The devil too, wishing to harm the righteous man Job, was the devil by his will to harm; yet he sought power from the Lord God, saying: 'Put forth your hand, and touch his flesh'—although he himself would do this, if it were permitted; for by this manner he was seeking that very permission, and he called the hand of the Lord the hand of his own that had been permitted by the Lord, that is, the very power which he wished to receive. To which agrees that saying in the Gospel, where the Lord says to the disciples: 'This night Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat.' Called, therefore, an evil spirit of God—that is, a minister of God to work evil upon Saul, which the most omnipotent Judge judged that he should suffer—since that spirit, by the will whereby it was evil, was not of God;
but as a creature by which it was created, and by the power which it had received not as its own, but by the equity of the Lord of all, it was of God. Likewise, the anger of man is fervid, and not without torment of soul; but the anger of God, of which it is said in the Gospel, 'But the wrath of God abides upon him,' while he himself remains perpetually in tranquility, when the creature subjected to him exercises vengeance with wondrous equity. Here now, having returned in order to the Apostle's treatise: 'For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For everyone, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.' The one God of all, rich in mercy, has salvation, from which indeed he may bestow. 'How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him whom they have not heard?'
He asks, and afterward himself answers: 'And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?'—because the prophets were never sent to them. 'As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those that preach the gospel of peace, of those that preach good tidings!' The feet of these run well, and are beautiful, who announce. But the feet of those who run to the vanities of the world are foul. 'But not all obey the gospel.' If not even those obeyed to whom these were sent, how shall those obey who have not heard? 'For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report?' 'Who?'—he speaks by reason of the difficulty. 'Therefore faith is from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.'
The Apostle's response speaks this rather against the Jews, to whom Christ was promised both through the law and through the prophets, and who are unwilling to believe that he has come. And he teaches by the following testimonies that it is so, and that they will have no excuse. 'But I say: Have they not heard? Yea verily, their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.' He wills this testimony to be understood by allegory concerning the voices of the prophets. 'But I say: Did not Israel know?' Did not Israel know that the Gentiles were to be saved? But when they read the testimonies, they believed them to be said of proselytes, not of the whole world. 'First Moses says: I will provoke you to jealousy.'
Because you ought to have furnished an example, that the Gentiles might imitate you, that, forsaking idols, they might worship the true God: Now at least imitate them, since they now no longer worship idols. 'By a no-nation.' Before they believed God, they were not the nation of God. As if he said, I call those who were not a nation, and they will believe me to your provocation: so that you, to whom you ought to have been greater, may rejoice if you are made equal to them. Just as if someone should have a disobedient son, and, to correct him, give half his patrimony to a servant; and afterward that son, being converted, would rejoice if he merited to receive the other half. 'By a foolish nation I will send you into anger.'
A foolish nation, which did not have the law of God, or was no nation, because they were dead in sins through idolatry, just as he says of the unbeliever: 'He is already judged.' 'But Isaiah is bold, and says.' He is bold, because he does not fear the people of the Jews. 'I was found by them that sought me not.' The Gentiles, who did not seek God, whose law even they did not have, by which they might seek him. 'I appeared openly to them that asked not after me.' The Gentiles did not inquire of God, but of idols and astrologers. 'But to Israel he says.' He who thought so well of the Gentiles, behold what he says of the Jews. Not only, therefore, that the Gentiles were to be chosen, but also that the unbelievers from Israel were to be rejected, was foretold beforehand. By allegory, the stretching out of the hands signifies the cross.
'All the day long I stretched out my hands to a people that believed not and contradicted me.' All this time showing marvels, and even so you did not believe how great is the piety of God: so that, in the manner of a nurse who wishes a little one, who does not yet walk, to make progress that he may walk, stretches out her hands, that he may come to her; and while he longs to reach her, he learns to walk. Thus God, by his benefits, always provoked the Jews to worship him, but they remained in their lameness. CHAPTER XI. 'I say then: Has the Lord cast away his people?' Because he had humbled them enough, now, as a good teacher, and lest he seem rather to exasperate them while provoking, he as it were consoles them. 'God forbid.' He has not so cast them off that he will no more receive them, if they believe the gift of the Lord.
'For I also am an Israelite.' If he had utterly cast off all, he would certainly not have drawn me in: and even if, so to say, no other of them had believed but I, the promise of God, which he spoke to Abraham, would have been fulfilled in me—not to say that thence so many thousands believed by his gift. 'Of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.' Not of the proselytes. 'God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew.' Whom he foreknew: that is, predestined to be saved: because from that very people many believed by the gift of the grace of Christ; who [others: because] with him things future are already done: without doubt, therefore, he foreknew; and because he foreknew, he predestined: but to have predestined is to have arranged what he himself was going to do. 'Or do you not know what the Scripture says in Elias?'
Where it is written concerning Elias. 'How he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.' He says this, lest the Gentiles again grow proud, because from among the Jews many believed, but from among those few, in comparison with the multitude of the Gentiles. 'But what does the divine answer say to him?' The prophets knew that which was said to them. For if they knew all things, we should rather be called divine. 'I have left me seven thousand men.' And the king said to Jeremiah, 'Is there a word of God in you?' 'I have reserved to myself,' he says, 'seven thousand men.' If so many lay hidden from the prophet, how many do you think can lie hidden from you who are to be saved? Note that he did not say, 'There are left,' but, 'I have reserved to myself.'
'Who have not bowed their knees before Baal.' As by evil works God is denied, so also is an idol worshiped. For not only does he serve it who sacrifices to it, as he says of covetousness, which is 'the service of images.' 'So then even at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.' As, then, not all perished then, so also now some are saved: the time of election is now; but he who believes now will then receive the reward. 'But if by grace, then not of works.' Between grace and predestination there is this difference, that predestination is the preparation of grace, but grace is now the giving itself. As the Apostle says: 'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works': this is grace.
But what follows: 'Which God prepared that we should walk in them,' is predestination. And lest they should say, 'Under Elias they were righteous, but these are sinners: how then does he call them elect?' he subjoined: Because grace made them to be believers, therefore they were freely saved. For it is called grace because it is given freely, no merits preceding. For a grace not owed, but gratuitous, precedes, that through it good works may come to be. Lest, if good works preceded, grace should as it were be rendered to works, and so grace be no longer grace. But whoever says that the grace of God is anticipated by men by the merit of good works, and that the grace of God is given for merits, is a Pelagian: for it is not grace, if it be not given freely;
if it be rendered to those who merit it as a debt: which God forbid. Because God anticipates and precedes us; we do not precede God. In many places he often testifies this, setting the grace of faith before works: not to extinguish works, but to show that works do not precede grace, but follow it: namely, that no one should think that he therefore received grace because he worked well, but that he cannot work well unless through faith he has received grace. Otherwise grace is no grace. If anything on man's part precedes, whence he is saved, it is now not freely. But grace, as he said, is therefore so called because it is given with no merits preceding, and because it freely remits sins. What then? What Israel sought, this it has not obtained.
The whole of Israel therefore did not obtain it, because it did not seek it out of faith, but supposed itself justified by the Sabbath alone and by circumcision, while it despised the other commandments: thus, when the vessels of mercy obtained righteousness, the vessels of wrath were blinded. But the election obtained it. The election is the faithful people, who obtained mercy, whom God chose. 'I,' he says, 'chose you: you did not choose me.' 'The Lord knoweth who are his.' And this: 'He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.' This is that election by which he chose in Christ, before the foundation of the world, those whom he willed, that they might be holy. But the rest were blinded, as it is written. They were blinded through unbelief: as it is written:
'Unless you believe, you will not understand.' 'He gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they might not see, and ears that they might not hear.' There too the prophet was speaking of the unbelieving and the sinful. 'God gave them': that is, God handed them over in their own desire; for God to hand over is to abandon. God gave them the spirit of stupor which they wanted: because they were always unbelieving toward the words of God, and distrustful, and therefore were justly abandoned by God's judgment. So too now Christians who doubt about the resurrection, and reward, and hell, have a spirit of stupor infused by the devil. 'Unto this present day.' Until they turn to God: as he treats of the veil of the flesh to the Corinthians:
'When they shall have turned to God, the veil will be taken away.' And David said: 'Let their table become a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense unto them.' This he says of those who gave the Saviour vinegar and gall to drink: and yet Peter says to those very men: 'And now, brethren, I know that you did this through ignorance: repent therefore, and let each of you be baptized.' And Paul himself a little later: 'And they too, if they do not continue in unbelief, shall be grafted in.' 'Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see: and bow down their back always.' As long as they are such. 'I say then, Have they so stumbled that they should fall? God forbid.' That is, that they should fall for ever? God forbid. Yet they can, although they have fallen by their own will, be en-
-lightened by the grace of God, and rise up. But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, that they may provoke them to emulation. So greatly did he love, that for the sake of their salvation the Gentiles should be saved: so that, seeing the Gentiles called to the kingdom of God, they might be put to shame and be converted. 'But if their transgression is the riches of the world.' If their transgression profited you so much as to make you equal to them, how much more, if many of them, or all, should be willing to believe, could they profit you unto doctrine? The transgression of the Jews enriched the Gentiles, so that without the labour of the Law they became their co-heirs and members of the same body, as he himself recalls to the Ephesians. 'And their diminution is the riches of the Gentiles: how much more their fulness!'
If a few of them believing profited you so much, how much more if very many had believed! 'For I speak to you Gentiles.' You who from among the Gentiles have believed. He wishes to show that through them he earnestly seeks the salvation of the Jews. 'For as long as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles.' As long as I am in the body. 'I will honour my ministry.' I will make illustrious and honour my ministry, if I gain not only the Gentiles, to whom I was sent, but also the Jews by my example. 'If by any means I may provoke my own flesh to emulation.' Here he calls the Jews his flesh, from whose race he came. If by whatever means I so present myself that they may emulate me, and desire to be such.
'And I will save some of them.' Because he wills all, or some, that it may be fulfilled, 'The remnant shall be saved.' 'For if the loss of them is the reconciliation of the world.' He repeats what he had said, 'What is their assumption, but life from the dead?' Whence comes the assumption of the Gentiles, but from their death? From the dead Jews the apostles were life for the assumption of the Gentiles. 'But if the first-fruit is holy, so is the mass.' The few who believe are holy: and all, if they believe, can become so. If the stream is good, so is the fountain. 'And if the root is holy, so are the branches.' The root is the patriarchs; that is, the first and the last who believed from among them are holy. 'But if some of the branches are broken off.' Who would not believe in Christ. 'But thou.' They were not broken off for this purpose, that thou shouldst be grafted in:
but thou wast grafted in for this reason, because they were broken off. 'Since thou wast a wild olive, thou wast grafted in among them.' An olive indeed, but uncultivated, wild, from a nation without the Law and the promises. It is against nature that a wild olive should be grafted into an olive tree: but to the power of God all things are possible; nor does the thing made contradict its Maker. 'And thou hast been made a partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive.' Of the root, the Fathers; of the fatness, Christ. 'Boast not against the branches.' Do not rejoice that they were broken off. 'But if thou boastest, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.' If thou boastest, thou shalt hear this: that they do not stand through thee, but thou through them. Nor didst thou give them life, but they gave it to thee. 'Thou wilt say then: The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.' Well, on account of unbelief they were broken off.
But thou standest by faith. Thou sayest then that they were broken off so that thou mightest be grafted in. Let us see whether it is for this reason: but they were broken off through unbelief, while thou wast grafted in freely by faith through no merits of thine own: do not suppose that he accepted thy person and cast them off without cause. 'Be not high-minded, but fear.' Do not be proud in your thoughts against them; but rather grieve, and pray for them. 'For if God spared not the natural branches, perhaps he may not spare thee either.' If he spared not them, because they were unbelieving who are of the seed of Abraham, neither will he spare thee, if in anything thou art unbelieving: for thou wast a wild olive. Unbelief is not of one kind only: every sin descends from unbelief, as is shown in the Scriptures:
Because they did not believe the words of God, even though as sinners they believed in God. 'See therefore the goodness and severity of God.' Against those who assert one God to be just and another to be good: and against those who deny that God punishes sinners. 'Toward those indeed who fell, severity; but toward thee, the goodness of God.' Because they too had been justified, and toward thee he showed mercy mercifully and kindly, and by no merits of thine: whence all presumption ought utterly to cease. 'If thou remain in his goodness.' In the faith which has been conferred on thee by his goodness. 'Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.' And thou, if thou art unbelieving, shalt feel his severity; and they his goodness, if they believe. 'But they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, shall be grafted in.'
But if they continue in unbelief, they shall not be grafted in. He shows that by the gift of God they can return. 'For God is able to graft them in again.' Among men indeed it is impossible to restore dried twigs: but to God all things are possible. 'For if thou wast cut out of the wild olive that is natural to thee.' Thou who long ago in thy fathers, who forgetting the natural law degenerated from nature, and through successive generations the habit of sinning by growing persisted, so that they became bitter as if by nature: not only through original sin, but also through actual sin. 'And wast grafted contrary to nature into the good olive tree, how much more shall these, according to nature, be grafted into their own olive tree?' It is against nature, as has been said, to graft a wild olive into an olive tree:
because the root is wont rather to impart to the branch than the branch to the root. 'For I would not have you ignorant, brethren.' And this, lest the Gentiles should be proud against them. 'Of this mystery.' This secret. 'That you be not wise in your own conceits.' That you may not say according to your carnal wisdom: 'By our merits God chose us, but cast them off; and in order to choose us, therefore he rejected them.' 'That blindness in part has happened in Israel.' In these blindness happened, because they did not believe: whom also Jacob's limping prefigured. 'Until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved.' When the fulness of the Gentiles shall have believed, so at the end of the age are reckoned those Jews who shall be found ready to believe. The fulness of the Gentiles is the multitude of believers, from every nation:
not absolutely all the Gentiles, according to the figure of synecdoche. 'As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: There shall come out of Sion he who shall deliver and turn away impieties from Jacob.' Which before no one had power to do. 'And this is my testament to them.' The new testament which Jeremiah promises. 'When I shall take away their sins.' That, cleansed by baptism, they may receive the new testament. 'As concerning the Gospel indeed they are enemies for your sake.' Enemies, because I have made you equal to them, and because I preach to you, they forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles. What is, 'As concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sake,' but that their enmity, by which they killed Christ, profits the Gospel? and he shows that this came from the ordering of God, who knows how to use even evils well:
because the persecution of the Jews served the Gospel. He permitted so much to be done by them as was necessary for the Gospel. 'But as concerning the election, most beloved, they are beloved for the fathers' sake.' But if they believe, they are most dear. Again otherwise: those who from thence are chosen by predestination love through grace; those who are left in their own error carry on enmities on account of the Gospel: whom also limping Jacob prefigured. 'For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.' That is, without change they are firmly fixed. Those who belong to this calling are all taught of God: nor can they say, 'I believed, that he might so call me': because the Lord does not repent of having promised to the seed of Abraham. And otherwise:
Faith was given through the grace of Christ without any preceding merit or labour. For God to repent is to change, as we read: 'It repenteth me that I made Saul king': or that other: 'The Lord hath sworn and will not repent': and the rest: that is, 'This priesthood shall not be changed as that of the Jews was changed': so here too the gifts of God and the calling are without repentance: that is, 'whom he predestined, them he also called.' Because God will not change the sentence of his calling; but those whom before the foundation of the world he chose in his foreknowledge, to them he will say: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father,' and the rest. 'For as you also at one time did not believe God.' When they still believed.
'But now you have obtained mercy because of their unbelief.' Not by your merit. 'So these also have now not believed, unto your mercy.' The mercy of the Gentiles is Christ: 'that they also may obtain mercy.' They have so far not believed that they too may be justified not by works but by mercy, like you, whenever they shall have believed. 'For God has shut up all things under unbelief.' Those whom he found in unbelief: that is, all the Jews and the Gentiles, these he shut up, because before, the Jews were sinners, not faithless: but after they did not believe in Christ, they are equal to the Gentiles, and so all need mercy and obtain it. 'That he may have mercy on all.'
This the cause brought about, that he should have mercy on all, in that he found all equally unbelieving. 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom.' He praises then the wisdom of God, who waited so long according to his foreknowledge, until all should equally need mercy, so that no one might have whereof to boast, that he was justified by works, which he did not even do. But no one understood this, by the just judgment of God; whence the Apostle, marvelling at so great a depth, the Gentiles admitted with no preceding merits, and the Jews abandoned with much preceding faithlessness, exclaims: 'O the depth!' And if the Apostle says this, how much more ought we to say it, and not to scrutinize the judgments of God:
but to flee to this testimony as to a harbour, and to hold ourselves to it as to a most secure anchor! 'And of the knowledge of God: how incomprehensible are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' It is to be considered that the knowledge of God is set before all riches. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counsellor?' 'Who'—this is put by reason of the difficulty. 'Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him?' Who first did anything good without God, so that he should not glorify God's mercy, but boast that he received it by his own merit? Of whose goodness it is even that we are and live, not only that we believe: because in all things we are prevented by his mercy.
And let us know that, if we do anything good, we already receive it from him, to whom no one first gave. 'For from him, and through him.' By him not only was every creature made from nothing, but from him is every good, as James says: 'From whom is every best gift.' 'And in him are all things.' Hear: in him all is concluded; he himself is to be glorified by us. 'To him be all glory unto the ages. Amen.' If all things, then faith also. CHAPTER XII. 'I beseech you therefore, brethren.' The beginning of the argument: because he had spoken of the mind of the Lord, now he teaches what they ought to be: how, with God's help, they ought to present themselves, that they may deserve to have the mind of the Lord. 'By the mercy of God.' By which you were saved: for they had nothing greater. 'That you present your bodies.' How much more your souls?
not rams and he-goats: which nevertheless were offered alive and without blemish. 'A living victim.' Estranged from all death of sins. 'Holy.' Pure and chaste: 'Sanctify yourselves,' he says, 'from women.' 'Pleasing to God.' Not to men only. 'Your reasonable service.' All things are to be done wisely: because even if one be perfect, and the knowledge of God be lacking to him, he shall be counted as nothing. 'And be not conformed to this world.' Do not again be like the sons of the world, you who have become sons of God. 'But be reformed in the newness of your mind.' Renew by God's gift your mind, by which the body is governed and all the members are directed. And so the body will be renewed:
and when you have done this, then you will be able to recognize the will of God and his mind. 'That you may prove what is the will of God.' For this is revealed only by a new mind to those reborn through grace. 'Good, and well-pleasing, and perfect.' Good, better, and best. 'For I say, by the grace which has been given to me.' I do not speak by my own understanding, but the grace of Christ speaks in me: as if forbidding to think otherwise than the divine law commands. 'To all who are among you.' To priests and teachers, whose example the rest would follow. 'Not to be more wise than it behoves to be wise: but to be wise unto sobriety.' He is over-wise who inquires into those things which the Law does not speak, as Solomon says: 'Seek not the things that are too high for thee.' 'To each one as God has divided.'
It is to be noted that he calls the Holy Spirit God: whom, to the Corinthians, he says divides gifts to each one as he wills. 'The measure of faith.' 'For as in one body we have many members.' That we may recognize that even faith itself is given us by God. 'But all the members have not the same function.' The eye cannot hear, nor the ear see. 'So we, being many, are one body in Christ.' He exhorts to unity and peace: one cannot have all things, lest he grow proud if he need no one. Do not therefore be grieved that one does not have what he has observed another to have. 'And each one members one of another.' Let us bestow on one another what we have, so that, by bestowing on one another what we have, charity may be more and more confirmed.
'And having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.' Hear of the gifts, and be silent about merits. It is a gift of the New Testament, which is not from ourselves: to all who believe future glory is promised. But already in the present, to the reborn the Lord bestows differences of virtues, grace distributing them. 'Whether prophecy: according to the proportion of faith.' Of faith, not of the Law: but of that faith which works through love; and this love is poured in through the Holy Spirit. Or also that true prophecy which is according to faith. 'Or ministry, in ministering.' The priestly ministry. 'Or he that teaches, in teaching: he that exhorts, in exhorting.' He who teaches is greater than he who exhorts:
for even the ignorant can exhort according to their strength: but to teach belongs to one fit to teach. Thus far concerning gifts. Hence now he teaches, as is fitting, that we may use well the gifts received. 'He that gives, in simplicity.' To all it must be given simply, that is, with a pure heart: for he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet. 'He that rules, in solicitude.' Of the Church, or of the brethren. 'He that shows mercy.' Especially is mercy to be shown toward the sick, although it be general. 'In cheerfulness.' For God loves a cheerful giver: the sad he doubtless hates. 'Love without dissimulation.' He who is feigned in charity does injury to God, who is charity. For it is a great fraud if you mix lead with gold:
how much more grievous, if by the evil of dissimulation you corrupt, so far as in you lies, the heavenly good? Total purity ought to be in a Christian, as he says, 'God is light.' And in a Christian there ought to be serenity of mind. It belongs to slaves to be fearful in one's presence, and to detract in one's absence: and that saying, 'Let us not love in word, but in deed and in truth,' so that even, if it be necessary, we may die. 'Hating evil.' Whether the work, or the evil acts of men. 'Cleaving to good.' As: 'Turn away from evil, and do good.' Root out evil, that you may sow good. 'With brotherly love.' As if born from one womb, so love one another. 'Kind one to another.' As, 'Esteeming one another better.' 'In honour preventing one another.'