Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 5 part 109/118

so that we may understand that to spiritual men, who do not live according to the earthly man, the first merits of faith and of impiety can lie open: how God by foreknowledge chooses those who will believe and condemns the unbelieving, neither choosing the former from works nor condemning the latter from works, but both granting to the faith of the former that they may work well, and by forsaking the impiety of the latter hardening them so that they work evil'; and again earlier in the same book: 'All are equal before merit, nor can election be named among things in every way equal.

But since the Holy Spirit is not given except to those who believe, God indeed does not choose works, which He Himself bestows when He gives the Holy Spirit, so that through love we may work good things; yet nevertheless He chooses faith—because, unless each one believe and remain in the will to receive, he does not receive the gift of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, through whom, love being poured in, he can work good. He does not therefore, in His foreknowledge, choose the works of anyone, which He Himself is going to bestow, but He chooses faith in His foreknowledge, so that He might choose the very one whom He foreknew would believe, to whom He would give the Holy Spirit, that by working good he might also attain eternal life. For the Apostle says: The same God who works all things in all. But nowhere is it said:

God believes all things in all; for what we believe is ours, but what we work is His,' and the rest in the same work. These things they testify that they accept and approve as befitting the truth of the Gospel. For the rest, they contend that foreknowledge and predestination, or purpose, avail for this: that He foreknew, or predestined, or purposed to choose those who were going to believe. And they say that of this faith it cannot be said: What have you that you did not receive? since it remained in the same nature—though vitiated—which was previously bestowed sound and perfect. But as to what your holiness says, that no one perseveres unless he has received the power of persevering, they accept it thus far: that it is granted to those to whom it is given by their own preceding choice, sluggish though it be.

They assert that free will extends only to this: that a man may wish or refuse to admit the medicine. For the rest, they too testify that they abhor and condemn it, if anyone should suppose that any powers have remained in a person by which he might advance toward health. But they do not wish this perseverance to be preached in such a way that it can neither be earned by supplication nor lost by obstinacy. Nor do they wish to be led to the uncertainty of God's will, where—as far as they think—for obtaining or admitting it, some beginning of the will, whatever it be, is evident to them. That testimony also which you cited, 'He was caught away, lest wickedness should change his understanding,' they declare must be omitted as not canonical.

Whence they so understand that foreknowledge, that men are to be understood as foreknown on account of their future faith; and that such perseverance is given to no one that he is not permitted to transgress, but such that he can by his own will fall away and be weakened. They assert that the custom of exhorting is useless, if it be said that nothing has remained in man which reproof might avail to rouse. And this—that it does reside in nature—they confess they say in such a way that, by this very fact, that the truth is preached to one who is ignorant, it is to be referred to the benefit of present grace.

For if men have been so predestined, they say, to either side, that no one can pass over from one group to the other, to what purpose is so great an insistence of external reproof, if from the man there arises—if not entire faith, at least the grief of a contrite weakness, or if the peril of death, once demonstrated, is dreaded? For if a man cannot fear that whereby he is terrified except by that will which he receives, then he is not to be blamed for the fact that he now does not will, but in that one and with that one who once so refused as to deserve to incur that condemnation together with his posterity: so that he should never desire what is right, but always what is depraved.

But if there is any kind of grief which arises at the exhortation of the one reproving, they say that this very thing is the cause on account of which either one man is rejected or another is taken up; and that thus there is no need for parties to be established, to which nothing is to be added and nothing taken away. Then they take it ill that grace should be so divided—the grace that was given either then to the first man or now to all—so that he received a perseverance (not one by which it should come about that he persevere, but one without which he could not persevere through free will), whereas now to the saints, predestined to the kingdom through grace, no such aid of perseverance is given.

but such an aid that perseverance itself is bestowed on them—not only so that without this gift they could not be persevering, but even so that through this gift they are nothing other than persevering'—by these words of your holiness they are so moved that they say a certain despair is set before men. For if, they say, Adam was so aided that he could both stand in righteousness and turn aside from righteousness, and now the saints are so aided that they cannot turn aside—if indeed they have received that perseverance of willing, so that they cannot will otherwise—or if certain ones are so forsaken that they either do not draw near or, if they have drawn near, also fall back, then they say that the usefulness of exhortation or of threatening pertained to that will,

which held the free power both of persisting and of desisting—not to this will, to which the unwillingness of righteousness is joined by inevitable necessity, apart from those who have been thus created together with these who have been condemned along with the whole mass, so that they were excepted to be freed through grace. Whence in this alone do they wish the nature of all men to differ from the first man: that grace aided him with the powers of his will intact, unwilling though he was, without which he could not persevere; whereas these, with their powers lost and destroyed, merely believing, grace not only raises up when laid low, but even props up as they walk. For the rest, they contend that whatever be given to the predestined can be both lost and retained by one's own will;

which would then be false, if they thought it true that some have received such perseverance that they cannot but be persevering. Hence it is that they likewise do not accept this: that they are unwilling to hold there is a fixed number of those to be chosen and rejected; and they do not accept that exposition of the sentence which was brought forth by you—namely, that He wills not that all men without exception be saved, but only those who will belong to the number of the saints, but that He wills all men absolutely to be saved, so that no one be held excepted. Nor is this to be feared, that certain ones are said to perish against His will; but in what way, they ask, does He not will that sin be committed by anyone or that righteousness be forsaken, and yet righteousness is continually forsaken against His will and sins are committed?

Thus He wills to save all men, and yet not all men are saved. The testimonies of Scripture also which you cited concerning Saul or David, they think do not pertain to the question which is being handled concerning exhortation; but they refer other passages to this, that from them they may take that grace to be commended by which each one, after the will, is helped, or to the calling itself, which is bestowed on the unworthy. For this they testify they demonstrate both from those places of your writings and of others, which it is tedious to pursue. But they do not allow the case of little children to be brought forward as an example for grown persons—a case which they say your holiness also touched upon only so far as that you wished it to be uncertain, and preferred rather that there should be doubt concerning their punishments.

which you recall was so set down in the third book On Free Choice, that it could afford them this occasion. They do this also from the books of others, whose authority is held in the Church—which your holiness perceives can not a little help the gainsayers, unless greater, or at least equal, things be brought forward by us; for your most prudent piety is not unaware how much greater is the number in the Church of those who are held to an opinion by the authority of names, or are transferred from an opinion. In sum, when we are all wearied, their pursuit—or rather their complaint—is turned to this (with even those consenting who dare not disapprove this definition), so that they say:

'What need was there that the hearts of so many less-understanding persons should be troubled by the uncertainty of a disputation of this sort? For no less usefully, they say, without this definition, the Catholic faith was defended through so many years, by so many treatise-writers, in so many preceding books both yours and others', both against others and especially against the Pelagians.' These things, my father, and countless more besides—so that I may confess my highest wish—I would have preferred to convey through myself in person; or, since I did not deserve this, at least to gather over a more ample time and to direct all the things by which they are moved, so that I might hear whatever is said against this matter, and to what extent it ought to be refuted, or, if that cannot be done, to be endured.

But since neither came about according to my wish, I preferred, in whatever way I could, to direct these matters gathered together, rather than to keep utterly silent about so great a contradiction on the part of certain persons. Among them are, in part, such persons that, by ecclesiastical custom, we laymen must show them the highest reverence. This indeed we have taken care, with God's help, so to observe, that when there was need we did not keep silent about those things which the smallness of our powers suggested for the assertion of this question. But now summarily, as far as the haste of the bearer permitted, I have set these things before you, as it were by way of reminder. It belongs to your holy prudence to discern what needs to be done, so that the intention of such and so great persons may be overcome or tempered.

To this I now think it profits little that you render an account, unless authority also be added, which contentious hearts, indefatigable as they are, cannot transgress. But plainly this I ought not to keep silent: that they say they admire your holiness—this one point excepted—in all your deeds and words. It will be yours to decree in what way their contradiction in this matter is to be endured. And do not wonder that I have added something otherwise, or some things in this letter which, as far as I think, I had not said in the previous one; for such is now their definition, apart from those things which through haste or forgetfulness I have perhaps passed over.

When the books that you are labouring on concerning the whole work have been published, I beg that we may be counted worthy to have them, chiefly so that through their authority, if anything in your writings displeases us, we may—no longer trembling—set it apart from the dignity of your name. The book On Grace and Free Choice we also do not have: it remains that, since we trust it is useful to the question, we may be counted worthy to receive it. But I do not wish your holiness to suppose that I write these things as though I myself doubted concerning those matters which you have now published. Let my own punishment suffice me: that, exiled from the delights of your presence, where I was nourished by your health-giving breasts, I am tormented not only by your absence, but also by the obstinacy of certain persons, who not only spurn what is manifest, but even censure what they have not understood.

For the rest, I am so free of this suspicion that I rather reckon my own weakness—by which I bear such persons with too little patience—to be blameworthy. But in what manner you may judge that these matters are to be counselled upon, I leave, as I have said, to your wisdom. For I believed this pertained to me, out of that love which I owe to Christ and to you, that I should not keep silent about the things which come into question. Whatever you shall have willed or been able to do, for that grace's sake which we, small ones together with the great, admire in you, we shall most gratefully receive, as decreed by an authority dearest and most reverend to us. Indeed, because—the bearer pressing me—I feared that I might be able to direct either not everything, or these very things less worthily, being conscious of my own powers, I dealt with a man renowned both in character and in eloquence and in zeal, that, as much as he could,

convey the things gathered in his own letter. This I have taken care to send joined to these. For he is such a one that, even apart from this necessity, he would be judged worthy of the notice of your holiness—the holy Leontius, a deacon, your devotee, who, together with my parents, greatly salutes you. May the Lord Christ deign to grant your fatherhood, mindful of me, to His Church for many years, lord father. [And below:] Let your holiness know that my brother—on whose account chiefly we departed hence—together with his wife, by mutual consent, has vowed perfect continence to God. Wherefore we ask your holiness that you would deign to pray, that the Lord may deign to confirm and guard this very thing in them. Letter 227. Brother Paul is here safe and sound; he brings the second concerns of his affairs;

the Lord will grant that these too may be the last. He greatly salutes you and tells joys concerning Gavinianus—that he, freed by God's mercy from that cause of his, is not only a Christian but also a faithful one, exceedingly good, baptized at the recent Easter, having in his heart and in his mouth the grace which he received. How much I long for him—when shall I unfold it? But you know how I love him. The chief physician Dioscorus also, a faithful Christian, has together obtained the grace. Hear also in what manner; for that little neck and that tongue of his would not have been tamed except by some prodigy. His daughter, in whom alone he found rest, was sick and reached even to utter despair of temporal health, as that very father declared.

It is said, then—and it is established, since this was reported to me even before the return of brother Paul by count Peregrinus, a praiseworthy man and a good Christian, who was baptized together with them at the same time—it is said, then, that that old man, at length turned to imploring the mercy of Christ, bound himself by a vow that he would become a Christian, if he should see her made whole. It was done. But he dissembled about paying what he had vowed. Yet still the hand was uplifted; for he is suffused with a sudden blindness, and it immediately came into his mind whence that was. He cried out, confessing, and again vowed that, his sight being restored, he would fulfil what he had vowed. He received it, he fulfilled it. And still the hand was uplifted. He had not kept the Creed, or perhaps had refused to keep it, and had excused himself that he had not been able.

God sees. Yet nevertheless, after all the festivities of his recovery, he is dissolved into paralysis in many—indeed almost all—of his members. Then, admonished by a dream, confessing through a writing that it had been said to him this had befallen him because he had not rendered the Creed—after that confession the functions of all his members are restored, save only of his tongue. Yet nonetheless he confessed in writing, in the same trial, that he had learned the Creed and therefore now held it in memory; and all triviality was blotted out from him—which, as you know, greatly disgraced a certain natural kindliness of his and made him, insulting Christians, exceedingly sacrilegious. What shall I say to the Lord, save that we sing a hymn and exalt Him above all unto the ages? Amen. Letter 228.

TO THE HOLY BROTHER AND FELLOW-BISHOP HONORATUS, AUGUSTINE, GREETING IN THE LORD. Having sent to your charity a copy of the letter which I wrote to our brother and fellow-bishop Quodvultdeus, I thought I had been rid of this burden which you imposed on me by seeking counsel—what you ought to do in these perils which our times have found. For although I wrote that letter briefly, yet I think I passed over nothing that would suffice both for the one answering to say and for the one asking to hear, since indeed I said that those are not to be forbidden who desire to migrate to fortified places, if they can, and that the bonds of our ministry, by which the love of Christ has bound us, are not to be broken, lest we forsake the churches which we ought to serve.

For these indeed are the words which I set down in that letter: 'It remains, then,' I say, 'that we, whose ministry is so necessary to whatever people of God remains where we are, that it is not fitting for it to remain without this, should say to the Lord: Be to us a God our protector and a place of refuge.' But this counsel, as you write, does not for this reason suffice you: lest we should strive to act against the Lord's precept or example, where He admonishes that one must flee from city to city; for we call to mind the words of Him who says: But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another. Yet who would believe that the Lord willed this to be so done, that the flocks—which He purchased with His own blood—should be forsaken of that necessary ministry without which they cannot live?

Did He Himself do this, when, His parents carrying Him, He fled as a little child into Egypt—He who had not yet gathered churches which we might say were forsaken by Him? Did it happen, when the Apostle Paul, lest the enemy should seize him, was let down through a window in a basket and escaped his hands, that the church which was there was forsaken of necessary ministry, and that what was fitting was not fulfilled by the other brothers established there? For it was with them willing that the Apostle had done this, so that he might preserve for the church his very self, whom that persecutor was properly seeking. Let the servants of Christ, then, the ministers of His word and sacrament, do what He commanded or permitted.

Let them by all means flee from city to city, when any one of them is specially sought by persecutors, so that by others who are not so sought the church may not be forsaken, but let them supply food to their fellow-servants, whom they know cannot otherwise live. But when the peril is common to all—that is, of bishops and clergy and laity—let those who have need of others not be forsaken by those whom they need. Let all, therefore, either cross over to fortified places, or let those who have the necessity of remaining not be left by those through whom the ecclesiastical necessity of the former is to be supplied, so that either they may live together, or together suffer what the Father of the household wills them to endure.

But if it should happen that some suffer more, others less, or all equally, who among them are those who suffer for others is manifest—namely, those who, though they could have snatched themselves from such evils by fleeing, chose rather to remain, lest they should forsake the need of others. Hence especially is that love proved which the Apostle John commends, saying: As Christ laid down His life for us, so we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. For those who flee, or who, bound by their own necessities, cannot flee, if being caught they suffer, suffer assuredly for themselves and not for the brethren; but those who suffer for this reason, that they were unwilling to forsake the brethren

who needed them for Christian salvation—these, without doubt, lay down their lives for the brethren. Whence that which we have heard a certain bishop said: 'If the Lord commanded us flight in those persecutions where there can be fruit of martyrdom, how much more ought we to flee barren sufferings, when there is a barbarian and hostile incursion!'—this is indeed true and acceptable, but for those whom the bonds of ecclesiastical office do not hold. For he who, for this reason, does not flee hostile disasters,

though he could escape, so as not to forsake the ministry of Christ—without which men can neither become nor live as Christians—he finds a greater fruit of love than he who, fleeing not for the brethren but for his own sake, and being caught, does not deny Christ and undertakes martyrdom. What is it, then, that you set down in your earlier letter? For you say: 'If we must persist in the churches, I do not see of what use we shall be either to ourselves or to the people, except that before our eyes men fall, women are violated, churches are burned, we ourselves fail under torments, when there is demanded of us what we do not have.' God is indeed able to hear the prayers of His household and to turn aside these things which are dreaded;

nor yet, on account of these things which are uncertain, ought there to be a certain desertion of our office, without which there is certain ruin to the people—not in the affairs of this life, but of another, incomparably more diligently and anxiously to be cared for. For if these evils which are feared were certain—lest perchance they befall in the places in which we are—all those on whose account we must remain there would first flee thence, and would render us free from the necessity of remaining; for there is no one who would say that ministers ought to remain where there are no longer any to whom they must minister. Thus certain holy bishops of Spain fled beforehand, their peoples having partly slipped away in flight, partly been slain, partly consumed by siege, partly dispersed in captivity;

but far more, on account of those who remained there for whose sake they should remain, held on under the same density of perils. And if some forsook their peoples, this is what we say ought not to be done; for such men were not taught by divine authority, but were either deceived by human error or overcome by fear. For why do they think that a precept must be obeyed without discrimination, where they read that one must flee from city to city, and yet do not shudder at the hireling who sees the wolf coming and flees, because he has no care for the sheep?

Why do they not strive so to understand these two dominical and true sayings—the one where flight is permitted or commanded, the other where it is reproved and blamed—that they may be found not to be contrary to one another, as indeed they are not? And in what way is this found, unless it be attended to (what I have already disputed above), that Christ's ministers must flee from the places in which we are, when persecution presses, at such time as either the people of Christ, to whom ministry might be given, is not there, or the necessary ministry can be fulfilled by others for whom there is not the same cause of fleeing—just as, let down in a basket,

which I recalled above, the Apostle fled, when he himself was properly sought by the persecutor, others assuredly not having a similar necessity, by whom—far be it—the ministry of the church there should be forsaken; just as holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, fled, when the emperor Constantius desired specially to apprehend him, the catholic people that dwelt in Alexandria being by no means forsaken by the rest of the ministers? But when the people remain and the ministers flee and the ministry is withdrawn, what will there be but that damnable flight of hirelings who have no care for the sheep? For the wolf will come,

not man but the devil, who has for the most part persuaded the faithful to become apostates, when the daily ministry of the Lord's body was lacking to them; and the weak brother, for whom Christ died, will perish—in your not knowledge but ignorance. But as for those who, in this matter, are not deceived by error, but are overcome by dread—why do they not rather, against their own fear, by the Lord's mercy and help, valiantly contend, lest evils incomparably graver, which are far more to be dreaded, should befall? This happens where the love of God blazes, not where the cupidity of the world smokes. For love says: Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?

But love is from God. Let us therefore pray that it may be granted by him from whom it is commanded. And through this love let us rather fear that the sheep of Christ be slaughtered by the sword of spiritual wickedness in the heart than by the sword in the body; for wheresoever and by whatever kind of death they must one day die. Let us rather fear that the chastity of faith perish through the inner sense being corrupted than that women be violently ravished in the flesh; for by that violence chastity is not violated, if it is preserved in the mind, since not even in the flesh is it violated, when the will of the sufferer does not shamefully use its own flesh, but without consent endures what another performs.

Let us rather fear that the living stones be extinguished by our deserting them than that the stones and timbers of earthly buildings be burned in our presence; let us rather fear that the members of the body of Christ, deprived of spiritual nourishment, be slain than that the members of our own body, crushed by hostile assault, be tortured; not because these latter things are not to be avoided when they can be, but because they are rather to be borne when they cannot be avoided without impiety — unless perhaps someone should contend that he is not an impious minister who then withdraws the ministry necessary to godliness precisely when it is most necessary.

Do we not consider, when we come to the extremity of these dangers and there is no power of fleeing, what a great throng of both sexes and of every age is wont to gather in the church — some clamouring for baptism, others for reconciliation, others even for the performance of penance itself, and all for consolation and for the confecting and administering of the sacraments? And if the ministers be lacking, how great a destruction follows those who depart from this world either unregenerate or bound? How great too is the grief of their own faithful, who will not have them with themselves in the rest of eternal life! How great, in short, is the groaning of all, and how great the blasphemy of certain ones, over the absence of the ministries and the ministers!

See what the fear of temporal evils brings about, and how great an acquisition of eternal evils there is in it. But if the ministers be present, then, according to the strength which the Lord supplies to them, help is given to all: some are baptized, others reconciled, none are defrauded of communion in the Lord's body, all are consoled, edified, and exhorted to entreat God, who is able to avert all that is feared — being themselves ready for either outcome, so that if this cup cannot pass from them, the will of him be done who can will nothing evil. Surely now you see what you had written that you did not see: how great a good the Christian peoples obtain, if in present evils the presence of Christ's ministers be not lacking to them.

You see also how great a harm their absence does, while they seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. Nor do they have that love of which it is said: It seeks not the things that are its own; nor do they imitate him who said: Not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to the many, that they may be saved. He indeed would not have fled the snares of that persecuting prince, had he not wished to preserve himself for others to whom he was necessary; wherefore he says: But I am constrained between the two, having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which is far the best; but to abide in the flesh is necessary for your sake. Here perhaps someone may say that God's ministers ought therefore to flee when such evils are imminent, so as to preserve themselves for the benefit of the church in more tranquil times.