, in that day of recognition, for the depravity of a life transacted. Let Paul the apostle say to these: 'Is there iniquity with God?' (Rom. 9:14). Let him at once himself answer: 'God forbid.' And when this has been founded in the mind of man by sound piety—that there is no iniquity with God—let him thus understand: 'On whom He will He hath mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth' (Rom. 9:18); as though He said: On whom He will He hath mercy, and on whom He will not He hath not mercy. And likewise let him understand this same thing again, as though it were said: To whom He will He gives, and from whom He will He demands the debt.

And whoever persists in calling this unjust, let him hear from the Apostle: 'O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' (Rom. 9:20). For fittingly does the apostolic authority rebuke impiety of this kind, striking with such weight from the exaggeration of names, when he says: 'O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' O man to God, clay to the potter! For the same apostle added: 'Doth the thing formed say to Him that formed it: Why hast Thou made me thus? Or hath not the potter power over the clay, out of the same mass to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?' (Rom. 9:21).

If therefore the potter of the clay has—nay rather, because he has—the power out of the same mass to make one indeed unto honor, but another unto dishonor: O man, who art thou that repliest against God, because on whom He will He hath mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth? But before the blessed Apostle came, by the order of his disputation, to a conclusion of this kind, he took chiefly this example from the ancient writings, in which he might teach the hardening which is said to be done by God: 'The Scripture,' he says, 'saith to Pharaoh: For this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I may show in thee My power, and that My name may be announced in all the earth' (Rom. 9:17; Exod. 9:16).

But that God hardened his heart is stated most plainly in that same Scripture, when He spoke to Moses concerning the signs that were to be wrought through him upon the Egyptians. For thus He says: 'But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he may not let the people go' (Exod. IV, 21). Hereupon the cunning slanderer, vaunting himself as through an open breach, would weigh the justice of God according to his own judgment, and with all the outcry he can muster would answer: 'If He has mercy on whom He will, and hardens whom He will, why does He yet complain? For who resists His will?' To this man's arrogance let the Apostle reply: 'O man, who are you that answers back to God?' (Rom. IX, 19-20).

But whoever, seeking devoutly, desires to find something, let him read again that place of the same Scripture where the fire first appeared to Moses in the bush, and so kindled his heart with the ardor of divine love that in the sight of kings, as David says (Ps. CXVIII, 46), he might speak God's testimonies without confusion; and there he will find that all this, which affirms that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, pertains not to the working of God, but to His foreknowledge. For the Lord, speaking from the bush, says thus: 'But I know that Pharaoh king of Egypt will not let you go, except by a mighty hand. But I will stretch out My hand and strike the Egyptians with all My wonders which I shall do; and afterward Pharaoh king of Egypt will let you go' (Exod. III, 19-20).

This is the first utterance of God, by which He indicates the future will of Pharaoh, as He had foreseen it. Afterward, amid the very downpours of miracles, He is read to have said: 'But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he may not let the people go' (Exod. IV, 21). Here it is now plainly understood that He repeated His first sentence. For what does 'I will harden the heart' mean, except 'I will not soften it'? For it appears, with justice remaining upon some and grace flowing forth upon others, that the sentence of that Scripture was fulfilled, since God said to Pharaoh: 'For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth' (Exod. IX, 16).

For since God makes good use even of evil things—in the hardening of Pharaoh, in the plagues of Egypt, and in so many and so great miracles performed together and heaped upon that nation—what else was accomplished but that the power of God, great in itself, full in itself, might come to the knowledge of the human race, to profit not God, but those very people who read and believe? That Pharaoh was not to be changed, and that whole nation, which after so many blows still tried to pursue with arms and with war the people of God scarcely wrested from it—God foreknew this by that lofty light of His providence.

But He willed that the perishing of those about to perish should be a proof of salvation to the vessels of mercy predestined by Him, and used the ruin of some for the salvation of others; for 'the potter has power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor' (Rom. IX, 21). CHAP. VII. This judgment of the divine power in the election of men the blessed Apostle also, recalling it a little before, demonstrated by most forceful examples, when he spoke of Rebecca's offspring while yet within the womb, referring the whole to the grace of God. For thus he says:

'But Rebecca also, having conceived by one act from Isaac our father, when they were not yet born, and had done nothing good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls, it was said to her that the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated'; and at once he added: 'What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God?' (Rom. IX, 10-13; Gen. XXV, 23; Mal. I, 2). And denying it, he answered: 'God forbid'—so that now all the rest which follows may be referred, held in suspense, to this sentence, and once referred be resolved, by which he denied that there is injustice with God. But what this aim of the apostolic argument here accomplished is quite abundantly clear.

For he compared not only brothers, but twins; not only twins, but those poured into the womb from one act of union: so that, since in those not yet born, nor having done anything, there could be no weight of merits, and not even from the parents' merits (which at different times could be various) could any obstacle be left standing against grace. For these parental merits, even if we grant that the divine protection may have turned away from the little ones or won favor for them, whether good or evil concerning the twin offspring—which was conceived in the same act of union and brought forth into the light at the same moment—must have been equal.

But if it is said that the divine judgment distinguished their future characters, surely that will be nullified which the Apostle set forth, saying: 'Not of works, but of Him who calls, it was said that the elder shall serve the younger.' For he did not say 'of past works,' but when he said generally 'not of works,' there he willed both past to be understood and future: past, that is, which were none, future, which were not yet. Jacob was predestined a vessel unto honor, because 'not of works, but of Him who calls, it was said, The elder shall serve the younger.' CHAP. VIII.

And lest perhaps the vessels predestined unto honor, ascribing something to their own strength, should deny the grace of the Creator, in another place the Apostle named them vessels of mercy, so that they might recognize whatever they were to be according to mercy. For thus the same Apostle also says elsewhere: 'And this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God' (Eph. II, 8). Blessed Moses too says to the people in Deuteronomy: 'And do not say in your heart, My strength and the might of my hand have gotten me this great power; but you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you strength to do valiantly, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers' (Deut. VIII, 17ff.). Likewise a little after, in the same place to them:

'Do not say,' he says, 'in your heart, when the Lord your God has cast out these nations before your face, saying: For my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this good land. Not for your righteousness, nor for the holiness of your heart do you go in to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord will destroy them from before your face' (Deut. IX, 4-5). Behold how ancient a doctrine of the Holy Spirit—not only proclaimed in the apostolic writings, but also confirmed by the voice of the Holy Spirit in the prophetic writings and in the very beginnings of the people of Israel—the onslaught of new-fangled presumption strives to overturn.

For clearly, in one and the same place of Scripture, the blessed prophet shows both the goodness and the severity of God, saying that the inheritance of that land was rendered not for the people's righteousness, but bestowed only by the grace of Him who has mercy, while those others were driven out for their own injustices. Behold, in the former iniquity is justly punished; in the latter no righteousness is rewarded by grace. Nor did it suffice blessed Moses to have said that the inheritance of the land had been granted to the people of Israel not for their merits, unless he also added what he joined to it, whereby he might show them unworthy of every good. For there follows, after what we recalled above:

'And you shall know today that not for your righteousness does the Lord your God give you this good land to inherit, for you are a stiff-necked people' (Ibid., 6). Who here would say that a reward was rendered according to the debt of preceding merits? Who would not confess an undeserved grace? How often does the prophet say: 'They tempted Him in the desert' (Ps. XCIV, 9)? How often did they merit the wrath of God by the aversion of their heart, and yet He saved them for His mercy's sake, that He might make His power known (Ps. CV, 7-8)? This too the Apostle says: 'He endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, that He might show His riches upon the vessels of mercy which He prepared unto glory' (Rom. IX, 22-23). CHAP. IX.

But lest again man, dissolved into the utmost dregs of sloth, should believe that the steep path of virtue—which, even with the grace of God assisting, must be trodden only by labor—could be conferred upon him while idle, and should apply no diligence of labor to the endeavor of his own advancement, God, thus distributing the times and offices between Himself and man, ordained that by His calling we should take the beginnings of good things, but that once called and enlightened we should know the ways of His commandments by the understanding of a good disposition, and should either choose them or forsake them by free will. Yet these, if supported by His help we should follow with continual devotion, at the end He would again crown in us the obedience made subject, not resisting His commandments.

But the free will which we have from Him flows with a proneness slipping down toward wickedness, and, since it can do nothing toward the character of virtue when God's help withdraws, it stands fit and supported by strength for every kind of sin. For the law born in the members draws toward sin, and God, according to His justice, will forsake those who depart from the light yoke and easy burden of His commandments and, flowing away by the free will of a will loosed from righteousness, sink into the hardest bondage of sin.

But those who have received the gift of the calling with fitting piety, who are not subjugated to carnal enticements, who have been free from the vice of boasting, from the torches of avarice, from the wind of pride, and, as far as is in man, keeping the good things of God within themselves, have devoted all their zeal to spiritual exercises—these, as they strive in the contest of this life, He aids, and He bestows eternal crowns upon the victors: while again He forsakes the offenders, hardens the resisters, condemns the despisers. CHAP. X. Concerning the distribution of these degrees, which either God works in us, or bids us work in some measure, let us question Him from whose words arose the question which, if the Lord be present, we endeavor to unravel, so that in His meanings through diverse volumes

arranged indeed with varied expression, but with one and the same intention, if anything lies hidden in this place, it may be unlocked by the comparison of another sentence. That the Apostle Paul was called by God, we read either in that book where his deeds are narrated with all truth, or he himself confesses it in his Epistle, saying: 'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle' (Rom. I, 1). And in the second place, having followed the calling, and having worked all that was in man, he himself says thus: 'I labored more than all of them' (1 Cor. XV, 10). But not attributing even this to himself, he added with anxious piety: 'Yet not I, but the grace of God with me' (Ibid.). Now then, both to him who was called and who followed the calling by works of righteousness, what else remained

except that, delivered from the body of this death, he might attain to the blessedness of that other life which was promised to all the saints by the mouth of Truth? That this is rendered by no human merits, but bestowed by the lavishing grace of God who gives, he himself answers, after the groans by which he had said: 'Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God,' he says, 'through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom. VII, 24-25).

This distribution, therefore, by which we have said that men are called by God with no merits existing, and that once called, in order to work some good, they need the supports of God, the Apostle demonstrates by an example drawn from the ancient writings, after he had, with all praise of merits repelled, referred that election of the two twins to the grace and judgment of God. Seeing what impious garrulity might blaspheme, he said: 'Is there injustice with God?' (Rom. IX, 14). And there follows: 'God forbid.' And as though it were said to him, 'Whence do you prove it?' he thought the authority of his teaching would avail too little unless he taught his sentence also by the example of the Law. For he willed thus to be understood what Moses had said:

'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I will be merciful' (Exod. XXXIII, 19): so that we may believe that the first mercy is bestowed beforehand upon men in the calling, which alone does not suffice for right living, if He who called should forsake. And therefore it was added: 'And I will show mercy to whom I will be merciful,' so that it may be manifest to be received from God even those very works of mercy by which, when we seem to expend them, we merit God's mercy. For thus He says in the Gospel: 'Blessed are the merciful, for God will have mercy upon them' (Matt. V, 7). And had not the Apostle so understood it, he would never have taken care to insert this testimony for the good things in his argument on grace. CHAP. XI.—But if anyone is moved because not all

—even of those who are already called—merit to attain to the second grace, that is, to the gift of right living, are moved, as the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Many are called, but few are chosen' (Matt. XX, 16): let him understand from this what sort of thing it is that he strives to defend against the grace of God, who flatters himself concerning free will. For whoever, having forsaken the gift of the divine calling, have flowed away again to impious perfidy—for those who forsake the grace of God, free will suffices to fulfill what they had willed. For the Psalmist saw how he might chant, by the truth of the prophetic spirit, that order of God's mercies which the Apostle interprets from the meaning of Moses: 'Hear, O My people,' he says, 'and I will testify to you' (Ps. LXXX, 9).