Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 5 part 94/118

For this faith the Apostle defined, saying: Neither circumcision is anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through love. For this indeed is the faith of Christians, not of demons; for the demons also believe and tremble, but do they also love? For if they did not believe, they would not say: You are the Holy One of God, or: You are the Son of God; but if they loved, they would not say: What have we to do with You? Faith, therefore, draws us to Christ, which unless it were given us from above as a gratuitous gift, He Himself would not say: No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draw him. Whence also a little after He says: The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe:

then the evangelist subjoins: For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed, and who it was that should betray Him. And lest anyone should suppose that believers pertain to His foreknowledge in the same way as unbelievers -- that is, that faith itself was not given to them from above, but only their future will was foreknown -- soon he added and said: And He said: 'Therefore have I said unto you, that no one can come to Me, unless it be given him from My Father.' Hence it was that of those who had heard Him speaking of His flesh and His blood, some, being scandalized, went away, and some, by believing, remained, because no one could come to Him except one to whom it was given by the Father, and through this also by the Son Himself and by the Holy Spirit.

For the gifts and works of the inseparable Trinity are not separated; but the Son, thus honoring the Father, brings no proof of any difference, but affords a great example of humility. Here again these defenders -- nay rather deceivers -- of free choice, because they are inflaters and inflaters because presumptuous, being about to speak not against us but against the Gospel, what else will they say than that which the Apostle set before himself, as if it were said by such men? You say to me, then: 'Why does He yet find fault? for who resists His will?' This contradiction he set against himself, as it were from another, as from the voice of those who are unwilling to accept what he had said above: Therefore, on whom He wills He has mercy, and whom He wills He hardens.

To such men, therefore, let us say with the Apostle -- for we cannot find better than he what we should say --: O man, who are you that answer back to God? For we seek the merit of hardening, and we find it; for by the merit of sin the whole mass has been condemned, nor does God harden by imparting malice but by not imparting mercy. For to those to whom it is not imparted, they are neither worthy nor do they merit it; and rather, that it be not imparted, this they are worthy of, this they merit. But we seek the merit of mercy, and we do not find it, because there is none, lest grace be made void, if it be not given freely, but rendered to merits. For if we should say that faith preceded, in which was the merit of grace, what merit had a man before faith, that he should receive faith?

For what has he that he did not receive? But if he received it, why does he boast as if he had not received it? For just as a man would not have wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, the fear of God, unless, according to the prophetic word, he had received the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, of counsel and of fortitude, of knowledge and of piety and of the fear of God; just as he would not have virtue, love, continence, unless he had received the Spirit, of whom the Apostle says: For we have not received the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of continence: so he would not have faith, unless he had received the spirit of faith, of whom the same Apostle himself says: Having, however, the same spirit of faith, according to what is written:

'I believed, and therefore have I spoken,' we also believe, and therefore we speak. But that it is received not by merit but by His mercy, who has mercy on whom He wills, he most manifestly shows, where he says of himself: I obtained mercy, that I might be faithful. If we should say that the merit of prayer precedes, that the gift of grace may follow -- prayer indeed, by obtaining, evidently shows that whatever it obtains is the gift of God, lest a man suppose that it is from himself to himself, for if it were held in his own power, it would surely not be asked for -- yet, lest at least the merits of prayer be thought to precede, by which grace would be given not gratuitously (but then it would not even be grace, because it would be rendered as a due), even prayer itself is found among the gifts of grace.

For we know not, says the teacher of the nations, what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself intercedes with unutterable groanings. But what is 'intercedes,' save that He makes us intercede? For it is the most certain sign of one in need to intercede with groanings; but it is right to believe that the Holy Spirit is in need of nothing. But it is so said that 'He intercedes,' because He causes us to intercede, and inspires in us the affection of interceding and groaning; as in the Gospel: For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. For neither does this too come to pass concerning us as though we do nothing. The help of the Holy Spirit, therefore, is so expressed that He Himself is said to do it,

which He does that we may do. For that it is not to be understood as our spirit, of which it was said: He intercedes with unutterable groanings, but the Holy Spirit, by whom our infirmity is helped, the Apostle himself sufficiently demonstrates. For thence he began: The Spirit, he says, helps our infirmity; then he subjoined these things: For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, and the rest. For of this Spirit he says elsewhere more openly: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you have received the Spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry: 'Abba, Father.' Behold, here he did not say that the Spirit Himself cries in praying, but 'in whom we cry,' he says, 'Abba, Father.' Yet in another place he says:

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: 'Abba, Father.' Here he did not say 'in whom we cry,' but chose rather to say that the Spirit Himself cries, whereby it is brought about that we cry -- just as are those passages: The Spirit Himself intercedes with unutterable groanings, and: It is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

Therefore, just as no one is rightly wise, rightly understands, or rightly prevails in counsel and fortitude, no one is knowingly devout or devoutly knowing, and no one fears God with a chaste fear, unless he has received the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, of knowledge and piety and of the fear of God; nor does anyone possess true virtue, sincere charity, or religious continence except through the Spirit of virtue and charity and continence. So too, without the Spirit of faith no one will believe rightly, nor without the Spirit of prayer will anyone pray to his own profit — not because there are so many spirits, but one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each his own as He wills, because the Spirit breathes where He wills. But there is something that must be admitted.

He helps in one way while not yet indwelling, in another while indwelling; for while not yet indwelling He helps that men may become faithful, while indwelling He helps those already faithful. What then is the merit of man before grace, by which merit he might receive grace, since all our good merit is wrought in us by nothing but grace, and when God crowns our merits He crowns nothing other than His own gifts? For just as at the beginning of faith we obtained mercy — not because we were faithful, but that we might become so — so at the end, which will be eternal life, He will crown us, as it is written, in pity and mercy. Not in vain, therefore, is it sung to God: 'His mercy shall go before me,' and: 'His mercy shall follow me.'

Hence even eternal life itself, which surely will be possessed in the end without end and is therefore rendered to preceding merits, is nevertheless — because those same merits to which it is rendered were not made by us through our own sufficiency but were wrought in us through grace — itself also called grace, for no other reason than that it is given freely; not indeed because it is not given to merits, but because the very merits to which it is given were themselves given. But where do we find that eternal life too is called grace? We have in the apostle Paul, that magnificent defender of grace, one who says: 'The wages of sin is death; but the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.' See, I beseech you, in how brief a compass how vigilantly he has set his words.

When these are carefully weighed, some of the obscurity of this question may grow clear. For when he had said, 'The wages of sin is death,' who would not judge that most fittingly and consistently he would add, if he said: 'But the wages of righteousness is eternal life'? And it is true, that just as by the merit of sin death is rendered as wages, so by the merit of righteousness eternal life is rendered as wages. Or if he were unwilling to say 'of righteousness,' at least he might say 'of faith,' since the righteous lives by faith. Hence too it is called a reward in very many places of the holy Scriptures; but never is righteousness or faith itself called a reward, because a reward is rendered to righteousness or faith. And what a reward is to one who works, that a wage is to one who serves as a soldier.

But the blessed apostle, waging most vigilant war against that pride which so far attempts to creep in even upon great men that on its account he says an angel of Satan was given to him, by whom he might be buffeted, lest he raise the crown of presumption — warring therefore most watchfully against this plague of pride — says: 'The wages of sin is death.' Rightly 'wages,' because it is owed, because it is worthily repaid, because it is rendered by merit. Then, lest righteousness exalt itself out of a good human merit — just as evil human merit is not doubted to be sin — he did not report by way of contrast, saying: 'The wages of righteousness is eternal life,' but: 'The grace of God,' he says, 'is eternal life.' And lest this be sought by some other way apart from the Mediator, he added:

'In Christ Jesus our Lord' — as though he said: 'Having heard that the wages of sin is death, why do you set yourself to be exalted, O human — not righteousness, but plainly pride under the name of righteousness? Why do you set yourself to be exalted, and to demand eternal life, contrary to death, as a wage owed to you? To what is eternal life owed? To true righteousness. But if it is true righteousness, it is not from you; it comes down from above, descending from the Father of lights. That you might have it — if indeed you have it — you have surely received it; for what good do you have that you have not received? Wherefore, O man, if you are to receive eternal life, it is indeed the wage of righteousness, but to you it is grace; and to you, to whom it is grace, that righteousness itself is also grace.'

For it would be rendered to you as owed, if from yourself you had the righteousness to which it is owed. But now of His fullness we have received not only grace, by which we now live justly amid our labors even to the end, but also grace for this grace, that afterward we may live in rest without end. Nothing does faith believe more wholesomely than this, because understanding finds nothing truer; and we ought to hear the prophet saying: 'Unless you believe, you shall not understand.' 'But men will excuse themselves,' he says, 'those who are unwilling to live rightly and faithfully, saying: What have we done, who live badly, seeing that we have not received the grace whereby we might live well?' They cannot truly say that they do nothing evil, since they live badly; for if they do nothing evil,

they live well. But if they live badly, they live badly of their own — either what they have drawn from their origin, or what they have besides added. But if they are vessels of wrath, made perfect for perdition, to which what is owed is rendered, let them impute this to themselves, because they were made of that lump which, on account of the sin of one, in whom all sinned, God deservedly and justly condemned. But if they are vessels of mercy, to whom, though made of the same lump, He was unwilling to render the owed punishment, let them not puff themselves up, but glorify Him who bestowed on them a mercy not owed; and if in anything they think otherwise, this too He Himself will reveal to them. Finally, in what way will these men excuse themselves? Surely in that way which the apostle briefly, as though from their own mouth, objected to himself.

so that they say: 'Why then does He still find fault? For who resists His will?' For this is to say: 'Why is complaint made about us, that we offend God by living badly, since no one can resist His will — He who hardened us by not bestowing mercy?' If, then, these men are not ashamed by this excuse to contradict, not us, but the apostle, why should it irk us to say to them, again and again, this very thing which the apostle said: 'O man, who are you that answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to Him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Has not the potter power over the clay, from the same lump...'

— that lump surely deservedly and rightly condemned — to make one vessel unto undeserved honor for the sake of the grace of mercy, and another unto deserved dishonor for the sake of the justice of wrath, and that He might make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, thus showing what He bestows upon them, when the vessels of wrath receive that punishment which was owed to all alike? Let it suffice meanwhile for the Christian still living by faith and not yet beholding what is perfect, but knowing in part, to know or to believe that God frees no one except by gratuitous mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, and condemns no one except by most equitable truth through the same our Lord Jesus Christ.

But why He frees this one rather than that, or does not free him, let him who is able search out the so great depth of His judgments — yet let him beware of the precipice. For is there injustice with God? By no means! But His judgments are inscrutable and His ways past finding out. And at least in the greater ages it can deservedly be said: These were unwilling to understand, that they might act well; these — which is graver — understood and did not obey, because, as it is written, 'a hard servant will not be corrected by words; for even if he understands, he will not obey.' Whence will he not obey, save by his own most evil will? To him a heavier condemnation is owed by divine equity; for to whom more is given, more will be required of him.

For Scripture calls those inexcusable from whom the truth is not hidden and in whom iniquity persists. 'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven,' says the apostle, 'against all impiety and unrighteousness of those men who hold the truth in iniquity; because that which is known of God is manifest in them: for God has manifested it to them. For His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, His eternal power also and divinity, so that they are inexcusable.'

If, then, He calls those inexcusable who were able to perceive His invisible things, understood through the things that are made, and yet did not obey the truth but remained unjust and impious — for indeed they did not fail to know Him, but, knowing Him, he says, they did not glorify Him as God nor give thanks — how much more inexcusable are those who, instructed out of His law, are confident that they themselves are guides of the blind, and, teaching others, do not teach themselves; who preach that one must not steal, and steal, and the rest which the apostle speaks concerning them! For to them he says: 'Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, every one who judges; for wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you do the same things which you judge.'

The Lord Himself also says in the Gospel: 'If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.' Not indeed that they would have had no sin at all, being full of other great and many sins; but this sin He wishes to be understood that they would not have had, if He had not come, seeing that, when they had heard Him, they did not believe in Him — asserting that they have no excuse whereby they might say: 'We did not hear, therefore we did not believe.' For human pride, as though presuming on the powers of free will, thinks itself excused when what it sins seems to be of ignorance and not of will. According to this excuse the divine Scripture calls them inexcusable,

whomsoever it convicts of sinning knowingly. Yet God's just judgment does not spare even those who did not hear; 'for whoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law.' And although they seem to excuse themselves, He does not admit this excuse who knows that He made man upright and gave him a precept of obedience, and that not except by that free choice of the will, which man ill used, did sin, that would pass into his posterity, come to be — for indeed those are not condemned who did not sin, seeing that that sin passed from one into all, in whom, before their own sins in each individual, all in common sinned. And through this every sinner is inexcusable, whether by the guilt of origin or by the addition also of his own will,

whether he who knows or he who is ignorant, whether he who judges or he who does not judge; because that very ignorance in those who were unwilling to understand is, without doubt, sin, while in those who were unable to understand it is the punishment of sin. Therefore in both there is no just excuse, but a just condemnation. And for this reason the divine oracles call those inexcusable who sin not in ignorance but knowingly, so that, according to the judgment of their own pride, whereby they greatly trust in the powers of their own will, they may see themselves inexcusable, because now they have no excuse from ignorance, and there is not yet the righteousness for which they presumed the will to suffice. But that man to whom the Lord has granted the grace both of knowing and of obeying: 'By the law,'

he says, 'is the knowledge of sin,' and: 'I would not have known sin except through the law; for I would not have known concupiscence, unless the law said: You shall not covet.' Nor does he wish it understood that man is ignorant of the law that gives precepts, but that he is in need of the grace that sets free, where he says: 'I delight in the law of God according to the inner man'; and, along with this not only knowledge but also delight in the law, he afterward says: 'Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' No one, therefore, frees from the wounds of that slaughterer except the grace of the one Savior; no one frees those sold under sin from the chains of captivity except the grace of the Redeemer.

And through this all who wish themselves excused in their wickednesses and iniquities are for that very reason most justly punished, since those who are freed are freed by nothing but grace. For if that excuse were just, then not grace but justice would free them. But since nothing but grace frees, it finds nothing just in him whom it frees — not will, not action, not even the excuse itself; for if this were just, whoever uses it would be deservedly freed, not by grace. For we know that some even of those are freed by the grace of Christ who say: 'Why then does He still find fault? For who resists His will?' — which, if it were a just excuse, they would now be freed not by gratuitous grace but on account of the justice of this excuse.

But if it is grace by which they are freed, then surely this excuse is not just. For then it is true grace by which a man is freed, if it is not repaid according to the debt of justice. Nothing therefore is done in those who say: 'Why then does He still find fault? For who resists His will?' except what is read in the book of Solomon: 'The folly of a man corrupts his ways; but he blames God in his heart.' Although, therefore, God makes vessels of wrath unto perdition, that He may show His wrath and demonstrate His power, by which He uses even the evil well, and that He may make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He makes unto honor — a thing not owed to the damnable lump but granted by the bounty of His grace —

yet in those same vessels of wrath, made unto deserved dishonor on account of the merit of the lump — that is, in men created indeed on account of the goods of nature but destined to punishment on account of their vices — He knows how to condemn, not to make, the iniquity which truth most rightly disapproves. For just as human nature, which without any doubt is to be praised, is attributed to His will, so the fault, which with none refusing is to be condemned, is attributed to man's will. This will of man either transmitted its hereditary vice into the posterity it held within itself when it sinned, or acquired besides the rest of the vices, when each one lived corruptly in himself. But neither from that

which is drawn from origin, nor from those evils which each in his own life, either by not understanding or by being unwilling to understand, gathers, or even, instructed out of the law, aggravates by the addition of transgression — is anyone freed and justified except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, not only by the remission of sins, but first by His very inspiration of faith and of the fear of God, and by the disposition and effect of prayer wholesomely imparted, until He heals all our infirmities and redeems our life from corruption and crowns us in pity and mercy.

But these men, who suppose that God becomes a respecter of persons if in one and the same case His mercy comes upon some while His wrath remains upon others, surely lose all the forces of human argumentation in the case of little ones. For, to be silent for the moment about the fact that there is no one — not even little ones however freshly from the maternal womb — exempt from that penalty of which the apostle, speaking, says: 'Through the offense of one, upon all men unto condemnation,' from which none frees except that one, of whom the same says: 'Through the justification of one, upon all men unto justification of life' — to omit this for the moment and say this alone concerning little ones:

a thing which they too, terrified by the authority of the Gospel, or rather broken by the most harmonious conspiracy of faith of the Christian peoples, concede without any refusal — namely, that no little one enters the kingdom of heaven unless reborn of water and the Spirit: what cause, I ask, will they bring forward, that one is so governed that, baptized, he departs hence, while another, handed over into the hands of unbelievers, or even of the faithful, expires before he can be offered by them to be baptized? Or will they assign this to fate or to fortune? I do not think that they, desiring to hold however little of the Christian name, will burst forth into such madness. Why then will no little one, without having received the laver of regeneration, enter the kingdom of heaven?

Did he himself perchance choose for himself the unbelieving or negligent parents of whom he should be born? What shall I say of those unforeseen and sudden, innumerable deaths, by which even the infants of religious Christians are often forestalled and snatched away from baptism, while on the contrary the infants of the sacrilegious and of the enemies of Christ, coming in some way into the hands of Christians, do not depart from this life without the sacrament of regeneration? What will they say here, who contend that some human merits must precede in order that grace can be given, lest God be a respecter of persons? What merits at last have here preceded? If you consider those of the little ones themselves, there are none proper to them; the same lump is common to both:

if you attend to those of the parents, good are those whose children perished by sudden deaths without the baptism of Christ, while evil are those whose children, through some power of Christians, came to the sacraments of the Church. And yet the providence of God — by whom the very hairs of our head are numbered, without whose will a sparrow does not fall to the earth, which is neither pressed by fate nor impeded by fortuitous chances nor corrupted by any iniquity — that they may be reborn unto the heavenly inheritance, does not provide for all the little ones of His own children, and yet provides even for some little ones of the impious. This infant, born of faithful wedded parents, welcomed with the joy of his parents, suffocated by the drowsiness of his mother or nurse, becomes deprived and bereft of the faith of his own kin;

that infant, born of a sacrilegious defilement, exposed through his mother's cruel fear, gathered up by the merciful piety of strangers, is baptized through their Christian solicitude, and becomes a partaker and sharer of the eternal kingdom. Let them ponder these things, let them consider these things; let them here dare to call God either a respecter of persons in His grace or a rewarder of preceding merits. For even if they should try to surmise some merits of a greater age, whether evil or good, what will they say of the very infants, of whom neither could this one acquire for himself, by any evil merits of his own, the violence of the one suffocating him, nor that one, by good merits, the diligence of the one baptizing him?

They are of exceeding vanity and blindness, if, even after these things are considered, they do not yet deign to cry out with us: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!' Let them not, therefore, with most obstinate insanity, set themselves against the gratuitous mercy of God. Let them permit the Son of Man to seek and to save, at whatever age, that which had perished, and let them not dare to judge concerning His inscrutable judgments why in one and the same case His mercy comes upon one while His wrath remains upon another. For who are these that they should answer back to God?

seeing that He, when Rebecca had twins from a single intercourse of Isaac our father, when those not yet born had done nothing good or evil, that His purpose according to election might stand — the election, namely, of grace, not of debt; the election by which He Himself makes those who are to be chosen, not finds them; not of works but of Him who calls — says that the elder shall serve the younger? To which sentence the blessed apostle also took up the testimony of a far later prophet: 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' that it might be understood that what was afterward made plain through the prophet was, before they were born, in God's predestination through grace. For what did He love in Jacob, before he was born and had done anything good,