Anti-Arian Works 6 part 21/24

The beginning of good will is from God alone. 26. He, therefore, sinning—who had been created without any necessity of sinning—in that by transgressing he lost the health of his soul, straightway also lost that faculty of thinking the things which pertain to God. For 'he forgot to eat his bread' (Ps. 101:5), and, stripped of the garment of faith, and wounded by the wounds of carnal concupiscences, so lay oppressed by the dominion of sin, that he could in no way have any beginning of good will, unless he had received this by God's free gift. For 'having been made a servant of sin, he was made free from justice' (Rom. 6:20); and therefore he was made a stranger to justice, because of his own accord he had bound himself over to the dominion of iniquity.

Sold, therefore, under sin, he bound all the offspring to be born from carnal intercourse in himself with the bonds of deadly servitude. This blessed Paul plainly intimates in these words: 'By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned' (Rom. 5:12). This we have suffered in him who was first made the father of the whole world, in whom all sinned before they were born, who could not sin through themselves.

Hence it came to pass that the condemned mass now propagated children of wrath, which transfused both iniquity and death together into the posterity of that man, so that everyone who was to be born of the seed of the sinner through the law of sin (which it is certain is present in mortal bodies even unto death), having received in the very beginning of conception 'the stain of ancestral sin,' would thence, under 'the heavy yoke that is upon the children of Adam, from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb until the day of their burial into the mother of all' (Sir. 40:1), lead a wretched and unhappy life, subject namely to brevity, to sin, and to death. For it is written: 'Man born of woman, living for a short time, is filled with wrath' (Job 14:1):

which would drag the one born even to the second death mortally, if this miserable departure of the present life should find anyone estranged from the grace of God the Redeemer. 27. That, therefore, we might be loosed by the grace of the merciful God from the bond of original sin, by which through the first man we were held bound, there arose one 'Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus' (1 Tim. 2:5). For because God is immortal and just, but the transgression of the first man had made us iniquitous and mortal, in order that a fitting remedy might be applied to our wounds, the Only-begotten God was born a man of man, He who was born of the Father immortal and just. He, in the human nature in which He was made Mediator of God and men, had justice from the Father, death from the mother;

that through Him we might be delivered from all sin, who contracted sin neither by being born nor by living, and that from Him we might receive the justice by which we should be loosed from the bond of eternal death, so that through Him we might be both just in this life, and immortal after this life. He, therefore, marvellously—because uniquely—born 'in the likeness of sinful flesh,' alone is 'the male opening the womb, who should be called holy to the Lord' (Luke 2:23). For He opened the womb of His mother not by the concupiscence of a husband lying with her, but by the omnipotence of the Son being born. Hence He alone is He 'in whom the prince of this world, coming, found nothing' (John 14:30), the one man 'free among the dead' without help, alone 'who knew not sin' (Ps.

87:5); and for this reason it suffices that He should be made sin for us—that is, a sacrifice for sins—that we might be made the justice of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). He alone is 'the bread that came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world' (John 6:33): 'and the bread that He gives is His flesh for the life of the world' (ibid. 51): the flesh, indeed, of the just and immortal God, by the receiving of which justice and life are conferred upon that flesh which is born with the penalty of death and the pollution of sin. CHAPTER XIV. From the sin of the first man we draw both penalty and guilt. Whoever does not enter the kingdom of God is tormented with eternal punishments. 28.

If, therefore, any strive to assert that only death, and not also sin, passed from the first man into the human race, it is a wonder if they do not perceive by what snares of their own opinion they are bound. First, because they call God unjust, in that He makes little ones die, whom these men will have polluted by no contagion of original sin, and who, it is manifestly certain, cannot at an infantile age contract by their own will any actual sin—when the Apostle defines death to be 'the wages of sin' (Rom. 6:23), and again says that 'the sting of death is sin' (1 Cor. 15:56), by which sting stinging, death was inflicted upon man.

For sin is thus called the sting of death, not because sin entered the world through death, but because 'death entered into the world through sin' (1 Cor. 15:56): just as we call a poisonous cup the cup of death, not because the cup is given by death, but because death is procured by that cup. By what justice, therefore, is the little one subjected to the wages of sin, if there is in him no pollution of sin? Or how do we see him pierced by death, if he has not felt the sting? And since 'there is no iniquity with God,' who made man to His own image, what justice is it that the image of God, which could of itself do nothing amiss, should not be permitted to enter into the kingdom of God unless it be redeemed by the blood of the Son of God—into which whoever does not enter,

shall be tormented with the endless punishments of eternal fire? By what justice, therefore, does the just God visit punishment upon infants born without sin, in whom He finds no cause for punishment? Is this the benignity of God the Creator, that He should create His own image, and condemn it without any iniquity, since 'God is not unjust who inflicteth wrath' (Rom. 3:5)? If, then, they do not wish to be occupied, with deadly impiety, in insult against God Himself, let them confess that the sin of the first man passed with death into all men. CHAPTER XV. The absurdities that follow those who deny that infants have sin. 29. Yet again another impiety they ought to see and to shun in this their opinion.

For saying that little ones do not draw original sin from Adam, they assuredly deny that those have sinful flesh whom nevertheless they do not deny to have human flesh. But from the very fact that they do not so deny them to have human flesh as to deny it to be sinful flesh, it follows that they deny human flesh to be sinful flesh. They confess, the Apostle compelling them, that 'God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh' (Rom. 8:3). To this, therefore, the blindness of their impious profession impels these men: that, because they deny human flesh to be sinful flesh, yet do not deny that Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, they should feign, by a sacrilegious infidelity, that the very flesh of Christ is not human, but of another nature.

For these men say that the flesh in which little ones are born is human flesh, which nevertheless they contend to deny to be sinful flesh; but that Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh they agree with us in equal profession. Either, therefore, let them say that the flesh of Christ is not human, or let them agree that the flesh of all men, in the likeness of which God sent His Son, is sinful flesh. And when they have done so, no labour will remain by which it may be shown to them that sin is present in the flesh of little ones. For if flesh is not falsely called sinful, that very flesh has sin in itself. But if it has no sin, it bears the name of sinful flesh falsely. But this flesh of which we speak, Paul, the truthful disciple of the Truth, calls sinful flesh.

It remains, therefore, that just as it is truly flesh when it is called flesh, so it truly has sin in itself, when it is called sinful flesh by the apostolic mouth. 30. But perhaps they will say that the Son of God was sent in the likeness of that sinful flesh which those men have who can now sin by their own will—whence their flesh is not undeservedly called sinful flesh; not in the manner of that flesh in which little ones are born without any will to sin.

Here they do not attend to the fact that if the flesh of little ones had been of a quality different from the flesh of adults, God would have come only in the likeness of the flesh of little ones (whom they say to have no sin originally). For the flesh of Christ would be more like the flesh of little ones, with which it would have a common truth of substance and quality, than the flesh of adults, with whom it would have common only the nature of flesh, not its stain. But perhaps this is what they wish: that the flesh of Christ should have had with the flesh of adults only a likeness of nature, but with the flesh of little ones could have had even a common purity.

Let them confess, therefore, that little ones are in the likeness of sinful flesh, whom they assert to be born indeed in human flesh, but not polluted by the contagion of original sin. To whom it must be shown how great an absurdity follows them even here. For denying original sin in little ones being born, they do not deny that they have human flesh; but that the Son of God took human flesh from the Virgin without sin they concede: it follows, therefore, that they confess that between the flesh of the Only-begotten God born of the Virgin and that of any other little one there is no difference at all. Whence it is concluded that they say all little ones, whom they assert to be born without sin, do not need the Saviour's help;

and thus they incur the snare of the Pelagian error, while they faithlessly contradict the catholic faith. For if they assert that infants are born without sin, what remains, save that they say there is nothing in them which ought to be cleansed by spiritual regeneration? And if they remove the stain of original sin from little ones being born, what else do they strive after, save to charge divine truth with falsehood, when they see them receive the sacrament of baptism for the remission of sins?—which is therefore conferred uniformly upon infants and adults, that it may be known that the stain of original sin is present in all? 31.

Whoever, therefore, desires to attain true and everlasting salvation, casting away the sense of heretical depravity, let him not doubt that those whom he sees born with the penalty of sin were also born with sin: and let him hear blessed Job saying: 'For no one is clean from filth, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth' (Job 14:4, according to the Septuagint). Let him also consider the mourning of blessed David in the humility of a pious heart, saying: 'Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bring me forth' (Ps. 50:7). Let him also see that the sacrament of circumcision was commanded to holy Abraham not without a fearful threat against the little one.

For there God, faithful and just, who does not inflict wrath where He finds no guilt, thus speaks to our father Abraham: 'The male whose flesh of his foreskin shall not have been circumcised on the eighth day, that soul shall be exterminated from his people; because he hath broken my covenant' (Gen. 17:14). Whoever, therefore, denies original sin in little ones being born according to the flesh, let him say in what an infant of eight days could transgress the covenant of God, if he did not transgress in him in whom all sinned—since the Apostle asserts that infants, even before they were born, had done nothing of good or evil (Rom. 9:11);

and we see the newly born, not only within the eighth day of their nativity (on which at that time infants were commanded to be circumcised), but even after that day, throughout the whole time of their infancy, to be so far from being able to transgress the covenant of God, that not even the knowledge of that same covenant can be conveyed to them. 32. Or does anyone strive to make original sin void in little ones by that word of blessed Paul, where he says that 'death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over those who had not sinned, after the likeness of the transgression of Adam' (Rom. 5:14)? If against him there be brought back that which the same Apostle says: 'By the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation' (ibid. 18); which a little after, expounding, he says:

'By the disobedience of one man many were made sinners' (ibid. 19); and when he spoke of Jews and Greeks, he generally inferred: 'For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 3:23-24): will he not straightway be thrust into great straits, if he does not accept both senses according to the profession of catholic belief; namely, that he say that infants have indeed done nothing amiss by their own works, but acknowledge that in that first man all men generally sinned? CHAPTER XVI. From original sin none is freed save the faith of the Redeemer. Blind nature sins without the law. 33.

From this sin which carnal nativity draws by origin, no natural faculty, no letter of the holy law, but the faith alone of Jesus Christ the Son of God delivers anyone—who, coming 'to seek and to save that which was lost' (Luke 19:10), 'died for the ungodly' (Rom. 5:6), 'offering Himself for us (as the Apostle says) an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness' (Eph. 5:2). In this Mediator of God and men both the state of human nature was repaired, and the effect of fulfilling the law was consummated: because natural infirmity could in no way suffice for itself unto virtue, seeing that, from the time when 'all our days have failed,' we have also 'failed in the wrath of God' (Ps.

(Psalm 89:9) — deprived at once of light and of strength, nature sins so blindly and lawlessly that it does not even know that it sins. On this account it is said: 'I had not known concupiscence, unless the law had said: Thou shalt not covet' (Rom. 7:7). Nor did the hearing of the law rescue anyone from the power of darkness; rather it added to sinners a heap of transgression. For without the grace of faith, the law, when known, condemns more grievously than when unknown. And there, the more the ignorance of sin is lessened, the more is the guilt increased for the sinner. Therefore the Apostle says: 'For the law worketh wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there transgression' (Rom. 4:15).

The same Apostle also says: 'Because the law was set because of transgression' (Gal. 3:19); and: 'Because the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the justification by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe' (ibid. 22). How then, out of the mere capacity of free will alone (if it be not forestalled by the help of God's grace, through which a good will is repaired and preserved in man), does nature — the prouder, the more it is subjected to the dominion of sin and death — promise itself any beginning, however small, of a good will and work? For nature, when whole, could not keep God's commandment, and when wounded took no cure whatever from the law, but rather increased sin by the knowledge of the commandment.

'For the law entered in, that sin might abound' (Rom. 5:20); from which no one can be delivered except through the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. For it is not man's free will, nor the holy, just, and good commandment of the law, that delivers us from the body of this death; but the grace of God alone delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord. 'For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath delivered us from the law of sin and of death' (Rom. 8:2). CHAPTER 17. Christ frees man, not by finding faith, but by giving it. — 34. Now He delivered us, not by finding faith in any man, but by giving it. For God, who justifies the ungodly, Himself by the grace of His good will breathes into the unbeliever the faith which worketh by charity.

Hence, as regards the faculty of thinking rightly, the Apostle testifies, saying that 'we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God' (2 Cor. 3:5). For truly, according to the saying of the same Apostle, 'God giveth to whomsoever He will repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, that they may recover themselves from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will' (2 Tim. 2:25). Hence that first and worthily blessed of the apostles, named by the eloquence of the truth, speaking of the belief of the Gentiles, said that God had 'purified their hearts by faith'; and again he says that the same grace was divinely given to the Gentiles as to themselves (Acts 15:9), that they might believe:

whereupon the apostles and the elders acknowledged the free gift of grace in the teaching of the Holy Spirit; and all of them with one accord, with one mouth, passed over to the opinion of blessed Peter, saying: 'Therefore God hath also given to the Gentiles repentance unto life' (Acts 11:18). Indeed, although our Saviour Himself, by the command of His own voice, addressed the human will, saying: 'Repent, and believe the gospel' (Mark 1:15); yet it is clear that, in order for a man to begin to believe in God, he receives from God repentance unto life, so that he cannot believe at all unless he has received repentance by the gift of the merciful God. But what is man's repentance except a change of will? God therefore, who gives man repentance, Himself changes the will of man. 35.

Accordingly, if anyone says, 'It is mine to will to believe, but it belongs to God's grace to help,' let him change the order of his words — nay, let him not change it, but keep it, setting neither what is later in the first place nor what is first in the later place. For he wrongly puts the grace of God after his own will, since that will cannot be good if grace be lacking. Let him not therefore say, 'It is mine to will to believe, but it belongs to God's grace to help'; but let him say, 'It belongs to God's grace to help, that it may be mine to will to believe.' For then truly and rightly does this willing of his act, when prevenient grace begins to help him. For faith, which worketh by charity, makes humble the one to whom it is given, because charity is not puffed up (1 Cor. 13:4).

Therefore let each one not doubt that faith is given to him by the help and gift of grace, lest, while he strives to assign to himself the beginning of faith, man — not strong in health but prejudged in weakness — should also assign to himself the repentance which God gives unto life, and so be deprived of the benefit of so great a remedy, whose grace he stubbornly and ungratefully assails; since the humility of heart is to be admonished by the divine oracles, wherein it is shown that principally that very good will, by which we begin to will to believe, is prepared and directed by the Lord, as Solomon says: 'The will is prepared by the Lord' (Prov. 8:35, according to the Septuagint). And David sings in the Psalms: 'By the Lord shall the steps of a man be directed, and he shall desire his way' (Psalm 36:23). CHAPTER 18.

If the will to believe be from ourselves, faith is not grace, but the wages of a good will. — 36. But if, according to their opinion, it is ours to will to believe before the grace of God begins to help us, then grace is unjustly so called, because it is not given freely to man, but is repaid to a good will. For (as they would have it) grace finds in us that which it did not itself give; nay, if it be so, we give our will to God first, and thus we receive grace not from the mercy of the giver, but from the equity of God who repays. Yet, 'Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him?' (Rom. 11:35). No one at all, because 'A man cannot receive anything, unless it be given him from heaven' (John 3:27).

'For what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received?' (1 Cor. 4:7). But the mercy of God does not sometimes prevent man, if it never makes his will good, but waits until it may find the will. And where then is that which David says: 'My God, His mercy shall prevent me' (Psalm 58:11)? But in what thing God's mercy prevents us, or whom it finds when preventing, the teacher of the Gentiles shows us not in any other but in himself, saying: 'Who before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and contumelious; but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief' (1 Tim. 1:13).

How then could Paul have from himself any will to believe, who, blind and unbelieving, was ignorant that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and contumelious? Considering this with a humble heart, he says in another place: 'I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God' (1 Cor. 15:9). And immediately, assigning his faith not to his own will but to the grace of the merciful God, he says: 'But by the grace of God I am what I am' (ibid. 10). And what already was he, save a believer? And that he might be so, he did indeed obtain mercy, as he himself testifies, saying: 'I give counsel, as having obtained mercy of the Lord, to be faithful' (1 Cor. 7:25).

For also, when he confessed that he had before been a blasphemer, a persecutor, and contumelious, he did not cease to assign his faith and charity to grace, immediately adding: 'But the grace of God hath abounded exceedingly in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus' (1 Tim. 1:14). 37. If therefore the grace of God did not give faith to Paul, neither is it to be believed to have given him charity: therefore — which be far from us — Paul lied, who says that 'the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us' (Rom. 5:5). But since Paul, with Christ speaking in him, could not lie, let us most firmly confess that faith is bestowed on us by the same Spirit,

through whom we cannot deny that the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts. Since therefore Paul was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and contumelious, he was not helped by the grace of God because he willed to believe; but that he might will to believe, he received the gift of prevenient grace; for grace found in his will no beginning of belief, but blasphemy, cruelty, contumelies, and ignorance in unbelief. So blind was his will that not only could he not believe, but he could not even foresee the very beginning of his own belief. For he would not have acted ignorantly, if he had foreseen his own ignorance in himself.

Worthily therefore is assigned in Paul to the gift of prevenient mercy not only the beginning of belief, but also the very knowledge of his unbelief; which knowledge the mercy of God conferred on him for this reason, that, enlightened and helped, he might both acknowledge and shun his unbelief. 'For the Lord is our light and our salvation' (Psalm 26:1); who enlightens us that we may know our sins, and heals us that, separated from our sins, we may live with righteousness. For this cause He Himself, who acknowledges that He obtained mercy in order to be faithful, instructs us wholesomely, saying: 'Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy' (Rom. 9:16).

For truly, both that we may will, we are enlightened by the gift of prevenient mercy, and that we may run, we are supported by the help of subsequent mercy. Therefore, for anyone to attribute to himself the good will by which he begins to will to believe, is not the vigor of a living soul, but the swelling of dead flesh. CHAPTER 19. Man's free will after sin, without the help of grace, is found fit only for serving sin. Liberty takes its beginning from a good will. — 38. For from the time when the first man willingly corrupted and oppressed his own nature, infirmity so grew that, unless free will, forestalled in each man by the medicine of divine grace, is unceasingly healed and helped, it is indeed free, but not good;

it is free, but not upright; it is free, but not sound; it is free, but not just: and the more free it is from goodness, uprightness, soundness, and justice, the more captive it is in the deadly servitude of malice, perversity, infirmity, and iniquity. 'For he that committeth sin is the servant of sin' (John 8:34); and 'by whom a man is overcome, of the same also is he the slave' (2 Pet. 2:19). While sin reigns, therefore, man has indeed free will, but free without God, not free under God — that is, free from righteousness, not free under grace; and on this account most wretchedly and slavishly free, because it is not freed by the free gift of the merciful God. This the Apostle plainly intimates, saying:

'For when you were the servants of sin, you were free men to justice' (Rom. 6:20). Therefore he cannot serve justice who is free from justice: for as long as he is the servant of sin, he is found fit only for serving sin. From this servitude of sin no one is made free, save he who is freed by the grace of the liberating Christ, that, namely, being freed from sin, he may become a servant to God. But how this comes about, our Liberator Himself shows: 'If the Son,' He says, 'shall make you free, you shall be free indeed' (John 8:36). Therefore the Vessel of election, intimating to us the benefit of liberating grace, testifies that we are not only free, but also freed, in these words:

'But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting' (Rom. 6:22). 39. But this liberty, which is not born of human will, but conferred by the free mercy of God, takes its beginning from a good will, and through the fruit of sanctification attains its full effect in life eternal. But just as in carnal birth the fashioning of the divine work precedes all the will of the man being born, so in the spiritual birth, by which we begin to put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, that we may put on the new man, who is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:22)