Therefore He does not will all men to be saved, He who, on account of the hardness of their heart, was unwilling to open to certain ones the mystery of His knowledge, without which no one attains to salvation. But the Apostle could not lie, who said that God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. II, 4). Nor did the evangelists lie, who said that the Lord Himself gave to His disciples, and did not give to others, to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. And surely to those to whom He willed to give, He gave; but to those to whom He was unwilling to give, He did not give: and since to these He gave for this purpose, that they might be saved, it is acknowledged that to those others He did not give, lest they should be. Those, therefore, He willed to be saved to whom He gave to know the mystery of salvation;
but those He was unwilling to save to whom He denied the knowledge of the saving mystery. For if He had willed both to be saved, He would have conferred upon both the knowledge of the saving mystery. Chapter XII. 19. Since, then, each Scripture is true, each holy, each divinely inspired, and for this reason each is to be kept reverently and heard and received without doubt, let there be removed from all those 'all men' all these to whom Christ did not give to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; and let there be worthily understood all those men whom God wills to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: because in very truth the will of the One who saves is recognized in those to whom the grace of knowing the truth is not denied.
Thus God, since He has done whatsoever He willed, fulfills His will in all things: because to all whom He wills to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, He grants the right knowledge of the saving mystery together with charity. All these blessed Peter shows are so to be understood that he called 'all' those whom God deigns to call. For the words are his, speaking thus to the Jews: 'For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call' (Acts II, 39). 20. For blessed Paul too in a certain place says 'all,' though he does not wish absolutely all to be understood. For, writing to the Philippians, he says: 'For all seek their own things, not the things that are Jesus Christ's' (Phil.
II, 21). Here surely, if from all these none is excepted, it necessarily follows that even all the apostles, and the rest of the faithful of that time, are reckoned among all these—which no one, however impious, will suspect. It remains, therefore, that we ought to take a certain 'all,' that is, not absolutely all men, but all who were seeking their own things, not the things that are Jesus Christ's. For in the same Epistle, above, showing certain ones to be good, he says: 'But some indeed out of good will preach Christ, some out of contention, knowing that I am set for the defense of the Gospel' (Phil. I, 15). Those, then, who out of good will, out of charity, preached Christ—because 'charity seeks not the things that are her own' (1 Cor.
XIII, 5)—did not seek their own things, but the things that are Jesus Christ's: they, therefore, were not among those 'all' who sought their own things, and not the things that are Jesus Christ's. These good ones, at the end of his Epistle, he calls 'saints'; and just as he calls those evil ones 'all,' so also he none the less calls these good ones 'all'; for he says: 'All the saints salute you' (Phil. IV, 22). Behold, in one and the same Epistle of the blessed apostle there are set down both all the saints, and all who seek their own things, not the things that are Jesus Christ's; whereas surely both all who were saints did not seek their own things, and all who sought their own things were not saints. Let there be taken, then, both all these and all those, not confusedly but distinctly;
and let both be so called 'all' that all these may be distinguished from all those, and all those from all these, by the right order of truth. 21. The same sense is found also in 'all the tribes' whom God promised to the seed of Abraham, and showed to be blessed in him, saying: 'And in thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed' (Gen. XXVIII, 14). Which blessed Peter also confirming, says to the Jews: 'You are the children of the prophets, and of the testament which God made to our fathers, saying to Abraham: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed' (Acts III, 25). And showing that Christ is the seed of Abraham, in whom is the promised blessing of all the tribes, he immediately subjoined these words.
'God, having raised up His Son, sent Him first to you, blessing you' (ibid., 26). Christ, therefore, is the seed of Abraham, in whom all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed. And surely the promise of God is true, because 'the Lord is faithful in all His words, and holy in all His works' (Ps. CXLIV, 13), in whose promise Abraham 'staggered not through distrust, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and most fully knowing that whatsoever He has promised, He is able also to do' (Rom. IV, 20). Chapter XIII.
Since, then, no Christian doubts that all the tribes of the earth are blessed in Christ, blessed John nevertheless, speaking in the Apocalypse of Christ—that is, of that very seed of Abraham, in whom all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed—says quite truly: 'Behold, He shall come with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves over Him' (Rev. I, 7). Behold, all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in Christ, yet when He comes, all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves. 22. How, then, shall both stand firm for us, if in either the good or the evil sense the fullness of all the tribes is taken so universally that nothing is left to the other part?
But the same blessed John, who from the very breast of Truth had drunk the abundance of truthful preaching, so shows all these tribes which are to bewail themselves at the coming of Christ, that he demonstrates all those tribes which the truthful God promised should be blessed in the seed of Abraham to be gathered out of all those tribes. For in that same book he brings in those who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, singing a new song and saying: 'Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive the book, and to open the seals thereof: because Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us in Thy blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation: and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and they shall reign upon the earth' (Rev. V, 9, 10).
In another place also of the said book, when he had recorded, out of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, twelve thousand of the sealed from each single tribe, so that he might also demonstrate out of all the tribes of the earth an innumerable multitude of the faithful, he thus speaks: 'After these things, I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, out of all nations and tribes and tongues and peoples, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms were in their hands' (Rev. VII, 9). These are all the tribes gathered out of all the tribes. These are all the tribes which, believing in Christ, are blessed, out of all those tribes which shall bewail themselves for this reason, that they did not believe in Christ.
Thus are understood all the faithful and all the unfaithful; all the good and all the evil; all whom God saves by His most merciful goodness, and all whom He condemns by His most just severity; to some justly not granting the knowledge of the truth, to others mercifully revealing the truth to be known; and in all fulfilling His most almighty will. Chapter XIV. 23. Very many testimonies, according to the most wholesome rule of this understanding, will anyone be able to find in the divine oracles who is willing to review the divine Scriptures with the right eye of the heart.
But when the human will is treated of, in what pertains to the beginning or the effect of salvation, it is indeed true that, of those who use reason, they who will are saved and they who will not are not saved; but those who are saved then will to be saved when they are prevented by divine grace so that they may will; nay rather, then do they will to be saved when they receive the very act of willing by the gift of the divine bounty. For Holy Scripture, which says, 'The will is prepared by the Lord' (Prov. VIII, 35, according to the LXX), can in no way lie. Whence also the Apostle, Christ speaking in him, says truly: 'With fear and trembling work out your salvation; for it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will' (Phil.
II, 12, 13). And not only does the Apostle assign to God the beginning of the good will and work, but he also testifies that both are fulfilled by Him, saying: 'That our God would make you worthy of His vocation, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith in power' (2 Thess. I, 11). And to show that this is done through grace, he followed by adding (v. 12): 'That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.' In those, then, who are saved willingly, divine grace works that they may will; but in those who will not, human hardness persists that they may not will. Which hardness, however, a man shall not have, when God shall have willed to take it away.
For without difficulty God can accomplish whatsoever He wills, He who says of certain ones: 'I will take away from them the heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh' (Ezek. XXXVI, 26). He takes away, then, the heart of stone, removing the hardness of the heart; He gives a heart of flesh, infusing the grace of holy belief. Thus is softened the heart that had been hard, so that to it may be granted the beginning of holy faith. Chapter XV. 24. But the free choice of the human mind was created upright in the first man—yet not without the help of grace: such grace, indeed, by which he could, if he would, remain in that same uprightness, and from which he could, if he would, by a will turned away, depart.
But now in each individual man prevenient grace works, that the freedom of choice may be corrected. Now the choice of man, in so far as it is corrected, in so far is it set free; but in so far is it led captive, in so far as it is still entangled by the necessities of harmful servitude. Which necessities not only press mortally upon the sons of this world, but also frequently afflict the sons of God. This is that law of sin which, dwelling in the members and warring against the law of the mind, could not indeed subject to itself in effect that valiant soldier—that is, the apostle Paul—who delighted in the law of God according to the inner man, yet did not cease to lead captive in the suggestions of concupiscence. Whence the same apostle says:
'For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, which is in my members' (Rom. VII, 22, 23). Nor was he silent that he could be set free by the help of grace alone; therefore he continues, saying (vv. 24 and 25): 'Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' He had, then, in his mind the fortitude of grace, but in his flesh he felt the infirmity of choice, which Adam did not have before he was depraved by the voluntary transgression of the commandment.
Hence it is that the Apostle, being now established not under the law but under grace, although with his mind he served the law of God, was nevertheless constrained with his flesh to serve the law of sin: because the former had been given to him divinely in his will, while the latter had remained in him by necessity. For he was pressed unwillingly by those necessities from which every holy man both desires and prays to be rescued, saying to God: 'Deliver me from my necessities' (Ps. XXIV, 17). Feeling in himself the trouble of these necessities, the Apostle said: 'For the good which I will, this I do not; but the evil which I hate, this I do. If then I do the evil which I hate, it is now no more I that work it, but sin that dwells in me' (Rom. VII, 19, 20). Chapter XVI. 25.
These necessities do not cease for the saints who live mortally in the body of this death; by which they are indeed miserably shaken, so that they may acknowledge that they have lost, by the desert of sin in the first man, that grace of holy liberty and of the first peace; and that they cannot receive it again except through the grace of Christ, in that life at least in which there shall be for the saints no anxiety of conflict, but the perfect security of peace; then surely, when death shall be insulted, every contention of sin having been rooted out of the members. Then truly, in that peace, it shall be said: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Now the sting of death is sin' (1 Cor.
XV, 54, 55, 56)—into which we fell by the transgression of the first man, and without which we are not in this life. 'For if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us' (1 John I, 8). We must therefore be watchful in the conflict, that we may rest in peace; we must ponder the ever-present infirmity of free choice which the iniquity of the first man begot for us; and, for the supplying of the help of virtue, the divine Majesty must be humbly besought, that He may grant strength to those who labor, and lead us victorious to peace, where we may have a free choice perfect and most fully delivered from all sin:
then, when all creation, which is now being renewed in Christ, shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Rom. VIII, 21). And when it shall be delivered, without doubt it shall enjoy to the full the gift both of free peace and of peaceful liberty. But if that peace and that liberty were even now as great in man as the first man had before sin, he would not see in his members another law contumaciously warring against the law of his mind, and violently carrying him captive into the law of sin. 26. The free choice, therefore, of the human mind, before the first man sinned, was so far truly free, in as much as it felt nothing in itself proceeding from itself that was adverse. There was in it, then, soundness and felicity;
nor did it feel any misery to be in it, because it held righteousness by an upright liberty. For it served righteousness freely, therefore it rejoiced in true liberty. Chapter XVII. The first man, surely, so long as he served righteousness, had no sin at all. But we, 'although being freed from sin, yet made servants to God' (Rom. VI, 18), nevertheless, 'if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us' (1 John I, 8). Adam before sin did not have upon him the 'heavy yoke that is upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their going out of their mother's womb, until the day of their burial into the mother of all' (Ecclus. XL, 1). In Adam before sin the flesh had no concupiscence which might war against the spirit.
For it so easily ruled over the body, even as it faithfully obeyed its Creator. That soul held the body in subjection which a pure affection subjected to God. But now we recognize that in this we do not perfectly obey God, in that in us the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that we do not do the things that we would. 27. The liberty, then, of the first man had a greater peace; but now the liberty of the faithful, through grace, receives a greater charity: to him righteousness was wholly quiet in peace; to these a glorious victory is given in the encounter. Greater grace, therefore, is now given, while through faith free choice is repaired;
and when, the gift of faith and charity having been infused, God repairs the liberty of our choice, He thus perfects strength in us in weakness. For upon the sound choice of the first man ruin crept in through vice; but that in men the choice may be healed, greater grace has been given after the vice. So it has come to pass that 'where sin abounded, grace did more abound' (Rom. V, 20); and through this the choice is repaired by the gift of God: and if it does not have as great a soundness and peace as it had before, it nevertheless receives a greater strength out of that bounty, so that the will of man, which by the persuasion of the deceiver alone had departed from God, now, resting upon the support of grace, may be separated from Christ neither by persuasions nor even by torments.
Thus Christ God has marvelously shown what human virtue avails, and what divine: that man, who while sound was conquered through his own will, when a greater grace has been received may not be conquered while weak. And so the virtue of man which had the lesser grace, being conquered, fell of its own accord; and the weakness of man, by a greater help of grace, receives the victory which it had lost. The power indeed of working well or ill can be in a man using reason: but the power of working ill is had from the choice of the free will alone; whereas the power of working well is then in the free choice, when it is granted by God. That this power is given divinely, John the evangelist testifies in this saying:
'But as many as received Him, He gave them power to become the sons of God, to them that believe in His name' (John I, 12). Chapter XVIII. 28. But the question concerning the soul, which you placed next to last in your letter, I have placed last in this reply—a question which I judge to have among you rather a conflict than a conclusion; in which contention can be increased more than knowledge can be furthered. For each side so relies upon its own assertions that it is nonetheless refuted by the contrary objections.
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CujusquæstionisbealusAugustinusprofunditatemsibiimperscrutabilemcernens, nullamvoluithujusreidefinitamproferresententiam , incongruumprorsusexistimansaliquidaffirmaresinedubitationevelle, quodalterpossetcontrariaresponsioneconvellere. CujustamindecimolibrodeGenesiadlitteram, quaminlibrisadVincentiumVictoremdeOrigineanimæ, necnoninlibroprimoexduobusquosadsanctumHieronymumscripsit (Epist. alias 28, nunc 166); intribusquoqueepistolis (V. epist. ejusd. alias 157, nunc 190) quasadOptatumepiscopumdehacquaestionecomposuit, disputationerefulgetnonminuscopiosaquamprofunda; eteomagislaudabili , quiacongruatemperiemoderata.
Seeing the profundity of this question to be unsearchable to himself, blessed Augustine was unwilling to bring forth any defined opinion of this matter, deeming it altogether unfitting to wish to affirm without hesitation something which another might overthrow by a contrary answer. His treatment shines forth—as much in the tenth book On Genesis according to the Letter, as in the books to Vincentius Victor On the Origin of the Soul, and also in the first of the two books which he wrote to Saint Jerome (Epistle formerly 28, now 166); in three letters also (see the same author's epistle formerly 157, now 190) which he composed to Optatus the bishop on this question—with a disputation no less copious than profound, and the more praiseworthy because tempered with a fitting moderation.
There, whatever by keenness of intellect, whatever by orderly reasoning, whatever by the weight of authority he perceived to be inquired into and discussed, he both inquired into singularly and discussed. Yet he withheld his assent from either definition, lest he should undertake in vain the labor of so great a disputation, which a rash defining of either opinion would render empty. He saw that both the part which affirms that soul is propagated from soul as body from body, and that which asserts that new souls are made for each one being born, could be set aside by contrary answers: whose responses, for the sake of a summary, the sequence of this work will hold inserted, one by one. Chapter XIX.
For those who assert that new souls are made for each one, when it begins to be objected to them by what justice of God the soul which is newly given to the body draws original sin, since it does not come from the propagation of the human seed, are utterly at a loss, being constrained namely by a twofold absurdity: because they are either compelled to pronounce God unjust, or forced to deny original sin. For a soul which is not propagated like the flesh ought not to be held in the fellowship of original sin with the flesh, and through this it is found to have no need of the sacrament of baptism. And if in an infant who dies without baptism only the flesh is polluted by the contagion of original sin, and the soul of the unbaptized infant is thought to depart from this world without iniquity:
Let it be asked: where, then, will the little child be at the resurrection? Will it be in the kingdom of God, on account of the purity (or innocence) of its soul; or in the eternal fire, on account of the impurity of its flesh? Wherever it is said that it will be, God is thereby asserted to be either a liar or unjust. For He is a liar if He admits the unbaptized into the kingdom, since the Savior Himself has laid down a most firm sentence, saying: 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God' (John 3:5). And He is unjust if He sends the soul together with the flesh into the eternal fire, when it has no sin in common with the flesh.
But it is manifest that everyone who has not been baptized either in the water sanctified in the name of Christ, or in his own blood for the name of Christ and his Church, must be condemned to the burning of the eternal fire. By what justice, then, of the divine judgment will the soul be sent with its flesh into the eternal fire, if it is not held bound by the guilt of original sin? 30. But perhaps someone will attempt to seize upon this absurdity, so as to say that the soul, by itself, on account of its own purity, will exist forever (perhaps the word 'blessed' or something similar is missing) in eternity, but will assert that the flesh will burn in the eternal fire, deservedly, by reason of original iniquity.
But the truth of the catholic faith, which most certainly believes and preaches that the resurrection of the flesh will come to pass in all men, destroys the utterly foolish falsehood of this invention. For the flesh, if it does not receive the soul, will not rise again; and if it does not rise again, it will assuredly not live either. How, then, will that which cannot live without the soul be able, being lifeless, to feel the torments of that fire? It is therefore necessary that those who wish to place the soul of the unbaptized infant in the kingdom on account of its purity should deny that the flesh will rise again. And they themselves see how this is said not only most absurdly but also impiously. For it is a matter of great impiety either to deny that a man's dead flesh will rise again;
or to say that the soul, apart from the flesh in which it lived, will after the judgment share either in misery or in felicity. For our Savior, showing the coming resurrection of the flesh, said: 'Because the hour will come in which all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice; and they who have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment' (John 5:28-29). It is necessary, moreover, that when the body rises again, the recompense for one's works should be common to both soul and flesh; for when the flesh has risen, neither will the body remain without the soul, nor the soul without the body.
There will therefore be, common to both soul and flesh, either eternal exultation or eternal affliction, when the eternal joining of flesh and soul will remain indissoluble. Yet they ought not to have a common punishment if they do not have a common sin; for it does not befit the justice of God that the soul, which is given to a new body and is not propagated together with the body itself—the soul with which the body has no common propagation—should be compelled to hold the guilt of propagation in common. CHAPTER IX. — 31. But those who assert that souls are propagated together with bodies can indeed from this, in order to show the just judgment of God in little children, establish an original sin common not to the flesh alone, nor to the soul alone, but to both,
namely a common original sin, so that from the communion of the propagation of sin the guilt too may be worthily believed to be common. But concerning the consideration of the seeds which perish without being conceived, let them keep wholly silent. For it is certain that the human soul has received immortality by the very gift of its creation; and it is necessary that it should receive back, at the resurrection, the body in which it lived here for however brief a time. Who then would say that the seeds have flowed forth animate—whether those that are not conceived, or those that are poured out in a nocturnal emission? Every wise man sees how absurd this is, and how utterly alien to reason. 32. While, therefore, the parties overcome one another by these and similar propositions, they cannot be victors:
for each of them becomes a victor over the other's position in such a way that it is defeated in its own; and when it has destroyed the opponent's proposition, it is itself unable to establish what it proposes. How much better, then, do we hold back from the contest of this question, in which we recognize that we labor in vain: especially since, as we see that this was in no way settled by the holy men greater than we, we ought to inquire the more cautiously and temperately, the more we perceive that those illustrious men in no way arrived at its resolution. Let it therefore be established for us beyond doubt, what the catholic faith both believes and preaches: namely that the human soul is a rational spirit, not a body; and is not a part of God, but a creature of God;
and that it was not sent into the body as into a prison for whatever sins committed before the body, but was inserted into the body by the work and ordination of God, from which the body both lives and feels; and we should not doubt that this soul draws original sin along with the flesh in which it is born, and on this account has need of the benefit of holy baptism. CHAPTER XX. — 33. For once these true and manifest judgments of the catholic faith, which we set forth above, are set aside, many have wretchedly fallen into diverse errors. Tertullian indeed, saying that the soul is not a spirit but a body, erred vehemently, going so far astray in his folly that he even said the supreme and true God is a body: whereas we read not only of God the creator of all things, that 'God is a spirit' (John
4:24), but also, concerning the angels whom God created, it is said in the psalm: 'Who makes his angels spirits' (Ps. 103:4). And let no wise man doubt that the human soul too is a rational spirit: of which spirit the Apostle says: 'For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of a man that is in him?' (1 Cor. 2:11). Therefore the holy evangelist also taught that the rational soul, which Christ took up together with the flesh, is not a body but a spirit. For the Savior Himself had said: 'I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it again' (John 10:18): which soul He then, without doubt, laid down, when the evangelist says that 'bowing his head, he gave up the spirit' (John 19:30).