To Valentinus and, with him, the Monks

1. 1. On account of those who so proclaim and defend human free choice that they dare to deny and try to do away with the grace of God by which we are called to him and freed from our evil merits, and through which we acquire the good merits by which we attain to eternal life, we have already discussed much and committed it to writing, as far as the Lord has seen fit to grant us. But since there are some who defend the grace of God in such a way as to deny human free choice, or who suppose that when grace is defended free choice is being denied, I have taken care, prompted by mutual love, to write something on this subject to your Charity, brother Valentinus, and to the rest who serve God along with you. For it has been reported to me concerning you, brothers, by some who are in your congregation and who came from there to us—through whom we have also sent these things—that there are disagreements among you over this matter.

And so, beloved, lest the obscurity of this question disturb you, I admonish you first to give thanks to God for the things you understand; but whatever it is that the attention of your mind cannot yet reach, keep peace and love among yourselves and pray to the Lord that you may understand it; and until he himself leads you to the things you do not yet understand, walk in that which you have been able to reach.

This is what the apostle Paul admonishes, who, when he had said that he was not yet perfect, a little later says: Let those of us, then, who are perfect be of this mind; that is, that we are perfect in such a way that we have not yet come to the perfection that is sufficient for us; and he immediately added: And if in anything you are otherwise minded, this also God will reveal to you; nevertheless, let us walk by that to which we have attained (Phil 3:15–16). For by walking in that to which we have attained, we shall also be able to reach that to which we have not yet attained, with God revealing it to us if in anything we are otherwise minded, provided we do not abandon the things he has already revealed.

2. 2. Now he has revealed to us through his holy Scriptures that there is in man the free choice of the will. But how he has revealed it, I remind you, is not by human eloquence but by divine. First, because the divine precepts themselves would not profit a man unless he had the free choice of the will, by which, in keeping them, he might attain to the promised rewards. For they were given so that man might have no excuse from ignorance, as the Lord says in the Gospel concerning the Jews: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin (John 15:22). Of what sin does he speak, except that great one which he foreknew would be theirs when he said these things—that is, the sin by which they were going to kill him? For they were not without any sin before Christ had come to them in the flesh.

Likewise the Apostle says: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of those men who hold the truth in unrighteousness; for what is known of God is manifest in them, for God has manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity, so that they are without excuse (Rom 1:18–20). How does he call them without excuse, except in regard to that excuse which human pride is wont to make: "If I had known, I would have done it; the reason I did not do it is that I did not know"? or "If I knew, I would do it; the reason I do not do it is that I do not know"? This excuse is taken away from them when a precept is given, or when knowledge of how not to sin is made manifest.

2. 3. But there are men who try to excuse themselves even by appealing to God himself, to whom the apostle James says: Let no one say when he is tempted: I am tempted by God. For God is not a tempter to evils; he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted by his own desire, being drawn away and enticed; then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is brought to completion, begets death (Jas 1:13–15). Likewise, to those who wish to excuse themselves by appealing to God himself, the book of the Proverbs of Solomon replies: A man's folly violates his ways; but in his heart he lays the blame on God (Prov 19:3).

And the book of Ecclesiasticus says: Do not say: It is because of the Lord that I fell away; for you must not do the things that he hates. Do not say: It was he who led me astray; for he has no need of a sinful man. The Lord hates every abomination, and it is not lovable to those who fear him. He himself made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. If you will, you shall keep the commandments and good faith in doing his good pleasure. He has set before you fire and water; stretch out your hand to whichever you will. Before man are life and death, and whichever pleases him shall be given to him (Sir 15:11–18). Behold, we see most plainly expressed the free choice of the human will.

2. 4. What of the fact that in so many places God commands that all his commandments be kept and carried out? How does he command, if there is no free choice? What of that blessed man of whom the Psalm says that his will was in the law of the Lord (Ps 1:2)? Does this not sufficiently indicate that it is by his own will that a man takes his stand in the law of God?

Then there are so many commandments that, in a certain way, address the will by name, such as: Do not be overcome by evil (Rom 12:21); and others like it, such as: Do not become like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding (Ps 32 (31):9); and: Do not reject the counsels of your mother (Prov 1:8); and: Do not be wise in your own eyes (Prov 3:7); and: Do not grow faint under the discipline of the Lord (Prov 3:11); and: Do not neglect the law (Prov 3:1; 4:2); and: Do not withhold doing good to the needy (Prov 3:27); and: Do not devise evil against your friend (Prov 3:29); and: Do not give heed to a deceitful woman (Prov 5:2); and: He refused to understand so as to do well (Ps 36 (35):4); and: They refused to receive discipline (Prov 1:29)—and countless such things in the old books of the divine writings: what do they show, if not the free choice of the human will?

In the new books also, the evangelical and the apostolic, what else is shown, where it is said: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth (Matt 6:19); and: Do not fear those who kill the body (Matt 10:28); and: Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself (Matt 16:24; Luke 9:23); and: Peace on earth to men of good will (Luke 2:14); and what the apostle Paul says: Let her do what she wills; she does not sin if she marries. But whoever has firmly resolved in his heart, being under no necessity but having power over his own will, and has determined this in his heart, to keep his virgin, he does well (1 Cor 7:36–37). Likewise he says: If I do this willingly, I have a reward (1 Cor 9:17); and in another place: Be soberly righteous, and do not sin (1 Cor 15:34); and again: That as the mind is ready in willing, so it may be also in carrying out (2 Cor 8:11). And to Timothy he says: For when they have grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry (1 Tim 5:11); and elsewhere: But all who wish to live devoutly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12); and to Timothy himself: Do not neglect the grace that is in you (1 Tim 4:14). And to Philemon: That your good deed might not be as it were out of necessity, but of your own will (Phlm 14). He also admonishes slaves themselves to serve their masters from the heart with good will (Eph 6:6–7).

Likewise James: Do not err, therefore, my brothers, and do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with partiality toward persons (Jas 2:1); and: Do not speak ill of one another (Jas 4:11). Likewise John in his Epistle: Do not love the world (1 John 2:15); and other things of this kind. Surely, where it is said, Do not do this, and do not do that, and where in the divine admonitions an act of the will is required for doing or not doing something, free choice is sufficiently demonstrated. Let no one, then, lay the blame on God in his heart, but let each impute it to himself when he sins. Nor, when he does anything in accordance with God, let him alienate this from his own will. For when he acts willingly, then the work is to be called good, then the reward of a good work is to be hoped for from him of whom it is said: He will render to each one according to his works (Matt 16:27; Rom 2:6; Rev 22:12).

3. 5. Those, then, who know the divine commandments are deprived of the excuse that men are wont to make from ignorance. But neither will those be without punishment who do not know the law of God. For those who have sinned without the law will perish without the law; and those who have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (Rom 2:12). It does not seem to me that the Apostle said this as though to signify that those who do not know the law are going to suffer something worse in their sins than those who do. For to perish seems worse than to be judged; but since he was speaking here of the Gentiles and of the Jews—the former being without the law, the latter having received the law—who would dare to say that the Jews who sin in the law are not going to perish, since they have not believed in Christ, seeing that it was said of them, they will be judged by the law?

For without faith in Christ no one can be freed; and by this they will be so judged as to perish. For if the condition of those who do not know the law of God is worse than that of those who do know it, how will what the Lord says in the Gospel be true: The servant who does not know his master's will, and does what deserves a beating, will be beaten with few stripes; but the servant who knows his master's will, and does what deserves a beating, will be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12:48. 47)? Here he shows that a man who knows sins more gravely than one who does not know.

Yet one must not for that reason take refuge in the darkness of ignorance, so as to seek an excuse there. For it is one thing not to have known, another to have refused to know. The will, indeed, is what is reproached in him of whom it is said: He refused to understand so as to do well (Ps 36 (35):4). But even that ignorance which is not the ignorance of those who refuse to know, but of those who, as it were, simply do not know, excuses no one so as to keep him from burning in everlasting fire, if the reason he did not believe is that he did not at all hear what he was to believe—though perhaps it does so excuse him as to make him burn more lightly.

For it was not without reason that it was said: Pour out your wrath upon the nations that have not known you (Ps 79 (78):6); and that which the Apostle says: When he comes in flaming fire to inflict vengeance upon those who do not know God (2 Thess 1:8). Nevertheless, so that we may have knowledge itself, lest each one say, I did not know, I did not hear, I did not understand, the human will is addressed where it is said: Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding (Ps 32 (31):9); although he appears worse of whom it is said: A stubborn servant will not be corrected by words; for even if he understands, he will not obey (Prov 29:19).

But when a man says, I cannot do what is commanded, because I am overcome by my desire (See Rom 7:18), he indeed no longer has an excuse from ignorance, nor does he lay the blame on God in his heart, but he recognizes his own evil within himself and grieves over it; yet to him the Apostle says: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:21). And surely, to one to whom it is said, Do not be overcome, the choice of his will is without doubt being addressed. For to will and not to will belongs to one's own will.

4. 6. But it must be feared that all these divine testimonies, and whatever others there are—which without doubt are very many—in defense of free choice, may be so understood that no room is left for the help and grace of God in living a devout life and a good manner of conduct, to which an eternal reward is owed; and that wretched man, when he lives well and acts well—or rather, seems to himself to live well and act well—may dare to glory in himself, not in the Lord, and to place his hope of living rightly in himself, so that there follows him the curse of Jeremiah the prophet, who says: Cursed is the man who places his hope in man, and makes the flesh of his arm his strength, and whose heart departs from the Lord (Jer 17:5).

Understand, brothers, this prophetic testimony. For because the Prophet did not say, Cursed is the man who places his hope in himself, it might seem to someone that the reason he said, Cursed is the man who places his hope in man, was that no one should place his hope in another man, but in himself. So then, in order to show that he had admonished man in such a way that he should not place his hope even in himself, after he had said, Cursed is the man who places his hope in man, he at once added, and makes the flesh of his arm his strength. He put the arm for the power of acting. And under the name of flesh, human frailty is to be understood. And thus he makes the flesh of his arm his strength who thinks that a frail and feeble power—that is, a human one—is sufficient for him to act well, and does not hope for help from the Lord. For this reason he added: and whose heart departs from the Lord.

Such is the Pelagian heresy, not ancient, but arisen not long ago; and since there had been a rather lengthy dispute against this heresy, in the end it even came to councils of bishops, of necessity. From these I have sent you to read not indeed all the documents, but some. Let us, then, in order to act well, place no hope in man, making the flesh of our arm our strength; and let our heart not depart from the Lord, but let it say to him: Be my helper, do not forsake me, nor despise me, O God my Savior (Ps 27 (26):9).

4. 7. Accordingly, dearly beloved, just as we have proved by the foregoing testimonies of the holy Scriptures that there is in man the free choice of the will for living well and acting rightly, so too let us see what the divine testimonies are concerning the grace of God, without which we can do nothing good. And first I shall say something about your own profession. For this fellowship in which you live continently would not have gathered you together unless you despised conjugal pleasure. Now on this matter, when the disciples had said to the Lord as he was speaking, If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry, he answered them: Not all grasp this word, but only those to whom it is given (Matt 19:10–11). Did the Apostle not exhort the free choice of Timothy when he said: Keep yourself continent (1 Tim 5:22)? And in this matter he showed the power of the will, where he says: being under no necessity but having power over his own will, to keep his virgin (1 Cor 7:37). And yet, not all grasp this word, but only those to whom it is given. For those to whom it is not given either do not will it, or do not fulfill what they will; but those to whom it is given so will it that they fulfill what they will. And so, that this word, which is not grasped by all, may be grasped by some, is both a gift of God and free choice.

4. 8. Concerning conjugal chastity itself, too, the Apostle says: Let her do what she wills; she does not sin if she marries (1 Cor 7:36); and yet this also is a gift of God, since Scripture says: By the Lord a wife is joined to a husband (Prov 19:14 (according to the LXX)). Therefore the Teacher of the Gentiles, commending in his discourse both conjugal chastity, by which adulteries are not committed, and the more perfect continence, by which no sexual union is sought, showed that both the one and the other is a gift of God, writing to the Corinthians and admonishing married persons not to defraud one another; and when he had admonished them, he added: But I would that all men were even as I myself—for indeed he himself abstained from all sexual union; and he at once continued: But each one has his own gift from God; one in this way, another in that (1 Cor 7:7). Do not the many things commanded in the law of God, that fornications and adulteries not be committed, indicate anything other than free choice? For they would not be commanded unless man had his own will, by which he might obey the divine precepts. And yet it is a gift of God, without which the precepts of chastity cannot be kept. Hence that man says in the book of Wisdom: When I knew that no one can be continent unless God grants it, this itself was a part of wisdom, to know whose gift it was (Wis 8:21). But that these holy commandments of chastity are not kept comes about because each one is tempted by his own desire, being drawn away and enticed (Jas 1:14).

Here, if he says, I wish to keep it, but I am overcome by my desire, Scripture answers his free choice, as I have already said above: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:21). Yet that this may come about, grace helps; and unless it helps, the law will be nothing but the power of sin. For desire is increased, and receives greater strength, when the law forbids, unless the spirit of grace helps. This is what that same Teacher of the Gentiles says: The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:56). See from this why a man says, I wish to keep the commandment of the law, but I am overcome by the power of my desire. And when his will is addressed, and it is said to him, Do not be overcome by evil, what does it profit him, unless it comes about by the aid of grace? This the Apostle himself went on to add; for when he had said, the power of sin is the law, he at once added: But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:57). Therefore the victory by which sin is overcome is nothing other than the gift of God, helping free choice in this contest.

4. 9. On account of this the heavenly Teacher also says: Watch and pray, that you do not enter into temptation (Matt 26:41). Therefore let each one, in fighting against his own desire, pray that he may not enter into temptation—that is, that he may not be drawn away and enticed by it. Now he does not enter into temptation if by a good will he overcomes evil desire. And yet the choice of the human will does not suffice, unless the victory is granted by the Lord to him who prays that he may not enter into temptation.

But what is shown more plainly to be the grace of God than this, that what is prayed for is received? For if our Savior had said, Watch, that you do not enter into temptation, he would have seemed only to admonish the will of man; but when he added, and pray, he showed that God helps, so that one does not enter into temptation. It was said to free choice: Son, do not grow faint under the discipline of the Lord (Prov 3:11); and the Lord said: I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:32). Man, then, is helped by grace, so that it is not without reason that a command is given to his will.

5. 10. When God says, Turn to me, and I will turn to you (Zech 1:3), one of these seems to belong to our will—that is, that we turn to him; but the other to his grace—that is, that he himself also turns to us. Here the Pelagians may think that they hold their own position, by which they say that the grace of God is given according to our merits. Yet in the East—that is, in the province of Palestine, in which is the city of Jerusalem—when Pelagius himself was heard by the bishops, he did not dare to affirm this. For among the other charges brought against him, this too was charged: that he said the grace of God is given according to our merits—which is so foreign to Catholic teaching and so hostile to the grace of Christ that, unless he had anathematized this charge made against him, he would himself have departed from there anathematized. But that he anathematized it deceitfully, his later books make plain, in which he defends nothing whatever other than that the grace of God is given according to our merits.

Such things, then, they gather from the Scriptures, like this one that I mentioned a little while ago: Turn to me, and I will turn to you—so that, according to the merit of our turning to God, his grace is given, by which he also turns to us. But those who hold this view do not consider that, unless our very turning to God were itself also a gift of God, it would not be said to him: O God of hosts, turn us (Ps 80 (79):8); and: O God, you will turn and give us life; and: Turn us, O God of our salvation (Ps 85 (84):5. 7); and other things of this kind, which it would take long to recall. For to come to Christ, too, what else is it but to be turned to him by believing? And yet he says: No one can come to me unless it has been given him by my Father (John 6:66).

. . . against the Pelagians, who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits.

5. 11. Likewise, what is written in the second book of Chronicles: The Lord is with you, when you are with him; and if you seek him, you will find him; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you (2 Chr 15:2), manifests indeed the choice of the will. But those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits take these testimonies in such a way as to say that our merit consists in this, that we are with God; and that his grace is given according to this merit, that he too may be with us. Likewise, that our merit consists in this, that we seek him; and that according to this merit his grace is given, that we may find him.

And what was said in the first book: And you, Solomon my son, know God, and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing soul; for the Lord searches all hearts, and knows every thought of minds; if you seek him, he will be found by you; and if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever (1 Chr 28:9), declares the choice of the will. But they place the merit of man in what was said, if you seek him; and they hold that grace is given according to this merit, in what was said, he will be found by you; and they labor altogether, as much as they can, to show that the grace of God is given according to our merits—that is, that grace is not grace. For to those to whom recompense is given according to merit, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt (Rom 4:4), as the Apostle says most plainly.

5. 12. There was indeed a merit in the apostle Paul, but an evil one, when he was persecuting the Church; hence he says: I am not fit to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God (1 Cor 15:9). Since, then, he had this evil merit, good was rendered to him for evil; and so he went on to add: But by the grace of God I am what I am. And to show free choice as well, he at once added: and his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them (1 Cor 15:10). For he exhorts this free choice of man in others also, to whom he says: We beseech you not to receive the grace of God in vain (2 Cor 6:1). For why does he beseech them, if they received grace in such a way as to lose their own will? Yet, lest the will itself be thought able to do anything good without the grace of God, immediately after he had said, his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them, he added and said: Yet not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor 15:10)—that is, "not I alone, but the grace of God with me"; and thus neither the grace of God alone, nor he alone, but the grace of God with him. But that he was called from heaven, and converted by so great and most efficacious a calling, was the grace of God alone; for his merits were great, but evil.

Finally, elsewhere too he says to Timothy: Labor together for the Gospel according to the power of God, who saves us and calls us with his holy calling; not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 1:8–9). Likewise, recalling his own merits, but evil ones, he says: For we too were once foolish and unbelieving, going astray, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another (Titus 3:3). What was owed to such evil merits except, surely, punishment? But, since God rendered good for evil, through grace which is not given according to our merits, there came about what he next adds and says: But when the kindness and humanity of God our Savior appeared, not by works of righteousness which we did, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out richly upon us, through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4–7).

6. 13. By these and similar divine testimonies it is proved that the grace of God is not given according to our merits; since we see it given not only when no good merits, but even when many evil merits, have gone before, and we see it given daily. But plainly, once it has been given, our merits too begin to be good—yet through it; for if it withdraws itself, man falls, not raised up but cast headlong by free choice. Therefore, even when a man has begun to have good merits, he ought not to attribute them to himself, but to God, to whom it is said in the Psalm: Be my helper, do not forsake me (Ps 27 (26):9). By saying, do not forsake me, he shows that if he is forsaken, he himself can do nothing good by himself; hence that man also says: I said in my abundance: I shall not be moved forever (Ps 30 (29):7).

For he had thought that the good which so abounded to him, that he was not moved, had been his own; but, that it might be shown to him to whom that belonged in which he had begun to glory as if it were his own, when grace deserted him a little, being thus admonished he says: O Lord, in your will you supplied strength to my comeliness; but you turned your face away from me, and I became troubled (Ps 30 (29):8).

Therefore it is necessary for man that, by the grace of God, not only the ungodly be justified—that is, that out of an ungodly man he be made righteous, when good is rendered to him for evil—but also that, once he has already been justified by faith, grace may walk with him, and that he may lean upon it lest he fall. On account of this it is written in the Song of Songs concerning the Church herself: Who is this who comes up made white, leaning upon her kinsman? (Song 8:5). For she is made white who could not be white by herself. And by whom was she made white, except by him who says through the Prophet: If your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow (Isa 1:18)? When, therefore, she was made white, she merited nothing good; but now, made white, she walks well—but only if she leans perseveringly upon him by whom she was made white. On account of this Jesus himself, upon whom she who is made white leans, said to his disciples: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5).

6. 14. Let us, then, return to the apostle Paul, whom we find for certain to have obtained, without any good merits—indeed, with many evil merits—the grace of God, who renders good for evil. Let us see what he says, his own passion now drawing near, as he writes to Timothy: For I am already being offered up, he says, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith (2 Tim 4:6–7). These, surely, are now his own good merits that he recalls; so that after good merits he may obtain the crown, who after evil merits obtained grace.

Finally, notice what follows: There remains, he says, for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day (2 Tim 4:8). To whom would the just judge render the crown, if the merciful Father had not granted grace? And how would this be a crown of righteousness, unless the grace that justifies the ungodly had gone before? How would this be rendered as something owed, unless that other had first been freely given?

6. 15. But when the Pelagians say that the only grace that is not according to our merits is that by which a man's sins are forgiven, whereas the grace that is given at the end—that is, eternal life—is rendered in return for our preceding merits, they must be answered. For if they understood our merits in such a way as to recognize that these too are gifts of God, this view would not have to be rejected; but since they so proclaim human merits as to say that man has them from his very self, the Apostle answers most rightly indeed: For who sets you apart? What do you have that you did not receive? But if you also received it, why do you glory as though you had not received it? (1 Cor 4:7)

To one who thinks such things, it is said most truly: God crowns his own gifts, not your merits, if your merits are from your own self and not from him. For if your merits are such, they are evil; and these God does not crown. But if they are good, they are gifts of God; for, as the apostle James says, Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (Jas 1:17). Hence John the forerunner of the Lord also says: A man cannot receive anything, unless it has been given him from heaven (John 3:27)—surely from heaven, whence the Holy Spirit also came, when Jesus ascended on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men (Ps 68 (67):19; Eph 4:8). If, then, your good merits are gifts of God, God does not crown your merits as your merits, but as his own gifts.

7. 16. Accordingly, let us consider the very merits of the apostle Paul, those for which he said the just Judge would render him the crown of righteousness, and let us see whether his merits were as it were his own—that is, acquired by him from himself—or whether they are gifts of God. I have fought, he says, the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith (2 Tim 4:7). First, these good works would be nothing, if good thoughts had not gone before them. Notice, then, what he says about thoughts themselves; for, writing to the Corinthians, he says: Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as if from our own selves; but our sufficiency is from God (2 Cor 3:5).

Next let us examine them one by one. I have fought, he says, the good fight. I ask by what strength he fought: whether by one that was his from his own self, or by one given from above. But God forbid that so great a teacher should have been ignorant of the law of God, whose voice is in Deuteronomy: Do not say in your heart: My strength and the power of my hand has won me this great might; but you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the strength to win might (Deut 8:17–18). And what does the good fight profit, unless victory follows? And who gives the victory, except he of whom he himself says: Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:57)? And in another place, when he had recalled the testimony from the Psalm, For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Ps 44 (43):22), he added and said: but in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Rom 8:36–37)—therefore not through ourselves, but through him who loved us.

Then he said: I have finished the course; but he who said this is the one who in another place says: So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:16). This sentence can in no way be reversed so as to say: It is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills and runs; for whoever dares to say this plainly shows that he contradicts the Apostle.

7. 17. Lastly he said: I have kept the faith; but he who said this is the one who elsewhere says: I have obtained mercy, that I might be faithful (1 Cor 7:25). For he did not say, I obtained mercy because I was faithful, but, that I might be faithful—thereby showing that even faith itself cannot be had except by the mercy of God, and that it is a gift of God. This he teaches most plainly when he says: By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, but is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). For they might have said: We received grace because we believed—thereby attributing the faith to themselves, the grace to God; on account of this the Apostle, when he had said through faith, said: and this is not from yourselves, but is the gift of God.

Again, lest they should say that they had merited so great a gift by their own works, he at once added: not from works, lest perhaps anyone be lifted up (Eph 2:9). Not that he denied or did away with good works, since he says that God renders to each one according to his works (See Rom 2:6), but because works are from faith, not faith from works; and thus the works of righteousness are ours from him from whom faith itself is, concerning which it was said: The righteous man lives by faith (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Heb 10:38).

7. 18. But men, not understanding what the Apostle himself says, We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Rom 3:28), have supposed that he means faith suffices for a man, even if he lives badly and has no good works. God forbid that the Vessel of Election should hold this; for when he had said in a certain place, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, he at once added: but faith that works through love (Gal 5:6). It is this faith that separates God's faithful from the unclean demons; for they too, as the apostle James says, believe and tremble (Jas 2:19), but they do not act well. They do not, then, have that faith by which the righteous man lives—that is, the faith that works through love, so that God may render him eternal life according to his works. But because the good works themselves are ours from God, from whom both faith and love are ours, on account of this the same Teacher of the Gentiles called eternal life itself, too, grace.

8. 19. And from this there arises no small question, which is to be resolved with the Lord's help. For if eternal life is rendered in return for good works (Matt 16:27), as Scripture says most plainly, For God will render to each one according to his works (Rom 2:6), how is eternal life grace, since grace is not rendered for works, but given freely, as the Apostle himself says: To him who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt (Rom 4:4)? And again he says: A remnant has been saved by the election of grace; and he at once added: But if by grace, then no longer of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace (Rom 11:5–6). How, then, is eternal life grace, which is received from works? Or did the Apostle perhaps not call eternal life grace? On the contrary, he did so call it, in such a way that it cannot be denied at all; and it requires not a sharp interpreter, but only an attentive hearer. For when he had said, The wages of sin is death, he at once added: But the grace of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23).

8. 20. This question, then, can in no way, it seems to me, be resolved unless we understand that even our own good works, for which eternal life is rendered, pertain to the grace of God, on account of what the Lord Jesus says: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5). And the Apostle himself, when he had said, By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, but is the gift of God; not from works, lest perhaps anyone be lifted up (Eph 2:8–9), surely saw that men might suppose this to mean that good works are not necessary for believers, but that faith alone suffices for them; and again, that men might be lifted up over their good works, as though they were sufficient of themselves to do them. So he at once added: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10). What does this mean, that when he had said, commending the grace of God, not from works, lest perhaps anyone be lifted up, he gives the reason for having said it: For we are, he says, his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works? How, then, is it not from works, lest perhaps anyone be lifted up?

But hear, and understand. It is said, not from works, as though they were works that exist for you from your own self, but as though they were works in which God fashioned you—that is, formed and created you. For he says: We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works; not by that creation by which we were made men, but by the one of which he was speaking who was surely already a man: Create in me a clean heart, O God (Ps 51 (50):12); and of which the Apostle says: If, then, anyone is a new creature in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new: but all things are from God (2 Cor 5:17–18). We are fashioned, then—that is, formed and created—for good works, which we did not prepare, but God prepared, that we should walk in them.

And so, dearly beloved, if our good life is nothing other than the grace of God, then without doubt eternal life also, which is rendered in return for a good life, is the grace of God; for it too is given freely, because that to which it is given was given freely. But that to which it is given is only grace; whereas this which is given to it, since it is its reward, is grace in return for grace, as it were a wage in return for righteousness—so that what is true may be true, namely that God will render to each one according to his works (Matt 16:27; Rom 2:6; Ps 62 (61):13).

9. 21. But whether we have read in the holy books the phrase grace in return for grace, you perhaps ask. Well, you have the Gospel according to John, most clear with so great a light, where John the Baptist says of the Lord Christ: And of his fullness we have all received, and grace in return for grace (John 1:16). Of his fullness, then, we have received, according to our measure, as it were our portions, that we may live well, as God has apportioned the measure of faith (Rom 12:3); for each one has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that (1 Cor 7:7), and this is grace; but in addition we shall also receive grace in return for grace, when eternal life is rendered to us, of which the Apostle said: But the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord—when he had first said: The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). For it is rightly called wages, because eternal death is rendered to the service of the devil as something owed.

Here, although he could have said, and rightly said, "But the wages of righteousness is eternal life," he preferred to say: But the grace of God is eternal life—so that from this we might understand that God leads us to eternal life not in return for our merits, but out of his own compassion. Of this God's man says in the Psalm to his own soul: Who crowns you in compassion and mercy (Ps 103 (102):4). Is not the crown rendered in return for good works? But because he in whose good works the good works themselves are performed is the one of whom it was said, For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, according to his good will (Phil 2:13), therefore the Psalm said: He crowns you in compassion and mercy; for it is by his compassion that we do the good works for which the crown is rendered.

For, because he said, For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, according to his good will, he is not therefore to be thought to have taken away free choice. If that were so, he would not have said earlier: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). For when they are commanded to work, their free choice is addressed; but the reason it is with fear and trembling is that they may not, by attributing to themselves that they act well, be lifted up over their works as though these were their own. As though, then, the Apostle were asked and it were said to him, Why did you say, with fear and trembling?, he gave the reason for these words, saying: For it is God who works in you. For if you fear and tremble, you are not lifted up as over your own good works, because it is God who works in you.

10. 22. And so, brothers, you ought indeed, through free choice, not to do evil and to do good; for this the law of God commands us in the holy books, both Old and New. But let us read, and with the Lord's help understand, the Apostle when he says: For no flesh will be justified by the law in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). He said knowledge, not "consuming." But when a man knows sin, if grace does not help so that what is known is guarded against, then without doubt the law works wrath.

This the Apostle himself says in another place—for the words are his own: The law works wrath. And he said this because the wrath of God is greater against the transgressor who, through the law, knows sin and yet commits it; for such a man is a transgressor of the law, as he also says in another place: For where there is no law, neither is there transgression (Rom 4:15). On account of this he also says elsewhere: That we may serve in newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter (Rom 7:6)—wishing the law to be understood as the oldness of the letter, but the newness of the spirit to be understood as what, if not grace?

And lest he be thought to have accused or found fault with the law, he at once raised a question against himself, and said: What then shall we say? Is the law sin? God forbid. Then he added: But I did not know sin except through the law—this is what he had said, Through the law comes the knowledge of sin. For I would not have known desire, he says, if the law had not said: You shall not covet. But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me all manner of desire; for apart from the law sin is dead. And I was once alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment which was unto life was found by me to be unto death; for sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me. And so the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did that, then, which is good become death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through what is good, that sin, or the sinner, might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment (Rom 7:7–13).

And to the Galatians he says: Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we too have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh will be justified (Gal 2:16).

11. 23. What, then, does it mean that those most foolish and most perverse men, the Pelagians, say that the law is the grace of God by which we are helped not to sin? What is it that the wretches say, who without any hesitation contradict so great an Apostle? He says that sin received its force against man through the law, and that, through the commandment—though holy and just and good—it nevertheless slays him and works death in him through what is good, from which he would not be freed unless the spirit gave life to him whom the letter had slain, as he says in another place: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6). And these unteachable men, blind against the light of God and deaf against the voice of God, say that the letter that kills gives life, and contradict the spirit that gives life.

Therefore, brothers—to admonish you rather in the very words of the Apostle—we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live (Rom 8:12–13). I have said these things in order, by the words of the Apostle, to deter your free choice from evil and to exhort it to good; yet you ought not on that account to glory in man—that is, in yourselves—rather than in the Lord, when you do not live according to the flesh, but by the spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh.

For, lest those to whom he said these things be lifted up, supposing that they could do such great good works by their own spirit and not by God's, on account of this, when he had said, But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live, he at once added: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). When, therefore, by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh that you may live, glorify him, praise him, give thanks to him, by whose Spirit you are led so that you are able to do these things, that you may show yourselves to be sons of God. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

12. 24. As many, then, as are led by their own spirit, trusting in their own strength, with only the help of the law added and not the help of grace, are not sons of God. Such are those of whom the same Apostle says that, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3).

He said this of the Jews, who, presuming on themselves, rejected grace, and for that reason did not believe in Christ. He says they wished to establish their own righteousness, which is the righteousness that is from the law—not that the law was established by them, but that in the law which is from God they had established their own righteousness, when they believed that they could fulfill that same law by their own strength: being ignorant of the righteousness of God, not the righteousness by which God is righteous, but the righteousness that is for man from God.

And that you may know that he called their righteousness the one that is from the law, but God's the one that is for man from God, hear what he says in another place, when he was speaking of Christ: For whose sake, he says, I have counted all things not only to be losses, but I have even reckoned them to be dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, which is from God (Phil 3:8–9).

But what does it mean, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, since the law itself was not his own, but God's—except that he called the righteousness his own, although it was from the law, because he thought he could fulfill the law by his own will, without the help of the grace that is through faith in Christ? So when he had said, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, he went on to add: but that which is through faith in Christ, which is from God.

This those men were ignorant of, of whom he says: being ignorant of the righteousness of God—that is, the righteousness that is from God (for this is given not by the letter that kills, but by the spirit that gives life)—and wishing to establish their own (which he called the righteousness from the law, when he said, not having my own righteousness which is from the law), they did not submit to the righteousness of God—that is, they did not submit to the grace of God.

For they were under the law, not under grace; and therefore sin had dominion over them, from which a man is set free not by the law, but by grace. On account of this he says elsewhere: For sin will not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace (Rom 6:14)—not because the law is evil, but because under it are those whom it makes guilty by commanding, not by helping. For grace helps a man to be a doer of the law; without this grace, a man placed under the law will be only a hearer of the law. And so to such men he says: You who are justified by the law have fallen away from grace (Gal 5:4).

13. 25. Who could be so deaf against the apostolic words, who so foolish—indeed, so mad, not knowing what he says—as to dare to say that the law is grace, when one who knew what he was saying cries out: You who are justified by the law have fallen away from grace? But if the law is not grace, since the law cannot help a man to become a doer of the law, but grace can, then surely nature will not be grace? For the Pelagians have dared to say even this, that grace is the nature in which we were so created that we have a rational mind, by which we are able to understand, made in the image of God so that we have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and all the cattle that creep upon the earth. But this is not the grace which the Apostle commends through faith in Jesus Christ. For it is certain that this nature is common to us even with the ungodly and unbelievers; whereas the grace that is through faith in Jesus Christ belongs only to those whose faith it is. For not all have faith (2 Thess 3:2).

Finally, just as he says most truly to those who, wishing to be justified by the law, have fallen away from grace, If righteousness is by the law, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21), so too it is said most truly to those who think that the grace which faith in Christ commends and receives is nature: If righteousness is by nature, then Christ died in vain. For here the law already existed, and it did not justify; here too nature already existed, and it did not justify. Therefore Christ did not die in vain, so that both the law might be fulfilled through him who said, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt 5:17), and nature, lost through Adam, might be restored through him who said that he came to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10; Matt 18:11)—in whom, as one who would come, even the ancient Fathers had believed, who loved God.

13. 26. They also say that the grace of God which is given through faith in Jesus Christ—which is neither the law nor nature—avails only for this, that past sins may be forgiven, not that future ones may be avoided or that opposing inclinations may be overcome. But if this were true, surely in the Lord's Prayer, when we had said, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors, we would not add, and lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:12–13). For the one we say that sins may be forgiven; the other, that they may be guarded against or overcome—which we would by no means ask of the Father who is in heaven, if we could accomplish it by the power of the human will.

I urge your Charity, moreover, and earnestly exhort you, to read carefully the book that blessed Cyprian wrote On the Lord's Prayer; and, as much as the Lord helps you, to understand it and commit it to memory. There you will see how he so addresses the free choice of those whom he edifies by the composition of his discourse that he nonetheless shows that the things which are commanded to be fulfilled in the law are to be asked for in prayer. And this would surely be done most pointlessly, if the human will were sufficient to do those things without divine help.

14. 27. But when they have been convicted of being not defenders, but inflaters and casters-down, of free choice—since that grace which is given through Jesus Christ our Lord is neither the knowledge of the divine law, nor nature, nor merely the remission of sins, but itself brings it about that the law is fulfilled, that nature is set free, and that sin does not have dominion—when, then, they have been convicted on these points, they turn to this, that by whatever means they may try to show that the grace of God is given according to our merits. For they say: "Even if it is not given according to the merits of good works, since it is through grace that we act well, yet it is given according to the merits of a good will; for a good will," they say, "precedes in the one who prays, and this was preceded by the will of the one who believes, so that, according to these merits, the grace of God who hears may follow."

14. 28. Now I have already discussed faith—that is, the will of the believer—above, showing it to pertain to grace to such a degree that the Apostle did not say, I obtained mercy because I was faithful, but said, I obtained mercy, that I might be faithful (1 Cor 7:25). There are also other testimonies, among which is what he says: Be wise unto soberness, as God has apportioned to each one the measure of faith (Rom 12:3). And what I have already mentioned: By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, but is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). And what he wrote to the Ephesians: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 6:23). And that where he says: For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him (Phil 1:29). Both, then, pertain to the grace of God, both the faith of believers and the endurance of sufferers, since he said that both were granted. And that especially, where he says: But having the same spirit of faith (2 Cor 4:13).

For he did not say, the knowledge of faith, but, the spirit of faith—which he said for this reason, that we might understand that faith too is granted without being asked, so that, when it asks, other things may be granted to it. For how, he says, shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? (Rom 10:14). Therefore the spirit of grace brings it about that we have faith, so that through faith we may obtain by prayer the power to do the things we are commanded. For this reason the Apostle himself constantly sets faith before the law: since what the law commands we are not able to do, unless by faith we obtain through asking the power to do it.

14. 29. For if faith belongs only to free choice and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who are unwilling to believe, that they may believe? This we would do altogether in vain, unless we most rightly believed that almighty God can turn to belief even wills that are perverse and contrary to faith. The free choice of man is indeed knocked at, where it is said: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts (Ps 95 (94):8). But unless God could also take away hardness of heart, he would not say through the Prophet: I will take from them their heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh (Ezek 11:19). That this was foretold concerning the New Testament, the Apostle sufficiently shows, where he says: You are our letter, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart (2 Cor 3:2–3). Let us not suppose this was said so that those who ought to live spiritually should live carnally; but, since stone is without feeling, to which a hard heart was compared, to what else but feeling flesh ought an understanding heart to be compared?

For this is how it is said through the prophet Ezekiel: And I will give them, he says, another heart, and I will give them a new spirit; and I will pluck out the heart of stone from their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my precepts and keep my ordinances and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord (Ezek 11:19–20). Can we, then, say anything but the most absurd thing—that a good merit of a good will preceded in man, so that the heart of stone might be plucked out from him—seeing that the heart of stone itself signifies nothing but a most hardened will, altogether inflexible against God? For where a good will precedes, surely there is no longer a heart of stone.

14. 30. For in another place too, through the same Prophet, God shows most plainly that he does these things not for the sake of any good merits of theirs, but for the sake of his own name, where he says: I do this, O house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you profaned among the nations to which you went; and I will sanctify my great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord Adonai, when through you I am sanctified before their eyes. And I will take you from the nations, and gather you out of all the lands, and bring you into your own land; and I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols, and I will cleanse you; and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and the heart of stone shall be taken from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you; and I will cause you to walk in my ordinances, and to keep my judgments and do them (Ezek 36:22–27).

Who could be so blind as not to see, who so stony as not to feel, that this grace is not given according to the merits of a good will, when the Lord says and testifies: I do this, O house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name? For why did he say, I do this, but for the sake of my holy name, unless lest they should think it was done for the sake of their good merits—which the Pelagians are not ashamed to say? But he shows that not only were there no good merits of theirs, but even that evil merits had gone before, by saying: but for the sake of my holy name, which you profaned among the nations. Who does not see that it is a horrible evil to profane the holy name of the Lord? And yet, for the sake of that very name of mine, he says, which you profaned, I will make you good, not for your own sake: and I will sanctify, he says, my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you profaned in their midst. He says he will sanctify his name, which he had above called holy. This, then, is what we pray in the Lord's Prayer, saying, Hallowed be your name—that it may be hallowed among men, which in itself, without doubt, is always holy. Then it follows: And all the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord Adonai, when I am sanctified through you. Since, then, he himself is always holy, he is nonetheless sanctified in those to whom he grants his grace, by taking from them the heart of stone, through which they profaned the name of the Lord.

15. 31. But lest it be supposed that men themselves do nothing there through free choice, it is for this reason said in the Psalm: Do not harden your hearts (Ps 95 (94):8). And through Ezekiel himself: Cast away from you all your impieties, which you have impiously committed against me, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, and do all my commandments. Why will you die, O house of Israel, says the Lord? For I do not desire the death of him who dies, says the Lord Adonai; turn, then, and live (Ezek 18:31–32). Let us remember that he who says, turn, then, and live, is the one to whom it is said, Turn us, O God (Ps 80 (79):4; 85 (84):5). Let us remember that he who says, Cast away from you all your impieties, is the one who himself justifies the ungodly (Rom 4:5). Let us remember that he who says, Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, is the one who says, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you (Ezek 36:26).

How, then, does he who says, Make for yourselves, say this: I will give you? Why does he command, if he himself is going to give? Why does he give, if man is going to do it—unless because he gives what he commands, when he helps the one he commands to do it? But there is always a free will in us; yet it is not always good. For either it is free from righteousness, when it serves sin, and then it is evil; or it is free from sin, when it serves righteousness (See Rom 6:20–22), and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good, and through it the man who was before of an evil will becomes a man of good will.

Through this grace it also comes about that the good will itself, which has now begun to be, is increased, and made so great that it can fulfill the divine commandments which it wills, when it wills strongly and fully. For to this end avails what is written: If you will, you shall keep the commandments (Sir 15:16 (according to the LXX))—so that the man who has willed and yet has not been able may recognize that he does not yet fully will, and may pray that he may have a will as great as suffices to fulfill the commandments.

For he is helped in this way, that he may do what is commanded. For willing is useful then, when we are able; and being able is useful then, when we will: for what does it profit, if we will what we cannot, or do not will what we can?

16. 32. The Pelagians think they know something great when they say: "God would not command what he knew could not be done by man." Who does not know this? But he commands certain things that we cannot do, so that we may know what we ought to ask of him. For it is faith that obtains by prayer what the law commands. Indeed, the very one who said, If you will, you shall keep the commandments, in the same book of Ecclesiasticus says a little later: Who will set a guard over my mouth, and a shrewd seal upon my lips, lest I fall through them, and my tongue destroy me? (Sir 22:33). He had surely already received the commandments: Keep your tongue from evil, and let your lips not speak deceit (Ps 34 (33):14). Since, then, what he said is true—If you will, you shall keep the commandments—why does he ask that a guard be set over his mouth, like the one who says in the Psalm: Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth (Ps 141 (140):3)? Why does the commandment of God and his own will not suffice for him, seeing that, if he wills, he will keep the commandments?

However many of God's commandments there are against pride, he already knows them; if he wills, he will keep them. Why, then, does he say a little after: O Lord, Father and God of my life, give me not haughtiness of eyes (Sir 23:4)? The law had already said to him: You shall not covet (Exod 20:17); let him, then, will, and do what is commanded; since, if he wills, he will keep the commandments. Why does he go on to say: Turn away desire from me (Sir 23:5)? How many things God has commanded against wantonness: let him do them; for, if he wills, he will keep the commandments. What is the meaning of his crying out to God: Let not the appetite of the belly and lust seize me (Sir 23:6)?

If we said these things to him face to face, he would answer us most rightly and say: From this prayer of mine, in which I ask these things of God, understand in what sense I said, If you will, you shall keep the commandments. For it is certain that we keep the commandments if we will; but because the will is prepared by the Lord (Prov 8:35 (according to the LXX)), we must ask of him that we may will as much as suffices for us to do by willing.

It is certain that we will when we will; but he brings it about that we will the good, he of whom it was said, as I set down a little before, The will is prepared by the Lord; of whom it was said, By the Lord the steps of a man are directed, and he will desire his way (Ps 37 (36):23); of whom it was said, It is God who works in you the willing (Phil 2:13). It is certain that we do when we do; but he brings it about that we do, by supplying most efficacious strength to the will, he who said, I will cause you to walk in my ordinances, and to keep my judgments and do them (Ezek 36:27).

When he says, I will cause you to do them, what else does he say but: I will take from you the heart of stone, by which you did not do them, and I will give you a heart of flesh, by which you may do them? And what is this but: I will take away the hard heart, by which you did not do them, and I will give an obedient heart, by which you may do them?

He brings it about that we do, to whom a man says: Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth (Ps 141 (140):3). For this is to say: Bring it about that I set a guard over my mouth—a benefit of God which that man had already obtained who said: I have set a guard over my mouth (Ps 39 (38):2).

17. 33. He, then, who wishes to do God's commandment and cannot, has indeed a good will, but as yet a small and feeble one; he will be able to, however, when he has a great and robust one. For when the martyrs did those great commandments, they did them surely by a great will—that is, by great love—of which the Lord himself says: Greater love than this no one has, than to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Hence the Apostle too says: For whoever loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law; for: You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love of neighbor works no evil: love, therefore, is the fullness of the law (Rom 13:8–10).

The apostle Peter did not yet have this love when, out of fear, he denied the Lord three times. For fear is not in love, as John the Evangelist says in his epistle; but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). And yet, though small and imperfect, it was not lacking when he said to the Lord: I will lay down my life for you (John 13:37); for he thought he was able to do what he felt himself to will.

And who had begun to give this love, small though it was, except he who prepares the will, and by cooperating brings to completion what by working he begins? For he who works that we may will, beginning the work, is the one who cooperates with those who will, bringing it to completion. On account of this the Apostle says: I am sure that he who works a good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6). So that we may will, then, he works without us; but when we will, and so will that we act, he cooperates with us; yet without him, either working that we may will, or cooperating when we will, we can do nothing toward the good works of godliness.

Of him who works that we may will, it was said: For it is God who works in you the willing (Phil 2:13). But of him who cooperates when we already will and by willing do: We know, he says, that for those who love God all things work together unto good (Rom 8:28). What is all things, if not even those terrible and savage sufferings? For that burden of Christ, which is heavy to weakness, is made light to love. For the Lord said his burden was light (See Matt 11:30) to such men as Peter was when he suffered for Christ, not such as he was when he denied Christ.

17. 34. Commending this love—that is, the will most ardent with divine affection—the Apostle says: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35–39; Ps 44 (43):22).

And in another place he says: I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my goods to the poor, and deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love is magnanimous, it is kind; love is not envious, does not act wrongly, is not puffed up, is not dishonorable, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; love never falls (1 Cor 12:31 – 13:8).

And a little after he says: There remain faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity: pursue charity (1 Cor 13:13 – 14:1). Likewise he says to the Galatians: For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not make freedom an occasion for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one saying, in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:13–14). This is what he says to the Romans: Whoever loves another has fulfilled the law (Rom 13:8). Likewise he says to the Colossians: But above all these things, love, which is the bond of perfection (Col 3:14). And to Timothy: The end of the commandment, he says, is love; and, adding what kind of love: from a pure heart, he says, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5). But to the Corinthians, when he says, Let all your affairs be done with love (1 Cor 16:14), he sufficiently shows that even those rebukes, which those who are rebuked feel to be harsh and bitter, are to be administered with love. Hence, elsewhere, when he had said, Rebuke the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all, he at once added: See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone (1 Thess 5:14–15). Therefore, even when the unruly are rebuked, not evil for evil, but rather good is rendered. And all these things—what but love performs them?

17. 35. And the apostle Peter says: Above all things, having unfailing mutual love among yourselves, because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8; Prov 10:12). The apostle James too says: If, however, you fulfill the royal law according to the Scriptures: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well (Jas 2:8; Lev 19:18 (according to the LXX)). Likewise the apostle John: Whoever loves his brother, he says, abides in the light (1 John 2:10). And in another place: Whoever is not righteous is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother: for this is the message that we have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another (1 John 3:10–11). And again elsewhere: This is his commandment, he says, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another (1 John 3:23). And again: This commandment we have from him, he says, that whoever loves God should love his brother also (1 John 4:21). And a little after: In this, he says, we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his precepts. For this is the love of God, that we keep his precepts; and his precepts are not burdensome (1 John 5:2–3). And in his second epistle it is written: Not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we should love one another (2 John 5).

17. 36. The Lord Jesus himself also says that on the two precepts of the love of God and the love of neighbor the whole Law and the Prophets depend (Matt 22:40). Concerning these two precepts it is written in the Gospel according to Mark: And one of the scribes, who had heard them disputing, came up; and, seeing that he had answered them well, asked him which was the first commandment of all. Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God; and: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind: this is the first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:28–31; Deut 6:4–5; Lev 19:18). He also says in the Gospel according to John: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34–35).

18. 37. All these precepts of love—that is, of charity—which are so great and such that whatever a man thinks he does well, if it is done without love, is in no way done well: these precepts of love, then, would be given to men in vain if they had no free choice of the will. But since they are given through the law, both old and new (although in the new there came the grace that was promised in the old), and since the law without grace is the letter that kills, but in grace is the spirit that gives life—whence, in men, is the love of God and of neighbor, if not from God himself? For if it is not from God, but from men, the Pelagians have won; but if it is from God, we have overcome the Pelagians.

Let the apostle John, then, sit as judge between us, and say to us: Beloved, let us love one another. When, at these words of John, they begin to lift themselves up and say, Why is this commanded us, if not because we have it of ourselves to love one another?, the same John at once follows, confounding them and saying: because love is from God (1 John 4:7). It is therefore not from us, but from God. Why, then, was it said, Let us love one another, because love is from God, if not because by the precept free choice is admonished to seek the gift of God? And indeed it would be admonished altogether without fruit for itself, unless it first received some love, so that it might seek to have added to it that by which it might fulfill what was commanded. When it is said, Let us love one another, that is law; when it is said, because love is from God, that is grace. For the Wisdom of God carries law and mercy upon her tongue (Prov 3:16 (according to the LXX)). Hence it is written in the Psalm: For he who gave the law will also give a blessing (Ps 84 (83):8).

18. 38. Let no one, then, deceive you, my brothers: for we would not love God, unless he himself first loved us. The same John shows this most plainly, and says: Let us love, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). Grace makes us lovers of the law, but the law itself without grace makes only transgressors. And what the Lord says to his disciples, You did not choose me, but I chose you (John 15:16), indicates nothing else to us. For if we first loved him, so that by this merit he himself might love us, then we first chose him, so that we might deserve to be chosen by him. But he who is the Truth says otherwise, and most plainly contradicts this vanity of men: You did not choose me, he says. If, then, you did not choose, without doubt you did not love either; for how would they choose him whom they did not love? But I, he says, chose you.

Did they not also choose him afterward, and prefer him to all the goods of this world? But because they were chosen, they chose: not because they chose, they were chosen. There would be no merit in the men who choose, unless the grace of God who chooses them went before. Hence the apostle Paul too, blessing the Thessalonians, says: May the Lord multiply you, and make you abound in love toward one another and toward all (1 Thess 3:12). He gave this blessing that we might love one another, who had given the law that we should love one another. Then, in another place, to the same people—because without doubt there was already in some of them what he had wished them to have—he says: We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith grows abundantly, and the love of each one of you for one another abounds (2 Thess 1:3). He said this lest perhaps, concerning so great a good which they had from God, they should be lifted up as though they had it of themselves. So then, because your faith grows abundantly, he says, and the love of each one of you for one another abounds, we ought to give thanks to God for you, not so to praise you as though you had this of yourselves.

18. 39. And to Timothy he says: For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control (2 Tim 1:7). In this testimony of the Apostle we must indeed take care not to suppose that we have not received the spirit of the fear of God, which without doubt is a great gift of God, of which the prophet Isaiah says: There shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of the fear of the Lord (Isa 11:2–3). It was not by that fear with which Peter denied Christ, but the spirit of that fear which we have received, of which Christ himself says: Fear him who has power to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear him (Luke 12:5). But he said this lest we should deny him by that fear by which Peter was troubled. For he wished this to be taken away from us, when he first said: Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do (Luke 12:4). The spirit of this fear we have not received, but of power and of love and of self-control.

Concerning this spirit the same Apostle says to the Romans: We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, patience proof, proof hope; and hope does not confound, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom 5:3–5). Therefore it is not through us, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, that it comes about, by that very love—which he shows to be a gift of God—that tribulation does not take away patience, but rather works it. To the Ephesians also: Peace, he says, to the brothers, and love with faith. Great goods: but let him say from whom? from God, he says, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 6:23). Therefore these great goods are nothing other than gifts of God.

19. 40. But it is no wonder if the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it (John 1:5). In John the light says: Behold what manner of love the Father has given us, that we should be called, and be, children of God (1 John 3:1). And in the Pelagians the darkness says: Love is ours from ourselves. If they had true love—that is, Christian love—they would know also whence they had it; just as the Apostle knew, who said: But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given us by God (1 Cor 2:12). John says: God is love (1 John 4:16). And the Pelagians say that they have even God himself not from God, but from their own selves; and although they confess that the knowledge of the law is ours from God, they want love to be from ourselves. Nor do they listen to the Apostle, who says: Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up (1 Cor 8:1).

What is more foolish—indeed, what is more insane and more foreign to the very holiness of love—than to confess that knowledge, which without love puffs up, is from God, and that love, which keeps knowledge from being able to puff up, is from ourselves? Likewise, since the Apostle says the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:19), what is more mad than to think that knowledge, which is to be made subject to love, is from God, and that love, which surpasses knowledge, is from men? But true faith and sound doctrine say that both are from God, for it is written: From his face knowledge and understanding proceed (Prov 2:6); it is written: Love is from God (1 John 4:7). And we read: The spirit of knowledge and godliness (Isa 11:2); we read: The spirit of power and of love and of self-control (2 Tim 1:7). But love is a greater gift than knowledge; for when knowledge is in a man, love is necessary, lest he be puffed up; but love is not envious, does not act wrongly, is not puffed up (1 Cor 13:4).

20. 41. I think I have disputed enough against those who vehemently assail the grace of God—the grace by which the human will is not taken away, but changed from evil to good, and, when it has become good, is helped; and I have disputed in such a way that not so much I, as the divine Scripture itself, has spoken with you by the most evident testimonies of the truth. And if this divine Scripture is carefully examined, it shows that God not only makes good the wills of men out of evil ones, and, once he has made them good, directs them to good acts and to eternal life, but also that those wills which preserve the creation of this world are so in the power of God that he makes them incline, wherever and whenever he wills, either to bestow benefits on some, or to inflict punishments on others, as he himself judges, by a judgment most hidden indeed, but without any doubt most just.

For we find that some sins are even the punishments of other sins; such are the vessels of wrath, which the Apostle says are fitted for destruction (Rom 9:22); such is the hardening of Pharaoh, the cause of which is also stated, namely to show forth God's power in him (See Exod 9:16); such is the flight of the Israelites from the face of their enemies from the city of Ai: for fear was produced in their mind so that they fled, and this came about so that the sin might be punished in the manner in which it had to be punished. Hence the Lord says to Joshua son of Nun: The sons of Israel will not be able to stand before the face of their enemies (Josh 7:4–5. 10–12). What does it mean, they will not be able to stand? Why did they not stand through free choice, but, their will troubled through fear, did they flee, except because God has dominion even over the wills of men, and turns whom he wills to dread when he is angry?

Did not the enemies of the Israelites fight by their own will against the people of God, whom Joshua son of Nun was leading? And yet Scripture says that it was brought about by the Lord that their heart should be strengthened, that they should go out to meet Israel in battle, that they might be destroyed (Josh 11:20; see 7). Did not the wicked man, the son of Gera, by his own will curse King David? And yet what does David say, full of true and deep and devout wisdom? What does he say to the man who wished to strike the one cursing him? What have I to do with you, he says, O sons of Zeruiah? Let him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord has bidden him curse David. And who shall say to him: Why have you done so? (2 Sam 16:10).

Then the divine Scripture, commending the king's full sentence by repeating it as if from a fresh start, says: And David said to Abishai and to all his servants: Behold, my son, who came forth from my womb, seeks my life; and how much more now this son of Gera. Let him alone, let him curse, for the Lord has bidden him; that the Lord may see my humiliation, and may render me good for his cursing this day (2 Sam 16:11–12). In what sense the Lord bade this man curse David—who that is wise will understand? For he did not bid it by commanding, where obedience would be praised; but because by his own just and hidden judgment he inclined to this sin the man's will, which was evil by its own fault, for that reason it was said, the Lord bade him.

For if he had obeyed God commanding, he would be praised rather than punished, just as we know that he was afterward punished for this sin. Nor is the reason left unstated why the Lord bade him in this way curse David—that is, sent or let loose his evil heart into this sin: that the Lord may see my humiliation, he says, and may render me good for his cursing this day (See 2 Sam 16:12).

See, then, how it is proved that God uses the hearts even of the wicked for the praise and aid of the good. So he used Judas, who betrayed Christ; so he used the Jews, who crucified Christ. And what great goods he thereby bestowed on the peoples who were to believe! He who uses even the devil himself, most evil though he is, yet for the best ends, to exercise and prove the faith and godliness of the good—not for his own sake, who knows all things before they come to be, but for ours, for whom it was necessary that we be dealt with in this way. Did not Absalom by his own will choose the counsel that worked against him? And yet he did so because the Lord had heard his father praying that this might happen. On account of this Scripture says: And the Lord commanded that the good counsel of Ahithophel be brought to nothing, that the Lord might bring all evils upon Absalom (2 Sam 17:14). He called it good counsel because for the time it profited the cause, since it was for Absalom against his father, against whom he had rebelled, so that he might be able to crush him, had not the Lord brought to nothing the counsel that Ahithophel had given, by working in the heart of Absalom that he should reject such counsel and choose another that was not to his advantage.

21. 42. Who would not tremble at these divine judgments, by which God works in the hearts even of evil men whatever he wills, yet rendering to them according to their merits? Rehoboam the son of Solomon spurned the wholesome counsel of the elders, which they had given him, that he should not deal harshly with the people, and rather yielded to the words of his contemporaries, answering threateningly those to whom he should have answered gently (See 1 Kgs 12:1–11).

Whence this, if not by his own will? But hence the ten tribes of Israel withdrew from him and set up another king for themselves, Jeroboam, so that the will of an angry God might be done, which he had also foretold would come to be. For what does Scripture say? And the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turning from the Lord, that he might establish his word which he had spoken by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat (1 Kgs 12:15). That, indeed, was so done through the will of man that it was nonetheless a turning from the Lord.

Read the books of Chronicles, and you will find written in the second book: And the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and of the Arabs who were neighbors to the Ethiopians; and they came up into the land of Judah, and laid it waste, and carried off all the substance that was found in the king's house (2 Chr 21:16–17). Here it is shown that God stirs up enemies to lay waste those lands which he judges worthy of such punishment. But did the Philistines and the Arabs come into the land of Judah to lay it waste without their own will, or did they so come by their own will that what was written is false—that the Lord stirred up their spirit to do this? On the contrary, both are true, because they both came by their own will, and the Lord stirred up their spirit. This may also be put thus: the Lord both stirred up their spirit, and yet they came by their own will. For the Almighty works in the hearts of men even the movement of their will, that he may work through them what he himself willed to work through them, who knows not how to will anything at all unjustly.

What of the fact that the man of God said to King Amaziah: Let not the army of Israel go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel, with all the sons of Ephraim; for if you think to prevail with them, God will turn you to flight before your enemies, since it is in God's power either to help or to put to flight (2 Chr 25:7–8)? How does the power of God help some in battle by giving them confidence, and turn others to flight by sending fear upon them, except because he who in heaven and on earth did whatever he willed (See Ps 135 (134):6) works also in the hearts of men?

We read what Joash king of Israel said, sending a messenger to King Amaziah, who wished to fight with him. For after some other things he said: Now stay in your house. Why do you provoke evil, so that you fall, you and Judah with you? (2 Kgs 14:9–10). Then Scripture added: And Amaziah did not listen; for it was from God, that he might be delivered into their hands, because they had sought the gods of Edom (2 Chr 25:20). Behold, God, willing to punish the sin of idolatry, worked this in the heart of the one with whom he was surely justly angry, that he should not listen to the wholesome admonition, but, despising it, should go to war, where he would fall with his army.

Through the prophet Ezekiel God says: And if the prophet goes astray and speaks, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel (Ezek 14:9). In the book of Esther it is written—she was a woman of the people of Israel who in the land of captivity had been made the wife of the foreign king Ahasuerus—in her book, then, it is written that, when she was under the necessity of interceding for her people, whom the king had ordered to be slaughtered wherever they were in his kingdom, she prayed to the Lord; for great necessity compelled her to dare to go in to him contrary to the king's command and contrary to her own custom. And see what Scripture says: And he looked upon her like a bull in the onrush of his indignation, and the queen was afraid, and her color changed through faintness, and she leaned upon the head of her maid who went before her; and God turned, and changed his indignation into gentleness (Esth 15:4–19).

It is written also in the Proverbs of Solomon: As the rush of water, so is the heart of the king in the hand of God; wherever he wills, he will turn it (Prov 21:1). And in the one hundred and fifth Psalm it is read, said of the Egyptians, what God did to them: And he turned their heart to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants (Ps 105 (104):25). In the apostolic writings also, see what is written; in the Epistle of the apostle Paul to the Romans: Therefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness. Likewise a little after: For this God gave them up to passions of shame. Likewise a little after: As they did not see fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do the things that are not fitting (Rom 1:24. 26. 28).

And to the Thessalonians, in the second Epistle, he says of certain men: Because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and therefore God will send them a working of error, that they may believe a lie, so that all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but consented to iniquity (2 Thess 2:10–11).

21. 43. By these and similar testimonies of the divine writings—which it would be too long to recall in full—it is sufficiently made manifest, as I judge, that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills wherever he wills, whether to good things out of his mercy, or to evil things according to their merits—by a judgment, indeed, sometimes open, sometimes hidden, but always just. For it ought to be fixed and immovable in your heart that there is no iniquity with God (See Rom 9:14). And thus, when you read in the writings of truth that men are deceived by God, or that their hearts are made dull or hardened, do not doubt that their evil merits went before, so that they justly suffered these things; lest you fall into that proverb of Solomon: A man's folly violates his own ways; but in his heart he lays the blame on God (Prov 19:3).

But grace is not given according to the merits of men, otherwise grace would no longer be grace; for it is called grace because it is given freely. But if he is able, whether through angels, good or evil, or in any other manner whatever, to work even in the hearts of the wicked according to their merits—whose wickedness he himself did not make, but which was either drawn from Adam by origin, or grew through their own will—what wonder is it if, through the Holy Spirit, he works good in the hearts of his elect, who worked that those hearts themselves should be good out of evil?

22. 44. But let men suspect whatever good merits they think go before, so that they may be justified through the grace of God, not understanding that, in saying this, they do nothing other than deny grace. But, as I have said, let them suspect what they will about adults; concerning infants, certainly, the Pelagians find nothing to answer, infants who have no will at all in receiving grace whose merit they could say went before, and whom we even see, moreover, resisting with weeping when they are baptized and receive the divine sacraments—which would be imputed to them as a great sin of impiety, if they were already using free choice; and yet grace clings even to those who resist, with most plainly no good merit going before, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

And sometimes this grace is bestowed on the children of unbelievers, when by the hidden providence of God they come, in one way or another, into the hands of the devout; but sometimes the children of believers do not obtain it, some impediment existing so that aid cannot be brought to those in peril. These things, indeed, come about by the hidden providence of God, whose judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out (See Rom 11:33); and that the Apostle might say this, consider what he said before. For he was treating of the Jews and the Gentiles, when he wrote to the Romans—that is, to the Gentiles—and he says: For as you once did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy through their unbelief, so these too have now not believed, through the mercy shown to you, that they also may obtain mercy; for God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all (Rom 11:30–32). And when he had considered what he said, marveling at the certain truth, indeed, but the great profundity, of his statement—how God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all, as though doing evil things that good things might come—he at once cried out and said: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Rom 11:33).

For perverse men, not considering these unsearchable judgments and untraceable ways, and prone to find fault, not fit to understand, used to think and to boast that the Apostle said: Let us do evil, that good may come (Rom 3:8). God forbid that the Apostle should say this; but men, not understanding, thought it was said when they heard what the Apostle said: But the law entered in, that the offense might abound; but where the offense abounded, grace abounded all the more (Rom 5:20). But surely grace brings it about that good things are now done by those who did evil things; not that they should persevere in evils, and think that good things are rendered to them. And so they ought not to say: Let us do evil, that good may come; but: We did evil, and good came; now let us do good, that in the world to come we may receive good for good, who in this world receive good for evil.

On account of this it is written in the Psalm: Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord (Ps 101 (100):1). And so the Son of man first came into the world not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:17)—this on account of mercy; but afterward, on account of judgment, he is to come to judge the living and the dead; although even in this present time that salvation does not come about without judgment, but a hidden one; hence he says: For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind (John 9:39).

23. 45. Refer it, then, to the hidden judgments of God, when you see, in one and the same case—which certainly all infants have, drawing the hereditary evil from Adam—that aid is brought to this one that he may be baptized, and not brought to that one that he may die in that very bondage; that this one is left baptized in this life, whom God foreknew would be ungodly, but that one is, when baptized, snatched out of this life, lest wickedness alter his understanding (Wis 4:11); and do not, in these matters, ascribe injustice or folly to God, with whom is the fount of justice and of wisdom; but, as I exhorted you at the beginning of this discourse (See 1.1), walk in that to which you have attained, and this too God will reveal to you (See Phil 3:16. 15)—and if not in this life, certainly in the other: for there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed (Matt 10:26).

When, then, you hear the Lord saying, I the Lord have deceived that prophet (Ezek 14:9), and what the Apostle says, he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens (Rom 9:18), in the one whom he permits to be deceived or hardened, believe that his evil merits are the cause; but in the one on whom he has mercy, faithfully and without doubt acknowledge the grace of God, who renders not evil for evil, but good for evil. Nor on that account take away free choice from Pharaoh, because in many places God says: I hardened Pharaoh; or: I have hardened, or: I will harden the heart of Pharaoh (Exod 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:20. 27). For Pharaoh himself did not on that account fail to harden his own heart. For this too is read of him, when the gadfly was taken away from the Egyptians, Scripture saying: And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, and would not let the people go (Exod 8:32). And thus both God hardened him by a just judgment, and Pharaoh himself by free choice.

Be certain, then, that your labor will not be in vain, if, advancing in your good resolve, you persevere to the end. For God, who now does not render to those whom he frees according to their works, will then render to each one according to his works (Matt 16:27). God will indeed render evil for evil, because he is just; and good for evil, because he is good; and good for good, because he is good and just; only he will not render evil for good, because he is not unjust. He will render, then, evil for evil, punishment for injustice; and he will render good for evil, grace for injustice; and he will render good for good, grace for grace (See John 1:16).

24. 46. Go over this book again and again; and if you understand, give thanks to God; but where you do not understand, pray that you may understand, for the Lord will give you understanding. Remember that it is written: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach, and it will be given him (Jas 1:5). This is the wisdom that comes down from above, as the apostle James himself says. But that other wisdom drive away from yourselves, and pray that it may not be in you, which he detested, when he says: But if you have bitter zeal, and there are contentions among you, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but earthly, animal, devilish. For where there is zeal and contention, there is inconstancy and every depraved work. But the wisdom that is from above is first chaste, then peaceable, modest, open to persuasion, full of mercy and good fruits, beyond all judging, without dissimulation (Jas 3:14–17). What good, then, will he not have who asks for this wisdom and obtains it from the Lord? And from this understand grace; for if this wisdom were from ourselves, it would not be from above, nor would it have to be asked for from God himself, who created us. Brothers, pray also for us, that we may live with self-control and devoutly and justly in this world, awaiting that blessed hope, and the manifestation of the Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:12–13), to whom is honor and glory and kingship with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.