Anti-Arian Works 1 part 3/7

And in another place: Behold, all who remove themselves far from you shall perish; you have destroyed all who commit fornication against you (Psalm LXXII, 27). Those, therefore, who remove themselves far and commit fornication against God, surely perish by sinning through their own evil will, which is not from God. But God will destroy them by judging justly, which befits God. For God would not destroy them by judgment, unless they had first perished through their own iniquities. For it is written: They have failed, they have perished because of their own iniquity (ibidem). The falling away, therefore, from the highest good to the lowest good—this is the sinner's own and voluntary evil, by which evil the unjust man destroys himself.

And since God is not the author of this evil, but rather perverse man is, it is therefore fitting that to the man who has destroyed himself by sin, eternal perdition in torments should be repaid: so that he who willed to perish should indeed perish, yet should not perish in the manner in which he willed. For he who so perished, enticed by the delight of his sins, that, were it possible to come about, he would remain forever in the work of sin, is indeed justly abandoned in the perdition of sin, into which he fell by his own will. But he was not there to be dismissed with impunity, lest the faithful God, in whom there is no iniquity, who is just and holy, if He were to leave the sinner forever unpunished in his sin, should be thought to be pleased with the sin. This opinion God rebukes in certain persons through the prophet Malachi, who say:

Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He is pleased with him; and where is the God of justice? (Malachi II, 17). Justly, therefore, the severity of the Judge has followed, where the iniquity of the sinner went before; for God is the avenger of that thing of which He is not the author, that is, of iniquity, which God can punish but not make. For it is written: Everyone who commits sin also commits iniquity, and sin is iniquity. And you know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. Everyone who abides in Him does not sin (1 John III, 4–6). And again: A faithful God, in whom there is no iniquity, just and holy is the Lord (Deuteronomy XXXII, 4). Iniquity therefore, since it is not in God, is surely not from God.

CHAPTER XX. Iniquity comes from the disordered love of the world. The beginning of sin is disordered love. But what is iniquity except evil concupiscence? That this is not from God the apostle John makes plain, saying: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not from the Father but is from the world (1 John II, 15, 16). Here, however, by the name of the world he signifies men who are lovers of this world:

who are not to be punished on account of the love of the world because they love some evil substance—since by nature no substance is evil—but because, not keeping the order of love, while they love the world more than is right, they love God less than they ought to have loved Him. But God made nothing disordered, nor did He predestine anything to be made in a disordered way, He who commands through His apostle that all things be done honestly and according to order (1 Corinthians XIV, 40). On account of which, in the holy oracles too, that sin may be avoided, love is commanded to be set in order. For it is written: He set love in order within me (Canticles II, 4). To this order the Apostle offers congratulation, saying: For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing,

and seeing your order (Colossians II, 5). But if the beginning of sin be considered, I think it is nothing else than the disordered love, on the part of the rational creature, of things ordered by God—a love which, by willingly losing the order of love, lost salvation as well. To this the rational creature was not predestined by God. For His predestination is nothing other than the eternal preparation of His future works, in which no cause of any evil can be found, because the origin of sin never proceeded from the will of God. CHAPTER XXI. God does not predestine man to sin. The predestination of the good is from the free mercy of God. For the Lord is merciful and just, of whom it is written in another place:

The Lord God loves mercy and truth (Psalm LXXXIII, 12). In all His works, therefore, either just truth is preserved, or loving mercy is bestowed beforehand. Moreover, since we cannot deny that man was made good by the good God, if we should say that he was predestined by God to some evil work, we ascribe such a work (which be far from us) to the merciful and just God, in whom neither the merciful nor the just could be found. For if, when man was being made by God, he was so good in the present work of God, yet in His predestination was evil, then without doubt he was going to be evil by the work of God, by whom he was being predestined to sin. Whereupon there would at once follow that absurdity, that it be said that God—of whom the prophet says:

He who made the things that are to come (Isaiah IX)—had in Himself (which be far from Him) the origin of iniquity, if He had predestined as a sinner the man made by Himself; for His predestination is the preparation of His works. And just as it befits the good God to be the cause of every good work, so it is incongruous that the cause of any evil work be imputed to Him. Further, let us note that no reason can be given why man should be believed to have been predestined by God to sin.

For if, in those whom the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even as He chose them in Him before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and unspotted in His sight in love, who predestined them unto the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself (Ephesians I, 4, 5)—if, then, in these the cause of predestination be sought, no other cause whatever is found, but only the free mercy of God. For He it is of whom the psalm says: The Lord is merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and of great mercy: He will not be angry forever, nor will He threaten for eternity:

He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as far as the heaven is high above the earth, so far has He removed our iniquities from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so has the Lord had compassion on those who fear Him (Psalm CII, 8). In all these so many and so great good things which the Lord repays to the wicked, what else is sung of but undeserved mercy? what else is proclaimed but free tenderness? For in this too, that He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities, the free justification of the ungodly is made manifest.

And in this, that as a father has compassion on his children, so has the Lord had compassion on those who fear Him, there shines forth, through the same justification of faith, the free adoption of sons. For He would not have compassion as a father on His children, unless, having by grace become our Father, He deigned to make us His sons. For as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God (John I, 12). CHAPTER XXII. No one is predestined to the committing of sins. This is the cause of divine predestination in the saints: namely, the preparation of an undeserved justification and adoption, which, because the evil will of man did not merit it, has no cause except the good will of God alone.

But in those who are thought to be predestined, not to the paying of punishments, but to the committing of sins, when the cause of predestination is sought, I do not find what anyone could answer who ponders to assert this. For surely, just as we rightly say that the saints were predestined to this end, that, God working mercifully in them, they might from evil become good, and from ungodly become just—which when we say it, we say to the glory of God—can we likewise rightly say that the wicked were predestined to this end, that, God working in them, even if not mercifully, at least justly, they might from good become evil, or from just become ungodly? Far be this from us and from all Christians, that anyone should dare to impute to the divine equity the cause of any sin whatsoever:

since there can be no cause of anyone's malice or impiety except in him who has been evil and impious. Therefore, that men should from evil become good, and from ungodly become just, the mercy of God is to be praised; but that from good men should become evil, or from just become wicked—if the cause of this be asserted to be divine predestination, then justice (which be far from it) will be blameworthy. Nay rather, justice will not even be called just, if it be said not to have found the guilty one to be punished, but to have made him so. And there will be a still greater injustice, if God repays punishment to the one who has fallen, whom He is said to have predestined to ruin while he yet stood. CHAPTER XXIII. Man's evil will is not God's planting. The gentle and good Lord did not create the bitterness and malice of a perverse will.

God foreknew that men would sin, but He did not predestine them to sin. But I ask why He could have predestined to sin—that is, to an evil will, which is the origin of all sin—the first man, whom (as it is written) the Lord made upright (Ecclesiastes VII, 30); this will, surely, must be believed either to have been given by God to a man not yet sinning, or to have been repaid to a sinner. And so, if He bestowed it upon a man not yet sinning, then He Himself (which be far from Him) proved to be the author of iniquity, having given an evil will to a good man, through which, by sinning, he deserves to be punished with eternal torment. And where then is the truth that God did not make death (Wisdom I, 13)? And that there is no iniquity with God?

And that the Lord is just and has loved justice, His countenance has beheld equity (Psalm X, 8)? But if He did not bestow the beginning of an evil will upon the sinful man, but repaid it, so that it is believed sin began from man, yet the beginning of the evil will is said to have been rendered by God—what sin then could man have committed, in which an evil will was not present? For no fruit of iniquity can spring up except that which the root of an evil will has brought forth. For out of the heart (as the Truth says) proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man (Matthew XV, 19).

On account of which God Himself, through Jeremiah, thus rebukes the malice of the human will, so as to teach fully that it is alien to Him. For He says: I planted you a fruitful vine; how then have you turned into the bitterness of a strange vine? (Jeremiah II, 21). He calls it a vine alien to Himself, surely not through any fault of the divine creating, but through the turning-away of its own will, which is justly blamed, in that it brought forth a bitterness which God Himself did not make in it. For it had that very bitterness neither from God's predestination, nor from God's work, but from the malice of its own will. For which bitterness God again rebukes it thus, through the aforementioned prophet:

Know and see how evil and bitter it is for you to have forsaken the Lord your God, and that My fear is not with you (ibid., 19). Since, therefore, this is for a man an evil and bitter thing—to have forsaken the Lord, and that the fear of God is not in him—who could be so opposed to the truth as to suppose that man was predestined by the good and gentle God (of whom it is written): How good is the God of Israel to those who are upright of heart (Psalm LXXII, 1)? And since none is good but God alone (Mark X, 18); and of whom the Apostle says: That He might show in the ages to come the abundant riches of His grace in kindness toward us (Ephesians II, 7). And of whose sweetness it is sung: Taste and see how sweet the Lord is (Psalm XXXIII, 9). And of whose oracles it is again proclaimed:

How sweet are Your words to my palate, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth (Psalm CXVIII, 103). And again: The judgments of God are true, justified in themselves, more to be desired than gold and much precious stone, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb (Psalm XVIII, 11). Who then would suppose that by the good and gentle God man was predestined either to the malice of the will, by which he should forsake the good God, or to the bitterness of obstinacy, by which he should not fear the gentle Lord?

Accordingly, it befits the faithful to believe and confess that the good and just God did indeed foreknow that men would sin, because nothing of things to come could be hidden from Him (for they would not even be future, if they had not been in His foreknowledge); yet that He did not predestine any man to sin, because if God were to predestine a man to any sin, He would not punish the man for his sins. For by God's predestination either the loving remission of sins is prepared, or the just punishment of sins. Never, therefore, could God predestine a man to that which He Himself had appointed both to forbid by precept, and to wash away by mercy, and to punish by justice.

The wicked, therefore, whom God foreknew would end this life in sin, He predestined to be punished with unending torment; wherein, just as the foreknowledge of human iniquity is not to be blamed, so the predestination of the most just retribution is to be praised—that one might recognize that the man whom He predestined to be punished for the deserving of sin was not predestined by Him to any sin whatsoever. CHAPTER XXIV. God predestined the good mercifully to glory, the evil justly to punishment. God did not promise all that He foretold, nor did He predestine all that He foreknew.

God therefore foreknew all the works of men, whether good or evil, because nothing could be hidden from Him; but He predestined only the good, which He foreknew He would do in the sons of grace. The evil future works, however, of those whom He did not predestine to the kingdom but foreknew unto ruin, He foreknew by His most mighty Godhead, and ordered by His provident goodness; and because He was foreknowing that those same evils not only He Himself would not do, but neither would man, insofar as man had humbly cleaved to Him, in this He shows us all the more the insuperable power of His foreknowledge, in that not even in evil things did He permit the predestination of His justice to be idle.

About to show, therefore, what He had foreknown was to be repaid and what to be freely given, God predestined to punishment those whom He foreknew would depart from Him by the fault of an evil will. And He predestined to the kingdom those whom He foreknew would return to Him by the help of preceding mercy, and would remain in Him by the help of subsequent mercy: in the former keeping mercy, in the latter maintaining justice; to the former lovingly bestowing what He promised, to the latter no less justly repaying what He foretold. Thus, however, God did not promise all that He foretold, although He foretold all that He promised. Just as He did not predestine all that He foreknew, although He foreknew all that was predestined.

For He foreknew the wills of men, both good and evil, but He predestined not the evil, but only the good. And although it was not in His predestination that He should have given malice to the human will, yet it was in His predestination what He should render to the malice of the human will. On account of this, because—as the Psalmist testifies—The Lord is merciful and just (Psalm CXIV, 5), He predestined the just to glory, the wicked to punishment. To those, therefore, who were to be justified and glorified, He foretold and likewise promised the predestined work of His mercy. But to the wicked He only foretold the predestined work of His justice; He did not promise it. CHAPTER XXV. On the same argument.

But if anyone should ask why God foretold indeed all things predestined, yet did not promise all things predestined, we answer that there cannot be said to be a promise except when something is foretold as to be done for this end, that once done it may be able to profit him to whom it is promised. And that a promise always belongs to a gift, not always to judgment; since the largess of a promise always gladdens, but the severity of judgment sometimes saddens. Fearing which, the prophet pours out to God a prayer of this kind: Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no living man shall be justified (Psalm CXLII, 9).

For he knew that all would be held bound by an equal chain of condemnation, unless God, in those to whom He willed to show mercy, should exalt mercy above judgment (James II, 13). Justification, therefore, and glorification, which is not to man from man but from God, because it was to profit the saints greatly, was for this reason both foretold and promised. But punishment, which was to harm the ungodly forever, was only foretold, not promised. This is also shown quite easily by the divine testimonies. For in that place of the prophet both are alike found expressed, where God through Isaiah rebukes with these words those who do not serve Him: Behold, those who serve Me shall eat, but you shall hunger.

Behold, those who serve Me shall drink, but you shall thirst. Behold, those who serve Me shall rejoice, but you shall be confounded. Behold, those who serve Me shall exult with gladness, but you shall cry out for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for contrition of spirit (Isaiah LXV, 13). In all these things, whatever pertain to the punishment of the wicked were only foretold, not promised. For it is not to be said that what the severity of iniquity's desert threatens to inflict was promised by the largess of goodness. But whatever pertain to the person of those who serve God were both foretold and promised. Something of this same kind is also in that discourse of our Saviour, in which He says:

Then those shall go into eternal burning, but the just into eternal life (Matthew XXV, 46). He both foretold and promised the reward which the just shall enjoy; but the punishment with which the unjust shall be punished He did not promise, though He foretold it. Nor indeed, just as He predestined the saints to the receiving of justice, did He so predestine the wicked to the losing of that same justice; because the Lord, being merciful and just, could freely deliver from depravity whomsoever He willed; but He was never the worker of depravity, because no one was ever depraved except insofar as he departed from God. Nor did God predestine one to depart, although the divine knowledge foreknew that he would depart. CHAPTER XXVI. God works good out of the evil works of the ungodly.

God predestined the good in one way, the evil in another. The evil are called vessels of wrath, the good vessels of mercy. Why the Apostle rather calls the good vessels of mercy than of justice. God, therefore, although He is not the author of evil thoughts, is nonetheless the orderer of evil wills; and out of the evil work of any evil man He does not cease Himself to work good. Nor in the very works of an unjust will does He abandon the just order of His own works, because even this He holds within that same order, that He justly abandons an evil will.

Yet He so abandons the will departing from Him in its own evil works, that there the good operation of God's permitting is not lacking, while both in the unjust will of the sinner He Himself fulfils justice, and out of the evil by which He judges the sinner He freely bestows a benefit upon whomsoever He wills. In the saints, therefore, the Lord is about to perfect what He freely gave, that they might be good. And what He foreknew He would give, He predestined in the eternal disposition of His goodness. For this is the predestination of God, namely the everlasting disposition of God's future work. Further, in the wicked He is about to punish what He did not give, that they might be evil; nor did He predestine them to any iniquity, because that they should will wickedly, this He Himself was not going to give them.

And because the persevering iniquity of an evil will ought not to remain unavenged, He predestined such persons to ruin, because for such He prepared the punishment of just retribution. This indeed the Lord Himself taught fully by a manifest discourse, in that He showed to have been prepared by Himself not only the kingdom, where the good may rejoice, but also the eternal fire, where the evil may be tormented. For to the good He is about to say: Come, blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew XXV, 34); but to the evil He is about to say: Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (ibid., 46).

Behold to what the Lord predestined the wicked and ungodly: namely, to just punishment, not to any unjust work; to penalty, not to guilt; to chastisement, not to transgression; to that ruin which the wrath of the just Judge repaid to sinners, not to that ruin by which the iniquity of sinners provoked the wrath of God against itself. This the prediction of the blessed Apostle makes manifest, who calls the evil, whom God is about to condemn forever, vessels of wrath, not of guilt. For he says: But if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, that He might show the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto glory (Romans IX, 22).

I beseech you, most beloved Monimus, that you attend diligently to this passage of the Apostle. For it is known that the wrath of God cannot be spoken of except where the iniquity of man is believed to have gone before. For God could be neither ignorant nor unjust, so as to be able either not to recognize the guilt of the sinning man, or to inflict the judgment of punishment upon one not sinning. For the blessed Paul himself declares that in the iniquity of man the justice of God is commended, so as to show that the wrath of the Almighty is not inflicted unjustly. For he says: But if our iniquity commends the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man) God forbid; otherwise how shall God judge the world? (Romans

III, 5). Not in vain, therefore, was such a distinction made by Him between those to be punished and those to be glorified, that He should call the former vessels of wrath, but the latter vessels of mercy, except to show that both in the vessels of wrath and in the vessels of mercy their own iniquity had gone before. For such is the true Lord, whose mercy is both free and whose wrath is not unjust; and through this, He both prevents by His goodness those unworthy ones whom He justifies, and finds worthy of punishment those whom He condemns; and so it may appear that in the vessels of mercy, it is not from themselves but from God that they are good, and in the vessels of wrath, it is not from God but from themselves that they are evil.

For the Apostle could have named those whom he called vessels of mercy rather vessels of justice; but if they were called vessels of justice, perhaps they would be thought to have justice from themselves. But now, when he says vessels of mercy, without doubt he did not keep silent about what they themselves had been, because he clearly shows what has been conferred upon them by God. For if they were just through themselves, the Lord would repay them a wage for their works, not bestow mercy beforehand: just as the same Apostle says in another place: But to him who works, the wage is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt (Romans IV, 4). The vessels of mercy, therefore, are prepared for an undeserved glory, because they have obtained mercy freely.

Of whom the blessed Apostle himself also testifies that he is one, saying: I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief (1 Timothy I, 13). This is the work of God in the vessels of mercy: that to the blasphemers and persecutors and injurious, not the due ruin was repaid, but the free gift of mercy was bestowed. But to the vessels of wrath God would never repay ruin, unless man were found to have sin of his own accord; because neither would God justly inflict wrath upon the sinning man, if the man had fallen into guilt by God's predestination. But because man had the cause of his own iniquity from his own will, therefore Blessed

Paul asserts that God endured with much patience the vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction. This wrath, therefore, for this reason repaid ruin to such vessels, because in them it found the merit of voluntary iniquity. But when would the just Lord have inflicted wrath upon a sinning servant, if the servant had sinned by the Lord's predestination? In this, then, God fitted these vessels, unto that to which He predestined them, that is, unto destruction—that destruction, surely, which Paul declares will suddenly come upon the evil, saying: For when they shall say, peace and security, then sudden destruction shall come upon them (1 Thessalonians V, 3).

But if God predestined such men to sin, the Apostle would not have chosen to call them 'vessels of wrath' but 'vessels of fault,' nor would such vessels be said to be fitted for sin, but rather for perdition. Now, however, they are called 'vessels of wrath' for this reason: to show that in such men what proceeds from God's predestination is not the evil that has been committed by them, but rather what is justly requited to such men. CHAPTER XXVII. How justly God abandons the wicked and repays them with perdition. The unrighteous are predestined to the pool of fire and brimstone. The first death of the soul is in sin, the second in the pool of fire. The Lord does not know the ways of the ungodly, because He did not make them. The first death of the soul is inflicted by man, the second by God. God predestined sins not to be committed, but to be justly punished.

For rightly is perdition repaid by God to the wicked, although the perdition is an evil for those who are now justly abandoned and afterwards justly tormented. For in such men God begins His judgment by abandonment and completes it by torment. For even at this time in which God abandons the wicked as they depart from Him, He does not work in them what displeases Him, but works through them what pleases Him, intending afterwards to repay them what they deserve from His justice. For they will receive their recompense, not because God made good use of their evil works, but because they themselves made evil misuse of God's good works. And so God fitted such men for the intent of punishment, which the just Judge, being the sinner's punisher, decreed by a just predestination.