On the Gift of Perseverance

Contents

Reading pages: 1–7 · 8–11 · 12–16 · 17–20 · 21–24

1. 1Augustine defines the perseverance he means as perseverance in Christ to the end of this life, which is God's gift; one who falls before death never had it.
2. 2Perseverance, like suffering for Christ, is God's gift; it is asked for in prayer, as Cyprian's exposition of the Lord's Prayer (“Hallowed be your name”, “Your kingdom come”) shows, and Cyprian refuted the Pelagians in advance.
3. 3Commenting on “Your will be done on earth as in heaven” with Cyprian, Augustine shows that the church prays both for the beginning of faith in unbelievers and for perseverance in the saints.
4. 4Cyprian's exposition of “Give us this day our daily bread”, received daily in the Eucharist, shows that the petition also asks for perseverance, so as not to be separated from Christ's body.
5. 5Only the petition for forgiveness does not ask for perseverance, yet Cyprian's exposition of it refutes the Pelagian claim of sinlessness; “Lead us not into temptation” asks for perseverance.
6. 6Answering the objection that perseverance must be able to be merited by prayer and lost by obstinacy, Augustine argues that perseverance to the end, once given, cannot be lost, and that “Lead us not into temptation” asks God to keep us from the temptation of our own evil will.
7. 7The Lord's Prayer alone proves the cause of grace: since Adam's fall both coming to God and not departing from him are God's work, which the church acknowledges in its daily prayers for unbelievers and believers.
8. 8Grace is not given by merit because God is merciful, nor to all because he is judge; why he chooses one rather than another Augustine does not know; God mixes some who will not persevere among the saints to keep them humble; with Ambrose, our heart and thoughts are not in our power.
9. 9Why one infant, one sinner, or one believer receives grace or perseverance and another not is inscrutable, but certain: the one is predestined, the other not; Tyre and Sidon show that no one is judged by what he would have done, so unbaptized infants are condemned for original sin alone.
10. 10Even the view of a Catholic writer that Christ mercifully withheld miracles from Tyre and Sidon because they would later have fallen away supports the point that no one is judged for sins he would have committed.
11. 11God helps infants he chose and not some adults who would have believed; mercy and judgment are both unsearchable but just; the case of infants is a valid example for adults; Augustine explains that in On Free Choice he left questions open against the Manichaeans, quoting his Retractations.
12. 12Grace is given by God's good pleasure, not by merit, as infants show: whether one infant is baptized and another not is neither fate nor chance nor parents' negligence but God's hidden judgment; Augustine answers the use of his early On Free Choice against him.
13. 13That some die unbaptized and others baptized, some persevere and others are kept until they fall, shows that grace to begin and to persevere is given by God's secret, just will; no one knows in this life that he belongs to the calling; even “Lift up your hearts” in the liturgy acknowledges God's gift.
14. 14Predestination, the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits, does not hinder preaching: Paul, Christ, and Cyprian both taught predestination and exhorted; those given “ears to hear” obey, while the rest are left in the mass of perdition, as Tyre and Sidon and the unbelieving Jews show.
15. 15To the objection that preaching predestination makes rebuke useless, Augustine replies that the same could be said of preaching God's foreknowledge, which is not on that account false, as the case of a monk who misused it shows.
16. 16Truth may sometimes be withheld from the incapable, but predestination must be preached where its denial leads the capable into error; grace anticipates the will and therefore faith, obedience, and love.
17. 17Perseverance is given by God, who can end a life before a fall; predestination is God's arranging of his future works in his foreknowledge; preaching it no more hinders exhortation to faith and perseverance than preaching that wisdom and continence are God's gifts hinders exhortation to them.
18. 18Predestination is sometimes called foreknowledge, as in Rom 11:2, where “his people whom he foreknew” is the remnant chosen by grace; to predestine is to foreknow what God himself will do.
19. 19Writers who speak of foreknowledge in the calling of the elect may be understood of predestination; Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory of Nazianzus taught that faith, the will, and confession are God's gifts, yet did not cease to exhort and rebuke.
20. 20Predestination must be preached to those with ears to hear, like godliness, chastity, and love; Augustine's earlier writings, To Simplician and the Confessions (“Give what you command”), already taught grace and the gift of faith before Pelagianism arose.
21. 21Both the beginning of faith and perseverance must be confessed as God's gifts, or the Pelagian conclusion follows; Augustine points to his earlier writings (To Simplician, letters to Paulinus and Sixtus, On Rebuke and Grace), admits he has grown in understanding, and concludes that to dispute predestination is mere contentiousness.
22. 22Predestination should be preached pastorally: addressed to the church as believers, speaking of those who will not persevere in the third person, urging prayer for the uncalled, and teaching hope in God rather than oneself, not in the harsh second-person form proposed by the objectors.
23. 23The church's constant prayers for the conversion of unbelievers and the perseverance of believers show that it has always believed in grace and predestination; even prayer itself is the Spirit's gift.
24. 24Augustine concludes that both the beginning of faith and perseverance are God's gifts, urges prayer rather than dispute, and presents Christ, whose humanity was united to the Word without prior merit, as the supreme example of predestination; he invites correction.