About the gift of abiding

The anti-Pelagian essay “On the Gift of Abode” (24 chapters) was written by Bl. Aurelius Augustine in 428-429. The treatise talks about the relationship between Divine predestination and free will. Blzh. Augustine explains that the beginning of faith and perseverance in faith are the gifts of God. The Bishop of Hippo turns to the works of the Sschmch. Cyprian of Carthage. In particular, he refers to his interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, according to which this prayer is a request for a gift. According to the teachings of the blessed. Augustine, remaining in Christ until the end of life is a gift from God. However, until death it is impossible to determine whether a person has truly received this gift, since the only way to verify this is whether the person remains faithful at the time of death. We must glorify God for freeing some people from the just condemnation that everyone deserves. *The title of the work in Latin is De dono perseverantiae. Chapter 1. This book will talk about abiding in goodness until the end of life. Chapter 2. Abiding is a gift of God. Testimony of the Apostle Peter they pray to God for abiding, since this is His gift. Explanation of the Lord's Prayer by Saint Cyprian - a testimony for abiding. First petition of the prayer: “Hallowed be thy name” Second petition of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come” Chapter 3. Third petition of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy will be done” Chapter 4. Fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread” Chapter 5. Fifth petition: “Forgive us our debts” Sixth petition: “Do not lead us into temptation” Chapter 6. Abiding can be obtained through prayer, but cannot be lost The fruit of prayer for abiding 3why God commanded us to ask not to be led into temptation Chapter 7. The Lord’s Prayer alone is sufficient to protect grace By the grace of God we approach God, by grace we do not depart from Him 3why God commanded us to pray for what He can bestow even without prayer Chapter 8. Why is grace given freely and freely? Grace is given freely also in the case of infants. It is impossible to answer the question: “Why is this so?” Why does not God give all believers the gift of being in goodness? The reasoning of Saint Ambrose about the power of God over human thoughts Chapter 9. The unsearchable nature of God’s judgments The absurdity of the assumption that God punishes the dead for sins that they would have committed if they had continued to live Analysis of the example of Tire and Sidon Chapter 10. Another opinion about the punishment of Tire and Sidon Chapter 11. God has mercy on whom He Himself wants, without any previous merits, but punishes only according to merit Passages from the book “On Free Decision” cited as an objection Analysis of the book “On Free Decision” in “Revisions” Chapter 12. God is merciful to the elect, just to everyone else Doesn't the bestowal of grace depend on fate? Do babies have sin? Talking about babies again. The importance of their example God Himself allows or does not allow infants to be baptized Chapter 13. No reasonable person will believe that grace is given according to our merits. God, solely of His will, bestows the grace of calling and indwelling. Chapter 14. The doctrine of predestination does not contradict the benefits of preaching. Predestination is the foreknowledge and pre-arrangement of God’s good deeds. The preaching of the Gospel and the preaching of predestination are parts of the same sermon and therefore do not contradict each other. “Hearing ears” denote the gift of obedience given by God. Chapter 15. The same arguments can be advanced against the preaching of foreknowledge and predestination. Their inconclusiveness Chapter 16. About those who do not pray, hoping for the omniscience of God. Prayer and encouragement to goodness Sometimes it is necessary to tell the truth, sometimes it makes sense to hide it. Predestination must be preached so that we do not forget that grace is the gift of God Chapter 17. All gifts of God are predestined to be given. This cannot hinder the impulse to good. Everyone agrees that wisdom and self-control are gifts of God. It is impossible to deny that God foresees and predetermines to whom He will give these gifts. The motivation for what we consider to be the gifts of God does not prevent us from calling them gifts. The preaching of predestination does not prevent the call to acquire the gifts of God. Due to his depravity, a person leaves the faith, but remaining in it is the gift of God. Predestination is sometimes designated by the name of foreknowledge Chapter 18. Chapter 19. Foreknowledge among the interpreters of Scripture. Example of St. Cyprian and Ambrose Saints Cyprian, Ambrose and Gregory the Theologian testify to the grace and gifts of God Preaching the gifts of God does not interfere with obedience Chapter 20. It is necessary to preach predestination Augustine himself spoke about predestination even before the Pelagian heresy Evidence from the Confessions Chapter 21. The beginning and end of faith is from God Evidence of Augustine’s previous writings and letters God grants both the means of salvation and salvation itself, therefore it is unreasonable to doubt the predestination Chapter 22. How to preach predestination so that it does not lead to temptation The doctrine of predestination must be presented taking into account the one who listens It is necessary to avoid offending the listening people How to speak about the uncalled of God and the disobedient One should encourage prayer and hope in God Chapter 23. The whole Church testifies to predestination in its prayers Prayer is also a gift of God. The Spirit of God prays in us The prayers of the Church affirm the truth of predestination Chapter 24. The certainty of God's predestination. Call to prayer for the acquisition of God's gifts The highest example of predestination is Jesus Himself 3 conclusion Chapter 1. This book will talk about staying in goodness until the end of life. 1. Now we should talk more carefully about abiding [in goodness]; Moreover, in the first book, when we talked about the beginning of faith, we already said something on this issue. So, we argued that that abiding, thanks to which [people] abide in Christ until the end, is the gift of God. I speak here of the end at which our life ends, since it is only while we are in it that we must fear lest we fall. So, whether someone received this gift or not is unknown as long as this life lasts. After all, if he falls before he dies, then we can say that he did not remain, and this will be completely true. Is it possible to say that he who did not remain received or had abiding? After all, if someone had self-control and [then] departed from it, becoming intemperate, in the same way if he had righteousness, or patience, or faith itself, [and then left all this], then it would be correct to say that he had, but [now] does not have; for he was temperate, he was righteous, he was patient, he was faithful while he was like that, but since he ceased to be like that, he is now no longer what he was. So, was he abiding who did not remain [in goodness], if everyone by his very abiding proves that he is abiding, and this [man] did not do this? But let no one resist and say: “If someone, having become a believer, lived, for example, ten years and in the middle of this period fell from the faith, did he not nevertheless remain [in the faith] for five years?” I will not argue about words if anyone thinks that this too should be called abiding, as it were, for a certain period, but as for that abiding that we are now talking about, thanks to which [people] abide in Christ until the end, one should not say that he had this abiding who did not abide to the end. Rather, a believer had it for only one year or even less time, which can be imagined, if he lived faithfully all [this short] time before his death, than one who, having believed for many years, retreated from firmness in the faith a few minutes before death. Chapter 2. Abide is a gift of God. Testimony of the Apostle Peter 2. So, having established this, let's see whether the gift of God is really that abiding about which it is said: “Whoever endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). But if this is not so, then how will the words of the apostle be true: “It has been given to you for Christ’s sake not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Phil. 1:29)? Of these two things, one belongs to the beginning, the other to the end, but both are the gift of God, because it is written that both are given, as we have already talked about this above 1 . For what better beginning is there for a Christian than to believe in Christ? What better end than to suffer for Christ? However, with regard to believing in Christ, some have found an objection, so [they would like] to call the gift of God not the beginning, but the increase of faith; With God’s help, we have answered this view sufficiently and even more than sufficiently. But can anyone say why remaining in Christ until the end is not granted to those who are granted the gift of suffering for Christ, or—to put it more clearly to me—who are granted the gift of dying for Christ? After all, the Apostle Peter, showing that this [suffering] is a gift of God, says this: “It is better to suffer by doing well, if the will of God wills, than by doing badly” (1 Peter 3:17). When he says: “If the will of God wills,” he shows that by Divine will one is granted (although not to all saints in general) the opportunity to suffer for Christ. After all, these words do not mean that those whom the will of God did not deign to lead to suffering and its glory will not achieve the Kingdom of God if they remain in Christ until the end. But who will say that this abiding is not given to those who die in Christ from a bodily illness or for any other reason, if it is given - and, moreover, with much greater difficulty - to those from whom death itself is required for Christ? After all, abiding is much more difficult if it is manifested by someone who is being persecuted, so that he does not abide, and therefore, in order to abide, he endures suffering right up to death. So, one stay is more difficult, another is easier, but He, for Whom nothing is difficult, can easily grant both. After all, this is exactly what God promised, saying: “I will put my fear in their hearts, so that they will not depart from Me” (Jer. 32:40). What do these words mean if not this: “So great will be the fear of Mine that I will put in their hearts that they will cleave to Me and abide [in Me]”? God is prayed for abiding as it is His gift 3. And why would it be necessary to ask for this stay from God if it were not given from God? Is this petition, in which God is asked for something that supposedly He does not give, but which without His gift is in the power of man, as ridiculous as the previously mentioned thanksgiving, if we thank God for what He did not give and what He did not do? But what I said there 2, I will say here: “Do not be deceived,” says the apostle, “you cannot mock God” (Gal. 6:7). O man, God is a witness not only of your words, but even of your thoughts; and if you truly and truly ask something from such a rich man, believe that you will receive what you ask from Him from whom you ask. Do not honor Him with your lips and do not exalt yourself before Him in your heart, believing that you have from yourself what you pretend to ask from Him. And isn’t this very stay asked of Him? Anyone who says such a thing should no longer be convicted by my reasoning, but accused [by the very] prayers of the saints. After all, is there really anyone among them who does not ask God for [the gift] to abide in Him, if, as it would be true to believe, when the saints offer to God that prayer which is called the Lord’s prayer (after all, the Lord Himself taught it), they ask themselves to abide in it [in the Lord]? Saint Cyprian's explanation of the Lord's Prayer is a testimony to abiding. The first request of the prayer: “Hallowed be Thy name” 4. Read as carefully as possible the explanation of this prayer in the book of the blessed martyr Cyprian, which he wrote on this subject and which is entitled: “On the Lord’s Prayer,” and see what antidote has been prepared in it over many years against the future poison of the Pelagians. For, as you yourself know, there are three [positions] that the Catholic Church most strongly defends against them: of these, first, that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, since all the merits of the righteous in the aggregate are gifts of God and are provided by God's grace; second, that no one, no matter how righteous he may be, lives in this corruptible body without any sins; third, that [every] man is born subject to the sin of the first man and bound by the bonds of condemnation, unless the guilt incurred by birth is removed by regeneration. Of these three provisions, only the one that I cited last is not understood in the above-mentioned book of the glorious martyr, but the other two are so obviously discussed here that the mentioned heretics, new enemies of the grace of Christ, are defeated long before they were born. So, the fact that abiding is also a gift of God, together with [all] the merits of the saints, which are nothing other than the gifts of God, is said here as follows. “We,” writes [the martyr], “say: “Hallowed be Thy name,” not because we want God to be sanctified by our prayers, but because we ask Him that His name be sanctified in us. And truly, from whom shall we be sanctified to God, Who Himself sanctifies [everything]? But since He Himself said: “Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 19:2)?, then we pray and ask that, sanctified in baptism, we may remain in what we began to be” 3 . And a little lower, still discussing this subject and teaching that we must ask the Lord for abiding (and it would be unfair and wrong to teach so if this abiding were not also a gift of God), he says: “We pray that this sanctification may constantly be in us, and since our Lord and Judge warns him who is healed and quickened by Him, so that he does not depart from Him and nothing worse happens to him (John 5:14), we We constantly repeat this request in our prayers, asking day and night that the sanctification and revitalization given to us by God’s grace may be preserved in us thanks to His protection.” So, this teacher believes that when we, having already been sanctified, say: “Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9), we ask God to remain in this sanctification, that is, so that we may remain in sanctification. After all, what does it mean to ask for what we have already received? Doesn’t this mean asking for the gift to us also of something so that we do not cease to have [this received]? Likewise, a saint, when he asks God to be holy, asks that he continue to be holy; also pure when he asks to be pure; temperate, to be temperate; righteous to be righteous; pious, to be pious; and everything else that we, defending against the Pelagians, recognize as gifts of God. So, all of them, undoubtedly, ask to continue in the blessings that they know they have received. And if they receive this, then, of course, they receive the stay itself - the great gift of God, thanks to which all His other gifts are preserved. Second Petition of the Lord's Prayer: "Thy Kingdom Come" 5. What then? When we say: “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10), do we not ask that it come for us, since we have no doubt that it will come for all the saints? Therefore, here too, those who are already saints, do they not pray for this, so that they may remain in the holiness that has been granted to them? After all, otherwise the Kingdom of God will not come for them, which truly will come for no one else but for those who endure until the end. Chapter 3. Third Petition of the Lord's Prayer: “Thy will be done” 6. The third petition sounds: “Thy will be done in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 6:10), or, as this passage is read in most manuscripts and more often pronounced by those praying: “(Thy will be done) on earth, as it is in heaven,” which for the most part is understood as follows: “May we, like holy angels, do Thy will.” But the teacher and the martyr desire that by heaven and earth we understand spirit and flesh, thus praying that we may fulfill the will of God both first and second in their mutual agreement 4 . He sees in these words another meaning befitting the holiness of faith, which we have already spoken about above 5, [namely] that they should be understood as the prayer of believers for unbelievers, who are still “earth”, for as a result of their first birth they bear only [the image of] an “earthly man,” while the believers themselves, who have put on the “heavenly man” (1 Cor. 15:47-49), are deservedly called the name of heaven 6 . Here he clearly shows that the beginning of faith is a gift of God, since the Holy Church prays not only for believers, so that faith will increase or remain in them, but also prays for non-believers, so that they begin to have that faith that they did not have at all before and, moreover, against which they fought with a hostile heart. But now we are not talking about the beginning of faith, about which much has already been said in the previous book, but about the persistence that must be had until the very end; Undoubtedly, the saints who do the will of God also ask for it, asking for it, saying in prayer: “Thy will be done.” After all, if this will has already been accomplished in them, why do they still ask for it to be accomplished? Is this not what they ask, so that they may remain in what they began to be? Although here they can say that the saints do not ask that the will of God be done in heaven, but they ask that it be done “on earth as it is in heaven”: that is, that the earth imitate heaven, which means that man imitates angels, or unbelievers imitate believers; Therefore, the saints ask in these words that what is not yet done be accomplished, and not that what is exist remain. After all, no matter how holy people may be, they are not yet equal to the angels of God, which means that the will of God has not yet been accomplished in them as in heaven. But although this is true, in relation to the fact that we want people from unbelievers to become believers, we apparently do not want the continuation, but the beginning of faith; however, in relation to the fact that we want people to become equal to the angels of God in fulfilling the will of God, when the saints desire this, they clearly pray for abiding, since no one will achieve that highest bliss that is [prepared for] in the Kingdom [of God] if he does not remain to the end in the holiness that he acquired on earth. Chapter 4. Fourth Petition of the Lord's Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” 7. The fourth petition is: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Here Blessed Cyprian shows how these words can be understood as a petition for abiding. For he says, among other things: “And we ask this: “Give us this day our daily bread,” so that we, who abide in Christ and daily receive the Eucharist as saving food, should any serious sin suddenly occur, would not find ourselves separated from the body of Christ, being withheld from the heavenly bread, since we are under prohibition and do not participate in communion” 7 . These words of the holy man of God show that the saints undoubtedly ask God for abiding when they say: “Give us this day our bread,” with the intention of not being separated from the body of Christ, but remaining in that holiness, thanks to which they do not allow any sin that can deservedly separate them from it. Chapter 5. Fifth petition: “Forgive us our debts” 8. In the fifth request of the prayer we say: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). It seems that in this one petition we are not asking for abiding. After all, those sins for the remission of which we pray here are sins of the past, while the abiding that makes us saved in eternity, although necessary during this life, is not in the past [time], but in that which still remains until its end. However, it will not be in vain to briefly pay attention to how, in [the explanation of] this petition, the language of Cyprian, as a kind of invincible instrument of truth, even then struck the heretics who appeared quite a long time after him. After all, the Pelagians, among other things, dare to say that a righteous person in this life has no sin at all, and from such people the Church is already formed at the present time, “not having spot, or wrinkle, or anything like that” (Eph. 5:27), and this Church alone is the bride of Christ; as if it were not His bride who throughout the whole earth says what she learned from Him: “Forgive us our debts.” But look how the most glorious Cyprian destroys them. Explaining this passage of the Lord's Prayer, he says, among other things: “And how inevitably, how prudently and salutarily we are convinced that we are sinners, since [the Lord] encourages us to pray for our sins, so that, asking God for forgiveness [of sins], the soul will remember [the voice of] its conscience. So that no one imagines that he is innocent, and does not quickly perish because of arrogance, [this prayer] instructs and teaches [man] that he sins daily, since he is commanded daily to pray for his sins. And John in his Epistle says, affirming this: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8), and so on” 8, which would be long to bring here. Sixth petition: “Lead us not into temptation” 9. Finally, when the saints say: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13), what are they praying for if not that they may remain in holiness? For truly, if this gift of God is given to them, so as not to fall into temptation - and that this is a gift of God is quite clear and obvious from the fact that it is asked from God - then, if this gift of God is given to them, each of the saints will be able to maintain their holiness to the end. After all, no one will cease to be in the Christian vocation if he does not first fall into temptation. Therefore, if he is granted what he prays for, that is, not to fall into temptation, then he will undoubtedly persevere in the sanctification that he received as a gift from God. Chapter 6. Abiding can be obtained by prayer, but cannot be lost 10. “But these brothers do not want,” as you write, “to preach about this abiding, that it cannot be either prayerfully earned or lost through stubbornness” 9. They do not notice very carefully what reason they have for saying this. After all, we are talking about that abiding, thanks to which they remain [in goodness] until the end; if it is given, then it is abiding right up to the end, and if there is no staying right up to the end, then it is not given, which we have already said enough about above. So, let people not say that someone has been given continuity to the end, except in the event that this very end has come, and it turns out that the one to whom it was given remained until the end. After all, we call someone pure about whom we know that he is pure, regardless of whether he remains in this purity or not; and if anyone has any other of the Divine gifts that he can have or lose, we say that he has it while he [indeed] has it, and if he loses it, we say that he had it; but since no one can have abiding until the end, except he who [really] abides to the end, then many can have it, but no one can lose it. After all, no one should be afraid that in a person, when he will remain until the end, some evil will will not arise, so that [as a result of this] he will not remain until the end. Therefore, this gift of God can be prayerfully deserved, but when it has already been given, it cannot be lost through stubbornness. For when someone endures until the end, he can no longer lose either this gift or others that he could still lose before the end. After all, how can he lose something, thanks to which those gifts that he could previously lose are not lost? The fruit of prayer for abiding 11. However, lest they suddenly say that although abiding until the end [cannot be] lost, if it is given, that is, in the event that someone remains until the end; however, then it is in some way lost when a person acts out of stubbornness, so that he cannot achieve it (in this sense we say that a person who does not persevere to the end has lost eternal life or the Kingdom of God - not because he already had and received it, but because he would have received and would have had if he had persevered), then [better] we will eliminate the contradiction in words and will not say that one can also lose not something that one does not have, but one hopes to have. Let him tell me, whoever decides, can’t God really give what he commanded to ask of Him? Whoever thinks like this, I won’t say, doesn’t understand, but rather, he’s crazy. And God commanded that, when praying to Him, His saints should say: “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13). So, everyone whom God hears asking this is not led into the temptation of stubbornness, because of which he could deservedly lose his tenure in holiness. Why did God command us to ask not to be led into temptation? 12. After all, everyone leaves God of his own free will, so he is deservedly abandoned by God. Who will deny this? But that’s why we ask: “Do not lead us into temptation,” so that this does not happen. And if God listens to us, this does not happen, because He does not allow it to happen. For nothing happens except what He Himself does, or He Himself allows to happen. So, He can bend the wills of people from evil to good, and turn those inclined to fall, and direct [them] in a direction pleasing to Him. It is not in vain that it is said to Him: “God, you will revive us by turning us” (Ps. 84:7); it is not in vain that it is said: “Do not let my foot fail” (Ps. 65:9); it is not in vain that it is said: “Do not deliver me, O Lord, to a sinner because of my desire” (Ps. 139:9); finally, in order not to remember much, although you may encounter even more [the number of similar passages], not in vain it is said: “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13). For he who is not led into temptation, of course, is not led into the temptation of his own evil will, and whoever is not led into the temptation of his evil will is not led into any temptation at all. After all, as it is written: “Everyone is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust; God does not tempt anyone” (James 1:14, 13), namely [does not tempt] with harmful temptation. For there is also a useful temptation, which does not deceive or oppress us, but tests us. In accordance with this, it is said: “Test me, O Lord, and tempt me” (Ps. 25:2). So, by that harmful temptation, which the apostle designates when he says: “Lest the tempter tempt you in any way, and our labor become in vain” (1 Thessalonians 3:5), God, as I have already said, does not tempt anyone, that is, does not lead or plunge anyone into this temptation. For to be tempted, and yet not to be led into temptation, is not evil, but, on the contrary, good; after all, it means to be to those who are being tested. So, when we say to God: “Lead us not into temptation,” what else are we saying but this: “Do not allow us to be led [into temptation].” Therefore, some pray like this (we read this in numerous manuscripts, and Blessed Cyprian quotes this passage this way): “Do not allow us to be led into temptation.” But in the Greek Gospel we will find only this everywhere: “Lead us not into temptation.” So, we will live with greater security if we leave everything to God and do not rely [only] partly on Him, and partly on ourselves. The venerable martyr knew this, because he, explaining this same place of prayer, after everything else, says: “And when we pray so as not to fall into temptation, then during such prayer we bring to mind our weakness and powerlessness, so that no one begins to brazenly exalt himself, so that no one begins to proudly and impudently attribute something to himself, so that no one begins to seek glory for himself in confession or suffering, since the Lord Himself, teaching humility, said, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation; for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41), but so that if a humble and submissive confession precedes, and God grants everything that is asked in prayer and with the fear of God, [all this] will be attributed to His mercy” 10. Chapter 7. The Lord's Prayer alone is sufficient to protect grace 13. So, even if there were no other evidence, this Lord's prayer alone would be sufficient for us regarding the grace that we defend, since there is nothing left for us that we can boast of as ours. Therefore, the fact that we do not depart from God, as this prayer shows, is given only from God, since it must be asked from God. After all, he who does not fall into temptation does not depart from God. This is completely beyond the power of free decision, such as they are now, but it was within the power of man before he fell. However, what this free will was capable of in the superiority of its original state was manifested in the angels, who, when the devil and his [servants] fell, stood in the truth and were worthy to achieve eternal confidence that they would not fall, and we now know with certainty of their stay in it. And after the fall of man, God deigned that it would depend only on His grace whether a person would approach Him, and it would depend only on His grace that a person would not depart from Him. By the grace of God we approach God, by grace we do not depart from Him 14. This grace [God] placed in Him in whom “we became heirs, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who perfects all things” (Eph. 1:11). So, just as He does so that we would approach [Him], so He does so that we do not depart [from Him]. That is why it is said to Him through the prophet: “Let Your hand be upon the Man of Your right hand and upon the Son of Man, whom You have strengthened for Yourself, and we will not depart from You” (Ps. 79:18-19). It is clear that this is not the first Adam in which we departed from Him, but the last Adam, over whom His hand extends so that we do not depart from Him. After all, this is the whole Christ with His members, for the sake of the Church, which is His body and His fullness (Eph. 1:23). Therefore, when the hand of God extends to Him so that we do not depart from God, then, of course, the work of God extends to us (for this is the hand of God), and as a result of this work of God, we in Christ remain with God, and do not depart from God, like Adam. After all, in Christ we “have become heirs, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who perfects all things.” So, it is the hand of God, and not ours, that we do not depart from God. Him, I say, is the hand who said: “I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will not depart from Me” (Jer. 32:40). Why God commanded us to pray for what He can bestow without prayer 15. Therefore, He wanted us to ask Him not to be led into temptation, because if we are not led [into temptation], we will in no way depart from Him. He could have granted this to us without our prayers, but He wanted us to remind ourselves with our prayers from whom we receive these benefits. After all, from whom do we receive them, if not from Him from whom it is fair to ask them? Let the Church not at all rely on difficult reasoning in this matter, let her look at her daily prayers: she prays for unbelievers to believe, which means God is converting to faith. She prays that believers will remain, which means that God grants abiding until the end. God foreknew that He would do this; and this is the predestination of the saints, whom “He chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and blameless before Him in love; having predestined them to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He graced them in His beloved Son, in whom they have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, the riches of His grace, which He abundantly bestowed on them in all wisdom and understanding, to reveal to them the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He first purposed in Him in the dispensation of the fulness of times, that all things in heaven and on earth might be united under the head of Christ, in whom we also were made heirs, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who perfects all things” (Eph. 1:4-11). What man of reasonable and watchful faith would allow certain human voices to be heard against this so clear trumpet of truth? Chapter 8. Why grace is given freely and freely 16. But someone will say: “Why is the grace of God given not according to people’s merits?” I will answer: “Because God is merciful.” He will say: “Then why isn’t everyone [given it]?” And here I will answer: “Because God is a [just] Judge.” Therefore, grace is given by Him freely, and is shown by the example of His fair judgment in relation to others, which [precisely] provides grace to those to whom it is given. So, let us not be ungrateful [when we see] that the merciful God “according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His grace” (Eph. 1:5-6) delivers so many from destruction, so well deserved that even if He did not deliver anyone from it, He would not be unjust. For through the fault of one, all are guilty of facing condemnation, not unjust, but just. Therefore, if anyone gets rid of himself, let him love grace, and if someone does not get rid of him, let him recognize his debt. And if people understand goodness in the discharged debt, and justice in the exacted debt, then it will be discovered that there is no unrighteousness with God. Grace is given freely also in the case of infants 17. “But why,” he continues, “in the same case, not only in relation to infants, but also in relation to twins, the decision is so different?” Isn't this question similar to another: why is the solution the same in different cases? So, let us remember again those workers in the vineyard who worked the whole day and those who worked only one hour: is not the labor expended different in these cases, and, however, is not the decision in the distribution of the reward the same? After all, here, too, what else can those who grumble hear from the owner, except this: “That’s how I want it”? For his generosity towards some was manifested in such a way that there was no injustice towards others. And although in this case both of them received the benefit, however, as for justice and grace, here too about that guilty person who is freed [from punishment], in justice it can be said to that guilty person who is condemned: “Take what is yours and go; I want to give this... what I shouldn't. Am I not allowed to do what I want? Or is your eye envious because I am kind?” (Matthew 20:14-15) And if he says here: “Why is it not given to me [to do this]?” - then he will deservedly hear: “Who are you, man, that you object to God?” (Rom.9:20). Truly, you see Him as the most benevolent giver in relation to one of you and the most just executor of the sentence in relation to you, despite the fact that He is not unjust to anyone. After all, since He would be just, even if He punished both, then the one being delivered has something to thank for, and the one being condemned has nothing to complain about. It is impossible to answer the question: “Why is this so?” 18. “But if,” he will say, “it was necessary that [God], condemning not everyone, should show what everyone deserves, and thus reveal the generosity of His grace to the vessels of mercy, then why, under the same circumstances, did He punish me, and not him, why did He deliver him, and not me?” I won’t say this, and if you ask why, I’ll admit that I don’t find anything to say. If you ask here: “Why?” - then I will answer: “Since in this matter, just as His anger is just, and His mercy is great, so His judgments are unsearchable.” Why doesn’t God give all believers the gift of being in goodness? 19. But let him continue further and say: “Why did He not allow some to continue to the end who worshiped Him with good faith?” Why, do you think, if not because the one who says: “They came out from us, but were not from us, for if they were from us, they would have remained with us!” (1 John 2:19) Well, is this why there are two [different] natures of people? No way. If there were two natures, there would be no grace, for no one would be given deliverance by grace if nature were given its due. So, it seems to people that everyone who is a good believer should have continued until the end. God judged that it would be better to mix some of those without abiding with the exact number of His saints, so that those who do not benefit from security in this life full of temptations would not feel secure. For many are kept from harmful exaltation by what the apostle said: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands beware lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). The one who falls falls by his own will, and the one who stands stands by the will of God. “For God is able to establish it” (Rom. 14:4); - so, not he himself, but God. However, it is good not to think highly [of oneself], but to have fear (Rom. 11:20). It is clear that in his thoughts everyone either falls or stands. And, as the apostle says (I already cited this in the previous book): “Not because we ourselves are able to think something from ourselves, as if from ourselves, but our ability is from God” ( 2 Cor 3:5) Following him, blessed Ambrose boldly says: “For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power.” 11 Anyone who is humble and truly pious will agree that this is completely true. Saint Ambrose's Discourse on the Power of God over Human Thoughts 20. When Ambrose said this, he was arguing in the book he wrote “On Flight from the World,” teaching in it that one must escape from this world not with the body, but with the heart, and this, as he instructs, can only happen with the help of God. After all, he says this: “We often talk about escaping from this world; Oh, if only how easy this speech was, the desire [for this] would be just as persistent and persistent! But, what is even worse, the temptation of earthly lusts often creeps in, and the mind is blinded by vanity; so what you strive to avoid is what you think about and occupy your soul with. It is difficult for a person to protect himself from this, and it is impossible to get rid of it. After all, the prophet testifies that this thing is rather an object of prayer than action, saying this: “Incline my heart to Your covenants, and not to self-interest” (Ps. 119:36). For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power, which, suddenly darkened, confuse the mind and soul and draw them not where you intended; they call for the worldly, they instill earthly things, they impose something that gives pleasure, they weave in something seductive, and while we are preparing to elevate the mind, we for the most part fall into the earthly, entangled in empty thoughts” 12. So, not in human, but in God’s power, so that people have “the power to become children of God” (John 1:12). After all, they receive this power from the One who gives the human heart godly thoughts, thanks to which it has faith that works through love (Gal. 5:6). And in relation to the acquisition and retention of this good, as well as in relation to constant growth in it until the end, “we ourselves are not able to conceive anything as if from ourselves, but our ability is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5), in whose power our heart and our thoughts are. Chapter 9. The Unsearchableness of God's Judgments 21. So, the judgments of God are unsearchable [regarding] why of two infants, equally subject to original sin, one is accepted and the other is abandoned; Why is it that of two older wicked people, one is called in such a way that he follows the Caller, while the other is either not called at all, or is not called in such a way [as to follow]. In the same way, the judgments of God are unsearchable [regarding] why of two pious ones, one is given to remain to the end, and the other is not given. But for believers it should be quite certain that the first was one of the predestined, and the second was not. After all, as one of the predestined ones, who absorbed this mystery from the breast of the Lord, says, “if they were of us, they would remain with us” (1 John 2:19). What does this mean, I ask: “They were not from us, for if they were from us, they would have remained with us!” Were not (in the above example) both [men] created by God, were not both born of Adam, were not both made of the earth, and were not both made by Him who said, “I created every breath”? (Isa.57:16). Didn't they receive souls of the same nature? Further, were they not both equally called and followed the caller, were they not both justified from wickedness and renewed by the washing of regeneration? But if one who undoubtedly knew what he was saying heard this, he could answer and say: “Truly it is so, and in accordance with all this they were from us; but according to some other distinction they were not of us; for if they had been from us, they would have remained with us.” What kind of distinction is this? The Books of God are obvious - let us not turn away our gaze; Divine Scripture calls - let us apply our ears. They were not from us, since they were not “called according to [God’s] purpose,” were not chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world,” were not “heirs in Him,” were not “predestined according to the purpose of Him who accomplishes all things” (Rom. 8:28; Eph. 1:4, 11). For if they had all this, then they would be from us and, undoubtedly, would remain with us. The absurdity of the assumption that God punishes the dead for sins that they would have committed if they had continued to live 22. For in order not to tell me how [undoubtedly] it is possible for God to convert to His faith people who are averse and opposed to the will of people and to act in their hearts in such a way that they do not fall from anything that is opposed to them, and do not depart from Him, being overcome by any temptation, although He can do what the Apostle speaks about, namely, not allowing them to be tempted beyond their strength ( 1 Corinthians 10:13); so, without telling me about it, God certainly could, knowing in advance that they would fall, take them out of this life before it happened. Do we still need to return to the argument about how absurd it is to say that dead people are also judged for the sins that God foreknew they would commit if they continued to live? This position is so far removed from Christian, and indeed human opinions in general, that it is a shame to even refute such a thing. After all, why then do they not say that the Gospel itself was preached in vain, and is still being preached with such labor and suffering of the saints, since [God] can judge people, even if they have not heard the Gospel, in accordance with the resistance or obedience that He foreknew they would have if they had heard [the Gospel]? Then Tire and Sidon would not have been condemned, even more mildly than those cities in which amazing signs were performed by the Lord Jesus Christ on unbelievers: after all, if this had been done in these [two cities], then “they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 11:21), as the sayings of the Truth proclaim; and in these words of His, the Lord Jesus reveals to us even more deeply the mystery of predestination. Analysis of the example of Tire and Sidon 23. After all, if they ask us why such great miracles were performed among those who did not believe when they saw them, and were not performed among those who would have believed if they had seen them, what shall we answer? Is it possible to tell us what I wrote in that book where I answered the six questions of the pagans, without foreseeing, however, other [possible] circumstances that the diligent can find? 13. For there, as you know, when it was asked why Christ came after such a long time [after the fall of man], I said: “As for that time and those places when and where His gospel was not preached, He foreknew that then and there all people would be in relation to this preaching the same as many were during His bodily presence [on earth], namely, those who did not want to believe in Him, even when He raised the dead.” Also a little lower in the same book and in response to the same question, I said: “What is surprising if Christ, having learned over the past centuries how full the whole universe is of unbelievers, deservedly did not want to preach to those about whom he knew in advance that they would not believe either His words or His miracles?” 14. It is clear that this we cannot say about Tire and Sidon, and from their example we understand that these Divine judgments relate to those secret cases of predestination, which, as I said, I did not foresee when I answered what was given above. After all, it is easy for us to accuse those Jews of unbelief, which stems from free will, who did not want to believe despite the fact that such great miracles were performed among them. The Lord accuses them of this, exclaiming and saying: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were done in you had been performed in Tire and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 11:21). But can we say that the inhabitants of Tire and Sidon also did not want to believe, although the same miracles were performed among them [as in Chorazin and Bethsaida], or [say] that they would not have believed if these miracles had been performed? After all, the Lord Himself testifies about them that if [really] these signs of Divine miracles had been created among them, they would have repented with great humility. And yet they will be punished on the day of judgment, although with less punishment than those cities that, despite the miracles performed in them, did not want to believe. After all, the Lord further said: “But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tire and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you” (Matthew 11:22). So, some cities will be punished with greater severity, and others with less severity, but all will be punished. And if the dead were judged by the deeds that they would have done if they had remained alive, then, of course, these cities should not be punished, since they would have believed if the Gospel had been preached to them with such miracles; but they are punished, and therefore it is false to say that the dead are judged according to what they would have done if the gospel had reached them during their lifetime. And if this is false, then there is no reason to speak of infants who perish, dying without baptism, as if this is due to God's foreknowledge that if they continued to live and the Gospel was preached to them, they would listen to it and not believe. So, it remains [to admit] that they are held bound by original sin and because of it alone they go into condemnation; and therefore we see how, under the same conditions [of birth], some [babies] are granted rebirth only by the free grace of God; while according to His hidden, but just judgment - since there is no unrighteousness with God (Rom. 9:14), - others who are destined to perish even after baptism because of their bad life are kept in this life until they perish; although they would not have perished if physical death had come to their aid, preceding their fall. However, no dead person is judged according to the good or evil [deeds] that he would have done if he had not died, otherwise the inhabitants of Tire and Sidon would not have suffered punishment for what they did, but rather in accordance with what they would have done if the gospel miracles had been performed among them, inherited salvation through great repentance and faith in Christ. Chapter 10. Another opinion about the punishment of Tire and Sidon 24. One well-known church interpreter explained this passage of the Gospel in the sense that, as he says, the Lord knew in advance that Tire and Sidon would subsequently apostatize from the faith, although they would have believed, if miracles had been performed in them, therefore, rather, out of His mercy, the Lord did not perform these miracles there, because they would have been subject to a more severe punishment if they had abandoned the faith they held, than if they had never held it at all. Having listened to this opinion of a learned and very insightful person, what merits still need to be sought and what else do I need to say if it also supports us in what we are talking about? After all, if, out of His mercy, the Lord did not perform miracles in these cities, thanks to which they could become believers, [and because of this He did not create] so that later they would not be subjected to a more severe punishment, becoming unbelievers (and He knew that they would become such), then all this clearly and sufficiently shows that none of the dead are judged for those sins, the commission of which [the Lord] knows in advance, and, moreover, contributes in some way to preventing them from being committed. committed. Therefore, if this opinion is correct, we can say that Christ helped the inhabitants of Tire and Sidon, since He preferred that they should have no access to the faith at all, rather than being much more defiled by apostasy from the faith, because He knew in advance that if they approached the faith, they would in the future depart from it. Although if they say: “Why was it not done quickly so that they would believe, and it would be granted to them to depart from this life before they left the faith?” – I don’t know what to answer here. For whoever says that a benefit was given to those who were about to leave the faith, so that they would not begin to have what, due to their more serious wickedness, they would have left, sufficiently shows that a person is not judged because God foresees his future evil deeds, since He performs a certain benefit to him so that he would not do this [evil]. So, [God’s] care was shown to the one who “was caught up, so that evil would not change his mind” (Wis. 4:11). But why was not [God’s] care shown to the inhabitants of Tire and Sidon in the same way, so that they would believe and be raptured, so that malice would not change their minds - perhaps someone who wants to resolve this question in a similar way will answer, but I believe that what has been said is enough for what I am talking about, because in accordance with this opinion it is clearly visible that people are not judged for what they have not done, even if God knows in advance, that they could do it. Although, as I said, this opinion, according to which they believe that the dying or dead are punished for sins which, as God knows in advance, they would have committed if they had continued to live, is a shame even to refute, lest it seem as if we attach some importance to this, since we preferred to curb it with reasoning, and not pass it by in silence. Chapter 11. God has mercy on whom He Himself wants, without any prior merit, but punishes only according to merit. 25. Therefore, as the apostle says: “[It depends] not on him who wills, nor on him who tries, but on God who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16), Who also helps those babies whom He wants, even if they do not desire and do not try; [helps those] whom he chose in Christ before the creation of the world, intending to give them grace freely, that is, without any previous merit of their faith or works; however, it does not help those adults whom He does not want to help, foreseeing in relation to them that they would not believe His miracles if these miracles were performed before them, that is, [does not help] those about whom He judged something different in His predestination, although hidden, but at the same time fair. For there is no unrighteousness with God, but “His judgments are incomprehensible and His ways unsearchable” (Rom. 11:33), and “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth” (Ps. 24:10). So, mercy is unsearchable, by which He has mercy on whomever He wants, without any previous merit; and the unsearchable truth is that He “hardens whom He will” (Rom. 9:18), although according to his previous merits, but [these merits] are for the most part identical with the merits of the one whom He has mercy on. So in the case of two twins, one of whom is accepted and the other abandoned, the outcome is different, but the merits are similar; Moreover, one of them is so delivered by the great goodness of God that the other is condemned without any unrighteousness on His part. After all, is there any untruth with God? By no means: but “His ways are unsearchable.” Let us therefore believe without any doubt in His mercy towards those who are liberated, and in His truth towards those who are punished; and let us not try to comprehend the incomprehensible and explore the unsearchable. After all, He performed His “praise from the mouths of babes and sucklings” (Ps. 8:3), so that we would recognize without any hesitation what we see in those whose deliverance was not preceded by any good merits of theirs, and in those whose condemnation was preceded only by the conditions of birth common to both, as occurring in relation to older ones, that is, we would not consider that grace is given to someone according to his merits or that someone is punished not according to his own merits, regardless of whether the same or different degrees of evil in those who are delivered or punished, so that “whoever thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12), and “he who boasts may not boast in himself, but in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31). Passages from the book “On Free Decision” cited as an objection 26. And why, as you write, [those who object to us] “do not allow the case of infants to be cited as an example for adults,” 15 if they themselves, objecting to the Pelagians, do not doubt that there is original sin, which “by one man entered into the world,” and because of one [man] everyone goes to condemnation? (Rom. 5:12-16) This (along with the Pelagians) is also not accepted by the Manichaeans, who not only do not recognize any authority of all the Scriptures of the Old Testament, but even those Scriptures that relate to the New Testament accept in such a way that, out of some kind of arbitrariness, or rather, sacrilege, what they want, they accept, and what they do not want, they reject. I argued against them in the books “On Free Decision,” from which [our current opponents] propose to present us with objections 16 . However, [there] I did not want to solve in all detail the most complex questions that arose [in the course of the reasoning], so that this work would not turn out to be excessively long, where the authority of Divine testimonies [from Scripture] would not help me in the fight against such perverse [heretics]. And I could, as I did, regardless of what was true from those positions that I did not clearly consider, with all certainty to conclude that for everything one should give praise to God and there is no need, as they would like 17, to believe that there are two co-eternal mixed [with each other] essences of good and evil. Analysis of the book “On Free Decision” in “Revisions” 27. Finally, in the first book of “Revisions” (you have not yet read this work of mine), when I approached the revision of these books, that is, the books “On Free Decision,” I said the following: “In these books much is dealt with in such a way that when certain questions arose that either I could not resolve, or they required [too] long discussion to immediately examine them, I arranged their consideration in a special way, so that our reasoning in both or all [possible] cases [solutions] of those questions in respect of which it was not clear which was more in accordance with the truth, nevertheless came to such a conclusion, by virtue of which, regardless of which of the decisions was true, [our opponents] would believe and receive proof that it is necessary [for everything] to praise God. After all, this reasoning was undertaken because of those who deny that the beginning of evil comes from the free decision of the will, and, since this is so, they argue that God, as the creator of all nature, must be held guilty of this. In a similar way, they wish, in accordance with the delusion of their wickedness (after all, they are Manichaeans), to introduce a certain unchangeable and co-eternal nature of evil with God” 18. And here, a little lower, I say: “Finally, [it] says from what misfortune, quite rightly imposed on sinners, God’s grace delivers; after all, a person voluntarily, that is, by [his] free decision, can fall, but not rise. This misfortune of just condemnation includes ignorance and need, which every person endures from his very birth; and no one is freed from this evil except those whom God's grace frees. But the Pelagians do not want to produce this misfortune from just condemnation by rejecting original sin. Although, even if ignorance and need were innate natural properties of man, it would still be necessary not to blame, but to praise God, as we examined this in the same third book [of the treatise “On Free Decision”]. This consideration was carried out against the Manichaeans, who do not accept the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament, where original sin is narrated, and if anything from there is read in the Apostolic Epistles, they with vile shamelessness declare it to have been inserted by distorters of Scripture, as if it had not been said by the apostles themselves. And against the Pelagians we should defend everything that both Scriptures convey to us 19, since they openly declare that they accept it” 20. I said this in the first book of “Revisions”, when I analyzed the books “On Free Decision”. Of course, not only this was said by me there about these books, but also much more that I considered long and unnecessary to insert [now] into this work for you; I believe you will decide the same when you read that entire book. So, although in the third book of On Free Decision I reasoned about infants in such a way that even if what the Pelagians asserted were true (that is, that ignorance and need, without which no man is born, are the original [properties] of nature, and not punishment), still the Manichaeans, who want there to be two co-eternal natures, namely good and evil, would be defeated. [But even if I reasoned this way], should the faith which the Catholic Church defends against these very Pelagians be abandoned or questioned on this ground, affirming that there is an original sin, the guilt of which is incurred by birth and must be remitted by regeneration? And if [those who object to us] admit this with us, since we together with them in this case destroy the error of the Pelagians, then why do they consider it doubtful that God also delivers those infants to whom He gives His grace in the sacrament of baptism from the power of darkness and transfers “to the Kingdom of His beloved Son”? ( Col. 1:13 ) Why don’t they want to sing to the Lord “mercy and justice” ( Ps. 100:1 ) on the grounds that He gives this grace to some, but does not give it to others? And for what reason is it given to some and not to others: “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” ( Rom 11:34 ) Who can comprehend the incomprehensible? Who can explore the unsearchable? Chapter 12. God is merciful to the elect, fair to all others 28. Therefore, it is necessary to conclude that the grace of God is given not according to the merits of those who receive it, but “according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise and glory of this very grace of His” (Eph. 1:5-6), so that the one who boasts should not in any case boast in himself, but in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31), who gives [grace to those] people to whom He desires, since He is merciful (for even if He did not give it, He would still be just), and not to give it to those whom He does not want, in order to “reveal the riches of His glory over the vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:23). when what is due is given, it is good, He is fair to everyone, because when what is undeserved is given without harming anyone, it is fair. Doesn't the bestowal of grace depend on fate? Do babies have sin? 29. And the grace of God, [given] without merit, that is, true grace, is preserved even if, as the Pelagians think, baptized infants are not delivered from the power of darkness - since, as the Pelagians [again] believe, they are not held in subjection to any sin - but are only transferred into the Kingdom of the Lord. After all, even in this case, the Kingdom is given without any good merit to those of them to whom it is given, and without any evil merit it is not given to those to whom it is not given. We usually bring this [objection] against the same Pelagians when they accuse us of attributing God’s grace to fate, saying that it is not given according to our merits. Indeed, rather, in the case of infants, they themselves attribute God's grace to fate, saying that where there is no merit, there is fate. For they cannot find any merit, even according to the [teachings] of the Pelagians themselves, in infants, [so that this would be the reason] why some of these infants are sent into the Kingdom [of God], while others are alienated from the Kingdom. And now, proving that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, I took care to defend this [position] in accordance with both ideas - that is, in accordance with our idea, based on which we talk about the susceptibility of infants to original sin, and in accordance with the ideas of the Pelagians, who deny the existence of original sin - but one should not on the basis of this [think] that I doubt the existence of sin in infants, which He forgives them saves His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). In the same way, in the third book of the essay “On Free Decision,” I opposed the Manichaeans in accordance with two [possible] ideas, [without stating with certainty] whether ignorance and need, without which no person is born, are punishments, or whether they are simply innate properties of nature; however, I myself adhere to one of these ideas, which I quite obviously expressed there: that this is not the nature of created man, but punishment for a condemned man 21 . Talking about babies again. The importance of their example 30. So, it is in vain that this book of mine from my long past is offered to me as an objection, so that I do not consider the case of infants as it should be considered, and do not prove from here with the help of the light of clear truth that the grace of God is not given according to the merits of people. For even if I, who began these books "On Free Decision" as a layman and ended them as an elder, was then still in doubt regarding the condemnation of unregenerate infants and the deliverance of the regenerate, then, it seems to me, there should not be anyone so unjust and envious that he would forbid me to advance and decide that I should [always] remain in this perplexity. And if anyone is able to understand this correctly, [he will admit] that it is not at all necessary to believe that I doubted about this matter: to believe on the sole basis that, as it seemed to me, those against whom my intention was directed could have been struck in such a way that, regardless of whether infants have the punishment for original sin (as the Truth teaches), or not (as some who are mistaken think), it is still in no way necessary to believe in the mixture of two natures, good and evil, which misleads the Manichaeans. But it is unacceptable that we should leave this case of infants simply by saying that we do not know whether dead infants regenerated in Christ pass into eternal salvation, and unregenerate ones into the second death; for what is written [by the apostle]: “By one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and thus death spread to all men” (Rom. 5:12), cannot be truly understood in any other way. And from eternal death, which is quite rightly imposed for sin, no one will free any of the infants or adults, except the One who died for the remission of our sins, both generic and personal, and died without any of his own generic or personal sin. But why some [babies] and not others? Let us say again and again and not be ashamed: “Who are you, man, that you object to God?” (Rom.9:20) “His judgments are incomprehensible and His ways unsearchable” (Rom.11:33). Let us also add this: “Do not seek what is higher than you and do not test what is stronger than you” (Sir.3:21). God Himself allows or does not allow infants to be baptized 31. You yourself see, beloved, how absurd and alien to sound faith and intact truth it would be if we were to say that dead infants are judged in accordance with what it was foretold that they would have done if they had continued to live. But to a similar position (which every human consciousness, even slightly based on reason, and especially the Christian one, will fear) those who want to avoid the Pelagian error are forced to come in such a way that they still consider it necessary to believe that the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, which alone helps us after the fall of the first man, in which we all fell, is given according to our merits, and, moreover, they believe that this should be clarified in a dispute. This [position], under pain of his own condemnation, was condemned by Pelagius himself before the court of the eastern bishops. And if you don’t say this, that is, don’t talk about those good or evil deeds of the dead that they would have done if they had continued to live, recognizing that such deeds do not exist and do not exist at all in Divine foreknowledge; So, if we don’t say this, say what, as you see, is characteristic only of deep error, then what remains for us but to admit, having removed the darkness of the competition, that the grace of God is not given according to our merits? This opinion is defended against the Pelagian heresy by the Catholic Church, and best of all, in the clear light of truth, we see this in the example of infants. After all, it is not fate that forces God to help some babies and not help others, although both are in the same position. Let us not consider that the circumstances of the life of infants, in which rational souls are subject to either condemnation or deliverance, are arranged not by Divine Providence, but by unintentional accidents, if even a small bird “does not fall to the ground without the will of our Heavenly Father” (Matthew 10:29)? Or should the fact that infants die without baptism be so attributed to the negligence of the parents that the heavenly courts will have nothing to do with it? As if those who thus die in evil had of their own free will chosen the careless parents from whom they were born! What can I say about the fact that sometimes a baby dies before help can come to him through the ministry of the baptizer? After all, it often happens that parents are in a hurry, and ministers are ready to administer baptism to the baby, but it is not given, because God does not want, Who does not allow this baby to linger in this life [enough time] for [the sacrament] to be given. What does it mean when sometimes the small children of unbelievers can receive the help of baptism so as not to go to destruction, but the children of believers cannot? Here it is clearly shown that “there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11; Col. 3:25), otherwise He would rather deliver the children of His admirers than the children of His enemies. Chapter 13. No reasonable person will consider that grace is given according to our merits. 32. However, since we are now discussing the gift of abiding, how can we understand why [God] comes to the aid of the unbaptized, who is about to die, so that he does not die without baptism, and does not come to the aid of the baptized, who is about to fall, so that he dies before [falling]? Shall we still listen to the absurdity by which it is said that it does no man any good to die before he falls, since he is judged by those acts which God foreknew he would do if he continued to live? Who has the patience to listen to this vicissitudes, so strongly contrary to sound faith? Who can bear it? And yet this is exactly what those who do not recognize that the grace of God is given to us not according to our merits are forced to say. And those who do not want to say that one of the dead is judged on the basis of those [deeds] which, as God foreknew, he would have committed if he had continued to live, do not want to, because they see with what obvious lies and how absurdly it is said - such people have no reason left to say what the Church condemned among the Pelagians and which even Pelagius himself was forced to condemn, [namely] that the grace of God is given according to our merits. For they see that some babies, not being regenerated, are taken from this life to eternal death, while others, being regenerated, are taken from this life to eternal life. They also see how some of these reborn ones leave here, remaining to the end, while others remain here until they fall, although they would not have fallen at all if they had left here before they fell; and conversely, some fallen do not depart from this life until they rise again, although they would undoubtedly perish if they departed before rising again. God, solely by His will, grants the grace of calling and abiding 33. From all this it is quite clearly revealed that the grace of God, both relating to the beginning [of faith] and to continuing [in faith] right up to the end, is not given according to our merits, but is given according to the will of God, a will that is extremely hidden, but at the same time completely just, wise and good, since “those whom He predestined, them He also called” (Rom. 8:30) by the calling of which it is said: “Without repentance are the gifts and calling of God” (Rom. 11:29). And people should not say about any person with certainty and certainty that he belongs to this calling until he departs from this age. And during the present human life, which is “temptation on earth” (Job 7:1), “let him who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). After all, as we said above, those who do not continue [to the end in goodness] are mixed by God’s foreseeing will with those who will remain, so that we learn “not to be arrogant, but to follow the humble” (Rom. 12:16), and work out “our own salvation with fear and trembling, because God works in us both to desire and to act of our own free will” (Phil. 2:12-13). So, we desire, but God produces this desire in us; we act, but God produces this action in us of our own free will. So it is useful for us to both believe and say it piously and truly, so that our confession is humble and meek and everything is given to God. We believe in our thoughts, we speak in our thoughts, we do what we do in our thoughts, but as for a pious life and true worship of God, “we are not able to think anything on our own. from ourselves, but our ability is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5). "For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power." But who can do this without Divine help? Of course, this is impossible. For above the same Scripture says: “Blessed is the man whose help comes from You, O Lord; ascension in his heart" (Ps. 83:6)" 23. And it is clear that Ambrose says this not simply because he read it in the Holy Books, but, as one should without any doubt think about the named husband, since he also felt it in his heart. Therefore, when in the Sacraments of the Faithful 24 it is said that we should have a “heart of grief for the Lord,” this is a gift from God, and those to whom this is said, the priest, after this exclamation, encourages them to give thanks for this gift to the Lord our God Himself, and they respond that this is “worthy and righteous.” After all, if our heart is not in our power, but it is moved by Divine help to rise up and think “on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God, and not on earthly things” (Col. 3:1, 2), then to whom should we give thanks for such a great deed, if not the Lord our God, who did not do this, who chose us, freeing us with His great goodness from the depths of this world, and predestined us before the foundation of the world? Chapter 14. The Doctrine of Predestination Does Not Contradict the Benefits of Preaching 34. But they say that the affirmation of predestination is contrary to the benefit of preaching. Well, was it really an obstacle to the preaching apostle? Did not this teacher of the Gentiles (1 Tim. 2:7) teach predestination many times in faith and truth? Or did he stop [because of this] preaching the word of God? Didn’t he, since he said: “God work in you both to desire and to act according to your own free will” (Phil. 2:13), did he not himself convince us that we should desire what is pleasing to God and do it? Or, since he said: “He who began a good work among you will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), did not convince people to begin and continue until the end? Didn’t the Lord Himself command people to believe, and didn’t He say: “Believe in God and believe in Me” (John 14:1); but one should not on this basis consider His other saying false, one should not consider His statement in which He says: “No one will come to Me,” that is, no one will believe in Me, “unless it is given to him from My Father” (John 6:65). And again, although this statement is true, there is no need to think that the above commandment is empty. So, why should we consider the statement of predestination unhelpful for preaching, injunction, encouragement, reproach, which are found in abundance in Divine Scripture, if this predestination is taught by the same Divine Scripture? Predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of God's good deeds 35. Will anyone really dare to say that God did not foreknow whom He would give to believe or whom He would give to His Son, so that none of them should perish? ( John 18:9 ) And if He foreknew these things, it is clear that He foreknew the good deeds with which He deemed it worthy to bestow upon us. This is precisely the predestination of the saints, and nothing else - that is, the foreknowledge and preparation of the good deeds of God, by which all those who are delivered are delivered with all certainty. And where do others remain, if not in the mass of destruction, according to the fair Divine judgment? The inhabitants of Tire and Sidon were left there, who could have believed if they had seen the wondrous signs of Christ. But since it was not given to them to believe, they were also denied that on the basis of which [they could] believe. From this it becomes clear that some, among their innate abilities, naturally have the Divine gift of understanding, by which they are moved to faith if they hear words or observe signs that correspond to their mind; and yet if, according to the highest judgment of God, they are not separated by the predestination of grace from the mass of destruction, then these very Divine words or actions do not occur to them, thanks to which they could believe if they did hear or see them. The Jews were also left in this mass of destruction, who could not believe when so many obvious miracles were performed before their eyes. After all, the Gospel is not silent about why they could not believe, saying: “He performed so many miracles before them, and they did not believe in Him, so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, who said: “Lord! Who believed what they heard from us? and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?” Therefore, they could not believe, because, as the same Isaiah said: “He blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, that I might heal them” (John 12:37-40). So, the eyes of the inhabitants of Tire and Sidon were not blinded in this way; for they would have believed if they had seen the signs that the first saw. But the fact that they could believe did not bring any benefit to the latter, since they were not predestined by Him whose “judgments are incomprehensible and ways unsearchable”; and the first would not be hindered by the fact that they could not believe if they were predestined in such a way that God would enlighten them, the blind, and wish to remove the stony heart from the petrified ones. Of course, what the Lord said about the inhabitants of Tire and Sidon can be understood in some other way; however, everyone who listens with carnal ears to Divine utterances and at the same time does not have deaf ears of the heart, without any doubt confesses that no one will come to Christ unless it is given to him, and this is given to those who are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. However, this predestination, which is quite clearly expressed in the words of the Gospel, did not prevent the Lord from speaking about the beginning [of faith], as I mentioned above: “Believe in God, and believe in Me” (John 14:1), and about remaining in [it]: “You must always pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). After all, those to whom it is given hear it and do it, but those to whom it is not given do not do it, regardless of whether they hear it or not. For “to you,” says [the Lord], “it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matthew 13:11). Of this, the first relates to mercy, and the second to the justice of Him to whom our soul says: “I will sing mercy and justice to You, O Lord” (Ps. 100:1). The preaching of the Gospel and the preaching of predestination are parts of the same sermon and therefore do not contradict each other 36. Therefore, one should not [think] that the preaching of predestination interferes with the preaching of abiding and prosperous faith, so that those to whom it is given to obey may hear what they should hear, for “how can one hear without one who preaches?” (Rom.10:14). And conversely, [there is no need to believe] that the preaching of faith moving towards perfection and remaining until the end interferes with the preaching of predestination, so that the one who lives obediently and faithfully does not begin to exalt himself by this obedience as his own, and not a received good, but “let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31). For “one should not boast about anything, since nothing is ours” 25. Cyprian, rich in faith, saw this and expressed it with all determination, firmly proclaiming with these words the surest predestination. After all, if “one should not boast about anything, since nothing is ours,” then it is clear that one should also not boast about ongoing obedience and should not call it ours in the sense that it was not given to us from above. So this [obedience] is also a gift of God; and every Christian confesses that God foreknew his gift to His elect in that calling, about which it is said: “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). This is the predestination that we faithfully and humbly preach. However, this teacher and worker [Cyprian], who believed in Christ and lived in holy obedience until he suffered for Christ with all his abiding, did not stop preaching the Gospel, encouraging faith, pure morals and this very abiding to the end for the reason that he said: “We should not boast in anything, since nothing is ours.” In these words, without any ambiguity, he proclaimed God's true grace, that is, that grace that is not given according to our merits; and since God foreknew that He would give it, by these words of Cyprian, without any doubt, predestination is preached. If this did not prevent Cyprian [at the same time] from preaching obedience, then, of course, it should in no way prevent us. “Hearing ears” refers to the God-given gift of obedience 37. Therefore, although we say that obedience is a gift of God, we still encourage people to it. But to those who obediently listen to the prompting of the truth, this gift of God is given, that is, to listen obediently, but to those who listen incorrectly, it is not given. After all, it is not just anyone, but Christ Himself who says: “No one will come to Me unless it is given to him from My Father” (John 6:65), and: “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matthew 13:11). And about abstinence: “Not everyone can comprehend this word, but to whom it has been given” (Matthew 19:11). And the apostle, when he forced spouses to marry purity, said: “I wish that all people were like me; but each has his own gift from God, one in one way, another in another” (1 Cor. 7:7). Here he clearly shows that not only abstinence is the gift of God, but also the purity of spouses. And although all this is so, we still move towards this, as far as everyone is given the ability to be moved, since this is the gift of Him, in whose hand “both we and our words” (Wis. 7:16). Therefore, the apostle says: “According to the grace given to me from God, like a wise builder, I laid the foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10). And in another place he says: “As much as the Lord has given to each: I planted, Apollos watered, but God increased. Therefore, he who plants and he who waters is nothing, but God who makes everything grow” (1 Cor. 3:5-7). Therefore, just as [only] the one who has received this gift correctly motivates and preaches, so [only] the one who has received this gift listens faithfully and truly obediently to the one who preaches and encourages. That is why the Lord, when speaking to those who had carnal ears open, nevertheless said: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8). He undoubtedly knew that not everyone [has such heart ears]. And from whom they are to everyone who has them, the Lord Himself shows when He says: “I will give them a heart that they may understand Me, and ears to hear” (Bar. 2:31). So, ears to hear is the gift of obedience, [given] so that the one who has it will come to Him, to whom no one comes unless it is given to him from His Father. Therefore we encourage and preach, but [only] those who have ears to hear listen obediently to us; with those who do not have such ears, it happens as it is written: “so that those who hear do not hear” (Matthew 13:13), that is, hearing with a bodily sense, they do not hear with heartfelt consent. And why do the first have ears to hear, and the second do not, that is, why is it that the first are granted from the Father to come to the Son, but the second are not granted - “who knew the mind of the Lord or who was His counselor?” ( Rom. 11:34 ) and: “Who are you, O man, that you contradict God?” (Rom.9:20). Should the revealed be rejected because it is impossible to comprehend the hidden? Shall we say, I say, that what we perceive as such is not such, since we cannot know why it is such? Chapter 15. The same arguments can be advanced against the preaching of foreknowledge and predestination. Their lack of conviction 38. But they 26 say, as you write, that it will be impossible to awaken anyone with the sting of reproach if in a church meeting and in front of many listeners the following is said: “The decision of God’s will, coming from predestination, is such that some of you, having received the will to obedience, came from unbelief to faith, or, having received abiding, remain in the faith, while others, who are in the delight of sins, have not yet rebelled because help has not yet raised you up.” merciful grace. However, if there are some of you who have not yet been called, whom God has predestined by His grace to election, then you will receive this very grace, by which you will desire to become elect and will be so; and if now you submit, but are predestined to reject, then the strength to submit will be taken away from you, so that you will cease to submit to [God].” But when something like this is said, this should not at all keep us from confessing God’s true grace (that is, that grace that is not given according to our merits) and the predestination of the saints in accordance with it, just as it does not keep us from confessing the foreknowledge of God that someone, reasoning about it, can tell the people: “It doesn’t matter whether you live right now or wrongly, you will still later be what God foreknew you should be.” become: good, if [He foreknew you] to be good, or evil, if [He foreknew you] to be evil.” After all, should what is said here about the foreknowledge of God be considered false on the grounds that, having heard this, some turn to inaction and laziness and, inclined from work to lust, follow their lusts? And if God foreknew that they should become good, will they not be good, no matter how evil they are now? And if He foreknew that they should be evil, will they not be evil, no matter in what goodness they now seem to be? There was one man in our monastery 27 who, when the brethren reproached him for doing what he should not do and not doing what should be done, answered: “Whatever I am now, I will still become what I should become according to the foreknowledge of God.” He actually spoke the truth, but this did not at all contribute to his good, but on the contrary, contributed to evil, to the point that, having left the monastic community, he became a dog who returned to his vomit (2 Pet. 2:22); and yet it is still unknown what he will become. So, is it because of such souls that one should deny or suppress what is truly said about the foreknowledge of God, and especially when people can fall into some other errors if this is not said? Chapter 16. About those who do not pray, hoping for the omniscience of God. Prayer and encouragement to do good 39. There are also those who do not pray or pray coldly, because they know the words of the Lord that God knows what we need before we ask Him (Matthew 6:8). Should it be thought that because of such people the truth of this saying should be rejected or [it] removed from the Gospel? Further, since it is obvious that God gives one thing even to those who do not pray, such as the beginning of faith, and prepared another only for those who pray, such as perseverance to the end, it is clear that he who believes that he has this from himself does not pray at all to have it. So, we must beware lest, while we fear that the impulse may cool, [instead] prayer does not fade away and conceit does not flare up. Sometimes you need to tell the truth, sometimes it makes sense to hide it 40. Therefore, let them speak the truth, and especially where some questioning compels it to be told; and those who are able will receive it. Otherwise, it may turn out that while it remains silent because of those who are not able to perceive it, those who are able to perceive the truth, which is protected from lies, will not only be deprived of this truth, but will also be caught in lies. After all, it is simple and even useful to sometimes keep silent about something true for the sake of those who are unable to accommodate it. Isn’t this what these words of the Lord are about: “I still have much to say to you, but now you cannot bear it” (John 16:12), and this is the saying of the apostle: “I could not speak to you... as to spiritual people, but as to carnal people, as babes in Christ, I fed you with milk, and not with solid food, for you are not yet able to receive it” (1 Cor. 3:1-2)? Although there may be a certain way of speaking when what is said serves both children as milk and adults as solid food. So, what Christian can remain silent about the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”! ( John 1:1 ) But who will contain them [to the end]? And what greater thing can be found in sound doctrine? However, this is not kept silent from either infants or adults, and adults do not hide it from infants. But it is one thing to have a [legal] reason to remain silent about the true, and another thing to have to say what is true. It will take a long time to search for and list all the cases when one should remain silent about the truth; however, there is also one among them [when we care] so that, while wanting to make those who understand this more knowledgeable, we do not make those who do not understand it worse. And if we were silent about something like this, then although some would not become more knowledgeable, others would not become worse either. But when something true is such that if we say it, the one who cannot contain it will become worse, and if we keep silent about it, the one who can contain it will become worse, then what should we do? Wouldn't it be better to say the truth so that the one who can contain it would understand it, than to remain silent about the truth, so that not only will both not contain it, but even the more reasonable one will become worse? And if he hears this and accepts it, then many others will learn thanks to him. After all, the more capable he is of learning, the more suitable he is to teach others. The enemy of grace comes and in every way forces us to admit that it is given according to our merits, so that grace is no longer grace (Rom. 11:6) - so don’t we really want to say what we can say, calling Scripture as witnesses? After all, it turns out that we are afraid that someone who cannot contain the truth will be tempted by our speeches, and we are not afraid that because of our silence, someone who can contain the truth will be caught in a lie! Predestination must be preached so that we do not forget that grace is a gift of God 41. So, either it is necessary to preach predestination as the Holy Scripture quite obviously speaks about it, [namely] that in relation to the predestined there are gifts and a calling of God without repentance, or it is necessary to recognize that the grace of God is given according to our merits, as the Pelagians think, although this opinion, which we have often already cited, was condemned by the mouth of Pelagius himself, as we read about it in the book of the Eastern Acts bishops. But those for whose sake we write this are very far from the heretical vicissitudes of the Pelagians, and therefore, even if they do not yet wish to recognize as predestined those who by the grace of God become obedient and remain [to the end faithful], let them at least recognize that this grace precedes the will of those to whom it is given. [If we think differently], then grace will be considered to be given not freely, as the truth says, but rather depending on the previous merits of the will, as the Pelagian error objects to the truth. Therefore grace also precedes faith; otherwise, if faith precedes it, then undoubtedly the will also precedes, since there cannot be faith without will. And if grace precedes faith, since it precedes the will, then, of course, it precedes all obedience, and also precedes love, in which alone people truly and willingly obey God. All this produces grace in the one to whom it is given and in whom all this precedes it. Among these blessings there remains also staying until the end, which would have been asked in vain every day from the Lord if the Lord had not brought it about by His grace in the one whose prayers he heeded. You see now how alien to the truth it is to deny that remaining [in goodness] right up to the end of this life is a gift from God, because God Himself puts an end to this life when He wants, and if He puts this end before the inevitable fall, then He thereby allows man to remain [in goodness] right up to the end. But what is much more surprising and obvious for believers is the abundance of God’s goodness, [manifested in the fact that] this grace is given even to infants, whose age is not typical for showing obedience, so that it is given. So, no matter who God gave these gifts to, there is no doubt that He foreknew this gift and prepared it in His foreknowledge. Therefore, “those whom He predestined, he also called” (Rom. 8:30), by that calling—I am not ashamed to mention it often—about which it is said: “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). After all, “to predetermine” generally means nothing more than to distribute His future affairs in His foreknowledge, which cannot be deceived or changed. And just as the one whom God foreknew would be pure, although he himself is not sure of this, nevertheless acts in order to be pure, so the one whom God predestined to be pure, although he himself is not sure of this, does not cease to act in order to become pure, since he heard that by the gift of God he will become what he will become; but on the contrary, he rejoices in his love and does not become proud, as if he had not received it. So, the preaching of predestination not only does not distract him from his work, but also helps him to “boast in the Lord” when he boasts (1 Cor. 1:31). All gifts of God are predestined to be given. This cannot hinder the impulse to do good. 42. What I said about purity can be said with all truth about faith, and about piety, and about love, and about remaining [in goodness], and, so as not to list further for me, it can be said about every act of obedience by which submission to God is expressed. But those who place only the beginning of faith and remaining [in it] right up to the end in our power in such a way that they do not consider these to be gifts of God and [do not believe that] God influences our thoughts and wills so that we can have and keep this, however, they recognize that He gives everything else, since it is asked of Him by the faith of the believer, why are they not afraid that the affirmation of predestination will harm the motivation for all this and the preaching of all this other things? Will they really say that this too is not predestined? Then it is not given by God, and He does not know that He will give it. And if it is given, and He knows in advance that He will give it, then He has predestined it. Therefore, just as they encourage purity, love, piety and everything else that they profess to be the gifts of God, being unable to deny that these gifts are foreknown, and therefore predetermined by Him, and do not say that their motivations are hindered by the preaching of God’s predestination, that is, the preaching of God’s foreknowledge of these future gifts of God, so let them be convinced that this does not hinder their calls to any faith, nor to abiding, if they call these (as they truly are) gifts of God and [recognize] them as foreknown, that is, predestined for distribution. This preaching of predestination can rather become an obstacle and a barrier precisely for that most dangerous error, which says that the grace of God is given according to our merits, so that the one who boasts should not boast in the Lord, but in himself. Everyone agrees that wisdom and self-control are gifts of God. It is impossible to deny that God foreknows and predetermines who He will give these gifts to. 43. Let those who are naturally given to rush forward endure my delay while we explain this more clearly to those who understand slowly. The Apostle James says: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). And in the “Proverbs of Solomon” it is written: “For God gives wisdom” (Proverbs 2:6). We also read about self-control in the book “The Wisdom of Solomon,” to the authority of which great and learned men resorted, long before us, to understand the Divine words; so, this is what we read: “When I knew that no one can be self-controlled unless the Lord gives, - and this was already [the property of] wisdom - to know, Whose gift is this? (Wis. 8:21) So, these are the gifts of God, that is, in order for me to remain silent about others - wisdom and self-control. Let these people calm down, because they are not Pelagians to fight with crude and heretical vicissitudes against this obvious truth. “But,” they say, “faith, the beginning of which we [ourselves] lay, asks that this be given to us from God”; that is, they insist that it is our business to begin to have this faith and to remain in it until the end, as if we do not receive this from the Lord. Here, undoubtedly, a contradiction arises with the words of the apostle: “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7) This also contradicts the words of the holy martyr Cyprian: “We should boast in nothing, since nothing is ours” 28. And although we have said all this and much more, which is no longer appropriate to repeat, and have proven that the beginning of faith and remaining in it to the end are the gifts of God, and that God cannot but know some of His future gifts - both what they should be and the one to whom they should be given - and therefore those whom He delivers and crowns are predestined by Him, yet they consider it necessary to object: “The affirmation of predestination is contrary to the benefit of preaching, because, having heard this, no one can be awakened by the sting of reproach.” Arguing this way, “they do not want people to be preached that coming to faith and remaining in faith are gifts of God, lest this should lead to despair rather than inspiration, when those who hear such things begin to reflect on the fact that human ignorance does not know with certainty to whom God will and will not give these gifts.” Then why do they themselves preach with us that abstinence and wisdom are gifts of God? After all, if when we preach that these are the gifts of God, this does not interfere with the incentive in which we call people to be wise and self-controlled, then for what reason do they think that it interferes with the incentive with which we encourage people to come to faith and remain in it to the end, if this too is called the gifts of God, which is also confirmed by the testimonies of His Scripture? The encouragement of what we consider to be gifts of God does not prevent us from calling them gifts 44. Now, in order to keep us silent about abstinence and talk here only about wisdom, doesn’t the apostle James, already mentioned above, say: “The wisdom that comes from above is first pure, then peaceable, modest, obedient, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and unfeigned” (James 3:17). Do you not see how filled with how many and great blessings wisdom comes from the Father of lights? After all, as the same apostle says: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). So, to say nothing of other things, why do we reproach the unclean and stubborn, to whom we preach that pure and peaceful wisdom is the gift of God, and we are not afraid, lest, confused by the uncertainty of the Divine will, they should find in this preaching a reason for despair rather than for inspiration, and turn the sting of reproach not against themselves, but rather against us, since we reproach them as not having what, as we ourselves say, is it not acquired by human will, but bestowed by Divine generosity? Finally, why did not the Apostle James himself prevent the preaching of this grace from reproaching the wicked and saying: “If you have bitter envy and contentiousness in your heart, then do not boast and do not lie about the truth: this is not wisdom that comes from above, but earthly, spiritual, demonic; for where there is envy and contentiousness, there is disorder and all that is evil” (James 3:14–16). So, just as we should reproach the wicked - reproach both by the evidence of Divine sayings and by our very deeds, which we have in common [with those who object to us] - and this reproach is not hindered by the fact that we preach peaceful wisdom, by which the quarrelsome are corrected and healed, and consider it a gift of God, so we should also reproach those who do not believe or do not remain in the faith, without thinking that this reproach is hindered by preaching the grace of God, which teaches that this faith itself and abiding in it are the gifts of God. Since, even if wisdom is asked for by faith - after all, the Apostle James himself, having said: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him,” - immediately adds: “But let him ask in faith, without doubting in the least” (James 1: 5-6), - however, it does not follow on the basis that faith is given before it is asked for by those to whom it is given, to say that it is not a gift from God, but [comes] from ourselves, since it was given to us without our requests. After all, the apostle says quite clearly: “Peace to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 6:23). So, from Whom is peace and love, from Him is faith, which is why we ask Him not only to increase it among those who already have it, but also to bestow it on those who do not yet have it. The preaching of predestination does not interfere with the call to acquire the gifts of God 45. After all, those for whose sake we say this do not encourage those who exclaim that the preaching of predestination and grace prevents the impulse only to those gifts which, in their opinion, are not bestowed from God, but are from ourselves, as the beginning of faith and persistence in it until the end; they would have to do this, convincing only those who do not believe to believe, and those who believe to continue to believe. And as for what they, together with us, recognize as the gifts of God, in order with us to disgrace the Pelagian error, that is, purity, abstinence, patience and everything else, thanks to which a righteous life is carried out, everything that is asked of the Lord with faith - then they should only show that this should be prayed for, and pray for it for themselves or for others, but in no way encourage anyone to acquire or retain this. Since they also encourage this to the best of their ability and agree that people need to be encouraged to do this, they clearly show that such preaching does not hinder the incentive to faith or to perseverance to the end, since we preach that these too are gifts of God given to man by Him, and not by man himself. Due to his depravity, a person leaves faith, but remaining in it is a gift from God 46. ​​[They say] again: “Because of his vice, everyone leaves the faith when he gives in and succumbs to temptation, which is why it turns out that he leaves the faith.” Who will deny this? But because of this we should not at all say that remaining in faith is not a gift of God. For this [stay] is asked every day by the one who says: “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13), and if he is heard, he will receive it. Therefore, asking daily for abiding [in faith], he, of course, places the hope of his abiding not in himself, but in God. However, I do not want to pile up my words, but rather leave them to reflect, so that they themselves can see whether what they have convinced themselves of is really good, that is, that “from the preaching of predestination, despair is more likely to arise in those who listen than to inspiration.” After all, this means saying that a person then despairs of his salvation when he learns to place his hope not in himself, but in God, while the prophet exclaims: “Cursed is everyone who trusts in man” (Jer. 17:5). Predestination is sometimes designated by the name foreknowledge 47. So, these gifts of God, which are given to the chosen and called according to the purpose of God - and among these gifts are the beginning of faith, and remaining in faith until the end of this life, as we have proven this by bringing many authoritative testimonies and arguments of reason - these, I say, gifts of God, if there is no predestination that we defend, are not foreknown by God; however, they are foreknown, so this is the predestination that we defend. Therefore, sometimes predestination itself (praedestinatio) is also designated by the name of foreknowledge (praescientiae), as the apostle says: “God did not reject His people, which He foreknew” (Rom. 11:2). When it is said here “foreknew”, it cannot be understood correctly unless [understood] as “predestined,” as the context of this reading shows. After all, there was talk about the remnants of the Jews who were saved when the rest died. For above [the apostle] says that the prophet said to Israel: “All day long I have stretched out my hands to an unfaithful and stubborn people” (Rom. 10:21), and, as if answering where the former promises of God were to Israel, [the apostle] immediately adds: “So I will say: “Has God really rejected his people?” It won't happen. For I also am an Israelite, from the seed of Abram, from the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1), that is, as if he were saying: “For I also am from the same people.” And then he adds what we are talking about now: “God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew.” And to show that the remnant was left by God's grace, and not according to the merits of their works, he further continues: “Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the story of Elijah? How does he complain to God about Israel?” (Rom. 11:2), etc. And further [the apostle] continues: “But what does the Divine answer say to him? I have left for myself seven thousand men who did not bow the knee to Baal” (Rom. 11:4). After all, He does not say: “They remained for Me,” but: “I have left for Myself.” And [the apostle] continues: “So at the present time, by the election of grace, a remnant has been preserved. But if by grace, then not by works, otherwise grace is no longer grace" (Rom. 11:5-6). And then he connects this with what I cited earlier, the question: "What then? And, answering it, he says: What Israel sought, it did not receive; the elect received, but the rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7). Therefore, it pleases [the apostle] that by these chosen and forsaken, who became so through the election of grace, we understand the people whom God did not reject, since He foreknew. This is the election by which He chose in Christ those whom He Himself willed, “before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having thereby predestined them to adoption as sons” (Eph. 1:4-5). So, no one who understands this will allow himself to deny or doubt that the apostle wants to indicate predestination when he says: “God did not reject His people, which He foreknew.” For He foreknew the remnant, which He Himself intended to create according to the election of His grace. And this means - he predestined, because he undoubtedly foreknew if he predestined, and to predetermine means to foreknow what he himself intended to do. Chapter 19. Foreknowledge among the interpreters of Scripture. Example of St. Cyprian and Ambrose 48. But because it prevents us, when we read about the foreknowledge of God from some interpreters of the word of God, and we are talking about the calling of the elect, to understand the same predestination here? After all, it is very likely that they would want to use this word in this matter, since it is easily understood and does not contradict, but, on the contrary, agrees with the truth that is preached about the predestination of grace. I know that no one could argue otherwise than in error against the predestination which we defend in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. And I believe that those who seek the sayings of interpreters on this subject should suffice the saints and Christian men everywhere praised for their faith and life, Cyprian and Ambrose, of whom we have offered quite clear testimonies; this should be enough for everything: and so that they fully believe and fully preach that freely given grace of God, as they should believe in it and preach it, and so that they do not consider the preaching with which we encourage the lazy and reproach the wicked to be contrary to this preaching. After all, these men, although they preached God’s grace in such a way that one of them said: “We should not boast in anything, since nothing is ours,” 29 and the other: “Our heart and our thoughts are not in our power,” 30 yet they did not stop encouraging and reproaching people to fulfill the Divine commandments. They were not afraid that they might be told: “Why do you encourage us and why do you reproach us if we ourselves cannot have any good and our heart is not in our power?” These holy men could not be afraid at all, no matter how much such things were said to them; they were not afraid, because they understood that very few were given the power to accept the doctrine of salvation from God Himself or the angels of heaven, without any human preaching, and many were given the power to believe in God through people. But no matter how the word of God is proclaimed to a person, there is no doubt that listening to it in such a way as to submit to it is a gift from God. Saints Cyprian, Ambrose and Gregory the Theologian testify to the grace and gifts of God 49. Therefore, the above-mentioned excellent interpreters of Divine utterances and the true grace of God (that is, that which is not preceded by any human merit) preached as it should be preached, and constantly encouraged the fulfillment of the Divine commandments, so that those who have the gift of obedience would learn what commands should be obeyed. After all, if grace is preceded by some of our merits, then it is clear that these are merits of some deed, or word, or thought, which includes good will itself. But he briefly covered the types of all merits in general who says: “We should not boast about anything, since nothing is ours” 31 . And the one who says: “Our heart and our thoughts are not in our power” 32 does not at all miss the words and deeds themselves because of this, because there is no word or deed of a person that does not come from the heart and from the thought. And what more could the most glorious martyr and most illustrious teacher Cyprian have expounded on this issue than those [his words] where he convinced that we must pray in the Lord’s Prayer even for the enemies of the Christian faith, where he clearly stated what he thinks about the beginning of faith, which is also a gift of God, and where he showed that the Church of Christ prays daily for abiding [in the faith] until the end, since only God can give it to those who abide. Also, Blessed Ambrose, explaining the words of the Evangelist Luke: “It was good for me also” (Luke 1:3), says: “Perhaps it was not only he who was pleased with what he says that it was pleased for him. After all, it was not only by human will that it was willed, but it also became pleasing to Christ, who spoke in him (2 Cor. 13:3), who makes it so that what is good in itself can also seem good to us; after all, whomever He has mercy on, [he] calls. And therefore, the one who follows Christ, if asked why he wanted to be a Christian, can answer: “It was good for me too.” When he says this, he does not at all deny what God has willed, for the human will is prepared in advance from God (Proverbs 8:35). For for God to be revered as a holy [man] is a work of God’s grace” 33 . Also in the same work, that is, in the “Interpretation” of the same Gospel, when he comes to the place where [it is narrated how] the Samaritans did not want to accept the Lord going to Jerusalem, he says: “Learn also that He did not want to be received by those who did not live in spiritual purity. After all, if He wanted, He would also make the disobedient obedient. And why they did not accept Him, the Evangelist himself mentioned this, saying: “Because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:53). And the disciples wanted to be received in Samaria. But God calls those whom He deigns to do this and whom He desires, and He makes them believers.”34 What more obvious, what more clear should we look for from interpreters of the word of God, if from them we hear with pleasure what is clear in Scripture itself? But let us add to these two, which should be quite sufficient, also a third - Saint Gregory, who testifies that both believing in God and confessing what he has believed in is a gift of God, saying this: “I ask you, confess the Trinity as one in Divinity, and if you want to say otherwise, then say that She is one in nature; and pray to God that a voice may be given you from the Holy Spirit,” that is, pray that God will allow you to receive a voice by which you can confess what you have believed. “And I am sure that He will give; Who gave the first. He will also give the second” 35, i.e. He who gave to believe will also give to confess. Preaching the gifts of God does not interfere with obedience 50. These so famous and so great teachers, saying that there is nothing that we can boast of as ours, as if God had not given it to us, [affirming] that our very heart and our thoughts are not in our power, giving everything to God and confessing that from Him we receive [the gift] to turn to Him and remain with Him, so that what is such in itself may seem good to us, so that we desire it, so that we honor God and accept Christ, so that those who were disobedient were made obedient and believers, so that they believed in the Trinity itself and confessed in words what we believe in - so, they attribute all this to the grace of God, recognize them as gifts of God, testify that we have it from Him, and not from ourselves. And who can say about them that they confessed this Divine grace and at the same time dared to reject His foreknowledge, which is recognized not only by scientists, but even by the unlearned? Further, if they knew that God gives this, and were confident that He knows in advance about this gift of His and cannot but know those to whom He intends to give, then they, undoubtedly, also knew that predestination, which, announced by the apostles, we defend with much labor and zeal against the new 36. However, when they preached obedience and, as anyone could, ardently encouraged it, they could in no way justly say to them: “If you do not want that obedience to which you call us to grow cold in our hearts, then do not preach to us that divine grace which, as you claim, God gives, so that we do what you call us to.” Chapter 20. Predestination Must Be Preached 51. So, if the apostles, and the teachers of the Church who succeeded them and imitated them, did both, that is, they truly preached God’s grace, which is not given according to our merits, and instilled pious obedience to the saving commandments, then why do these [misguided] people, captivated by an invincible hatred of the truth, consider themselves right to tell us: “Even if what is said about predestination of God’s good deeds, yet one should not preach this to the people”? 37. On the contrary, it must be preached so that those who have ears to hear will hear (Luke 8:8). And who has them if he has not received them from the One who says: “I will give them a heart to know me and ears to hear” (Bar. 2:31)? It is clear that the one who does not receive them will reject [the sermon], but the one who accepts it will assimilate and absorb it, absorb it and live. After all, how should piety be preached so that God is rightly worshiped by those who have ears to hear; how one must preach purity, so that those who have ears to hear do not do anything unlawful with their reproductive organs; how love must be preached so that those who have ears to hear will love God and their neighbor; in the same way, this predestination of God’s good deeds must be preached, so that he who has ears to hear may glory not in himself, but in the Lord. Augustine himself spoke of predestination even before the Pelagian heresy 52. They say: “There was no need to confuse many hearts of the less intelligent by the obscurity of this kind of reasoning, since with no less benefit, without this assertion of predestination, the Catholic faith was defended for many years both against other heretics, and especially against the Pelagians, defended in many previous books - both ours and other ecclesiastical writers.” 38 And I am surprised that they say this, not paying attention to these very books of ours (to keep me silent here about other writers), written and published even before the Pelagians began to appear, so that they do not see how many of their places we are eradicating, without yet knowing it, the future Pelagian heresy and preaching the grace with which God delivered us from our evil errors and morals. He did this without any previous merit from us, but only out of the bounty of His mercy. I began to understand this more fully in the discourse that I wrote to Simplicianus, bishop of the Church of Milan, of blessed memory, at the very beginning of my bishopric, when I recognized and declared that the beginning of faith is also a gift of God. Testimony from Confession 53. And is it possible to remember a more widespread and approved of my writings than the books of my “Confession”? Although I published them before the Pelagian heresy arose, in them I said with all confidence to our God and repeated many times: “Give what you command, and command what you want.” Pelagius could not bear these words of mine in Rome, when they were mentioned in his presence by a certain brother of mine and a colleague in the bishopric, and, objecting with great excitement, he almost quarreled with the one who mentioned them. But what does God command above all and above all? Is it not that we believe in Him? Therefore, He Himself gives this, if it is truly said to Him: “Give what you command.” And don’t you remember that in the same books, when I talk about my conversion and how God converted me to that faith which I was destroying with contemptible and frantic chatter, I narrate it in such a way that I show how I yielded to the faithful and daily tears of my mother, so that I would not perish? There I undoubtedly preach that God, by His grace, turns the wills of people to faith, not only those who turn away from the right faith, but even those who oppose the right faith. And how I prayed to God for perfection and abiding, you know, and you can check it whenever you want. So, in relation to all the gifts of God that I asked or praised in this work of mine, who would dare, I will not say, to deny, but even to question that God knew in advance about their bestowal from Him, and how could He not know to whom He intended to give them? This is the obvious and reliable predestination of the saints, which later, when we argued against the Pelagians, necessity forced us to define more carefully and in more detail. After all, we have learned that every individual heresy introduces its own corresponding questions into the Church, and in the fight against it the [teaching of] Divine Scripture is more precisely determined - more precisely than if such necessity had not forced it to do so. And what could make us bring together in this work of ours with such completeness and clarity the passages of Scripture in which predestination is affirmed, if not the opinion of the Pelagians that the grace of God is given according to our merits? After all, this means nothing other than rejecting grace altogether! Chapter 21. The beginning and end of faith is from God 54. So, in order to destroy this opinion, ungrateful to God and hostile to those free benefits of God by which we are freed, we affirm that both the beginning of faith and remaining in it until the end are all gifts of God, according to Scripture, from which we have already cited much. After all, if we say that the beginning of faith is from us, and thanks to this we are worthy to receive other gifts of God, then the Pelagians will conclude that the grace of God is given according to our merits. The Catholic faith is so afraid of this that Pelagius himself, fearing to be condemned, condemned it. In the same way, if we say that our abiding is from us, and not from the Lord, then they will answer that we have the beginning of faith, just like the end, from ourselves, reasoning in the sense that it is much more likely that we have the beginning of this from ourselves if we have from ourselves the abiding right to the end, since to complete is more than to begin, and thus again they will conclude that the grace of God is given according to our merits. And if both are gifts of God, and God knew in advance (who can deny this?) that He would give these gifts, then predestination must be preached, so that the true grace of God, that is, that which is not given according to our merits, could be protected by an irresistible strengthening. Evidence from Augustine's Previous Writings and Letters 55. Indeed, in the book entitled “On Reproach and Grace,” which was not enough for all our admirers, I think I declared with such expressiveness and clarity that to endure to the end is also a gift of God, with which I have never written, or almost never before, if my memory does not deceive me. But I said it there like that, because they had talked about it before me. After all, Blessed Cyprian, as we have already shown, explaining our petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, says that already in the first petition we ask for abiding. He claims that, saying: “Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9), we, having already been sanctified in baptism, pray that we may continue in what we began to be. So, let those to whom I should not be ungrateful for their love for me, those who, as you write, accept with approval all my thoughts, with the exception of what we have a question about, let them see, I say, whether in the last parts of the first book of the two that I wrote at the beginning of my bishopric, even before the Pelagian heresy appeared, to the Milanese bishop Simplicianus, at least something remains that can force to doubt that the grace of God is not given according to our merits. Didn’t I sufficiently reveal there that even the beginning of faith is already a gift of God, and doesn’t it follow from what is written there, even if it is not expressed, that continuation to the end comes only from the One who predestined us to His Kingdom and glory? Finally, that letter that I already wrote against the Pelagians to Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Nolan, the letter against which they began to object, didn’t I publish it many years ago? Let them also consider the letter that I sent to Sixtus, presbyter of the Roman Church, when we were fighting in the most severe battle with the Pelagians, and they will find that it is the same as this one to Paulinus. And let it be seen from this that many years ago we spoke and wrote against the Pelagian heresy what, surprisingly, now turned out to be objectionable to them. However, I do not want anyone to value my thoughts so much that they would follow me in anything other than what they are convinced that I am not mistaken about. After all, this is why I am now writing books in which I have undertaken a revision of all my works, in order to show that I myself do not follow myself in everything, but, as I believe, I write, moving forward and improving by the grace of God, and not starting immediately from perfection. It would be more self-confident than true if I said that now, at this age, I have achieved perfection and can write without any error at all. But the difference here is how much and in what issues a person is mistaken, how quickly he corrects his mistakes, or with what stubbornness he tries to defend his error. After all, a person gives good hope if the last day of this life finds him successful in such a way that what was missing in his success can be added to him, and he will be considered in need of improvement and not punishment. God provides both the means of salvation and salvation itself, so it is unreasonable to doubt predestination 56. Therefore, if I do not want to appear ungrateful to those people who loved me, since even before they loved me they received some benefit from my work, then will I be ungrateful to God, Whom we would not love if He had not first loved us and made us His admirers, since love is from Him (1 John 4:7), as those whom He made not only His great ones said admirers, but also great preachers? And what could be more ungrateful than to reject the very grace of God, saying that it is given according to our merits? The Catholic faith in the Pelagians is horrified by this, this places the main blame on Pelagius himself, this is what Pelagius himself condemned, but not out of love for the truth of God, but under fear of his personal condemnation. And anyone who, an Orthodox believer, is afraid to say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, let him not remove faith itself from the [action] of God’s grace, thanks to which he inherited mercy in order to become faithful (1 Cor. 7:25); Let him also attribute to the grace of God his persistence until the end, thanks to which he acquired the mercy he asked for daily - not to be led into temptation. And between the beginning of faith and the perfection of being in the middle are those [virtues] thanks to which we live righteously, in relation to which even [those who object to us now] agree that all this is given to us from God through the prayer of faith. And God foreknew that all this - that is, the beginning of faith and His other gifts right up to the end - He would give from His bounties to His called ones. Therefore, only excessive pretentiousness tends to object to predestination or doubt predestination. Chapter 22. How to Preach Predestination Without Leading to Offense 57. However, it is not [as they suggest] that this predestination must be preached to the people, lest by this very preaching they should somehow be put to shame before an ignorant and slow-to-understand crowd; so the foreknowledge of God will definitely be put to shame (which [our opponents] certainly cannot deny) if people are told: “Whether you strive or sleep, you will still be what He who cannot make mistakes foreknew you.” After all, only a cunning or ignorant doctor can use even a useful medicine in such a way that it either does not bring benefit or causes harm. But you need to say: “Eventually strive that you may receive” (1 Cor. 9:24), and thus in your very struggle you will be able to recognize that you are foreknown to “strive lawfully” (2 Tim. 2:5). You can also preach the foreknowledge of God in some other way, just to drive away human laziness. The doctrine of predestination must be presented with consideration for the person who hears it. 58. Therefore, although the decision of God's will emanating from predestination appears in such a way that some, having received the will to obedience, turn to faith out of unbelief or remain in faith; and the rest, those who remain in the enjoyment of sins subject to condemnation, if they are also predestined, then have not yet risen because the help of merciful grace has not yet raised them up, because if those of them whom God by His grace predestined for election have not yet been called, they will receive this very grace, with the help of which they will wish to become elect and will be so; if some others obey, but are not predestined to His Kingdom and glory, then their obedience is temporary, and they will not remain in this obedience until the end - so, although all this is true, it should not be said in this way to many listeners. It should not be that the sermon is addressed to them themselves and that those words [to those objecting to us] that you cited in your letters and which I have already mentioned above are spoken to them: “The decision of God’s will, which proceeds from predestination, is such that some of you, having received the will to obedience, came from unbelief to faith.” Why say: “one of you”? After all, if we speak to the Church of God, if we speak to believers, then why do we say that some of them came to faith, thereby showing injustice in relation to others, when it would be much more convenient to say: “The decision of God’s will, proceeding from predestination, is such that you, having received the will to obey, came from unbelief to faith, and if you receive abiding, then you will remain in faith”? It is necessary to avoid offending the listening people 59. And what comes further should not be said at all, namely: “The rest [of you], those who remain in the delight of sins, have not yet risen because the help of merciful grace has not yet raised you up.” It is possible and necessary to say this here - which will be much better and more appropriate: “If you still remain in the delight of sins that are subject to condemnation, accept the saving teaching, however, when you do this, do not be proud of it, as if you were doing it, and do not boast as if you did not receive it, “for it is God who works in you to will and to work of his own free will” (Phil. 2:13), and your steps are directed from the Lord ( Ps.37:23), so that you may desire His ways. And from your very good and faithful deed, understand that you belong to the predestination of Divine grace.” How to Speak About the Uncalled and Rebellious 60. Also, what follows further, where it says: “However, if there are some of you who have not yet been called, whom God has predestined by His grace to election, then you will receive this very grace, by which you will desire to become elect and will be so,” then this is said more harshly than it can be said if we are not speaking to some people in general, but are addressing those who belong to Christ’s Church. Why not say it better: “And if there are those who have not yet been called, let us pray for them, that they may be called. After all, it is possible that they are so predestined that through our prayers they will be pardoned and receive that grace with the help of which they will want to become chosen and will be so. For God, Who fulfilled all that He had predetermined, commanded us to pray even for the enemies of the faith, so that we would understand from this that He Himself gives the unbelievers to believe and makes willing out of those unwilling.” 61. And regarding what is added to these words further, I would be generally surprised if among the Christian people anyone who is weak will somehow be able to listen calmly when they say: “And if now you submit, but are predestined for rejection, then the strength to submit will be taken away from you, so that you will cease to submit to [God].” After all, saying something like this is nothing more than slandering and prophesying some kind of evil. But if you want or need to say something about those who will not continue [in goodness], then why not say it better at least as I said a little higher? And first of all, let this be said not about those who listen among the people themselves, but to them about others; that is, let them not say: “And if now you submit, but are predestined to be rejected,” but let them say: “If now they submit,” and everything else in the same way, using the verb not in the second, but in the third person. After all, we are not talking about a desirable thing, but about a disgusting one, and it will be very rude and unpleasant to throw abuse in the face of the listeners if the one addressing them says: “And if now you submit, but are predestined to rejection, then the strength to submit will be taken away from you, so that you will cease to submit.” After all, what damage will this saying suffer if it is said like this: “If some are now submitting, but are not predestined to His kingdom and glory, then they are fickle and will not continue in this obedience to the end”? Wouldn’t the same thing be said more truly and more decently if we did not, as it were, wish for them this great evil, but rather attribute this, which they hate, to others, so that they, hoping for the best and praying for it, would not consider this [bad] to apply to themselves? And in the way in which [those who object to us] find it necessary to say this, a statement about the foreknowledge of God, which they cannot in any way reject, can be stated, in almost the same words, so that it can be said like this: “And if now you submit, but [God] foreknew that you are subject to rejection, you will cease to submit.” Isn't this extremely true? Of course it is, but [to say this] is completely unfair, inappropriate and inappropriate; This speech is not false, but it is not salutarily applied here for the healing of human weakness. Should be encouraged to pray and trust in God 62. And it seems to me that if someone begins to speak before the people in the way that, as we said, should be used when preaching predestination, then this alone will not be enough, but he needs to add the following below or something similar to this and say: “Therefore you must expect this very continuance in obedience “from the Father of lights,” from whom “coming down every good gift and every perfect gift” (James 1:17); you must ask this [of Him] in daily prayers, and in doing so, know that you are not strangers to the predestination of His people, since He Himself grants you to do so. And on no account should you despair of yourself because you are commanded to place your hope in Him and not in yourself. For “cursed is (everyone) who trusts in man” (Jer. 17:5) and: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man” (Ps. 117:8), since “blessed are all those who trust in Him” (Ps. 2:12). Holding to this hope, “serve the Lord with fear and rejoice in Him with trembling” (Ps. 2:11), since no one can be sure of eternal life, which before eternal times the God who lies did not promise to the sons of promise, before this life of this person is completed, which is “a temptation on earth” ( Job 7:1). But may He grant us to abide in Him until the end of this life, to whom we say daily: “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13).” If we begin to speak in this way or in similar words to a few Christians or to the entire multitude of the Church, then for what reason are we here afraid to preach the predestination of the saints or the true grace of God, that is, that grace that is not given according to our merits - that which the Holy Scripture preaches? Is it really necessary to fear that a person might despair of himself when he is shown that he should place his hope in God? Should we really think that he will not despair if, completely proud and unhappy, he places it on himself? Chapter 23. The whole Church testifies to predestination in its prayers 63. And I would like that “the slow of heart” (Luke 24:25) and the weak - those who cannot or cannot yet understand the Scripture and its interpretation - would listen or not listen to our reasoning on this issue, so that they would look more closely at their prayers, which the Church has always had and will always have until this age ends. After all, the fact that we are now forced not only to remind, but in addition to defend and protect against new heretics, the Church has never been silent in its prayers, even if it once did not put it on display in sermons, since no stubbornness of the enemy prompted this. For when did the Church not pray for unbelievers and her enemies, so that they would believe? When has any of the believers had an unbelieving friend, loved one, or spouse and did not ask the Lord for him a mind [ready] to humbly resort to the Christian faith? Has anyone ever prayed for himself, that he might abide in the Lord? And who, hearing how the priest, calling on the Lord to believers, says: “Grant to them, Lord, that they may remain in You until the end,” dared, I don’t say in voice, but at least in thought, to object to this? Wouldn’t [every faithful] rather answer during such a blessing with a believing heart and confessing lips: “Amen!” After all, believers do not pray for something else in the Lord’s Prayer itself, saying first of all this: “Lead us not into temptation,” but precisely to remain in holy obedience to them. Therefore, both in these prayers and in that faith, the Church was born, grew and is growing, in that faith that [convinces] to believe that the grace of God is not given according to the merits of those who receive it. After all, the Church would not have prayed for faith to be given to unbelievers if she did not believe that God turns to himself the disgusted and opposing wills of people; The Church would not have prayed to remain in the faith of Christ, without being deceived and overcome by the temptations of the world, if she had not believed that the Lord has our heart in His power in such a way that we would not have acquired or retained the good that we possess by our own will alone, if He had not produced this very will in us. If the Church asks God for this, but believes that it acquires it on its own, then its prayers are not true, but only superficial; but let it not be so. For who will truly sigh, wanting to receive what he asks in prayer from the Lord, if he believes that he is acquiring it from himself, and not from Him? Prayer is also a gift of God. The Spirit of God prays in us 64. And especially (this is the case) since, according to the words of the apostle: “We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed. But he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27). What does it mean: “The Spirit himself intercedes,” if not this: “Encourages intercession”; “with groanings unspeakable,” but true, since the Spirit Himself is Truth? After all, this is the Spirit about whom [the apostle] says in another place: “God sent into our hearts the Spirit of His Son, crying: “Abba, Father!” (Gal.4:6). And what does it mean here: “calling”, if not: “forcing to call”, according to the same way of speaking in which we talk about a cheerful day, since it makes you cheerful? This is explained by the apostle in another place, where he says: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to live again in fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption as sons, in whom we cry: “Abba, Father!” (Rom.8:15) There he said: “he who calls,” and here he says: “in whom we cry,” thereby showing in what sense he spoke about “the one who calls,” that is, as I have already explained, he said about the One who causes us to cry. From this people should understand that when we spiritually cry out to God with a pure heart, this is also a gift from God. So, those who believe that “asking, seeking, knocking” (Matthew 7:7-8) is up to us and not given to us, let them see how greatly they are mistaken. For they say that our merit precedes grace, so that grace follows it, when we receive by asking, and find by seeking, and it is opened to us by knocking; but they do not want to understand that it is part of the Divine gift that we pray, that is, ask, seek and knock. For we have received the “Spirit of adoption,” in whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” Blessed Ambrose also saw this, because he says this: “And praying to God is [a matter of] spiritual grace, as it is written: “No one will say: Lord Jesus, except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). The prayers of the Church affirm the truth of predestination 65. So, what the Church asks of the Lord, what she has always asked, from the very beginning of her existence, God foreknew as to be given to His chosen ones, and thus foreknew that He had already granted it to them in predestination itself. The apostle clearly shows this when he says in the Epistle to Timothy: “Suffer with the gospel... by the power of God, who saved us and called us with his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages, which has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 1:8-10). Therefore, let him say that the Church once did not contain in her faith the truth of this predestination and grace, which she now carefully and zealously defends against new heretics; let him, I repeat, say so who dares to say that she once did not pray or prayed untruthfully for the unbelievers to believe and the believers to remain [in the faith]. And if she always prayed for these blessings, then, of course, she always believed that these were gifts of God, and it was never in her nature to doubt that they were foreknown by Him. And therefore, the Church of Christ has always maintained faith in this predestination, which it now defends with new care against new heretics. Chapter 24. The certainty of God's predestination. Call to prayer for the acquisition of God's gifts 66. But what else can I say? I believe that I have shown enough, and even more than enough, that to begin to believe in the Lord and to remain in the Lord until the end are gifts of God. And as for the other benefits pertaining to a pious life, which rightly honors God, even those themselves for whose sake we are conducting this consideration agree that these are gifts of God. And they cannot deny that God foreknew all His gifts, as well as those to whom He intended to bestow them. Therefore, just as everything else must be preached so that the one who preaches it is listened to with humility, so must predestination also be preached, so that the one who listens to it with humility will boast not in man, and therefore not in himself, but in the Lord. After all, this is a commandment of God, so to listen with humility to this commandment: “Whoever boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:31), just like all the other commandments, is also a gift of God. And if someone does not have this gift, then, I am not afraid to say, no matter what other gifts he has, he has them in vain. We desire that the Pelagians have this gift and that those among us [who object to us] have it more abundantly. Therefore, let us not be zealous in disputes and cold in prayers. Let us begin to pray, beloved, let us begin to pray that God will give grace even to our enemies, and even more so to our brothers and admirers, to know and confess that after the great and inexpressible fall, when we all fell in one [man] (i.e., in Adam), no one is delivered except by God’s grace, and that this grace is not rewarded to those who receive it according to their deserts, as something due, but, being true by grace, given freely, without any previous merit. The Ultimate Example of Predestination is Jesus Himself 67. And there is no more obvious example of predestination than Jesus Himself. I already discussed this in the first book and decided to recall it again at the end of this one - there is, I say, no more obvious example of predestination than [our] Mediator Himself. Whoever of the faithful wishes to understand this very predestination well, let him examine It; in It he will also find himself. And when I say “faithful,” I mean one who believes and confesses that in Him the true human nature, that is, our nature, although uniquely assumed by God the Word, was exalted into the only Son of God, so that He who assumed and what He assumed became one Person in the Trinity. After all, after the perception of man, She did not become a quaternity, but remained a Trinity, while this perception itself inexpressibly created the truth of the one Person of God and man. After all, we don’t just call Christ God, like the Manichaean heretics; and not just a man, like the Photinian heretics; and not so a man that he supposedly did not have something related to the true human nature, that is, either a soul, or in the soul itself a rational spirit (mentem rationalem), or had flesh not taken from a woman, but created from the Word turned and changed into flesh - all these three opinions are false and vain, and on the basis of them three different and discordant currents were formed among the Apollinarian heretics. And we say that Christ is true God, born of God the Father without any beginning in time, and that He is true man, born of a human Mother in a certain fullness of time. And His humanity, by which He is less than the Father, in no way diminished His Divinity, by which He is equal to the Father. Moreover, both are one Christ, Who in Divinity quite truly said: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and in humanity no less truly said: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). So, He who created from the seed of David this righteous Man, who was never unrighteous; created without any merit of His previous will, He also makes the unrighteous righteous without any merit of their previous will, so that He would be the Head, and they would be His members (Eph. 4:15-16). Who created this Man without any of His previous merits, not having any sin that needed to be forgiven to Him - neither acquired by origin, nor committed by will - He, without any of their previous merits, creates those who believe in Him, by whom all sin is forgiven. Who created Him in such a way that He never had and never will have an evil will, He in His members creates good will out of evil. So [God] predestined both Him and us; since in Him, that He might be our Head, and in us, that we might be His body, He foreknew not our previous merits, but His future deeds. 68. Those who read this, if they understand, let them give thanks to God, and if they do not understand, let them pray that He, from Whom is knowledge and understanding, will become their inner teacher (Proverbs 2:6). Those who believe that I am mistaken, let them think over what I have said again and again with diligence, so that they themselves do not make a mistake. And I, becoming thanks to those who read my works not only more learned, but also more impeccable [in thoughts], will be able to recognize from this God’s favor towards me. And most of all I expect this from the teachers of the Church, if [my work] falls into their hands and they deign to know what I write. "On the Predestination of the Saints", 2, 4. In "On the Predestination of the Saints", 19, 39 St. Cyprian of Carthage. "On the Predestination of the Saints", 16. Hilary of Marseilles. Er. 226, 3. Blazh. Augustine. Er. 102, 2.8 et seq. Blazh. Augustine. Er. 102, 2.14. Hilary of Marseilles. Er. 226, 8. Blazh. Augustine. De lib. Arb., 111, 23, 66–70. Blazh. Augustine. Retr., 1, 9.2. That is, the Old and New Testaments. Blazh. Augustine. Retr., 1, 9.6. Blazh. Augustine. De lib. Arb., 111, 20, 23. It is unclear which monastery we are talking about. – Approx. ed. St. Ambrose of Milan. Hilary of Marseilles. Er.226, 2; Prosper of Aquitaine. Er.225, 3. Hilary of Marseilles. Er. 226, 8. You might be interested in: