On the Predestination of the Saints 1–7

We know that the Apostle said in the Epistle to the Philippians, “To write the same things to you is not irksome to me, and for you it is safe.” Yet the same Apostle, writing to the Galatians, when he saw that he had done enough among them of what he judged necessary for them through the ministry of his word, says, “For the rest, let no one cause me labour,” or, as is read in most manuscripts, “let no one trouble me.” But although I confess that it troubles me that the divine words by which the grace of God is preached (which is no grace at all if it is given according to our merits) are not yielded to, many and plain as they are, yet your zeal and brotherly love, my dearest sons Prosper and Hilary, by which you are so unwilling that those who are such should err that after so many books and letters of mine on this matter you still want me to write from here, I love more than I can say; and that I love it as much as I ought, I dare not say. Therefore, see, I write to you again; and though not now with you, yet through you I still do what I thought I had done enough. For having considered your letters, I seem to see that those brothers, for whom you have a godly care that they may not hold the poet's saying, “Each man his own hope,” and fall into what was said not poetically but prophetically, “Cursed is everyone who has his hope in man,” are to be treated in the way the Apostle treated those to whom he says, “And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this also to you.” For they are still in darkness on the question of the predestination of the saints; but they have the means by which, if they think otherwise on it, God may reveal this also to them, if they walk in what they have attained. That is why the Apostle, when he had said, “If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this also to you,” says, “Nevertheless, to what we have attained, in that let us walk.” Now these brothers of ours, for whom your godly love is anxious, have attained to this: 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 set free from this evil except through the righteousness of the second man. They have also attained to confessing that the wills of men are anticipated by the grace of God, and to agreeing that no one can be sufficient of himself either to begin or to complete any good work. Holding fast these things, then, to which they have attained, they are very much distinguished from the error of the Pelagians. Accordingly, if they walk in them and pray to him who gives understanding, if they think otherwise on predestination, he will reveal this also to them; yet let us too bestow on them the affection of love and the ministry of the word, as he grants whom we have asked that in this letter we might say what would be fitting and useful for them. For how do we know whether our God may not will to accomplish this through this service of ours, by which we serve them in the free love of Christ?

First, then, we must show that the faith by which we are Christians is the gift of God, if indeed we can do this more thoroughly than we have already done in so many and so great volumes. But now I see that we must answer those who say that the divine testimonies which we have brought forward on this matter avail to show that we have faith itself from ourselves, but its increase from God; as though faith were not given us by him, but only increased in us by him, by the merit of its having begun from us. So there is no departure from that opinion which Pelagius himself was compelled to condemn in the episcopal judgment in Palestine, as the same Proceedings testify, “that the grace of God is given according to our merits,” if what belongs to the grace of God is not that we begin to believe, but rather what is added to us on that account, so that we may believe more fully and perfectly; and so we give God first the beginning of our faith, so that its completion may be repaid to us, and whatever else we ask faithfully. But against this why do we not rather hear, “Who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things”? From whom, then, is the very beginning of our faith, if not from him? For it is not that, this excepted, the rest are from him; 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 to be said that the rest are added by divine repayment to one who already merits, and so that the grace of God is given according to our merits: which Pelagius himself, when it was charged against him, condemned so as not to be condemned. Whoever, then, wants to avoid this condemnable opinion on every side, let him understand truly what the Apostle says: “To you it has been given for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him.” He shows that both are the gift of God, because he said that both were given. Nor does 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 himself obtained mercy to be more faithful, but to be faithful; because he knew that he had not first given God the beginning of his faith and had its increase repaid to him by God, but that he had been made faithful by him by whom he was also made an apostle. For the beginnings of his faith too are written, and are well known from being read in church. For, turned away from the faith which he was ravaging and vehemently opposed to it, he was suddenly converted to it by a more powerful grace, he converting him to whom, as one who would do this very thing, it was said through the prophet, “You will turn and give us life”; so that he was not only made willing to believe instead of unwilling, but also, instead of a persecutor, suffered persecution in defence of the faith which he persecuted. For it had been given 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 brings about all good merits, he says, “Not that we are sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.” Let those attend here and weigh these words who think that the beginning of faith is from us and the completion of faith from God. For who does not see that thinking comes before believing? For no one believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be believed. For however swiftly, however quickly some thoughts fly before the will to believe, and it follows so closely as to accompany them as if most closely joined, it is nevertheless necessary that all things that are believed be believed with thought going before. Though believing itself is nothing other than thinking with assent. For not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, and by believing thinks, and by thinking believes. So far, then, as concerns religion and godliness (of which the Apostle was speaking), if we are not sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, then we are certainly not sufficient to believe anything as from ourselves, which we cannot do without thinking; but our sufficiency, by which we begin to believe, is from God. Therefore, just as no one is sufficient of himself to begin or complete any good work (which these brothers, as your letters indicate, agree is true), so that in every good work, both in beginning and in completing it, our sufficiency is from God; so no one is sufficient of 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 sufficient to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. We must beware, brothers beloved of God, lest man lift himself up against God when he says that he does what God has promised. Was not the faith of the Gentiles promised to Abraham, and he, giving glory to God, most fully believed that what he had promised he was able also to do? He, then, makes the faith of the Gentiles who is able to do what he has promised. Further, if God works our faith, acting in a wonderful way in our hearts so that we believe, is it to be feared that he cannot do the whole of it, and that man therefore claims its first parts for himself, so as to deserve to receive the last from him? See whether anything else is done in this way than that the grace of God is given according to our merits in some way, and so grace is no longer grace. For by this bargain it is rendered as due, not given freely; for it is owed to the believer that his faith itself be increased by the Lord, and that faith increased be the reward of faith begun; and it is not noticed, when this is said, that this reward is reckoned to believers not according to grace but according to debt. But why the whole should not be attributed to man, so that he who could establish for himself what he did not have should himself increase what he has established, I do not see at all; unless because the most plain divine testimonies cannot be resisted, by which faith too, from which godliness takes its beginning, is shown to be the gift of God; such as that God has apportioned to each the measure of faith, and, “Peace to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” and the like. So man, not willing to fight against such clear testimonies, and yet willing that his believing be from himself, as it were makes a bargain with God, so as to claim part of faith for himself and leave part to him; and, what is more arrogant, takes the first part himself and gives him the following one; and in what he says belongs to both, he makes himself first and God second.

Not so did that godly and humble teacher think: I speak of the most blessed Cyprian, who said, “We must glory in nothing, since nothing is ours.” To show this he brought forward the Apostle as witness, saying, “And what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” By this testimony especially I too was convinced when I erred in a similar way, thinking that the faith by which we believe in God is not the gift of God, but is in us from ourselves, and that by it we obtain the gifts of God by which we may live soberly and righteously and godly in this world. For I did not think that faith was anticipated by the grace of God, so that through it what we asked for to our profit might be given us, except in this sense, that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not go before; but that we should consent when the gospel was preached to us, I thought was our own and was ours from ourselves. This error of mine some of my short works written before my episcopate show clearly enough. Among them is the one you mentioned in your letters, where there is an exposition of certain propositions from the Epistle to the Romans. Then, when I was revising all my works, and was carrying out that revision in writing, of which work I had already finished two books before I received your longer letters, when in the first volume I came to revising this book, I spoke thus about it: “Likewise,” I said, “discussing what God chose in one not yet born, to whom he said that the elder would serve, and what in that same elder, likewise not yet born, he rejected (concerning whom, on this account, the prophetic testimony is recalled, though uttered long afterwards, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’), I brought the reasoning to the point of saying: ‘God, then, did not choose in foreknowledge the works of anyone, which he himself is going to give; but he chose faith in foreknowledge, so that the one whom he foreknew would believe in him, him he chose, to give him the Holy Spirit, so that by doing good works he might also obtain eternal life.’ I had not yet searched carefully, nor yet found, what the election of grace is, of which the same apostle says, ‘A remnant has been saved by the election of grace’; which certainly is not grace if any merits go before it, lest what is given, not according to grace but according to debt, be rendered to merits rather than given. Accordingly, what I said next, ‘For the same apostle says, It is the same God who works all things in all; but it is nowhere said, God believes all things in all,’ and then added, ‘That we believe, then, is ours; but that we do good is his who gives the Holy Spirit to believers,’ I would certainly not have said if I had already known that faith itself too is found among the gifts of God which are given in the same Spirit. Both, then, are ours because of the choice of the will, and both are nevertheless given through the Spirit of faith and love. For not love alone, but, as it is written, ‘Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ And what I said a little later, ‘It is ours to believe and to will, but his to give to those who believe and will the ability to do good through the Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts,’ is indeed true, but by the same rule: both are his, because he prepares the will, and both are ours, because they are not done unless we will. And therefore what I also said afterwards, ‘Because we cannot even will unless we are called; and when after the call we will, our will and our running are not sufficient unless God gives strength to those who run and leads them where he calls,’ and then added, ‘It is plain, then, that it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, that we do good,’ is altogether most true. But I discussed too little the calling itself which takes place according to God's purpose; for such is not the calling of all who are called, but only of the elect. So what I said a little later, ‘For as in those whom God chooses it is not works but faith that begins merit, so that by the gift of God they may do good, so in those whom he condemns unbelief and ungodliness begin the merit of punishment, so that through that punishment itself they also do evil,’ I said most truly; but I did not think it needed to be asked, nor did I say, that the merit of faith too is itself the gift of God. And in another place: ‘For on whom he has mercy,’ I said, ‘he makes him do good, and whom he hardens he leaves to do evil; but that mercy is bestowed on the preceding merit of faith, and that hardening on preceding iniquity.’ This indeed is true; but it still had to be asked whether the merit of faith too comes from the mercy of God; that is, whether this mercy takes place in a man only because he is faithful, or had also taken place so that he might be faithful. For we read the Apostle saying, ‘I obtained mercy to be faithful’; he does not say, ‘because I was faithful.’ It is given, then, to the faithful, but it was also given so that he might be faithful. Most rightly, therefore, did I say in another place in the same book, ‘Since, if it is not of works but by the mercy of God that we are both called to believe and enabled when we believe to do good, this mercy is not to be begrudged to the Gentiles,’ although I there treated too little of that calling which takes place by God's purpose.”

You certainly see what I then thought about faith and works, though I was labouring to commend the grace of God; and in that opinion I now see these brothers of ours to be, because they have not taken care, as they have taken care to read my books, 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 Simplician of blessed memory, bishop of the church of Milan and successor of Saint Ambrose, at the very beginning of my episcopate. Unless perhaps they do not know them; and if so, let them come to know them. Of this first of those two books I spoke first in the second book of the Retractations, and my words run thus: “Of the books,” I said, “which I composed as bishop, the first two are to Simplician, prelate of the church of Milan, who succeeded the most blessed Ambrose, on various questions, two of which, from the Epistle of the apostle Paul to the Romans, I put together in the first book. The first of these concerns what is written, ‘What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Far from it,’ as far as where he says, ‘Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ In it I expounded those words of the Apostle, ‘The law is spiritual, but I am carnal,’ and the rest, in which the flesh is shown to fight against the spirit, as if a man were being described still under the law, not yet placed under grace. For long afterwards I came to know that those words could also be (and this is more probable) those of the spiritual man. The second question in this book is from the place where he says, ‘And not only so, but Rebecca also, having conceived by one act of intercourse with Isaac our father,’ as far as where he says, ‘Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.’ In the solution of this question I laboured indeed on behalf of the free choice of the human will; but the grace of God won; and I could arrive only at this, that the Apostle is understood to have said with most limpid truth, ‘For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?’ Wishing to show this, the martyr Cyprian too defined the whole of it in his very heading, saying, ‘We must glory in nothing, since nothing is ours.’” See why I said above that by this apostolic testimony especially I myself too had been convinced, when I thought otherwise on this matter; which God revealed to me in solving this question when, as I said, I was writing to bishop Simplician. This testimony of the Apostle, then, where to repress man's puffing up he said, “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 arrogance of this answer is utterly repressed by these apostolic words. But not even this can be said: “Though I do not have perfect faith, I have its beginning, by which I first believed in Christ.” For here too it is answered: “And what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?”

But what they think, “that it cannot be said of this faith, ‘For what do you have that you did not receive?’, because it has remained in the same nature, though vitiated, which was first given sound and perfect,” is seen to avail nothing for what they want, if one considers why the Apostle said this. For he was concerned that no one should glory in man, since dissensions had arisen among the Corinthian Christians, so that each said, “I am of Paul,” another, “I of Apollos,” another, “I of Cephas”; and from this he came to say, “God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong; and the ignoble and despised things of the world God chose, and the things that are not as though they were, to bring to nothing the things that are; so that no flesh may glory before God.” Here certainly the Apostle's intention against human pride is clear enough, that no one should glory in man, and therefore not in himself either. Then, when he had said, “so that no flesh may glory before God,” to show in what man ought to glory, he at once added, “But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became 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.’” From there this intention of his goes on, so that afterwards he says reprovingly, “For you are still carnal; for since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal, and walking according to man? For when one says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I of Apollos,’ are you not men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed, and to each as the Lord gave. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” Do you see that the Apostle aims at nothing but that man be humbled and God alone exalted? Since in those who are planted and watered he says that not even the planter and waterer is anything, but God who gives the increase; though even the very fact that the one plants and the other waters he attributes not to them but to the Lord, saying, “to each as the Lord gave. I planted, Apollos watered.” Persisting then in the same intention, he comes to say, “So let no one glory in man.” For he had already said, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” After these and some other things connected with them, this same intention of his is carried through to the point of saying: “These things, brothers, I have transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that you may learn in us not to be puffed up one for another against another beyond what is written. For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive? And if you 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, that no one should glory in man but in the Lord, it is, I think, too absurd to suppose that natural gifts of God are meant, whether the whole and perfect nature itself as it was given in the first creation, or whatever remains there are of the vitiated nature. For are men distinguished from men by these gifts which are common to all men? But here he first said, “For who makes you to differ?” and then added, “And what do you have that you did not receive?” For a man puffed up against another might say, “My faith makes me differ, my righteousness,” or anything else. Meeting such thoughts, the good teacher says, “And what do you have that you did not receive?” From whom, if not from him who makes you differ from another, to whom he did not give what he gave to you? “And if you received it,” he says, “why do you glory as if you had not received it?” Does he, I ask, aim at anything else than that he who glories should glory in the Lord? But nothing is so contrary to this sense as for anyone to glory in his own merits as though he had made them for himself, not the grace of God; but the grace that distinguishes the good from the evil, not that which is common to good and evil. Let it be granted that the grace by which we are rational living beings and are distinguished from cattle is attributed to nature; let that grace too be attributed to nature by which among men themselves the beautiful are distinguished from the ugly, or the talented from the slow, and anything of that kind; but the man whom the Apostle was restraining was not puffing himself up against cattle, nor against another man about some natural gift that could be present even in the worst of men; but he was puffed up attributing to himself, not to God, some good that belonged to the good life, when he deserved to hear, “For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive?” For granted that to be able to have faith belongs to nature, does to have it also belong to nature? “For not all have faith,” though to be able to have faith belongs to all. And the Apostle does not say, “What can you have that you have not received the ability to have?” but he says, “And what do you have that you did not receive?” Accordingly, to be able to have faith, as to be able to have love, belongs to the nature of men; but to have faith, as to have love, belongs to the grace of believers. That nature, then, in which the possibility of having faith was given us, does not distinguish man from man; but faith itself distinguishes the believer from the unbeliever. And therefore, where it is said, “For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive?”, whoever dares to say, “I have faith from myself; I did not, then, receive it,” certainly contradicts this most plain truth: not because believing or not believing is not in the choice of the human will, but because in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord. Therefore “For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive?” applies to faith itself as well, which is in the will.

“Many hear the word of truth; but some believe, others contradict. These, then, will to believe, but those do not.” Who does not know this? Who would deny it? But since the will is prepared by the Lord in some and not prepared in others, we must certainly distinguish what comes from his mercy and what from his judgment. “What Israel sought,” says the Apostle, “it has not obtained; but the election has obtained it, and the rest were blinded, as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day.’ And David says, ‘Let their table become a snare and a recompense and a stumbling block to them; let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see, and bend their back always.’” Here are mercy and judgment: mercy on the election, which has obtained the righteousness of God; but judgment on the rest, who were blinded; and yet the former believed because they willed, the latter did not believe because they did not will. Mercy and judgment, then, took place in the wills themselves. For this election is of grace, certainly not of merits. For he had said above, “So then at this present time also a remnant has been saved by the election of grace. But if by grace, then no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Freely, then, the election obtained what it obtained; nothing of theirs went before, which they might give first and have it repaid to them: he saved them for nothing. But to the rest who were blinded, as is not kept silent there, it was done in recompense. “All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.” But “his ways are unsearchable.” Unsearchable, then, are both the mercy by which he freely sets free and the truth by which he justly judges.

But perhaps they may say, “The Apostle distinguishes faith from works; he says that grace is not of works, but he does not say that it is not of faith.” That is so; but Jesus says that faith too is a work of God, and commands us to work 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.” The Apostle, then, distinguishes faith from works in the way that Judah is distinguished from Israel in the two kingdoms of the Hebrews, though Judah too is Israel. And he says that a man is justified by faith, not by works, because faith is given first, from which the rest may be obtained, which are properly called works, in which one lives righteously. For he himself also says, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God”; that is, even what I said, “through faith,” is not of yourselves, but faith too is the gift of God. “Not of works,” he says, “lest anyone should be lifted up.” For it is commonly said, “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 prayers heard before he had believed in Christ; yet he did not give and pray without some faith. For how did he call on him in whom he had not believed? But if he could have been saved without faith in Christ, the apostle Peter would not have been sent as master builder to build him up; although “unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.” And it is said to us, “Faith is from us; the rest, which belongs to the works of righteousness, is from the Lord”; as though faith did not belong to the building; as though, I say, the foundation did not belong to the building. But if it belongs to it first and foremost, he labours in vain who builds up faith by preaching, unless the Lord in his mercy builds it up within. Whatever good, then, Cornelius did, both before he believed in Christ, and when he was believing, and when he had believed, is all to be given to God, lest anyone should be lifted up.