Election and predestination in the early church

God's choice of those who are saved, foreknowledge, and predestination. Part of Salvation.

Sentence 2 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · An elect person is a person of God.
Sentence 373 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is God's own work to save whomever he chooses.
Sentence 433 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · An elect person does everything according to God, but does not profess to be elect.
Adumbrations on Jude, paragraph 1Clement of Alexandria · original ca. 200; Latin translation 6th century · On Jude: Jude, brother of the Lord through Joseph, humbly calls himself servant; the ungodly were foreknown for judgment; the images of clouds, trees, waves and wandering stars describe unbelievers and apostates; Enoch is approved as a prophet.
Against Heresies 4.29.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · As God hands over to unbelief those he foreknows will not believe, so he hardened Pharaoh, who would never have believed.
Excerpts from Theodotus 9.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · All are called equally, but those who believe more are chosen, to whom Christ speaks as his own.
Excerpts from Theodotus 41.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The seeds are akin to the light, Jesus; so the church is said to be chosen before the foundation of the world.
On First Principles 2.9.7Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Paul's question about Jacob and Esau applies to all creatures: their diversity is just only if each has its causes in itself, preceding bodily birth.
On First Principles 3.1.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Against heretics who say Pharaoh was lost by nature, Origen argues that a hardening by God and a need for mercy both presuppose that a soul could have turned either way.
On First Principles 3.1.21Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The potter's making of vessels for honour and dishonour does not remove free choice, for Paul blames and praises, and says that whoever cleanses himself becomes a vessel for honour.
On First Principles 3.1.22Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Vessels are made for honour or dishonour from earlier causes, as Jacob was loved before birth; the “one lump” is the one nature of rational souls, and Paul's rebuke is aimed at the faithless, not the saints.
Fragments on Genesis, column 63Origen · ca. 220-254 · God surveys in his mind the whole chain of events from creation to the end and knows it without causing it, like one who foresees a reckless man's fall.
Fragments on Genesis, column 65Origen · ca. 220-254 · An event is foreknown because it will happen, not the reverse; Judas was foreknown as a betrayer, yet could have remained an apostle like Peter.
Fragments on Genesis, column 67Origen · ca. 220-254 · Human beings have real powers for good and evil; God hides the future from us, as Jeremiah's “perhaps” shows, so that foreknowledge may cause neither despair nor slackness.
Commentary on John 13.221Origen · ca. 230–248 · The whole mystery of calling and election is the food of the great supper.
On Prayer 5.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · The second objection: if God has preordained everything, praying for what will happen anyway is as foolish as praying for the sun to rise.
On Prayer 5.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · A further objection: if Scripture says some are sinners from the womb and others chosen before birth, as Jacob and Esau were, prayer seems to change nothing.
On Prayer 5.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · The objection continues: if the elect are chosen before creation and Josiah and Judas were foretold, prayer cannot change God's unchangeable purpose.
On Prayer 5.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen quotes Ambrose's two questions: if God foreknows everything, and if his will cannot change, is prayer not vain?
On Prayer 6.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · God foresaw Josiah's goodness, Judas's fall, and Paul's persecution and conversion, and arranged his help accordingly without taking away their freedom.
Homilies on Exodus 4.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen will not treat as chance the varying accounts of who hardened Pharaoh's heart, and follows Paul's reticence in not committing the solution of the question to writing.
Homilies on Numbers 3.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The Levites, though not firstborn, are taken in place of the firstborn, showing that God ranks people by the purpose of their heart, and Christ alone stands perfectly “in the midst.”
On the Trinity 16Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Christ's promises of eternal life to believers, the Paraclete's receiving from him, his joining himself to the Father as object of faith, and his glory before the world prove him God, not a mere man or only predestined.
Against Celsus 2.18Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that if Jesus truly foreknew the betrayal and denial, they had to happen, and that neither Judas nor Peter acted with complete indifference to him.
Against Celsus 2.20Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's charge that a foreknowing God made his disciples traitors, Origen argues that foreknowledge does not cause what it foresees, using Judas, the oracle to Laius, and the Stoic “idle argument.”
Commentary on Romans 1.2Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · 'Called' is common to all believers, but not all the called are chosen: Judas, the disobedient prophet, and unworthy martyrs, virgins, shepherds and fasters.
Commentary on Romans 1.3Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Paul was set apart from the womb not by nature, as heretics claim, but because God foresaw his merits; foreknowledge precedes predestination without causing it; the Gospel of God is the Gospel of Christ.
Commentary on Romans 7.7Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains that all things work for good for those who love God, distinguishes the two forms of Christ to which believers are conformed, reads “foreknew” as God’s knowing the good with love, and calls the soul of Jesus the proper image of the Son.
Commentary on Romans 7.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen interprets the chain of foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying and glorifying so that salvation rests not on God’s foreknowledge but on human purpose and action: God “knows” the good with love, calls all, and justifies those called “according to purpose.”
Commentary on Romans 7.15Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains that God’s promises to Israel have not failed, because Isaac and Jacob were chosen not by fleshly descent or works but by God’s purpose, so that the promise passes to the sons of God, not the sons of the flesh.
Commentary on Romans 7.16Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen reads Romans 9:14–19 as an objector’s case against free choice which Paul rejects, explaining “not of him who wills” as the work completed by God, Pharaoh as “raised up” for his own wickedness, and hardening as God’s patience that the obstinate refuse.
Commentary on Romans 7.17Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains that Paul rebukes the insolent questioner but opens to the humble seeker (2 Tim 2:20–21) that vessels of honor are those who cleanse themselves and vessels of wrath those who harden themselves, as Jacob was chosen for the purity of his soul.
Recognitions 10.2Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · To Niceta's fear that their father might die unsaved, Peter replies that God judges motives and foreknows his own, and suggests they discuss useful topics in his hearing.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God foreknew Judas's betrayal but did not cause it.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Neither God's foreknowledge nor the signs that bear it cause what is foreknown.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God foresees the whole chain of events without causing each.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.36Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The future event causes the foreknowledge, not the reverse.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.37Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Foreknowledge does not make the foreknown necessary, as with Judas.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.42Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God knows which of two real possibilities will occur.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.143Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The promises belong to the chosen seed, not to the whole nation; many are called, few chosen.
Oration II Against the Arians 75Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · “Before the age” refers to God's eternal purpose of salvation prepared in the Word before creation, since God foreknew the fall, as 2 Tim 1:9–10 and Eph 1:3–5 teach.
Oration II Against the Arians 76Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Our election, adoption, and inheritance “before the foundation of the world” were founded in the Word, so that when the world passes away our life, prepared in Christ, will endure.
Tractates on the Psalms 64.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Many are called but few chosen, the chosen being those in the wedding garment of baptism; there are many mansions of differing glory, and all the worthy share heavenly honour.
Tractates on the Psalms 67.29Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · “Command your power” means God commanding his Son, who is God’s power; what God foreordained in us he confirms in Christ.
Commentary on Ephesians 1.4Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Election “before the foundation of the world” shows, for Victorinus, that souls existed in Christ before the world, which was made so that souls deceived by the senses might know God and, through Christ, become spiritual, holy, and without blemish.
Commentary on Ephesians 1.5Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · God adopts souls as sons through Christ, the only true Son and the image of God, to the praise of his glory and grace.
Commentary on Ephesians 1.11Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · God works all things through Christ, who is his will and motion, and everything that comes to pass was predestined by him.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 2:7Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · God's hidden wisdom, unknown to the powers, was predestined before the ages for believers' glory.
Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2:12Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · God chose the Thessalonians from the beginning because he foreknew their faith, by which they increase the body of Christ.
Commentary on 2 Timothy 1:9Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · God, foreknowing sin, predestined salvation by grace and not by merit, and called unworthy men to lead his people; this hidden gift was revealed in Christ’s coming.
Commentary on Ephesians 1:4Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · God chose in Christ before creation those he foreknew would believe and persevere, Jews and gentiles alike.
Commentary on Romans 9:11–13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster explains God’s choice of Jacob over Esau as resting on foreknowledge of their wills, not favouritism; God judges by present justice, so that some, like Saul, Judas and the seventy-two, are good for a time though foreknown as evil.
Commentary on Romans 9:23Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · God’s patience prepares the faithful for glory and the persistently wicked for destruction; to “prepare” is to foreknow.
Letter 120.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets Rom 9:14-29, rejecting the idea of souls punished for sins before birth and arguing that God's choice rests on human free will to believe or refuse.
Letter 124.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome quotes book 3 of On First Principles, where Origen explains Jacob and Esau, vessels of honor and dishonor, and possessed children by the merits of souls before birth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They despise Church members as ignorant and call themselves the elect.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture foretells because God foreknows; it does not cause.
On the Christian Faith 5.6Ambrose · ca. 378–380 · Ambrose argues that the request of James and John for seats beside Christ was impossible for any creature, since even angels and the Seraphim stand before God, and that Christ’s “not mine to give” was said according to his humanity.
Book of Heresies 128.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some misread the hardening of Pharaoh and Romans 9.
Book of Heresies 153.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The measuring line in Zechariah signifies the election of few.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 24Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · God predestined hidden wisdom for the glory of those he chose before the world.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 1.26Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · God who predestined, called, justified, and glorified will not abandon his own, and Christ the judge is also our advocate; nothing should separate us from him.
Letter 24.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus of Nola writes to Alypius, bishop of Thagaste, rejoicing in a friendship formed by God before they had met.
Letter 149.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · God's inscrutable wisdom lets the wicked, whom he foreknew but did not make wicked, be born, and uses their evil for the good of the righteous.
Letter 149.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The 'enemies' and 'beloved' of Romans 11:28 are different members of one people, or enemies later converted; the elect were chosen before the foundation of the world.
Letter 149.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The irrevocable gifts and calling of Romans 11:29 belong to the predestined, called according to God's purpose, foreknown, justified, and glorified (Romans 8).
Letter 149.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Those who fall away were not among the predestined, as shown by baptized infants who later apostatize; why some are predestined and others not is hidden but never unjust.
Letter 177.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The grace proper to Christians is not created nature but the hidden help of the Spirit by which the predestined are called, justified, and glorified.
Letter 186.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's point about the unborn twins is that election is of grace, which makes people worthy rather than finding them so.
Letter 186.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's answer to the charge of injustice is God's word to Moses: to free anyone from the deserved mass of death is mercy, and to punish the equally guilty is not injustice.
Letter 186.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's image of the potter shows that since the whole human lump fell into condemnation through Adam's free choice, honour is from mercy and dishonour from just judgment.
Letter 186.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Though God's judgments are unsearchable, one must hold that no one is justified by merit and no one is hardened without desert.
Letter 186.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Esau and Jacob had no works of their own, but both were born guilty in Adam, so the one freed should praise mercy and the one punished not blame judgment.
Letter 186.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The number of the saints is fixed in God's foreknowledge; called according to purpose, justified and glorified, they are saved by the election of grace.
Letter 187.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jeremiah's sanctification in the womb is best understood as predestination, as when the Gospel calls the unbaptized Gentiles 'children of God' before they are gathered into one.
Letter 190.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · God creates even those destined to damnation because the whole lump from Adam is condemned; birth makes vessels of wrath by just punishment, rebirth vessels of mercy by grace.
Letter 194.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · If it is unjust to free one of two equally guilty, then justice would punish both; God's choice shows both justice and grace and is hidden in the depth of his wisdom.
Letter 194.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The defenders of free choice repeat the objection Paul answered in Rom 9: why does God still find fault?
Letter 194.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · To those who blame God's will for their hardness, Augustine repeats Paul's answer; it suffices to believe that God frees by mercy and condemns by justice, his reasons being unsearchable.
Letter 194.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The Pelagian objection fails with infants: why does one die baptized and another unbaptized, when no merit distinguishes them and fate or fortune cannot be invoked?
Letter 194.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · God's love of Jacob and hatred of Esau before birth show election by grace: he loved in Jacob his own gift and hated in Esau original sin.
Letter 194.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The Pelagian appeal to foreseen works is refuted by Paul himself, who answered the charge of injustice not by foreseen works but by God's free mercy.
Letter 217.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine leaves open why some receive grace for a time and then fall, while insisting on holding firm to what is certain in the Catholic faith.
Letter 217.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine interprets "God wills all to be saved" as meaning that all who are saved are saved by his will, citing infants who die unbaptized despite their parents' efforts.
Letter 225.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Prosper reports that monks at Marseilles reject Augustine's teaching on the calling of the elect, and that On Rebuke and Grace has hardened their opposition.
Letter 225.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Prosper sets out the Marseilles monks' position: grace is offered to all, predestination rests on foreknowledge of faith, and Augustine's doctrine breeds fatalism and despair and is new.
Letter 225.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Prosper reports how the Marseilles monks explain the different fates of infants and unevangelized nations by God's foreknowledge of their future merits.
Letter 225.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Prosper reports that the Marseilles monks hold Christ died for all, reject a fixed number of the elect, and make human obedience precede grace.
Letter 225.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Prosper lists questions for Augustine: the danger of the error, grace and free choice, the relation of foreknowledge and purpose, exhortation, and the earlier fathers' view of predestination by foreknowledge.
Letter 226.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports that the opponents appeal to Augustine's own earlier writings (Letter 102 against Porphyry and the Exposition of Propositions from Romans) for election based on foreseen faith.
Letter 226.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports that the opponents reduce predestination to foreknowledge of faith, deny that perseverance is given irresistibly, and reject Wisdom 4:11 as non-canonical.
Letter 226.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports the objection that exhortation and rebuke are useless if the elect and the rejected are fixed and nothing in man can respond.
Letter 226.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports that the opponents object to Augustine's contrast between Adam's grace and the gift of perseverance to the elect, saying it produces despair.
Letter 226.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports that the opponents deny a fixed number of the elect, interpret 1 Tim 2:4 of all without exception, and dispute Augustine's use of texts on Saul and David.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Evodius asks how God's foreknowledge of the first man's sin can leave the will free; Augustine says most people are troubled by this because they excuse rather than confess their sins.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Augustine argues that God's foreknowledge does not remove the will: what God foreknows is a will, and a will is necessarily in our power, so foreknowledge makes our free willing certain rather than impossible.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Foreknowledge does not compel: as our memory does not cause past deeds, God's foreknowledge does not cause future sins, so he justly punishes sins he foresees but does not commit.
Sermon 26.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Creation is common to all and was itself an unmerited gift, but the psalm’s “he made us” means that God made us his people, having chosen us before the world existed.
Sermon 26.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The grace that saves sinners who deserved punishment is greater than the grace of creation; from the one lump of perdition God makes vessels of honor, and when one infant is baptized and another dies unbaptized we can only cry, “O the depth!”
Sermon 26.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · If it troubles us that one is baptized and another perishes, we must hear “O man, who are you?”; we should claim nothing for ourselves but give glory to God for what we have received.
Sermon 27.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Since the whole world is justly guilty, God is not unjust when he condemns and has mercy on whom he wills; his equity may be hidden, but there is no iniquity in him.
Sermon 27.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine does not claim to know why God hardens some; faithful ignorance is better than rash knowledge, and we must rise beyond being “mere men” by belonging to the Son of Man.
Sermon 27.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We walk by faith in the crucified, “unsightly” Christ, whose sign we bear on our foreheads; only at the vision of his beauty will we see God’s equity in why one is baptized and another is not.
Sermon 47.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · After naming the he-goats once, God speaks of all as sheep, since only he, by foreknowledge and predestination, knows who belongs to which.
Sermon 100.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The man who wanted to say farewell first was unfit to look back; Christ chose whom he willed, by the election of grace, as God kept seven thousand in Elijah’s day.
Sermon 155.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ had no sin but was made “sin,” that is, a sacrifice for sin, so that we might become God's righteousness in him; why some do not share it lies in God's unsearchable judgments.
Sermon 158.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Since God predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies, no one can harm those for whom he is, unless he defeats God; whoever resists only harms himself.
Sermon 158.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Of predestination, calling, justification, and glorification, some we have and some we await; God is our debtor only by his own promise, since we have given him nothing.
Sermon 158.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God's calling is not a reward for prior worship: we did not exist when predestined, were turned away when called, and were sinners when justified, so all is grace.
Sermon 158.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We are already predestined and called; justification we have in part, through baptism and faith, yet the struggle with sin remains, so no one may say he is without sin.
Sermon 165.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Why grace is given to one and not another is the hidden depth of the cross, God's unsearchable judgment, before which Augustine can only cry out in wonder.
Sermon 305.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ said ‘my soul is troubled’ not by his own power but to take into himself his weak members who are troubled at death, so that they do not despair but hope in the Lord who chose, called, justified and died for them.
Sermon 312.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Cyprian did what he taught and taught what he did; God, who predestined, called, cleansed and crowned him and gave his body to this place, showed in him that love without the unity of Christ is no love, and the day should be kept soberly.
Confessions 13.49Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The six days figure the history of salvation and the formation of the church, predestined in the Word.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 26.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine holds that whatever happens is what God wills, and that what God foreknows as future will certainly happen.
On the Trinity 13.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Death and the evils of this life remain after forgiveness as a field of trial for the faithful; Christ's undeserved death frees the predestined, and God's wrath is just retribution, not passion.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 58–59Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Christ's foreknowledge did not cause Judas' betrayal, for foreknowledge follows what will happen rather than causing it; and the setting of the stars is explained by the horizon, as with ships at sea, without making the heaven a sphere.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 4.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The Spirit is said to be grieved, and God to know, when the saints grieve or come to know through his gift (Eph 4:30; Gal 4:9).
Apology against Rufinus 1.22Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome shows that his comment on Eph 1:4 referred election to God's foreknowledge, reported Origen's view of pre-existent souls only as "another's," and then refuted it.
Apology against Jerome 1.25Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus quotes Jerome's Commentary on Ephesians on "before the foundation of the world," in which Jerome explains katabolē and speaks of election before birth.
Apology against Jerome 1.28Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus quotes Jerome's Commentary on Ephesians on Eph 1:5–6, which sets out the view that differences at birth reflect souls' earlier merits.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 14.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · “No one receives his testimony” refers to those foreknown as unbelievers; those who receive it set their seal that God, that is Christ, is true.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 26.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Unless one eats Christ's flesh and drinks his blood one has no eternal life; this food signifies the fellowship of his body, the church of the predestined, and its sacrament, received daily or at intervals, brings life to some and destruction to others, while the reality brings life to all who share it.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 42.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ called “from God” those he foreknew would be reborn by faith, and “not from God” those foreknown to remain in their sins; all men are from God by nature and sinners by fault.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 45.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · God knows his own by foreknowledge and predestination, so that some now outside are his sheep and some now inside are not.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 45.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The shepherd's voice that distinguishes his sheep is “He who perseveres to the end will be saved”; the predestined who stray return to it.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 45.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ is the shepherd who calls the predestined by name, frees them from sin, and goes before them; both shepherd and sheep enter by the door.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 48.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's sheep, the predestined, cannot be snatched from him; what the Father gave the Son by begetting him, coeternal and equal, is greater than all.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 49.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Caiaphas prophesied by virtue of his office; the evangelist extends his words to God’s scattered children, who are his sheep by predestination.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 52.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · "All things" that Christ draws when lifted up on the cross are the whole human person, or the predestined, or every kind of person, joined to him as head.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 53.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · God foretold the Jews' unbelief by his foreknowledge but did not cause it; foreknowledge does not compel sin.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 53.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · John's "they could not believe" and Paul's citation of Isaiah seem to make God the cause of unbelief, sharpening the question.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 53.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · They could not believe because they would not; God blinds by withholding help, by a judgment hidden but never unjust, before which we must stand in awe.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 54.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine sorts Jesus' hearers into those predestined to believe, the open and the timid believers, and unbelievers, some of whom later believed.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 59.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Judas was not chosen for blessedness, though chosen for a purpose; the other disciples ate the bread that was the Lord, Judas the Lord's bread to his judgment.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 68.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The dwelling places already exist in God's predestination but are still being prepared in his working, as the disciples were chosen both before the world and when they were called.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 83.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's joy over us, full from eternity in his foreknowledge, begins in us when we are called and will be filled in the resurrection; God's blessedness does not increase from us.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 86.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ chose us not because he foresaw our faith or works but by grace, which does not find merits but produces them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 87.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Out of the mass lost in Adam, God by free grace makes vessels of mercy, the world reconciled, whom the world of the lost hates.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 105.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The glory Christ had before the world was is the glory predestined for his humanity; it does not mean that his human nature was converted into the Word.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 105.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · As we were chosen in Christ before the world, so the Father glorified Christ's humanity in predestination before the world was.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 105.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ as man was predestined, as Rom 1:4 shows; the glory he had with the Father before the world was is the glory of his resurrection, predestined then and now fulfilled.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 107.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ is glorified in the apostles when his glory becomes known through them; he speaks of it as done because it was predestined.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 111.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's prayer that those given him by the Father may be with him is a sure promise, for the will of Father, Son and Spirit is one.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 111.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Our life is already hidden with Christ in God by faith and will appear in glory, as God predestined before the world was made.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 115.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ was born in time to bear witness to the truth, and those who are 'of the truth' hear him because grace has given them to believe, not by prior merit.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.29Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Only grace frees from God's wrath; why it is given to one and not another is hidden but never unjust, as Paul's cry in Romans 11:33 shows.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.32Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Augustine tells of a simple-minded Christian who defended Christ's name against clever blasphemers, a case the theory of souls' former lives cannot explain.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.31Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Turning away from God is ours, turning to him is God's gift; that he gives it to some is mercy, that he withholds it from others is truth, the two joined throughout Scripture.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.47Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Christ, the only sinless one, has in every age saved those predestined, through one faith in his birth, death, and resurrection, whether future, present, or past, though the sacraments of that faith have varied.
On the Spirit and the Letter 7Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine proposes to show that “the letter kills” refers to the law without the Spirit, and that righteousness is God's work in the human will.
On the Spirit and the Letter 40Augustine of Hippo · 412 · “All” who will know God are the spiritual Israel, the children of the promise, predestined, called, justified, and glorified by grace, not by works.
City of God 12.17Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Paul's “eternal times” past were not coeternal with God; God's promise of eternal life before them was fixed in his eternal predestination and fulfilled in his Word.
City of God 14.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · In paradise Adam and Eve would have begotten children by a calm act of will without lust or loss of the woman's integrity; God, foreseeing sin, still created them, to fill his city's predestined number by grace from the condemned mass.
City of God 15.1Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine begins the history of the two cities, noting that Cain, citizen of the earthly city, was born before Abel, the pilgrim citizen of the city of God.
City of God 16.35Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The oracle about Rebecca's twins, 'the elder shall serve the younger', shows grace choosing without merit and is fulfilled in Jews and Christians.
City of God 20.15Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The sea that gives up its dead is this world, giving up those still alive at Christ's coming; death and hell give back the departed; the book of life is God's infallible foreknowledge of the predestined.
On the Good of Widowhood 28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · The widows should win others to continence without fearing that the human race or the lesser good of marriage will fail, for the married saints of the past already fill their place.
On Nature and Grace 5Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine teaches that all humanity deserves condemnation, so that those saved are vessels of God's mercy, not of their own merit.
On Patience 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Election is by grace, which precedes all merit and even faith; the apostles were chosen out of the world not because they were righteous but to be made righteous.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · “None does good” refers to those who do not seek God; doing good is compatible with not yet being without sin, which the righteous are progressively leaving behind.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Caelestius says man can avoid sin if God wills, avoiding “if God helps”; Augustine insists that the Spirit's help heals us progressively until we see God.
Apologetic Book 27.5Orosius · ca. 415–416 · Paul on predestination and the fullness of times.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 7Augustine of Hippo · 417 · The texts Pelagius cites about human choice show that choosing evil is the will's own work, while choosing good requires God's help; the predestined are not left to their own desires.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.13Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Power is made perfect in weakness of mind as well as flesh; grace leads the predestined not only to know and believe the good but to do and love it.
On the Soul and Its Origin 2.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Victor applies Wisdom 4 to infants who die unbaptized, implying absurdly that baptism would have corrupted them and that God’s predestination can be thwarted.
On the Soul and Its Origin 3.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Seventh error: those predestined to baptism cannot be snatched from God’s predestination.
On the Soul and Its Origin 4.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Augustine prefers to leave the soul’s origin hidden rather than aid heretics, holding only that all born of Adam are condemned unless reborn in Christ, according to God’s predestination.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · God does not make human beings for the devil; like the potter of Rom 9, he makes vessels of mercy and of wrath from the same lump and uses even evil for good.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine uses the parable of the workers in the vineyard to show that God's free choice to call some is not respect of persons, since no one is wronged.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine explains that Paul, in Romans 9, leaves the mystery of God's choice unresolved, and that grace alone distinguishes the saved from the lump of perdition, not foreseen works.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues that 'called according to purpose' refers to God's purpose, not man's, and that even a good purpose and zeal for virtue begin from grace.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine leaves unsolved why God makes some his sheep and not others, but insists that there is no injustice with God, since wrath is due and mercy is free.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 95Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · In the life to come it will be clear why God chose one and not another; nothing happens unless the Almighty wills it, by permitting or by doing it.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 97Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · How can God will all to be saved when not all are? Not because human wills defeat his, for even when Jerusalem refused, he gathered those of her children whom he willed.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 98Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · God turns evil wills to good by mercy or leaves them by judgment; Jacob and Esau, equally under condemnation, show election by free grace, not by foreseen works.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 99Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · God has mercy by goodness and hardens without injustice; Paul's “O man, who are you?” is a real answer, since the whole race was justly condemned and the freeing of some is undeserved mercy.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 100Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · God's will is fulfilled even through creatures' sins, which he uses for the condemnation of those predestined to punishment and the salvation of those predestined to grace.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 103Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · “God wills all men to be saved” means that no one is saved unless God wills it, or that he wills people of every kind to be saved; it cannot mean that God's will fails.
On Grace and Free Will 23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Why one infant is baptized and another not, or one baptized person survives to fall while another is taken, belongs to God's hidden judgments; God and Pharaoh both hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Retractations 1.22Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Reviewing his Exposition of Some Propositions from Romans, Augustine says Rom 7 can also describe the apostle himself under grace, and withdraws his statement that God chose people for their foreseen faith, since faith itself is God's gift.
The Conferences 13.7John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · God wills all to be saved and calls all without exception; whoever perishes does so against his will, and he fosters every spark of good will, whether he struck it himself or found it in us.
Chapter 10Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 426-428 · Peter's faith stood only through Christ's prayer; and the fixed number of the predestined cannot be denied, since nature and God's gifts did not save the nations of past ages.
Chapter 13Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 426-428 · On 1 Tim 2:4: the different fates of baptized and unbaptized infants show salvation is not by merit; the reason is hidden in God, but none perish undeservedly and none is saved by merit.
Chapter 14Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 426-428 · Only those preordained to life believed; the Spirit kept the apostles from some regions; God changes hearts, and all the predestined in every nation will hear and believe.
Chapter 16Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 426-428 · We need not know the number of the elect, as the saints of old did not know of the Gentiles' calling; the good enter the kingdom by grace, the wicked are excluded by their own guilt.
On Rebuke and Grace 7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Those who fall away are justly rebuked and condemned; the predestined, called according to God's purpose and separated from the mass of perdition by grace, persevere to the end and none of them perishes, while those who will not persevere were never among the elect.
On Rebuke and Grace 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Those who do not persevere were never truly sons of God or disciples in his foreknowledge; the predestined, called according to his purpose, cannot perish, and even their lapses work for their good; therefore rebuke is to be used, leaving the outcome to God's mercy or judgment.
On Rebuke and Grace 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · The number of the predestined is fixed; it is hidden from each believer for the sake of humility, so that some who are not predestined live faithfully for a time and then fall; the rest are justly judged for original sin, added sins, or failing to persevere.
On Rebuke and Grace 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Rebuke is a medicine for the predestined and a punishment for others; no human will can resist God's will to save, and “God wills all men to be saved” can mean all the predestined, drawn from every kind of men; God moves wills from within, as with Saul's and David's followers.
On Rebuke and Grace 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Rebuke must not be neglected, for the watchman is answerable; since we cannot tell who is predestined, we rebuke all with love, while praying for the grace by which what is commanded is done.
On the Predestination of the Saints 1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Augustine writes again at the request of Prosper and Hilary for brothers in Gaul who agree with the church on original sin and prevenient grace but are still in the dark about the predestination of the saints.
On the Predestination of the Saints 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · That some will to believe and others do not is itself a matter of God's mercy and judgment: the will is prepared in the elect by grace, while the rest are justly blinded.
On the Predestination of the Saints 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Augustine explains what he wrote against Porphyry about why Christ came so late: he spoke then only of Christ's foreknowledge of who would believe, without discussing whether faith is God's gift, which now must be said: he came where the elect were.
On the Predestination of the Saints 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination is the preparation of grace and grace its effect; God's promise to Abraham of the faith of the nations was a promise of what God himself would do, so faith too is his gift.
On the Predestination of the Saints 15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Christ himself is the brightest example of predestination and grace: his human nature was united to the Word with no prior merit; as he was predestined to be our Head, we are predestined to be his members.
On the Predestination of the Saints 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · The predestined are called with a special calling that produces faith; Rom 11 shows the Jews' enmity serving the gospel by God's ordering, while the elect remnant is beloved, and the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
On the Predestination of the Saints 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · The elect are not chosen because they believed but chosen so that they may believe; they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world by predestination, and called out of the world by the calling that fulfils it.
On the Predestination of the Saints 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Eph 1:3–11 shows that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world not because he foresaw that we would be holy, but so that we might be holy, according to the good pleasure of his will.
On the Predestination of the Saints 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Against the brothers' view that God foreknew only the beginning of faith, Augustine argues from Eph 1 and Paul's thanksgivings for the faith of the Ephesians and Thessalonians that the beginning of faith is God's work.
On the Gift of Perseverance 7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · The 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Grace 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Why 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · That 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination, 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · To 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Truth 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Perseverance 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Writers 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Both 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Predestination 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.
On the Gift of Perseverance 24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Augustine 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.
Objection and reply 1Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Predestination is not fate: God forces no one to sin; sin comes from Adam's fall, and deliverance only from predestined grace.
Objection and reply 3Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Those who fall away after baptism were not predestined because God foreknew their voluntary fall; their fall is their own, not caused by God's giving them long life.
Objection and reply 5Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · The outward call is the same for all; what differs is God's inward work in some hearts; no one is called in order not to believe.
Objection and reply 8Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Why God has not called all in every age is hidden, yet God wills all to be saved in the sense that the promised fullness of the nations, predestined in Christ, will be saved; faith is God's gift, as the African bishops taught.
Objection and reply 12Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · God does not withdraw obedience from the obedient; his foreknowledge of evil is not his will, and he did not predestine those he foresaw would fall away.
Objection and reply 14Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Unbelief is not predestined but foreknown; predestination concerns only good things, the faith, works and perseverance that grace gives.
Objection and reply 15Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Foreknowledge and predestination differ: God foreknows evil without predestining it; predestination always includes foreknowledge. Prosper then introduces Part Two.