Works 1 part 7/7

But you turn back and say that the evil and those who are dragged to perdition did not receive freedom of choice. First we ought to know that freedom of choice is endowed with a twofold ministry: at one time it is ready for salvation, at another for perdition. But you object that freedom of will belongs only to those who are to be set free and established in the benefit of redemption. It is not so. Liberation pertains to the gift of grace and to the purpose of a consenting life, but freedom of choice is not a matter of accruing bounty, but of nature. To those who seek it, the former is either bestowed or preserved; the latter is conferred even on those who do not seek it. The former is ministered to those being reborn, the latter to those being born.

Liberation belongs to God's operation alone; deliverance also to the servitude of subject man. The former is confirmed in the good; the latter is implanted even in the evil. The former belongs to those who have acquired and persevered; the latter is available even to the lost. The former belongs to the Founder; the latter also to the one who obeys. The former belongs to power; the latter is of mercy. The former is of origin and lineage; the latter is of gift and virtue. CHAPTER XI. THAT THE GENTILES KNEW GOD NATURALLY. The prophet Daniel, full of the Holy Spirit, knowing that God had placed in the sense of man the desire for good or evil, thus addresses Nebuchadnezzar, saying: 'Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be pleasing to you: redeem your sins with alms, and your iniquities with mercies to the poor.' 'Redeem your sins,' he says, 'with alms.'

Whatever can be redeemed cannot be regarded as predetermined. Surely he is not shut out from health to whom a remedy is urged. And at the same time free choice is not denied to one from whom consent is required. He has not lost the office of a free soul who is shown to have been able to accept counsel. He is not found a stranger to salvation to whom the material of salvation is offered. And to the one to whom the prophet offers the occasion of procuring pardon, he asserts that there is present in him the power of the will. But this too — that Belshazzar the Gentile is reproved, when the prophet says: 'You have praised gods of silver and gold and wood and stone, but God, in whose hand is your breath, you have not praised.' You see that here the foreigner both could know God and praise Him, but would not.

That there is present in man both the understanding of God and His worship — therefore the prophet made mention of it, because he recognized that the law of nature flourishes indiscriminately within the sense of every man. And for that reason, when Daniel had revealed the force of the dream to the aforesaid King Nebuchadnezzar, the king, however profane, showed that he was not ignorant of God, saying thus: 'Truly your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings.' And who taught Darius so to think and speak of God, save the force of reason and of the law, together with Daniel? That God is appeased by conversion... CHAPTER XII. (CONCERNING THE NINEVITES.) ...Whence was it that he knew God to be angry along with a stipulation?

For that great city did not come to its senses through the learning of Jonah, nor did it receive from his admonitions the understanding of how to seek salvation; nor did the prophet teach the people, but terrified them; nor did he promise mercy, but announced an immutable sentence. And yet that city, as it is written, 'against hope believed in hope.' And it promised to itself the very remedies that were in a manner forbidden, remedies destined to be most pleasing to God, even if it had sought what was not promised. These remedies, indeed, are for that reason at times suppressed by the Lord, so that, being more forcefully acquired, they may be the more preserved.

And at the same time, when by the interposition of difficulty in obtaining, the bounty is hidden, faith is proved, endeavour is exercised, longing is made manifest, affection is disclosed; and all this in man is wrought by an inner fire implanted by God and nurtured by man together with the grace of God. And so that nation showed that God had, by the very ordering of His creation, placed within man those things which conduce to man's salvation, and that before the gifts of the Redeemer the Author's gifts always flourished around the rational creature — bestowed indeed by the supreme Founder through nature, but to be confirmed through grace: through grace, I say, in whose time the salvation of past ages was to be consummated, since the law, whether of the letter or of nature, brought nothing to perfection.

In the Ninevites, therefore, the voice of the Lord, full of clemency and goodness, was clearly made manifest, saying thus: 'Suddenly I will speak against a nation and a kingdom, to pluck it up and to destroy and to root it out. If that nation shall repent of its sin, I also will repent of the evil that I have spoken to do to it.' The merciful heavenly Judge desires to change the decrees of His counsel by a pious falsehood, if the guilty one should hasten to apply medicine to his sin. Unwillingly does He lay the weight of condemnation upon man, He who shows the remedy of satisfaction and awaits the obedience of diligent service.

And therefore that perfect providence, which in this present age delights in the exercises of virtues, judged it most orderly and most worthy of His wisdom that man, created to the dignity of the sacred image, should here first be tested by conflicts and contritions, but there be filled with gifts and rewards; so that, when the servant had displayed obedience in labour, the Master might show justice in reward; so that, when human weakness had offered humble devotion, the divine power might put forth an unspeakable largess. Continually, therefore, we must labour, yet not withdraw from grace, and we must say: 'O God, come to my help.' The very word 'help,' then, requires the office of one who labours.

The word 'help,' then, indicates two: one working and one co-working, one asking and one promising, one knocking and one opening, one seeking and likewise one rewarding. This alone is ours: that we who by reason of our frailty are not fit, may at least please by the importunity of seeking and knocking. Where will be the diligence of the merciful God, if, while the person deserves nothing as unworthy, the desires of the idle should nonetheless approach unto this? And therefore, unless unwearied obedience shall have offered the zeal of compliance, justice will have no ground on which to remain. And for that reason the divine word describes the husbandman as set in the hope of his labour, saying thus: 'Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, that he may receive the early and the latter.'

What is the early fruit, what the latter? The early fruits are those which we acquire in the wages of our present warfare. The latter are those which, after our service is completed, we shall receive in the recompense of that other age. The early are faith and sincerity of heart, benevolence, temperance of body, contempt of evil, appetite for good, the tranquillity of meekness, the purity of chastity. The latter fruits are the acquisition of immortal things, the inheritance of heavenly things, the ownership of eternal things, of which it is said: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him.' Of which it is said through the apostles and martyrs:

'The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which shall be revealed in us.' The early fruits, then, are in the virtues; the latter in the reward of virtues. The early are those which our works here receive in the precepts; the latter, those which there our vows shall obtain in the prizes. How greatly, then, is God delighted, if we have made a wall — that is, a most strong barrier of supplication against the offending of God — as did that man of whom we read: 'For the man without complaint hastened to make entreaty for the people, bringing forth the shield of his service; he withstood the wrath and set an end to the calamity.' 'He who should stand,' He says, 'set against me on this account, that I might not destroy it.'

He who shows how His wrath is overcome, in a certain manner is angry after being appeased. Amid these things, whoever says that man was so made by the most powerful and most just Founder that one, without any fault of his own, is assigned to the left hand merely by the impulse of foreknowledge, while another, without his merits being examined, is drawn to the right — such a one is plainly caught asserting that the dispositions both of the Maker and of the Judge are disordered or unjust. But at this point let the attentive hearer turn his mind to the supreme Author: when He purposed to fashion man, to the supreme Author, I say, there stood, for the ministry and counsel of forming man, four virtues. Which four? Power, of course, Goodness, Wisdom, and Justice.

Consider you which of these four you presume to assert was lacking to God. And so, that the matter may be more clearly gathered into understanding, let each of these virtues, if you please, bring forth as it were its own discourses and addresses. Let Power say: 'Let us make, after the kingdom of heaven, in the second place a marvellous creature, lest in the possession of our empire the things that are first should also seem to be last. Let us complete this splendid fabric of the world, that in it we may make man, and set him over it as one through whom the world may be ordered, possessed, and adorned.' Let Goodness say: 'It is not right that heavenly beings alone should enjoy our benefits.

Let us make man also on earth, around whom we may exercise the abundance of our grace, around whom we may spread wide the gifts of our benevolence, into whom we may pour forth the riches of our inborn kindness.' Let Wisdom say: 'Let us not only make him, but also honour him with the sense of reason and discernment, fill him with the light of prudence; let us make him simple, let us make him shrewd — simple, lest being crafty he inflict evil; shrewd, lest being incautious he incur it. Let us instil in him affection for good, understanding of evil, and, according to our governance, let us leave him in the hand of his own counsel and in the liberty of his own judgment.' Amid these things Power, in which foreknowledge also resides, deliberates within itself.

'What are we doing, in that we foreknow him — if we permit him free by his own choice — to be about to pass over into the byways of sin, and we foresee that he will turn the precious gifts of his making into instruments of wickedness? And therefore, if we wish our work in him to be perpetual, let us take sin away from his power.' Justice says: 'It is not so. It does not accord with our laws that he who ought to be proved by contraries should not be able to be recognized from his own powers. It does not accord, I say, with our laws that to him whom we wish to be glorified even by his own office we should deny the matter and cause of glory, that him whom we desire to reward through naked grace we should make to merit nothing from his own labour.'

Rather let these allied and kindred virtues act in him each one by one, let them perform their several parts. Let it belong to Power to create him lofty, destined to dwell among all visible things, especially among enemies; to Wisdom to order him prudent; to Goodness to aid him as he strives; to Justice to crown him as he conquers. 'Such a man, then, for his own benefit and for our dignity, let us make — one whom not necessity but will may draw to the right-hand part, one who may understand evil by reason and know good by virtue.'

'Let us make such a one in whom goodness is in his nature, but malice outside his nature; who has good in his will, evil in his power; who wills good naturally, yet can do evil actually; who keeps our commandments willingly and cannot be endangered against his will; to whom this be the first occasion of praise, that he can sin and yet is unwilling to. But let it suffice that in the four-footed beasts and brutes, which are to be made subject to man, we have already made such an animal which, while it is not liable to fault, cannot have the fruit of righteousness. This one, however, to whom we are about to commit the dignity of our image, ought not to be like a beast. Let us question those things which, ignorant of sin and devoid of reason, we formed without any honour of prudence.'

Will its own simplicity profit the beast, or its own fruitfulness the tree? Toward our man we shall not be able to confer the palm of praise, if we wish nature to serve necessity. This one, then — subject in his condition, free in his discernment, perfect in his reason — it is fitting for us so to order under a permitted power and a proposed law, that the keeping of the precept may be the entrance and the cause of the reward. For if he shall not have the means and license of evil, he will not have the glory of good. If, according to our benevolence, he shall not also by his own zeal or labour keep a praiseworthy soundness, it will be not innocence but inertia; and moreover the reward perishes where merit does not precede. He cannot preserve our goods who knows not how to acquire them.

Unless devotion of obedience has gone before, the offering of grace becomes cheap. And at the same time it is a shame to the rewarder, if the idle be honoured, if the slothful be rewarded. Rather, let him become worthy even by his own work, with the co-working of help, and with a good conscience be blessed. For unless there be the just liberality of the giver, there will not be the perfect felicity of the receiver; and unless the eagerness of the seeker be first tested, in what will the kindness of the bestower rejoice? Furthermore Foreknowledge joins words with Justice and speaks thus: 'It is better that the human race should not come into being, than that it should be seen to come into being in such a way as to perish.' Goodness and Justice reply: 'It is not so. On account of impious Cain, shall pious Abel not exist among created things?'

On account of the increasing malice of the world, shall the world not see the righteousness of Noah? On account of Judas shall we not have Peter? On account of those who are to be conquered by flattering vice, shall those not come into life who through the unyielding magnanimity of austere virtue are to be crowned by just judgment? On account of the multitude of transgressors, shall the ages of the righteous be passed over into nothing — the thousands of martyrs and the kingdom of the saints? On account of those whom we foreknow, by their own crime, to be about to sin, shall we not make those whom we foreknow, even by their own merit, to be about to please us?

If it is so, foreknown malice will defraud our power more than consummated malice would harm it, since it is to the good that the foreknown generation of the evil will do harm — to the good, who on its account will not be created, whereas that malice, once created, could at some time have harmed only itself. But let Goodness say: 'Let us so make the human race that it cannot sin.' To which, on the contrary, circumspect Justice replies: 'How shall we give to earthly beings what we did not grant to heavenly ones? How shall the frailty of men possess what the nature of angels did not obtain?' Since this is so, let not the creature dare to dispute concerning the work of the Creator.

It belonged, then, to Power to found man immortal out of nothing; to Wisdom, to make him capable of reason; to Goodness, to prepare him for blessedness; to Justice, not to choose him before He had proved him. But amid these things someone persists and says: 'If it is established that sinners are to be consigned to torments in that other age and delivered over to eternal fires, man ought to have been so made that he could not sin at all.' Why do you run ahead, O man, of the dispensations of your Author? Why do you seek the reality of immortality in the region of death? Why do you seek in warfare what is prepared in glory? Why before your labour is earned do you demand the things that are prepared after labour?

This will be given, but now to one already justified unto eternity, when that which has been conferred can no longer perish. This will be given, but in the time of blessedness, where it is now necessary neither to conquer sin nor to know it, where there will be neither will nor possibility for sinning, where to live holily, wholly, and piously will be not diligence, not industry, but nature — divine mercy and justice so dispensing it, that he who here has striven after integrity may there be no longer able to be corrupted by any fall. For He will judge it fitting that man who was unwilling to sin while weak may not be able to sin when eternal; but that, as the ages roll on without measure, there may be joy without fear, reward without envy, a kingdom without an enemy. CHAPTER I.

From the fourteenth chapter of the earlier book on grace, near its end, which is defective, are drawn the words which John Maxentius cites in the little book entitled 'A Reply to the Epistle of Hormisdas' (Migne, Patrologia Graeca LXXXVI 1, p. 109) (cf. what we have set forth in the book 'Studies on the Writings of the Bishop of Riez, Faustus,' p. 22 f.): 'Again, in the fifteenth chapter of the same book, treating (namely, Faustus) against those who assert that the gift of believing is not general but special, he speaks thus among other things: But you say, he says, that it is not given to all, but that faith is a personal gift, and that it is granted to believe only to those to whom God specially gave it to believe. It is not so.'

'For since the Lord requires it even of unbelievers, He demonstrates that it has been implanted in all. But to whom, even by the very law of nature, would it not be granted to believe, when even the demons believe and tremble?' II. In the same passage Maxentius (Migne, ibid. p. 111) seems to have in view the eleventh chapter of Faustus's later book on grace, which today is for the most part lost, saying (cf. what we have set forth in the book praised above, p. 23 f.):

'Whence also in the eleventh chapter of the second book he shamelessly and impudently asserts (namely, Faustus) that many, by natural vigour without the aid of grace, not only before the coming of the Lord, but even before the law of the letter, were saved and came to full purity of heart and perfect righteousness, and deserved to become sons of God.'