The Calling of All Nations 2.15–2.25

For a certain measure of heavenly teaching was always applied to all men, which, though it was of a sparer and more hidden grace, yet sufficed, as the Lord judged, for some as a remedy and for all as a witness; so that it may appear not doubtfully but plainly that, had grace not superabounded where sin abounded, a like impiety would now too blind the whole human race. Or perhaps, as many prattle, better talents than those of old have arisen in our ages, and the last times have produced souls more fit for divine gifts? Even if this were so, it would have to be referred to the goodness of the author, who, in calling peoples to eternal life, had fashioned hearts that would not resist. But nothing at all has been renewed in fleshly generation, nor has the succession of descendants arisen nobler than their forefathers; rather, in the men of the time in which the Redeemer of the world came, the later the offspring, the stronger the iniquity was found to be. The impiety of the Jewish fury proved this; and how fit for the Gospel of Christ that generation was, the hearts not only of the people but also of the scribes, rulers and priests showed. For it was not enough for them to have raged against the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, against the testimony of the law, against the oracles of the prophets, against the proofs of divine miracles, with riots, insults, spitting, slaps, blows, stones, scourges and finally the atrocity of the cross, unless they also persecuted the witnesses of his resurrection with the same madness. This the apostles, when they were flogged by the high priests, showed to have been prophesied in the psalm of David, saying: “Lord, you are he who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David, your servant: Why did the nations rage, and the peoples devise vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly there gathered together in this city against your holy Son Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate with the gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do what your hand and your counsel had decreed to be done.” So, to make manifest the grace of God that was being arranged from his eternal and unchangeable counsel for the salvation of all nations, the earlier times were not passed over as incapable; but these times were chosen, which produced peoples whose fierce and voluntary iniquity persisted, with the intent not of taking counsel but of raging, in doing what the hand and counsel of God had decreed to be done; so that the grace and power of God might be the more wonderful, which out of such hard souls, such darkened minds and such hostile hearts made for itself a faithful, submissive and holy people, which came to the light of God’s wisdom not through the wisdom of this world but through his gift, of which the apostle John testifies, saying: “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God and be in his true Son.” With this testimony the apostle Paul agrees, saying: “Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us worthy of a share in the lot of the saints in light, who rescued us from darkness and from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.” And again the same: “For we too were once foolish, unbelieving, wandering, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and humanity of our Saviour appeared, not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, justified by his grace, we might be heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Could it have been explained more fully, more clearly or more truly what merits of men Christ found, what morals he subjected to himself, what hearts he turned to himself, when he came to heal not the healthy but the sick, and to call not the just but sinners? For the people of the gentiles who sat in darkness saw a great light, and to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death a light has risen. The nations raged, the peoples were angry, kings were savage, powers spoke against him, superstitions and all the errors of the world resisted. But out of those who resisted, raged and persecuted, Christ increased his people, and through the chains, tortures and deaths of the saints faith was strengthened, truth conquered, and through the whole world the abundance of the Lord’s harvest was multiplied. For such constancy of faith, such confidence of hope, such fortitude in endurance was given from above that the fire of love which the Holy Spirit had kindled in the hearts of the faithful could in no way be put out by their oppressors; since those who were tortured burned the more vehemently, and those who raged often caught the same flame they were persecuting, the flame with which the blessed apostle Paul was set on fire when he said confidently and fervently: “Being justified, then, by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God. And not only this, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, patience proof, proof hope, and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And again: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As it is written, For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome through him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor strength, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This love, poured out through the Holy Spirit, made the world of the faithful conquer the world of the impious. This love put to shame the cruelty of Nero, the fury of Domitian and the rage of many emperors after them by the glorious end of innumerable martyrs, Christ granting his imitators eternal crowns out of the persecutions of kings.

There is no reason, then, to doubt that Jesus Christ our Lord died for the impious and for sinners. If anyone were found free of their number, Christ did not die for all; but Christ died absolutely for all; therefore no one of all men before the reconciliation made through Christ’s blood was not either a sinner or impious, as the Apostle says: “For why did Christ, when we were still weak, at the appointed time die for the impious? For scarcely will anyone die for a just man; though perhaps for a good man someone might dare to die. But God commends his love toward us, because, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; much more, then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” And the same Apostle says in the second to the Corinthians: “For the love of Christ urges us, since we judge this, that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, so that those who live may no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.” And let us hear what he declares about himself: “Faithful is the saying,” he says, “and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first; but I obtained mercy for this reason, that in me first Christ Jesus might show all patience, as a pattern for those who would believe in him for eternal life.” Whether circumcision, then, or uncircumcision, all were universally shut up under sin, and one guilt had bound all, and among the more and the less impious there was no one who could be saved without Christ’s redemption. This redemption brought itself to the whole world and became known to all men without distinction. For on the fiftieth day after that Passover in which the true Lamb had offered himself as a victim to God, when the apostles and those of one mind with them, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke in the tongues of all nations, a multitude of men of different races came together, roused by the miracle, so that in those present the whole world might hear the Gospel of Christ. For there came together, as it is written, “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and those who live in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, Jews as well as proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, all hearing the mighty works of God preached in their own tongues”; and their witness would run on far and wide even to the more distant nations. For bringing this about we believe that the breadth of the Roman realm was prepared by the providence of God, so that the nations to be called into the unity of the body of Christ might first be joined together under the rule of one empire; though Christian grace is not content to have the same limits as Rome, and has already subjected to the sceptre of Christ’s cross many peoples whom Rome did not subdue by her arms. Rome herself, however, through the primacy of the apostolic priesthood, has been made greater by the citadel of religion than by the throne of power.

But if perhaps, just as we know that certain nations were adopted into the fellowship of the sons of God not long ago, so also now there are some nations in the farthest parts of the world on which the grace of the Saviour has not yet shone, we do not doubt that for them too a time of calling has been arranged by the hidden judgment of God, in which they will hear and receive the Gospel that they have not heard. Yet that measure of general help which has always been given from above to all men is not denied them, though human nature has been wounded with so bitter a wound that unaided contemplation can fully instruct no one to the knowledge of God, unless the true light dispels the shadow of the heart; and this light God, just and good, by an inscrutable judgment did not pour out in past ages as he has in the last days. Hence the blessed apostle Paul, writing to the Colossians, says: “The mystery that was hidden from ages and generations, but now has been made manifest to his saints, to whom God willed to make known the riches of the glory of this sacrament among the gentiles, which is Christ in you.”

Was this mystery unknown even to the prophets? Did those through whom the Holy Spirit spoke not know the things they announced? I do not think it is to be understood so, but that the mystery was hidden from the nations themselves, and the Lord revealed it when he willed and to whom he willed. For of the calling of the nations, which were not God’s people and on which he did not have mercy before but now has mercy, it is said thus in Deuteronomy: “And the Lord saw and was jealous and was angry because of the provocation of his sons and daughters, and said, I will turn my face away from them and show what will be at the last, for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faith. They have provoked me to jealousy with what is not God, they have angered me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with those who were not a nation; with a foolish nation I will anger them.” And David sings beforehand of all the nations that would worship God: “All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord, and glorify your name.” And again the same: “And all the kings of the earth will worship him; all nations will serve him.” And again: “In him all the tribes of the earth will be blessed; all nations will magnify him.” Isaiah too announces like things, saying: “For in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, and the house of God on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will come to it.” And again the same: “And the Lord of hosts will make a feast for all nations on this mountain: they will drink wine with joy, they will be anointed with ointment on this mountain; he will give all these things to the nations; for this is the counsel concerning all nations.” And again the same: “And the Lord will reveal his holy arm in the sight of all nations, and all the nations of the earth will see the salvation that is from the Lord.” And again: “Behold, strangers will come to you through me and will flee to you.” And further: “Nations that did not know you will call on you, and peoples who do not know you will flee to you.” Hosea too prophesies the like, saying: “And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God, and the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together.” And again: “I will have mercy on her who was not loved, and I will say to Not-my-people, You are my people; and he will say, You are my God.” And under the apostles, when those who had believed in Christ from the circumcision thought that those who were gentiles and called the uncircumcision could not share in the grace of justification, the blessed apostle Peter teaches how undistinguished both peoples are before God if both come together into the unity of faith: “And when I had begun to speak,” he says, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If, then, God gave them the same grace as he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God? When they heard this they fell silent and glorified God, saying, Then to the gentiles too God has given repentance unto life.” The apostle James too says of this calling of the nations: “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, as it is written: After this I will return and rebuild the tent of David that has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins and set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the nations over whom my name is called, says the Lord who does these things; his work is known to the Lord from of old.” Simeon too, to whom it had been revealed by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ, said this of the salvation of all nations that was being revealed in Christ: “Now you let your servant go, Lord, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light for revelation to the gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” By these and other testimonies of the Scriptures it is shown beyond doubt that this richest, most powerful and kindest grace, by which in the last time of the world all nations are called into the kingdom of Christ, was hidden in former ages in the secret counsel of God.

And why it was not revealed earlier by this manifestation by which it now becomes known to all nations, no knowledge can comprehend, no understanding penetrate; while that which is most piously believed of God’s goodness, that he wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, must be held to be nothing other than perpetual and eternal, according to those measures by which God knows how to heap special gifts upon general ones; so that those who have had no share in grace may be convicted of their own wickedness, and those who have shone with its light may glory not in their own merit but in the Lord.

On this narrow but straight path of understanding, the consideration of little children raises no small difficulty. They use no judgment of reason by which, perceiving the benefits of their author, they could come to the knowledge of the truth; nor do they seem to be justly charged with neglecting helping grace, being set by nature in that ignorance which beyond doubt receives no knowledge and perceives no teaching. Since, then, God wills all men to be saved, why is so great a multitude of infants estranged from everlasting salvation, and so many thousands of human beings of this age left outside eternal life, as though they had been created by him who created hating no one for this purpose only: that, having come into this world with the flesh of sin, they should fall into the bonds of insoluble guilt without the guilt of any action of their own? What can be deeper, what more wonderful than this? For it is not lawful to believe that those who have not received the sacrament of regeneration belong to any fellowship of the blessed. And it becomes more astonishing and more wonderful that, where no action offends, where no choice resists, where there is the same misery, like weakness and a common case, there is not one judgment in such equality, and grace adopts for eternity such as rejection reprobates.

Nevertheless the heart of our humility is not troubled by this depth of God’s discrimination, if with firm and steady faith we believe every judgment of God to be just, and do not desire to have known what he willed to be secret; so that where it cannot be found out why he judges thus, it may suffice to know who it is that judges. Yet this question is not so unknowable that we can gain no instruction from it, if the tranquil gaze of a sober heart is turned to contemplating what can be seen. For when we consider how great a number of little children perish among pagans, among Jews, among heretics, and among Catholic Christians themselves, who, as far as their own wills are concerned, are known to have done nothing either good or bad, we learn that the sentence remains over them which the human race received in the transgression of Adam, the first parent; and since the rigour of this sentence is not relaxed even toward such, it is shown how great that sin was. For no one would think that a child is not born innocent, unless it were harmful even to such not to be reborn. As for the untimeliness of death, there is no reason to complain, since mortality, having once entered our nature through sin, has made every day of our life subject to it. For there would be a time when man could in some way be called immortal, if there were a period within which he could not die at all. But corruption never shares in incorruption so far that what is owed to setting is not always subject to failing. The beginning of this life is the start of death; nor does our age begin to increase before it begins to diminish. If any span of time is added to it, it does not come in order to remain, but passes in order to perish. What, then, is mortal from its beginning, on whatever day it dies, does not fall against the law of mortality, nor is it ever nearer to being able to live than to being able to fail. And though mortality arose for all men from one cause, corruptible nature is drawn not into one but into manifold weakness. And not only the years or months or days of human life, but all its hours and all its moments are subject to diseases, infirmities and wounds. Nor is there any kind of death or any manner of dying that does not fall on some portion of the whole number of mortals. For a heavy yoke lies on the sons of Adam, from the day they come out of their mother’s womb to the day of burial in the mother of all.

But the weight of this harshest yoke did not fall on the sons of Adam in such a way that divine justice applied none of its measuring to them; it so subjected what was to fail to the laws of failing as not to withdraw from them the power of its moderations; nor did all men fall into all evils because all were subject to all through their common condition, but, the general necessity being varied, the Lord kept for himself occasions of indulgence and of correction, so that in the one debt of all there should be what he as merciful might remit and as just might exact. Since, then, the just and almighty providence of God unceasingly judges all things, and no one comes into this world or goes out of it except by that entry and departure which the arbiter of things decrees according to his highest knowledge and wisdom — as it is written in the book of Job, “Who does not know that the hand of the Lord has made all these things, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all the flesh of man?” and again, “The days of man are short, and the number of his days is with you” — who would dare to inquire into the causes of his works and counsels? For it is inscrutable and very secret why the human condition has been varied with such great differences. A long-lasting infirmity consumes one man from infancy to old age, and in his unending pains the time of his appointed age does not run out; another is enlivened by a most long-lived vigour with whole and healthy strength. For one the end comes in childhood, for another in youth. One is not allowed to go beyond young manhood; for another it is impossible to grow up to the first rudiments of speech. These limits of life, unequal in so many ways, fragile mortality would find less bitter if it suffered only the losses of the present age, and if those who went hence without the washing of regeneration did not fall into eternal miseries.

But since the cause of the gifts that grace bestows is more inscrutable than that of the miseries that nature has deserved, the very difficulty of understanding sends us back to our author. And when we ask how he wills all men to be saved who does not grant all men that time in which, through voluntary faith, they may be able to receive grace, I think it is not irreligiously believed nor unfittingly understood that these men of a few days belong to that part of grace which has always been bestowed on all nations; by which, if their parents used it well, they too would be helped through them. For the beginnings of all little children and all those first stages of an infancy not yet rational lie under the choice of another’s will, and they can in no way be cared for except through others; and it follows that they belong to the fellowship of those by whose right or depraved affection they are guided. For just as they believe through another’s confession, so through another’s unbelief or neglect they do not believe. And since they themselves had no desire either for the present life or for the future one, as it was their lot to be born, so it becomes their lot not to be reborn. But just as for adults, besides that general grace that knocks more sparingly and hiddenly on the hearts of all men, a special calling is put forth with a more excellent work, a larger gift and a more powerful strength, so also for innumerable little children the same election is made manifest. It was not lacking, indeed, to those who were not reborn, in the person of their parents; but to those who were reborn it was present beyond their parents, so that often the care of strangers has served many whom the impiety of their own families abandoned, and they came to regeneration through outsiders, which was not to be provided for them by their nearest.

In this work of grace, who but a most arrogant and most vain man would complain of divine justice because a like providence does not care for all little children, and either remove by its power or forestall by its mercy all the dangers that can prevent the regeneration of those about to die? This would certainly be done for all, if it were altogether right that it be done. But it is plain how much care would grow slack in the hearts of the faithful if, in baptizing little children, nothing were to be feared from anyone’s negligence or from their death, since it could in no way happen that such children were cheated of baptism. Indeed, by such an unlosable happiness of infants the opinion of that error would be most vehemently strengthened which dares to preach, against the Catholic faith, that grace is given according to men’s merits. For it would seem owed in all fairness to blameless innocence that adoption should pass over none of those whom no guilt bound; nor would someone have said impiously about the baptism of little children: “Grace has whom to adopt; the water has nothing to wash away.” But all disciples of the truth understand that this was preached detestably; and hence it is manifest that those who are saved are freed not by merit but by grace, since there is no doubt that those who have died without baptism have perished. They certainly would not perish unless they shared in a most grievous sin. But now, by a hidden but just discrimination of God, it is shown both what grace confers and what transgressing nature deserves, so that neither does pride rise up against the gift nor diligence cease against the danger.

Whether, then, we contemplate the last ages, or the first, or those between, it is reasonably and piously believed that God wills all men to be saved and has always willed it; and this is shown from nothing other than those benefits which the providence of God bestows on all generations in common and without distinction. For such gifts were and are so general that by their testimony men could be helped to seek the true God; and over these gifts, which bear witness to their author through all ages, the bounty of special grace has been poured out. Though this is now given more abundantly than before, yet the Lord has kept the causes of its distribution within his own knowledge and hidden them within the secret of his most powerful will. If they flowed to all uniformly, they would not be hidden; and as there is no doubt about the general goodness, so there would be nothing astonishing about the special mercy, and so the one would be grace and the other would not. But it pleased God both to bestow the latter on many and to withdraw the former from no one, so that from both it might appear that what was conferred on a part was not denied to the whole, but that in some grace prevailed and in others nature resisted. [26] For we believe and experience this more abundant grace to be powerful, yet in no way do we consider it coercive, as though whatever is done in saving men were accomplished by the will of God alone, even though help is given to little children through the service of another’s will. The grace of God indeed holds the chief place in all justification, persuading by exhortations, moving by examples, frightening by dangers, rousing by miracles, giving understanding, inspiring counsel, and enlightening the heart itself and imbuing it with the affections of faith; but the will of man too is set under it and joined to it, having been roused by the aids just named for this purpose, that it may cooperate with the divine work in itself and begin to put into practice for merit what it conceived as desire from the heavenly seed, having from its own changeableness that it fails, if it fails, and from the help of grace that it advances, if it advances. This help is applied to all in innumerable ways, hidden or manifest; and that it is rejected by many is due to their own wickedness, but that it is received by many is due both to divine grace and to the human will. Whether, then, we think of the beginnings of the faithful, or their progress, or their perseverance to the end, no kind and no species of any virtue will be found that is had either without the gift of divine grace or without the consent of our will. For grace itself works by every kind of healing and helping to prepare in the one it calls a will that is the first receiver and servant of its gifts. For there is no virtue in the unwilling, nor can faith, hope or love be said to be in those whose consent is a stranger to these good things.