Глава III

A person becomes a believer by Divine grace and free decision 8. If we truly want to protect a free decision, we will not oppose what makes it free. After all, whoever opposes grace, by which our decision is freed to evade evil and to do good, 15 still wants this decision of his to remain captive. Answer me, I beg, in what way the apostle said: Thanks to God the Father, who has made us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness and introduced us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, 16 if it is not He who frees our decision, but the decision itself which frees itself? Therefore, we pretend to give thanks to the Father, as if He had done something which He did not do, and therefore he was mistaken who said that He made us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, since He delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. Answer, how did we have a free decision to evade evil and do good when it was in the power of darkness? And if God, as the apostle says, delivered us from this, then He made this [decision] free. If He did this such a great good for us only through the preaching of His teachings, then what will we say in relation to those whom He has not yet delivered from this power of darkness? Should we only preach the Divine teaching to them, or should we also pray for them, so that by Divine will they would be delivered from the power of darkness? If you say that you only need to preach, then you will come into conflict with the command of the Lord and the prayers of the Church: if you admit that you should pray for them, then, of course, you admit that you need to pray that they will come to agreement with this very teaching by delivering their decision from the power of darkness. So it turns out that they can become believers only by their own free decision, but they become believers by the grace of the One who freed their decision from the power of darkness. [If we reason) in this way, then the grace of God is not rejected, but is shown as true [grace given] without any previous human merit, and the free decision is protected in such a way that it is strengthened by humility, and not cast down by arrogance, and whoever boasts, boasts not in a person (be it some other person, be it himself), but in the Lord 17 . Babies at baptism are also delivered from the power of the devil 9. After all, what is the power of darkness, if not the power of the devil and his angels 18, who, having once been angels of light 19, did not stand in the truth 20 with the help of a free decision, but, having fallen from there, became [angels] of darkness? I do not teach you this, but I encourage you to remember what you know yourself. So, as a result of the fall of that first man 21, whom this power persuaded to crime 22 and in which we all fell, 23 the human race is subject to this power of darkness; therefore, infants are also delivered from this power of darkness when they are reborn in Christ. And this will manifest itself in their liberated decision only when they mature and begin to use reason, if they have a will in agreement with the saving teaching in which they were raised and complete this life with it, if they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that they would be holy and blameless before Him in love, being predestined to sonship 24 . Fallen angels turn people away from the faith 10. And this power of darkness, that is, the devil, who is also called the prince of the power of the air, operates in the sons of disobedience 25 - this prince is the ruler of darkness 26, that is, the ruler of these very sons of disobedience, governing them according to his own decision, which is not free for him to do good, but is hardened for the strongest evil will as punishment for his crime. Therefore, no one who adheres to a sound faith believes or claims that these fallen angels will one day return to their former piety, correcting their will. So, what does this power produce in the sons of disobedience, if not their own evil deeds, but first of all and most of all that very rebellion and unbelief, as a result of which they become enemies of the faith? After all, the devil knows that thanks to this faith they can be cleansed, they can be healed, they can, having become completely and completely liberated, reign forever, which is why he is furiously jealous of them. Therefore, some of them, through which he intends to further mislead [others], he allows to have certain seemingly good deeds, in which the pagans boast, especially [many] among the Roman people, who lived [as if] beautifully and in the highest degree praiseworthy. But since, as the truest Scripture says: Everything that is not by faith is sin 27, and: Without faith it is absolutely impossible to please God, 28 although [it is possible to please] people, then this prince [of darkness] does nothing in this way as soon as he [moves people] to ensure that they do not believe in God and do not come with faith to the Mediator, by whom the works of this [prince of darkness] are destroyed. Grace does not lie in law, free will, or doctrine 11. But the Mediator Himself entered into the house of the strong, 29 that is, [came] into this age of mortals, confined under the power of the devil to the extent that it is allowed to him (quantum ad ipsum pertinet); after all, it is written about him that he has the power of death 30. He entered the house of the strong man, that is, having the human race in his dominion, and first of all he bound him, that is, he curbed and tamed his power with the bonds of His strongest power, and then plundered his things 31, those that He predestined to be plundered, freeing their decision from the power of the strong one, so that without any hindrance from this strong one they would believe in Him according to their free will. And therefore this is a work of grace, not nature. This, I say, is a matter of the grace that the second Adam provided to us, 32 and not of the nature that the first Adam completely destroyed in himself. This is the work of grace, which destroys sin and gives life to the dead sinner, and not the work of the law, which shows sin, but does not give life from sin. After all, the great preacher of grace says: I knew sin no other way than through the law 33, and he also says: If a law had been given that could give life, then truly righteousness would have come from the law 34. This is a matter of grace: if people accept it, then even if they were enemies of the saving teaching of the Holy Scripture, they become his friends, but this is not the matter of this teaching, because if people listen and read it without the grace of God, because of this they become only its worst enemies. CPL 262 Translation based on the edition: Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Accurante J.-P. Migne. Paris, 1845. T. 33. Col. 978–989. Places with discrepancies were verified with the publication: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vindobonae, 1911.Vol. 57. R. 403–425 That is Adam, cf.: Gen 3:1–6. Hebrews 2:14. In Synod.trans.: the power of death. Those. Christ. See: 1 Cor 15:445. You might be interested in: