Works 1 part 4/7

What reason is there that you should wish to inquire into hidden things, when you see the manifest things fully answering your anxiety? What profit is there in leaving aside the things that are certain and consulting the uncertain, concerning which you find nothing written in catholic reading? Do you not understand that, to the injury of truth, you pry into whatever truth has not willed you to know? You propose a subject drawn from the doctrine of free choice, and you slip, by a pernicious error, into discussing the state of infancy, in which no trace whatever of free choice, no sign of one's own will, can appear. XIV. AGAINST THIS, THAT THEY SAY THAT THOSE WHO PERISH AFTER BAPTISM DID NOT REALLY BELIEVE AT BAPTISM.

At this point it must be answered: on what authority do you read this, from what teacher do you presume to assert it? And since you do not deny that original sin is abolished in baptism, and it is proved that baptism is firm where the undivided Trinity is invoked, give the reasons why one baptized should still remain within the original debt. 'And they themselves,' you say, 'perish in Adam, because they did not believe at baptism.' Were you not saying a little before that the effort of man is not required for laying hold of the gifts of God? Behold, you yourself most plainly profess that, without the devotion of the receiver, the munificence of the Giver is made void.

You yourself, I say, confirm that without the merit of faith — that is, without the cooperation of the human will — grace profits nothing; and yet, as you say, God has reserved the whole of man's condition to Himself and has given nothing to man. Behold, even according to your own opinion, not even the mystery of regeneration itself can stand firm for a man, unless, along with the gift of blessing, he brings to bear the affection of belief. From him to whom you deny effort, why do you require assent? But when the prophet says: 'Living waters shall go forth from Jerusalem' — in which he designates the sacraments of the life-giving wave — how can it be that a man made new should retain with him the abolished bond of the old man? How can it be that, absolved of the debt of Adam, he should rise again in Christ?

How can it be that from the watering of the sacred font, together with the adopted one of God, life should still bring forth death, when the Apostle says: 'As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ'? — whom indeed no one can put on unless he has stripped off the garments of his first birth. But how could you teach that baptism did not profit one who came of his own accord to baptism, when even to a heretic regenerated in the name of the Trinity the very virtue of the mystery confers so much through itself that, if afterwards he passes over to the faith of Christ, he has no need of a repetition of baptism, but is judged to have been washed by the grace so working, so that he need only be clothed with the blessing of the chrism? This reprobate opinion of your persuasion the catholic Church detests.

'Therefore,' you say, 'though drenched with the generative wave, they do not receive the gift of baptism, because they come to baptism unfaithfully.' It is not so. Take note that this very thing — to come to baptism and to desire salvation — is already of faith. 'Whoever,' you say, 'perish after baptism, perish in Adam, because they did not believe at baptism.' You would speak more correctly if you said that they perished after baptism for this reason: because they were unwilling to join to the gift of grace the duty of labor, because the negligence of habit and the sloth of heart recalled them from the vigilance of work and from the industry of anxious service.

But if the guilt of unbelief is the cause of perdition, what shall we think of little children, to whom, in the devotion of their parents and in the simplicity of nursing infancy, an unimpaired vigilance of faith is reckoned, who without any peril of unfaithfulness obtain the spotless gifts of regeneration, and yet many of them, in the advance of age, are plunged into the precipices of death? What reason accounts for this, unless it be that sloth, dissolving them, allows them to be overcome ................... XV. ON THE FALL OF THE ANGEL, AND THAT THE HOLY ANGELS HAVE THE LIKENESS OF GOD, AGAINST THE PERSUASION OF CERTAIN PERSONS. ........... And he set forth the cause why they seemed to be broken off: 'On account of unbelief,' he says, 'they were broken off' — certainly not on account of foreknowledge.

He teaches that God's munificence is not special toward believers only, since he shows that even those whom he charges with unbelief could have believed. By which manner he makes plain that even unbelievers had received an abundance of faith; and while he says that they were broken off from the natural branches, he restrains the presumptuous with a saving chastisement: 'If,' he says, 'He did not spare the natural branches, lest perhaps He spare not you either'; and he added: 'And they too,' he says, 'if they do not continue in unbelief, shall be grafted in. God is able to graft them in again.' He addresses here both magnanimity and humility of heart — humility, that even he who is grafted in may fear to be broken off; magnanimity, that even he who is broken off may not lay down the hope of reward.

So the diligent shepherd sought the lost sheep, and when he had found it, carried it back to the fold on his shoulders placed beneath it. How would He forsake one who follows, who follows even the one who forsakes Him? XVI. AGAINST THIS, THAT THEY SAY CHRIST DID NOT DIE FOR ALL. They say that our Lord Jesus Christ did not take human flesh for the salvation of all, nor died for all. This the catholic Church detests in every way. For if it were so, how would the Apostle say: 'As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive'? Here 'the whole' cannot be said for 'a part.' For just as the first part of the sentence plainly shows that all die in Adam, without doubt that which follows:

'In Christ shall all be made alive' — the Apostle indicated that it pertains none the less to all to be made alive in Christ, not in part, but generally; that is, even the impious are believed to be destined to be raised up through the power of Christ's resurrection, though they rise not to be judged but to be punished. But when the Apostle says: 'Who is the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful,' in what he said 'of all men' he looked to the purpose of the divine goodness. But in what he said 'especially of the faithful,' he in this place proclaimed and distinguished those who through faith, through obedience, through a submissive will received the gifts of the Redeemer. And that Christ came for all, the same Apostle declares:

'The love of Christ,' he says, 'constrains us, judging this: that if one died for all, then all died. And He died for all, that they also who live may no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again for them.' Since, therefore, the general resurrection pertains to the power of redemption, if redemption does not pertain to all, neither will the resurrection pertain to all. And therefore, since just as we shall all rise again, although not all shall be changed, so we testify that the Lord the Redeemer came with a general mercy — I know that He came, even though unbelief, because it would not, did not receive it. For whoever has sought God at any time has found Him; and he who has not seemed to find Him did not seek Him.

But if, as reckless impiety blasphemes, some seem foreordained to death and others predestined to life, then Christ had no cause for coming, no necessity for dying, which His mercy found. A new remedy, therefore, could have accomplished nothing, if an ancient decree had fixed human affairs before the ages. But because a fatalistic persuasion, which introduces the force of a compelling foreknowledge, is by all means to be rejected, therefore God rather both gave the law and raised up prophets in the intervening times, because He knew that the judgment of the human will was weakened, not taken away. For if its vigor had wholly perished, how would it be read: 'And in the law of the Lord was his will'; and again:

'I will sacrifice to you willingly, O Lord'; and to Philemon: 'That your good deed might not be of necessity, but voluntary'? And when He says in the Gospel: 'It is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world,' we ought not to doubt at all that He gave Himself for the whole world, He who gave more than the whole world was worth — as also the blessed John the Evangelist testifies: 'For He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.' But you say: 'How did He redeem the whole world? Behold, we see men living in their sins; how shall we think those redeemed whom we see remaining captives?' In this place let us gather the understanding from a proposed similitude.

For example, if some ambassador or priest, about to intercede for a captive city, brings a generous ransom and receives the whole people of the captivity out of the hand of him who held them by the law of war, and the whole law and necessity of servitude is entirely released; and if, meanwhile, perchance the delight of habit or a wickedly flattering plunderer should there solicit some of the captives, and each one, a slave of his own will, should refuse the free benefit — has the contempt of the ungrateful diminished the grace of the ransom? Has he who spurned the liberty brought any diminution upon the benevolence of the Redeemer? It is not so. Nay rather, just as he who has returned can be pleasing to the Redeemer, so he who has remained is guilty of contempt.

For the Rewarder of wills redeemed those who were willing. For God, a just arbiter, desires the willing one to return, whom He remembers to have fallen not unwilling. Since these things are so, tell me whom He excepted from the grace of redemption, He who blotted out the general bond of the ancient condemnation. AGAINST THIS, THAT THEY INTERPRET AN EVANGELICAL SAYING WITH AN UNSKILLED AND WICKED SENSE. 'No one,' He says, 'comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.' Who is so forgetful of his own salvation as to presume to deny the mercy of the One who draws? But he is truly impious who testifies that it is not offered to all, not expended upon all. In this place he supposes the salvation of the one drawn to be the violence of the One drawing.

It is plain that he knows nothing but the chains of a servitude bound to guilt, who is ignorant of the bonds of devoted love. But this divine word specifically rebukes the man who is arrogant about his own strength and who wickedly presumes upon his own labor. Since amid these things one judges that the whole is to be reckoned to labor, another that the whole is to be reckoned to grace, in both is fulfilled the Greek saying: 'Excesses,' he says, 'are inequalities.' A like wickedness and equal impiety is proved to exist, if the whole is ascribed to grace alone or the whole to labor alone. What ought we to think amid these things, except that we should always subject labor to grace, and always join grace with labor?

But before all things let us shun the arrogance of labor, and let us claim nothing for ourselves out of its merits, lest we seem to imitate the Pharisee with the deadly presumption of boasting. For when that man, praying, undoubtedly spoke the truth: 'I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess,' he emptied out the faith of what was true, because he mingled vanity with truth. Therefore it is not the working, but the elation of heart, that is to be avoided. 'No one,' He says, 'comes to me unless the Father draws him.' Is he to be moved and dragged from place to place like an insensible and inept material? But to the Lord, standing by and calling, the servant stretches out the hand of faith by which he may be drawn, and says: 'I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.'

And thus these two are joined together — the virtue of the One drawing and the affection of the one obeying — just as when some sick man tries to rise and his capacity does not follow his mind, and therefore he prays that a right hand be extended to him. The will cries out, because weakness by itself alone knows not how to be lifted up. Thus the Lord invites the willing, draws the desiring, raises the striving. But what is it to draw, except to preach, to rouse by the consolations of the Scriptures, to deter by rebukes, to set forth things to be desired, to hold up things to be feared, to threaten judgment, to promise reward? Hear the Lord drawing not with harsh fetters but with the hands of hope, and inviting with the arms of love, as the prophet says: 'I drew them in the bonds of charity'; and that other saying:

'We will run after you in the fragrance of your ointments.' And therefore He says: 'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you,' so that no one who is shut out may be able to excuse himself, since he is convicted of having been invited. For although He foreknew that not all would render obedience, yet to all He had given both the willing and the being able. In this place let it be inquired more carefully whether each one wishes to be drawn or does not. If he does not wish, he absolutely does not deserve the benevolence of the One drawing. But if he wishes, behold, now the consent of man also cooperates with God. 'No one,' He says, 'comes to me unless the Father draws him.' Since you see the One drawing, why do you feign not to see the one coming?

And therefore, just as it is of grace that one is drawn, so it is proved to be of obedience that one follows. If this mercy of the God who draws is given to the worthy, you perceive that it is now bestowed in some measure through the zeal of human service; but if it is given to the unworthy, it follows that it is not denied even to the reprobate, and that by an evident compassion the goodness of God is offered without distinction both to the just and to sinners. But He whom you observe drawing requires by all means one who keeps the precepts, so that he who is called may be able to be grasped and drawn by a certain little handle of the will. But if you suppose that He draws the unwilling, you lay a weight of iniquity upon the heavenly justice. Yet if He is found to draw the unwilling, how much more does He embrace the desiring!

For even he who seems to be drawn without labor will have to labor, that he may cleave to the One drawing him. For how many came and drew back, because, once drawn, they would not persevere in grace though the Desirer called them — as it is written in the Gospel: 'Many of His disciples, hearing, went back and walked no more with Him'; likewise: 'Then Jesus said to the twelve: Do you also wish to go away? Peter answered Him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have known that you are the Christ, the Son of God.' In both cases the will was free: in the former, that they departed with an ungrateful mind; and in the latter, that they remained with the liberty of faith. XVII.

AGAINST THIS, THAT THEY SAY THAT GOD'S VIOLENCE HARDENS A MAN, SO THAT HE CANNOT COME TO SALVATION. If He Himself, as you blasphemously say, hardens, how does He say in the psalm: 'Today if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts'; and again: 'But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up to yourself wrath in the day of wrath'; likewise in Jeremiah: 'You have struck them, and they have not grieved; you have bruised them, and they refused to receive discipline. They have made their faces harder than rock, and would not return.' Consider further the cause of hardening according to the saying of the most wise Solomon, who says: 'The impious, when he has come into the depth of evils, despises' — that is, from the constancy of sinning despair is born, and hardening is generated from despair.

When Jeremiah says: 'They would not return,' you see that the hardening of heart is a crime of one's own will. Base, greedy, and bloodthirsty is the slave of any crime whatever, if he does not resist his sins. But let us see whence this hardening arises. Certainly the occasion of hardening is not the violence of one compelling, but the clemency of one relaxing; and while the untiring goodness bears with the offender toward repentance, an elated security abuses the benevolence of the One who forgives. Therefore the blessed Apostle says: 'Or do you despise the riches of His goodness and patience and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?'

'But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up to yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God.' You perceive that the Apostle, by saying 'according to your hardness and impenitent heart,' ascribes the guilt of the hardened heart not to God but to man: 'not knowing,' he says, 'that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up to yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God.' Recognize that it is not the austerity of God that hardens the hearts of the wicked, but His goodness. For because they are not afflicted by the labors and scourges of tribulations, on account of God's patience, therefore they are depraved by pride. That this is so the prophet also plainly recalls, saying:

'They are not in the labors of men, and they shall not be scourged with men; therefore pride has held them.' And thus, while punishment is reserved for the judgment, and while the Lord's long-suffering summons to amendment, impunity nourishes contempt in the servant. 'Who renders,' he says, 'to each one according to his works' — certainly God does not impose upon man a necessity of sinning according to foreknowledge, He who is read as about to exact an accounting from him according to his works. 'I have sinned,' says the prophet, 'and what sad thing has befallen me?' — this is to say: it is certain that God does not know sins, since He does not hasten punishments in vengeance; and again: 'For he has said in his heart: God has forgotten, He has turned away His face so as not to see unto the end.'

When, therefore, he says 'God has forgotten,' he judges the patience of the One who forgives to be the negligence of one who is ignorant, and he supposes that One to have forgotten what the magnanimous Steward reserves for hereafter. By which manner the admonition of God chastising amends the one who fears, while the leniency of the One moderating rather hardens the one who despises, so that the impious man may suppose concerning God, since through obscuring ignorance he does not see unto the end, that whatever the benevolence of the One bearing with him forbears to punish for the present, He forgets; and, when he is proved to be an insulting despiser, He is supposed to have wrought hardening. For while He suspends His wrath amid multiplying sins, He permits the sinner to insult. XVIII. AGAINST THIS, THAT THEY SAY THAT MEN ARE DRIVEN TO DEATH BY THE WILL OF GOD.

But if, as the heretic says, men are dragged into perdition by the will of God, how is it that in the reading of Kings a woman speaks to David: 'God does not will,' she says, 'that a soul should perish, but he reconsiders, taking thought that he who has been cast off should not utterly perish'? Likewise Ezekiel, under the words of God, argues thus: 'Much toil was spent in sweat, and its excessive rust did not go out from it, nor was your abominable filth removed by fire, because I wished to cleanse you, and you were not cleansed of your defilements.' Behold, God not only desires that a man be saved, but for his purification he sweats with much labour. Furthermore, in accordance with the principle of justice, the healer's care does not accomplish the cure of itself, because it waits for the will of him who is to be purified. Likewise:

'The bellows has failed, in vain has the founder blown; for your wickednesses are not consumed.' When you hear of the bellows or the office of the smelter, understand a pure metal corrupted by an adulterating admixture and spoiled from its natural purity. If a man is driven to death by the impulse and will of God, why again under Ezekiel does he speak, as if reproaching and grieving: 'Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I do not will the death of the wicked, says the Lord. Turn back and live.' And how does he drive to death those whom, as you blaspheme, he invites to life not only by the nod of one commanding but by the affection of one beseeching? Likewise: 'As I live, says the Lord, I do not will the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn back from his way and live.'

Let him who is called by the Lord to return recognize that the return lies within his own power. 'As I live, says the Lord.' Lest the guilty man doubt of pardon, the Judge confirms his own clemency even by the interposition of a kind of oath. But through the sentence of the apostle Peter the will of the most kindly Author is made known: 'The Lord does not delay his promise,' he says, 'but acts patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that they turn back to repentance.' Repentance is pressed upon the sinner, so that in the bestowing of mercy justice too may have its place. But 'he acts patiently,' he says, toward a man's amendment, because, though he impatiently desires it, he patiently waits for it. Likewise according to Luke: 'And as he drew near, seeing the city he wept over it, saying:'

'They shall not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.' Here the heretics must be pinned down. If the Lord had barred the entrance of salvation from those doomed to perish, then he wept falsely over their destruction. But if, as is manifest, he grieved with true sorrow over their ruin, he showed that it was not his own will, but man's consent to his will, that was lacking. What wonder is it if he pours out tears for a man's salvation, he who is soon to pour out his own blood? Likewise in Matthew: 'Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not?' Here the divine discourse does two things. For when he says:

'How often I would, and you would not,' the goodness of purpose is expressed in God, and the liberty of free will in man. But by saying, 'Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you,' he declares that he had willed to save them, while he clearly sets forth the causes for which he was bound to deny them salvation. In this passage the iniquity of a bloody mind is shown by a twofold kind in the servant, and in the Lord the indulgence of a most kindly will is disclosed. If God wills a man to perish, how does even the prophet Micah also say: 'I will show you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, namely, to do judgment and to love mercy and to walk carefully with your God'? When he says:

'And what the Lord seeks of you, namely to do judgment,' he would not demand a ready will for the exercise of good work, if he had not given it. You see that, just as it belongs to God to exhort by calling, so it is reserved to man's obedience that he should follow. I. Against this, that they impiously assert that the heart of Pharaoh was hardened by God. II. That the foreknowledge of God forces human wills neither to just nor to contrary deeds. III. That to foreknow is one thing, to predestine another. IV. Against this, that they say: he is merciful toward those whom he acquires, just toward those whom he abandons — whereas he appears both merciful toward the evil and just even toward the good. V. Against this, that they say:

he who perished did not so much will as was unable to be saved, according to what we read: 'And they could not believe.' VI. What is the meaning of what he says: 'For when they had not yet done anything good or evil.' VII. What is the meaning of what he says: 'that the purpose of God might stand.' VIII. Against this, that they say: Adam wholly perished. IX. In whose image and likeness the first man was created. X. Concerning this, that they say the law of nature has either perished or was never implanted. XI. That the nations knew God by nature. XII. Concerning the Ninevites. SECOND BOOK. AGAINST THIS, THAT THEY IMPIOUSLY ASSERT THAT THE HEART OF PHARAOH WAS HARDENED BY GOD.

Here let us more carefully search out the sense of holy Scripture and consult the mind of the objector, whether Pharaoh was hardened by the Lord willingly or unwillingly. If unwillingly, then you assign the fault of the hardening to him himself; but if unwillingly, you accuse the injustice of God who hardens. For what justice was it, that he should punish the very man whom he himself had hardened? But since the Lord himself speaks to him and says, 'Why will you not let my people go?' and 'How long will you not be subject to me?' — behold, from the divine testimonies we recognize that in Pharaoh the will was free. It is on this account, says the Lord, that I will harden Pharaoh, while I permit him to insult me in the ten plagues, which, entreated by Moses, I remove. 'I,' he says, 'will harden the heart of Pharaoh.'

So too at times, even among men, we adopt this kind of expression; so at times we reproach obstinate servants with our own gentleness, speaking thus: 'I have made you utterly worthless by my patience; I have nourished your malice and pride by my leniency; I have rendered you defiant by my indulgence; I, by my overlooking, have emboldened your heart to harden itself against me.' And in this way, what is a testimony of virtue in the Lord's goodness becomes a vice in the servant's wickedness. Now the divine discourse says: 'And Pharaoh, seeing that rest had been given, hardened his heart.' Most plainly in this passage the rest that was granted is recorded to have hardened Pharaoh's heart. For this, which he says:

'he hardened his own heart,' is not a passive verb but an active one. Do you wish to know that it is by divine governance that he works, though for a cause of the hardened mind? This same Pharaoh, set amid the ten plagues, when he was struck, was softened; when he was let loose, he was made heavy. And thus divine severity bent the impious man, while goodness hardened him; and, to show that he was of free will, when God chastised him he let the people go, when God spared him he called them back. Observe how the gentleness of heaven hardens the rebellious spirit. When the scourges draw near, it grows mild; when they withdraw, it grows insolent. Recognize the ground of the hardening and the force of one's own will.

The Hebrew people, whom he now commands to depart because of the affliction laid upon him, and now forbids because of the mitigation of the plagues — at last, when the plagues pressed hard, he even hastily urges and compels to go. Therefore he is not hardened by the great power of God, but is made a despiser by the great patience of God. In short, amid the alternating turns of chastisement and remission, when scourged he is humbled, when heard he is lifted up, when freed he grows insolent, when afflicted he obeys; and his final will bears witness that he could have sent forth the children of Israel — whom he is known to have released after the tenth plague — at the first plague. And when, amid these corrections, he confesses:

'You are just, O Lord, but I and my people are impious,' he shows, as a witness of his own conscience, that he was corrupted not by God but by his own will. And do you presume to assert that God was harsh or unjust toward Pharaoh — God whom that very sacrilegious man could not deny to be just and merciful toward himself? Does the Christian complain that God is unmerciful, whom even the impious man confesses to be merciful? This, therefore, is what the dispensation of heavenly mercy works in men, which the pouring down of a coming rain works upon the earth.