1. 1. We must now discuss perseverance more carefully, for in the earlier book, when we were treating of the beginning of faith, we also said something about this. We assert, then, that the perseverance by which one perseveres in Christ to the end is a gift of God. By the end I mean that point at which this life is finished, the life in which alone there is danger of falling. And so, as long as anyone is living this life, it is uncertain whether he has received this gift. For if he falls before he dies, he is certainly said not to have persevered, and this is said most truly. How then is one who has not persevered to be said to have received or had perseverance? For if someone has continence and then falls away from it and becomes incontinent, and likewise if he has righteousness, or patience, or faith itself, he is rightly said to have had it and not to have it now: for he was continent, or was righteous, or patient, or faithful, as long as he was so; but when he ceased to be so, he is no longer what he was. Yet one who has not persevered, how was he persevering, since it is by persevering that anyone shows himself to be persevering, which this person did not do?

But lest anyone object and say: If, from the time he became faithful, someone lived, say, ten years, and in the middle of that time fell away from the faith, did he not persevere for five years? I do not contend about words, if even that is to be thought of as a perseverance, a perseverance of its own time. This perseverance of which we are now speaking, by which one perseveres in Christ to the end, can in no way be said to have been had by one who has not persevered to the end. Rather, a man faithful for one year had it, or for even less than can be imagined, if he lived faithfully until he died, than a man of many years, if a little before his death he fell away from the stability of faith.

2. 2. This being established, let us see whether this perseverance, of which it was said, He who endures to the end will be saved (Matt 10:22), is a gift of God. For if it is not, how is it true what the Apostle says: It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake (Phil 1:29)? For of these one pertains to the beginning, the other to the end; yet both are a gift of God, since both are said to have been granted, as we have already said above Augustine, De praed. sanct. 2.4.. For what is a truer beginning for a Christian than to believe in Christ? What better end is there than to suffer for Christ? But as for what pertains to believing in Christ, some sort of objection was found, so that not the beginning but the increase of faith was called a gift of God; and to that opinion, by the Lord's gift, we have replied fully and more than fully.

But what can be said, why perseverance to the end should not be granted in Christ to one to whom it is granted to suffer for Christ, or, to put it more plainly, to one to whom it is granted to die for Christ? For the apostle Peter too, showing that this is a gift of God, says: It is better, if the will of God should so will, to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong (See 1 Pet 3:17). When he says, if the will of God should so will, he shows that this is granted by God, and not to all the saints, that they should suffer for Christ. For those whom the will of God does not wish to come to the experience and glory of suffering do not therefore fail to come to the kingdom of God, if they persevere in Christ to the end. But who would say that this perseverance is not granted to those who die in Christ from bodily illness or by any other chance, when something far more difficult is granted to those by whom even death itself is undertaken for Christ?

For it is much more difficult to persevere where the persecutor is at work to prevent one from persevering, and for that reason one endures even to death in order to persevere. The former perseverance, therefore, is more difficult to have, the latter easier; but for him to whom nothing is difficult, it is easy to grant both. For God promised this when he said, I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not turn from me (Jer 32:40). And what else is this than: Such and so great will be my fear, which I will put in their hearts, that they may cling to me perseveringly?

2. 3. But why is this perseverance asked of God, if it is not given by God? Or is this petition too a mockery, when that is asked of him which is known not to be his to give, but to be in the power of man without his giving it? Just as that thanksgiving too would be a mockery, if thanks are given to God for what he himself has not granted nor done. But what I said there Augustine, De praed. sanct. 19.39., I say here too: Do not be deceived, says the Apostle, God is not mocked (Gal 6:7).

O man, God is a witness not only of your words but also of your thoughts. If you ask anything truly and faithfully of so great a rich one, believe that you receive from him from whom you ask what you ask. Do not honor him with your lips and exalt yourself above him in your heart, believing that what you pretend to ask of him is from yourself. Or is this perseverance perhaps not asked of him? Whoever says this is now to be refuted not by my arguments but to be weighed down by the prayers of the saints. For is there any of them who does not ask of God that he may persevere in him, since in that very prayer which is called the Lord's, because the Lord taught it, when it is prayed by the saints, hardly anything else is understood to be asked but perseverance?

2. 4. Read somewhat more attentively his exposition in the book of the blessed martyr Cyprian, which he composed on this matter, whose title is On the Lord's Prayer; and see how many years before, against the poisons of the Pelagians that were to come, what an antidote was prepared. For there are three things, as you know, which the catholic Church especially defends against them: of which one is that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, since the gifts of God are, and by the grace of God are conferred, even all the merits of the righteous; the second is that, in whatever righteousness, no one lives in this corruptible body without any sins whatsoever; the third is that man is born liable to the sin of the first man and bound by the chain of damnation, unless the guilt which is contracted by generation is loosed by regeneration.

Of these three, only the one I placed last is not treated in the above-mentioned book of the glorious martyr; but the other two are discussed there with such clarity that the above-mentioned heretics, the new enemies of the grace of Christ, are found to have been refuted long before they were born. In these merits of the saints, then, which are nothing but gifts of God, he speaks thus of perseverance also being a gift of God.

We say, he says, 'Hallowed be your name': not that we wish for God that he be hallowed by our prayers, but that we ask of him that his name be hallowed in us. But by whom is God hallowed, who himself hallows? Yet because he himself said, 'Be holy, for I also am holy' (Lev 19:2), this we ask and beg, that we who have been sanctified in baptism may persevere in what we have begun to be Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 12.. And a little later, still arguing about this very matter, and teaching us to ask perseverance of the Lord, which he would in no way rightly and truly do unless this too were his gift: We pray, he says, that this sanctification may abide in us; and because the Lord and our judge threatens the man healed and made alive by him not to sin, lest something worse befall him (See Jn 5:14), we make this petition in continual prayers, this we beg day and night, that the sanctification and the making-alive which is received from the grace of God may be preserved by his protection.

This teacher understands, therefore, that we ask of him perseverance in sanctification, that is, that we may persevere in sanctification, when, being sanctified, we say, Hallowed be your name (Matt 6:9). For what else is it to ask for what we have received, except that this too may be granted us, that we may not cease to have it?

As, therefore, a holy man, when he asks God that he may be holy, certainly asks that he may remain holy, so too the chaste man, when he asks that he may be chaste; the continent man, that he may be continent; the righteous, that he may be righteous; the devout, that he may be devout; and the rest, which against the Pelagians we defend as gifts of God: they ask, without doubt, that they may persevere in those goods which they know they have received. And if they receive this, surely they receive perseverance itself too, the great gift of God by which his other gifts are preserved.

2. 5. What of this? When we say, Your kingdom come (Matt 6:10), do we ask anything else but that it may come to us also, which we do not doubt is to come to all the saints? Therefore here too, those who are already holy, what do they pray but that they may persevere in that holiness which has been given them? For otherwise the kingdom of God will not come to them, which it is certain is to come not to others but to those who persevere to the end.

3. 6. The third petition is: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:10); or, as is read in most manuscripts and is more often used by those who pray, as in heaven so on earth; which most understand to mean: As the holy angels, so let us too do your will. But that teacher and martyr wishes heaven and earth to be understood as spirit and flesh, and that we pray this, that we may do the will of God with both in agreement Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 16.. He saw in these words another sense as well, agreeable to the soundest faith, of which we have already spoken above See Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 8.15.: namely, that the faithful are understood to pray for unbelievers, who are still earth, bearing only the earthly man by their first birth, while the faithful, having put on the heavenly man, are not without reason called by the name of heaven Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 17.. Here he plainly shows that the beginning of faith too is a gift of God, since the holy Church prays not only for the faithful, that faith may be increased or may persevere in them, but also for unbelievers, that they may begin to have the faith which they did not have at all, and against which they were moreover bearing hostile hearts.

But now we are discussing not the beginning of faith, of which we have already said much in the previous book, but that perseverance which is to be had to the end, which the saints too certainly ask for, those who do the will of God, when they say in prayer, Your will be done. For since it is already done in them, why do they still ask that it be done, unless that they may persevere in what they have begun to be? Although here it can be said that the saints ask not that the will of God be done in heaven, but that it be done on earth as in heaven: that is, that earth may imitate heaven, that is, that man may imitate the angel, or the unbeliever the believer; and that by this the saints ask that what is not yet may come to be, not that what is may persevere.

For however much men may excel in holiness, they are not yet equal to the angels of God; therefore the will of God is not yet done in them as it is in heaven.

But if this is so, in that part in which we wish that men may be made faithful from being unbelievers, not perseverance but a beginning seems to be wished for; but in that part in which we wish that men in doing the will of God may be made equal to the angels of God, when the saints pray this, they are shown to be praying for perseverance; since no one comes to that highest blessedness which is in the kingdom, unless in the holiness which he took up on earth he has persevered to the end.

4. 7. The fourth petition is: Give us this day our daily bread (Matt 6:11). Here the blessed Cyprian shows how perseverance is understood to be asked for in this too. For among other things he says: We ask that this bread be given us daily, lest we who are in Christ and daily receive the Eucharist as food of salvation, if some graver offense should intervene, while we are kept back and, not communicating, are barred from the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 18.. These words of the holy man of God indicate that the saints ask perseverance straight from the Lord, when with this intention they say, Give us this day our daily bread; that they may not be separated from the body of Christ, but may remain in that holiness in which they commit no crime by which they might deserve to be separated from it.

5. 8. In the fifth place of the prayer we say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). In this petition alone perseverance is not found to be asked for. For the sins which we pray to be forgiven us are past; but perseverance, which saves forever, is necessary indeed for the time of this life, not however when it is finished, but for what remains of it up to its end. It is worth while, nonetheless, to consider for a moment how in this petition too the tongue of Cyprian, like the most invincible weapon of truth, was even then transfixing the heretics who were to come long afterward. For the Pelagians dare to say this too, that some righteous man has no sin at all in this life, and that in such men the Church already exists at the present time, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph 5:27), the Church which is the one and only bride of Christ: as though she who throughout the whole earth says what she has learned from him were not his bride: Forgive us our debts.

But notice how the most glorious Cyprian destroys these men. For when he was expounding that very place of the Lord's Prayer, he says among other things: How necessarily, how providently and wholesomely are we admonished that we are sinners, who are compelled to pray for our sins: so that, while pardon is asked of God, the mind may recall its own conscience. Lest anyone please himself as if innocent, and by exalting himself perish the more, he is instructed and taught that he sins daily, since he is bidden to pray daily for his sins. So too John, setting it down in his Epistle, said: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us' 1 Jn 1:8; Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 22.: and the rest, which it would be tedious to insert here.

5. 9. Now indeed when the saints say, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matt 6:13), what else do they pray but that they may persevere in holiness? For surely, this gift of God being granted them, which is shown clearly enough to be a gift of God when it is asked of him, this gift of God being granted them, that they be not led into temptation, no one of the saints fails to hold the perseverance of holiness to the end. For no one ceases to persevere in the Christian purpose unless he is first led into temptation. If, therefore, what he prays be granted him, that he be not led in, surely he persists, by God's gift, in the sanctification which by God's gift he received.

6. 10. But these brothers, as you write, do not want this perseverance to be preached in such a way that it cannot either be earned by supplication or lost by obstinacy Hilary, Letter 226.3 (among Augustine's letters).. Here they pay too little careful attention to what they are saying. For we are speaking of that perseverance by which one perseveres to the end: which, if it is given, perseverance to the end has occurred; but if there has not been perseverance to the end, it has not been given; which we have already dealt with sufficiently above (See 1.1). Let men therefore not say that perseverance to the end has been given to anyone, except when the end itself has come, and the one to whom it was given has been found to have persevered to the end.

We do indeed call chaste the man whom we know to be chaste, whether or not he will remain in that same chastity; and if he has any other divine gift that can be held and lost, we say he has it as long as he has it; and if he has lost it, we say he had it. But perseverance to the end, since no one has it except the one who perseveres to the end, many can have, none can lose. For it is not to be feared that, when a man has persevered to the end, some evil will may arise in him, so that he does not persevere to the end. This gift of God, then, can be earned by supplication; but when it has been given, it cannot be lost by obstinacy. For when anyone has persevered to the end, he can neither lose this gift, nor the others which he could lose before the end. How, then, can that be lost through which it comes about that even what could be lost is not lost?

6. 11. But lest perhaps it be said that perseverance to the end is indeed not lost once it has been given, that is, once there has been perseverance to the end, but that it is in a certain way lost then, when a man acts through obstinacy so that he cannot attain to it: as we say that a man who has not persevered to the end has lost eternal life, or the kingdom of God; not what he had already received and had, but what he would have received and had, if he had persevered. Let us remove disputes about words, and grant that even some things which are not had, but are hoped to be had, can be said to be lost. Let whoever dares tell me whether God cannot give what he has commanded to be asked of him. Whoever is wise about this, I do not say is foolish, but is mad. But God has commanded that his saints say to him in prayer, Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13). Whoever, therefore, is heard when he asks this is not led into the temptation of obstinacy, by which he might lose, or deserve to lose, the perseverance of holiness.

6. 12. But indeed, each one by his own will deserts God, so that he deservedly is deserted by God. Who would deny this? But for this reason we ask not to be led into temptation, that this may not happen. And if we are heard, surely it does not happen, because God does not permit it to happen. For nothing happens except what either he himself does, or himself permits to happen. He is able, therefore, both to turn wills from evil to good, and to convert those inclined to a fall, and to direct them into a course pleasing to himself.

It is not in vain that it is said to him, O God, you will turn and give us life (Ps 85:6 (84:7)); not in vain that it is said, Let not my foot be moved (Ps 66:9 (65:9)); not in vain that it is said, Give me not over, O Lord, from my desire to the sinner (Ps 140:8 (139:9)); and finally, not to recall many texts, since perhaps more occur to you, not in vain is it said, Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13).

For whoever is not led into temptation is surely not led into the temptation of his own evil will; and whoever is not led into the temptation of his own evil will is led into no temptation at all. For each one, as it is written, is tempted by his own desire, being lured and enticed; but God tempts no one (Jas 1:14, 13); with a harmful temptation, that is. For there is also a useful one, by which we are not deceived or overwhelmed, but tested, according to what is said: Prove me, O Lord, and try me (Ps 26:2 (25:2)).

With that harmful temptation, then, which the Apostle signifies when he says, lest somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor should be in vain (1 Thess 3:5), God, as I have said, tempts no one, that is, leads or brings no one into temptation. For to be tempted and not to be led into temptation is not an evil, but rather a good: for this is to be tested.

So then, when we say to God, Lead us not into temptation, what do we say but: Do not allow us to be led? Hence some pray thus, and it is read in several manuscripts, and so the most blessed Cyprian set it down: Do not suffer us to be led into temptation. In the Greek Gospel, however, I have nowhere found anything but: Lead us not into temptation.

We live more safely, therefore, if we give everything to God, and do not commit ourselves partly to him and partly to ourselves: which this venerable martyr saw. For when he was expounding the same place of the Prayer, he says after the rest: But when we ask that we may not come into temptation, we are admonished of our weakness and frailty, while we so ask, that no one may insolently exalt himself, that no one may proudly and arrogantly take anything to himself, that no one may count the glory of confession or of suffering as his own: since the Lord himself, teaching humility, said, 'Watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak' (Matt 26:41): so that, while humble and submissive confession goes before, and everything is given to God, whatever is asked in supplication with the fear of God may be granted by his own loving-kindness Cyprian, De orat. Dom. 26..

7. 13. If, then, there were no other proofs, this Lord's Prayer alone would suffice us for the case of grace which we are defending: since it leaves us nothing in which we may glory as in our own. For inasmuch as it shows that even our not departing from God must be given only by God, when it shows that it must be asked of God. For whoever is not led into temptation does not depart from God. This is not at all within the powers of free choice, such as they now are: it had been so in man before he fell.

Yet how great a power this freedom of the will had in the excellence of that first condition appeared in the angels, who, when the devil fell with his own, stood fast in the truth, and deserved to attain to the perpetual security of not falling, in which we are most certain they now are. But after the fall of man, God willed that it should pertain only to his grace that man should come to him, nor did he will it to pertain to anything but his grace that man should not depart from him.

7. 14. This grace he placed in him in whom we have obtained our lot, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things (Eph 1:11). And by this, as he works that we may come, so he works that we may not depart. For which reason it was said to him through the Prophet: Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, and upon the son of man whom you have confirmed for yourself; and we will not depart from you (Ps 80:18-19 (79:18-19)). This man is certainly not the first Adam, in whom we departed from him, but the last Adam, upon whom his hand is laid, that we may not depart from him.

For the whole Christ is with his members, on account of the Church, which is his body, his fullness (See Eph 1:23). When, therefore, the hand of God is laid upon him, that we may not depart from God, the work of God surely reaches to us (for this is the hand of God): by which work of God it comes about that we are abiding in Christ with God, not, as in Adam, departing from God. For in Christ we have obtained our lot, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. This, then, is the hand of God, not ours, that we may not depart from God. This, I say, is the hand of him who said, I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not turn from me (Jer 32:40).

7. 15. For which reason he also willed that it be asked of him that we be not led into temptation: because, even if we are not led in, in no way do we depart from him. This could have been given us even without our praying; but by our prayer he willed us to be admonished from whom we receive these benefits. For from whom do we receive them, except from him from whom we are commanded to ask? In this matter, by all means, let the Church not look for laborious arguments, but let it attend to its daily prayers.

It prays that the unbelieving may believe: therefore God turns them to faith. It prays that believers may persevere: therefore God grants perseverance to the end. God foreknew that he would do these things: this is the predestination of the saints, whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and blameless before him in love; predestining them to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he favored them in his beloved Son, in whom they have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which abounded toward them in all wisdom and prudence; that he might make known to them the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to restore all things in Christ, the things in heaven and the things on earth, in him; in whom we also have obtained our lot, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things (Eph 1:4-11). Against this so clear trumpet of truth, what man of sober and watchful faith would admit any human voices?

8. 16. But "why," he says, "is the grace of God not given according to the merits of men?" I answer: Because God is merciful. "Why then," he says, "not to all?" And here I answer: Because God is a judge. And by this, grace is both given freely by him, and by his just judgment in others it is shown what grace confers on those to whom it is given. Let us therefore not be ungrateful that, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace (Eph 1:5-6), the merciful God frees so many from so well-deserved a perdition, so that if he freed no one from it, he would not be unjust. For from one all were judged to go into condemnation that is not unjust, but just. Let the one, then, who is freed love grace; let the one who is not freed acknowledge his debt. If in remitting a debt goodness is seen, and in exacting it fairness, nowhere is injustice found with God.

8. 17. "But why," he says, "in the one and the same case, not only of infants but even of twins, so different a judgment?" Is not the like question this: why, in a different case, the same judgment?

Let us recall, then, those laborers in the vineyard who labored the whole day, and those who labored for one hour: surely the case of the labor expended is different, and yet the judgment in paying the wage is the same. Did they too here hear from the householder, when they murmured, anything but: This is my will?

For such was his bounty toward some, that toward others there was no injustice. And these indeed are both among good things; nevertheless, as far as justice and grace are concerned, it can rightly be said even by the guilty one who is freed to the guilty one who is condemned: Take what is yours and go; but to this one I wish to give what is not owed. Or is it not lawful for me to do what I wish? Or is your eye evil because I am good? (Matt 20:14-15). Here, if that one says, "Why not to me also?" he will deservedly hear: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20).

And him you certainly perceive, in the one of you, to be a most kindly giver, but in you a most just exactor, and yet in no one unjust. For since he would be just even if he punished both, the one who is freed has reason to give thanks; the one who is condemned has nothing to reproach.

8. 18. "But if this was now fitting," he says, "that, by condemning not all, he might show what was owed to all, and thus more graciously commend his grace to the vessels of mercy, why, in the same case, will he punish me rather than that one, or free that one rather than me?" This I do not say: if you ask why; because I confess that I do not find what to say. If you also ask why this is so; because in this matter, just as his anger is just, just as his mercy is great, so his judgments are inscrutable.

8. 19. Let him go still further and say: "Why did he not grant to some who worshiped him in good faith to persevere to the end?" Why do you think, unless because he does not lie who says, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us (1 Jn 2:19)? Are there then two natures of men? God forbid.

If there were two natures, there would be no grace at all: for a freeing given freely would be given to no one, if it were rendered as owed to a nature. But it seems to men that all who appear to be good and faithful ought to have received perseverance to the end. God, however, judged it better to mingle some who would not persevere with a fixed number of his saints; so that those for whom security in the temptation of this life is not expedient might not be able to be secure.

For what the Apostle says restrains many from a ruinous elation: Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12). But by his own will he falls who falls; and by the will of God he stands who stands. For God is able to make him stand (Rom 14:4): not, therefore, he himself, but God. Nevertheless it is good not to be high-minded, but to fear (See Rom 11:20).

And in his thought a person either falls or stands. But as the Apostle says, which I mentioned in the earlier book, We are not competent to think anything as if of ourselves, but our competence is from God (2 Cor 3:5). Following him, the blessed Ambrose dares to say also: For our heart is not in our power, nor our thoughts Ambrose, De fuga saec. 1.1.. And everyone who is humbly and truly devout feels this to be most true.

8. 20. Now Ambrose, in saying this, was speaking in that book which he wrote On Flight from the World, teaching that this world is to be fled not in body but in heart: which he argued could not be done except by the help of God. For he says: Often do we speak of fleeing this world; and would that, as the speaking is easy, so the disposition were guarded and careful: but, what is worse, often the enticement of earthly desires creeps in, and the overshadowing of vanities seizes the mind, so that what you strive to avoid, this you think and turn over in your soul. And this is difficult for a man to guard against, but impossible to put off.

Indeed, that this is a matter of wishing rather than of accomplishment, the Prophet testifies by saying, 'Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to greed' (Ps 119:36 (118:36)). For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power, which, suddenly overshadowing, confound the mind and the soul, and drag them elsewhere than you had purposed: they call us back to worldly things, insert worldly matters, force in pleasures, weave in enticements, and at the very time when we prepare to lift up the mind, beset with empty thoughts, we are for the most part cast down to earthly things Ambrose, De fuga saec. 1.1..

It is therefore not in the power of men, but in the power of God, that men may have the power to become sons of God (Jn 1:12). For they receive it from him who gives to the human heart devout thoughts, through which it may have faith, which works through love (See Gal 5:6): and for taking up and holding this good, and for advancing perseveringly in it to the end, we are not competent to think anything as if of ourselves, but our competence is from God (2 Cor 3:5), in whose power are our heart and our thoughts.

9. 21. And so, of two infants equally bound by original sin, why this one is taken up and that one left, and of two ungodly men already grown in age, why this one is so called that he follows the one who calls, while that one is either not called, or not called in that way, the judgments of God are inscrutable.

But of two devout men, why to this one perseverance to the end is granted, and to that one not granted, the judgments of God are more inscrutable still. Yet this ought to be most certain to the faithful, that this one is among the predestined, that one is not. For if they had been of us, says one of the predestined, who had drunk this secret from the Lord's breast, they would surely have remained with us (1 Jn 2:19). What is the meaning, I ask, of: They were not of us, for if they had been, they would surely have remained with us?

Were not both created by God, both born of Adam, both made from the earth, and had they not received souls of one and the same nature from him who said, I have made every breath (Isa 57:16)? Were not both, finally, called, and did they not follow the one who called, both justified from being ungodly, and both renewed through the washing of regeneration?

But if that man were to hear this, who knew without doubt what he was saying, he could answer and say: These things are true; according to all these things they were of us; nevertheless, according to a certain other distinction, they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. What, then, is this distinction? The Books of God lie open; let us not turn away our gaze: divine Scripture cries out; let us lend our ear. They were not of them, because they were not called according to the purpose: they were not chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, they had not obtained their lot in him, they were not predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things (Rom 8:28; Eph 1:4, 11). For if they were this, they would be of them, and would without doubt have remained with them.

9. 22. For—not to say how possible it is for God to convert to his faith the wills of men that are turned away and hostile, and to work in their hearts that they yield to no adversities, nor depart from him overcome by any temptation, since he can also do what the Apostle says, namely, not permit them to be tempted beyond what they can bear (See 1 Cor 10:13)—not to say this, then: God could certainly, foreknowing that they would fall, take them from this life before it happened.

Or shall we go back to disputing with what great absurdity it is said that the dead are judged even for those sins which God foreknew they would have committed if they had lived? This so abhors Christian sensibilities, or indeed merely human ones, that one is ashamed even to refute it. For why should it not also be said that the Gospel itself was preached, and is still even now preached, in vain, with so much labor and the sufferings of the saints, if men could be judged, even without having heard the Gospel, according to the obstinacy or obedience which God foreknew they would have had, if they had heard it? Nor would Tyre and Sidon be condemned, though more leniently than those cities in which mighty works were done by the Lord Christ while they did not believe: since if they had been done among them, they would have done penance in ashes and sackcloth (See Matt 11:21), as the words of truth declare, words in which the Lord Jesus shows us more deeply the mystery of predestination.

9. 23. For if it be asked of us why such great miracles were done among those who, seeing them, would not believe, and were not done among those who would believe if they saw them, what shall we answer? Are we going to say what I said in that book where I answered certain six questions of the pagans, yet without prejudice to the other causes that the prudent may trace out Augustine, Letter 102, q. 2, 8ff.? For this, as you know, when it was asked why Christ came after such long ages, I said: that in those times and in those places where his Gospel was not preached, he foreknew that all would be, at its preaching, such as many were in his bodily presence, who would not believe in him even when the dead had been raised by him. Likewise, a little later in the same book, and on the same question: What wonder, I say, if Christ in earlier ages knew the world to be so full of unbelievers that he rightly would not have it preached to those whom he foreknew would believe neither his words nor his miracles? Augustine, Letter 102, q. 2, 14.. These things, certainly, we cannot say of Tyre and Sidon, and in them we recognize that these divine judgments pertain to those causes of predestination, without prejudice to which hidden causes I then said I was answering those questions.

For it is easy for us to accuse the unbelief of the Jews, coming from free will, who would not believe though such great mighty works were done among them. This too the Lord rebukes when he reproaches them and says: Woe to you, Chorazin and Bethsaida: for if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes (Matt 11:21). But can we say that the Tyrians and Sidonians too, if such mighty works had been done among them, would not have believed, or would not have believed if they were done? when the Lord himself testifies of them that they would have done penance of great humility, if those signs of divine mighty works had been done among them.

And yet on the day of judgment they will be punished, though with a lesser punishment than those cities which, when mighty works were done among them, would not believe. For the Lord goes on to say: Nevertheless I tell you, it shall be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you (Matt 11:22). These, then, will be punished more severely, those more leniently; but punished nonetheless.

Further, if the dead are judged even according to the deeds they would have done if they had lived, then surely, since these would have been faithful if the Gospel had been preached to them with such great miracles, they are certainly not to be punished; but they will be punished; it is therefore false that the dead are judged according to what they would have done if the Gospel had reached them while alive. And if this is false, there is no reason to say of infants who perish, dying without baptism, that this happens in them by that desert, because God foreknew that, if they had lived and the Gospel had been preached to them, they would have heard it unbelievingly.

It remains, therefore, that they are held bound by original sin alone, and on account of this alone go into condemnation; which we see is granted, to others having the same case, only through the freely given grace of God in regeneration; and that, by his hidden but nonetheless just judgment, since there is no injustice with God (See Rom 9:14), some who would perish even after baptism by living most wickedly are nonetheless kept in this life until they perish, who would not perish if the death of the body, forestalling their fall, came to their aid. Since no dead person is judged by the good or evil things which he would have done had he not died: otherwise the Tyrians and Sidonians would pay penalties not according to what they did, but rather, according to what they would have done if those evangelical mighty works had been done among them, they would obtain salvation through great penitence and through faith in Christ.

10. 24. A certain not undistinguished catholic disputant expounded this place of the Gospel in such a way as to say that the Lord foreknew that the Tyrians and Sidonians would afterward have fallen away from the faith, once they had believed when miracles were done among them, so that it was rather out of mercy that he did not do those things there: since they would become liable to a graver punishment if they had abandoned the faith which they had held, than if they had at no time held it. In this opinion of a learned and very acute man, what merits are still to be sought, what does it concern me now to say, since it too supports us in what we are doing?

For if out of compassion the Lord did not do among these the mighty works through which they could have been made faithful, lest they be punished more gravely when they afterward became unbelievers, which he foreknew they would be, it is shown clearly enough that no one among the dead is judged for those sins which he foreknew he would have committed, if in some way help is given him that he may not commit them:

as Christ is said to have come to the aid of the Tyrians and Sidonians, if that opinion is true, whom he preferred not to come to faith rather than depart from faith by a much graver crime, which he had foreseen they would have done, if they had come to it.

Although, if it be said: Why was it not brought about that they should rather believe, and this be granted them, that before they abandoned the faith they should depart from this life? what could be answered, I do not know. For whoever says that it was granted as a benefit to those who would abandon the faith that they should not begin to have what they would forsake with graver impiety, indicates clearly enough that a man is not judged for what is foreknown that he would have done wickedly, if by some benefit it is provided that he not do it. Provision was therefore made also for that man who was taken away, lest wickedness alter his understanding (Wis 4:11).

But why provision was not made in this way for the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they should believe and be taken away, lest wickedness alter their understanding, perhaps he would answer who was pleased to solve this question in that manner: but as far as concerns what I am doing, I see it to be sufficient that, according to this opinion too, it is shown that men are not judged for those things which they did not do, even if they were foreseen as going to do them. Although, as I have said, this opinion, by which it is thought that in the dying or the dead the sins are punished which they were foreknown to be going to commit if they had lived, one is ashamed even to refute, lest we too seem to have reckoned it to be of any moment, which we have preferred to check with a discussion rather than to pass over in silence.

11. 25. Accordingly, as the Apostle says: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy (Rom 9:16): who comes to the aid even of infants, those whom he wills, though they neither will nor run, whom before the foundation of the world he chose in Christ, about to give them grace freely, that is, with no preceding merits of theirs, either of faith or of works: and to adults too, those whom he foresaw would believe at his miracles, if they had been done among them, but whom he does not will to help, he does not help; concerning whom, in his predestination, hiddenly indeed, but justly, he has judged otherwise.

For there is no injustice with God; but his judgments are inscrutable, and his ways past finding out (Rom 11:33): and all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps 25:10 (24:10)). Past finding out, therefore, is the mercy by which he has mercy on whom he wills, with no preceding merits of his; and past finding out the truth by which he hardens whom he wills (See Rom 9:18), by reason indeed of preceding merits, but merits for the most part common with the one on whom he has mercy:

as, of two twins, of whom one is taken up and one is left, the outcome is unlike, the merits common: in whom, nevertheless, the one is freed by the great goodness of God in such a way that the other is condemned by no injustice of his. For is there injustice with God? God forbid: but his ways are past finding out. And so let us believe without doubt his mercy in those who are freed, and his truth in those who are punished: and let us not try to scrutinize the inscrutable, or to trace out what is past finding out.

For out of the mouth of infants and sucklings he perfects his praise (See Ps 8:2 (8:3)), so that what we see in those whose freeing no good merits of theirs precede, and in those whose condemnation only the original sins common to both precede, this too we should in no way at all hesitate to acknowledge happens in adults also: that is, not thinking either that grace is given to anyone according to his own merits, or that anyone is punished except by his own merits, whether those who are freed and those who are punished have evil causes that are equal or unequal; so that he who seems to stand may take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12); and he who glories, not in himself, but let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31).

11. 26. But why do men, as you write, not allow the case of infants to be brought forward as an example for adults Hilary, Letter 226.8 (among Augustine's letters).—men who against the Pelagians do not doubt that there is original sin, which through one man entered into the world, and that from one all went into condemnation (See Rom 5:12-16)? This the Manicheans too do not accept, who not only hold all the Scriptures of the Old Testament in no authority, but even accept those which pertain to the New Testament in such a way that, by a certain privilege of their own—rather, sacrilege—they take what they wish and reject what they do not wish: against whom I was arguing in the books On Free Will, from which these men think they may prescribe to us See Augustine, De lib. arbit. 3.23.66-70.. For that reason I was unwilling to resolve in detail the most laborious questions that arose, lest the work be too long, where against men so perverse the authority of the divine testimonies did not aid me. And I was able, as I did, whatever of these might be true—things which I did not interpose definitively—nonetheless by a sure reasoning to conclude that in all of them God is to be praised, without any necessity of believing two substances, as they wish, coeternal, of good and evil, to be mingled together.

11. 27. Finally, in the first book of the Revisions, which work of mine you have not yet read, when I had come to revise those same books, that is, On Free Will, I spoke thus: In these books, I say, so many things were discussed that some questions arising incidentally, which I either could not unravel or which required a long discourse at the time, were so deferred that, from either side, or from all the sides of those same questions, in which it did not appear what better agreed with the truth, our reasoning was nonetheless brought to this conclusion: that whichever of them might be true, God should be believed, or even shown, to be worthy of praise. For that discussion was undertaken on account of those who deny that the origin of evil is derived from the free choice of the will, and who contend that God, if it is so, the creator of all natures, is to be blamed: wishing in that way, according to the error of their impiety (for they are Manicheans), to introduce a certain immutable nature of evil, coeternal with God Augustine, Retract. 1.9.2..

Likewise, after some space, in another place: Then it was said, I say, from what misery, most justly inflicted on sinners, the grace of God frees them: because man of his own accord, that is, by free choice, was able to fall, but not also to rise: to which misery of just condemnation belong the ignorance and difficulty which every man suffers from the beginning of his birth; nor is anyone freed from this evil except by the grace of God: which misery the Pelagians refuse to have descend from a just condemnation, denying original sin: although, even if ignorance and difficulty were natural beginnings of man, not even so should God be blamed, but praised, as we argued in the same third book.

Which discussion is to be held against the Manicheans, who do not accept the holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, in which original sin is recounted; and whatever is read about it in the apostolic writings, they contend was inserted with detestable shamelessness by corruptors of the Scriptures, as though it had not been said by the Apostles. But against the Pelagians this must be defended, which both Scriptures commend, which they profess to accept Augustine, Retract. 1.9.6..

These things I said in the first book of the Revisions, when I was revising the books On Free Will. Nor indeed are these the only things I said there about those books, but many others as well, which I thought it long, and not necessary, to insert into this work for you: which I think you too will judge, when you have read everything. Although, then, in the third book of On Free Will I argued about infants in such a way that, even if what the Pelagians say were true—that ignorance and difficulty, without which no man is born, are beginnings, not punishments, of nature—the Manicheans would nonetheless be overcome, who wish there to be two coeternal natures, namely of good and of evil: is the faith for that reason to be called into doubt or abandoned, which against the Pelagians themselves the catholic Church defends, the Church which asserts that there is original sin, whose guilt, contracted by generation, must be loosed by regeneration?

And if these men too confess this with us, so that together in this case we may destroy the error of the Pelagians, why do they think it is to be doubted that God also rescues infants, to whom he gives his grace through the sacrament of baptism, from the power of darkness, and transfers them into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Col 1:13)?

In this, then, that he gives it to some and does not give it to others, why are they unwilling to sing to the Lord mercy and judgment (See Ps 101:1 (100:1))? But why it is given to these rather than to those: Who has known the mind of the Lord? (Rom 11:34). Who can scrutinize the inscrutable? who trace out what is past finding out?

12. 28. It is concluded, therefore, that the grace of God is given not according to the merits of those who receive it, but according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise and glory of his grace itself (See Eph 1:5-6), so that he who glories may in no way glory in himself, but glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31): he who gives to men, to whom he wills, since he is merciful; and even if he does not give, he is just; and he does not give to those to whom he does not will, that he may make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy (Rom 9:23).

For by giving to some what they do not merit, he surely willed his grace to be freely given, and thereby true: by not giving to all, he shows what all merit. He is good in the benefit to some, just in the punishment of the rest: and good in all, since it is good when what is owed is rendered; and just in all, since it is just when what is not owed is given without fraud to anyone.

12. 29. But the grace of God without merits, that is, true grace, is defended even if baptized infants, as the Pelagians hold, are not rescued from the power of darkness, because they are bound liable to no sin, as the Pelagians think, but are only transferred into the kingdom of the Lord: for even so, the kingdom is given without any good merits to those to whom it is given, and without any evil merits it is not given to those to whom it is not given. This we are accustomed to say against these same Pelagians, when they object to us that we attribute the grace of God to fate, by saying that it is not given according to our merits. For they themselves rather attribute the grace of God in infants to fate, who say that there is fate where there is no merit. For no merits, even according to the Pelagians themselves, can be found in infants, why some of them are sent into the kingdom, and others alienated from the kingdom.

But just as now, in order to show that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, I preferred to defend this according to both senses, namely according to ours, who say that infants are bound by original sin, and according to that of the Pelagians, who deny that there is original sin—nor yet for that reason ought I to be in doubt that infants have something to be forgiven them by him who saves his people from their sins (See Matt 1:21)—so in the third book of On Free Will I withstood the Manicheans according to both senses, whether ignorance and difficulty, without which no man is born, are punishments or beginnings of nature; and yet I hold one of these, expressed there too by me clearly enough: that this is not the nature of man as established, but the penalty of man as condemned Augustine, De lib. arbit. 3.20, 23..

12. 30. In vain, therefore, is the age of that book of mine alleged against me, that I should not plead the case of infants as I ought to plead it, and from it prove, by the clear light of evident truth, that the grace of God is not given according to the merits of men. For if, when I began the books On Free Will as a layman and finished them as a priest, I still doubted about the condemnation of infants not reborn and the freeing of those reborn, no one, I think, would be so unjust and envious as to forbid me to make progress, and to judge that I ought to remain in that doubt. But since it can more rightly be understood that I ought not to be believed for that reason to have doubted about this matter, because those against whom my intention was directed seemed to me to be refuted in such a way that, whether there were the penalty of original sin in infants, which the truth holds, or there were not, which some who err suppose, in no way nevertheless should the mingling of two natures, namely of good and of evil, which the error of the Manicheans introduces, be believed: far be it that we should so leave the case of infants as to say that it is uncertain to us whether infants regenerated in Christ, if they die, pass into eternal salvation, but those not regenerated pass into the second death:

since what is written: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed to all men (Rom 5:12), cannot rightly be understood otherwise: nor does he free anyone, small or great, from the everlasting death which was most justly rendered to sin, except he who, for the forgiving both of our original and of our own sins, died without any original or own sin of his own. But why these rather than those? Again and again we say, and it does not weary us: O man, who are you to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20). His judgments are inscrutable, and his ways past finding out (Rom 11:33). And let us add this: Seek not things too high for you, and search not things too mighty for you (Sir 3:21).

12. 31. For you see, dearest ones, how absurd it is, and alien to the soundness of faith and the sincerity of truth, that we should say that dead infants are judged according to what they were foreknown to be going to do if they had lived. But into this opinion, which surely every human sense, supported by however little reason, and above all the Christian sense, abhors, they have been compelled to go, who have so wished to be free from the error of the Pelagians that they nonetheless still think it must be believed, and moreover put forward in discussion, that the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by which alone we are helped after the fall of the first man, in whom we all fell, is given according to our merits. This Pelagius himself, before the eastern bishops as judges, condemned out of fear of his own condemnation.

But if this be not said, namely about the works of the dead, good or evil, which they would have done if they had lived—and thereby works that are none, and in the very foreknowledge of God not going to be—if, then, this be not said, which you see with how great error it is said, what will remain except that, the fog of contention removed, we confess that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, which against the Pelagian heresy the catholic Church defends; and that we discern this above all in infants with more evident truth?

For God is not compelled by fate to help those infants, and not to help those others, since the case of both is common; or we shall suppose that human affairs in infants are conducted not by divine providence but by fortuitous chances, when it is rational souls that are either to be condemned or to be freed, seeing that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of our Father who is in heaven (See Matt 10:29); or it must be so attributed to the negligence of parents that infants die without baptism, that the heavenly judgments do nothing there; as though those who in this way die badly had themselves chosen, by their own will, the negligent parents from whom they were to be born;

what shall I say of the fact that an infant sometimes expires before it can be helped through the ministry of one who baptizes? For very often, when the parents are hastening and the ministers ready that baptism may be given to the infant, it is nonetheless not given, God being unwilling, who did not keep it a little while in this life that it might be given. What too of the fact that sometimes infants, the children of unbelievers, could be helped by baptism, lest they go into perdition, while the children of the faithful could not? Where surely it is shown that with God there is no respect of persons (See Rom 2:11; Col 3:25): otherwise he would free the children of his worshipers rather than those of his enemies.

13. 32. Now indeed, since we are now treating of the gift of perseverance, what is the meaning of this, that one about to die unbaptized is helped, lest he die without baptism, and one baptized who is about to fall is not helped, that he may die first? Unless perhaps we shall still give ear to that absurdity by which it is said that it profits no one to die before he falls, because, according to them, he will be judged by the acts which God foreknew he would have done if he had lived. This perversity, so vehemently opposed to the soundness of faith, who would hear patiently? who would endure it? And yet they are forced to say this, who do not confess that the grace of God is not given according to our merits.

But those who are unwilling to say that each of the dead is judged according to what God foreknew he would have done if he had lived, seeing with how manifest a falsity and how great an absurdity it is said, have no reason left to say what the Church condemned in the Pelagians, and had condemned by Pelagius himself—that the grace of God is given according to our merits: since they see that some infants not regenerated are taken from this life unto eternal death, and others regenerated unto eternal life; and that of those very regenerated, some persevering to the end go from here, others are kept here until they fall away, who certainly would not have fallen if they had gone from here before they slipped; and again that some who have fallen do not go from this life until they return, who certainly would perish, if they went before they returned.

13. 33. Whence it is shown clearly enough that both the grace of beginning and that of persevering to the end are given by God not according to our merits, but are given according to his most secret, and at the same time most just, most wise, most beneficent will: since whom he predestined, them he also called (Rom 8:30) with that calling of which it is said: The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance (Rom 11:29). To which calling no man is to be said by men with certain assertion to belong, except when he has gone out from this world: but in this human life which is a temptation upon the earth (Job 7:1), he who seems to stand, let him take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12). For this reason indeed (as we have already said above (See 8.19)) those who will not persevere are mingled with those who will persevere by the most provident will of God, that we may learn to be not high-minded, but consenting to the humble (Rom 12:16), and that with fear and trembling we may work out our own salvation: for it is God who works in us both to will and to work, for his good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13).

We, therefore, will, but God works in us to will; we, therefore, work, but God works in us to work, for his good pleasure. This it is expedient for us both to believe and to say: this is devout, this is true, that the confession may be humble and submissive, and everything be given to God. Thinking, we believe; thinking, we speak; thinking, we do whatever we do: but as for what pertains to the way of devotion and the true worship of God, we are not competent to think anything as if of ourselves, but our competence is from God (2 Cor 3:5). For our heart and our thoughts are not in our power Ambrose, De fuga saec. 1.2.: whence the same Ambrose who says this likewise says: But who is so blessed as always to ascend in his heart? Yet how can this be done without divine help? In no way at all. Indeed, he says, the same Scripture says above: 'Blessed is the man whose help is from you, O Lord; in his heart he has purposed ascents' (Ps 84:5 (83:6)). This surely, in saying it, Ambrose not only read in the sacred writings, but, as is without doubt to be believed of that man, also felt in his own heart.

That, then, which is said in the sacraments of the faithful, that we should have our hearts lifted up to the Lord, is a gift of the Lord: for which gift those to whom this is said are admonished by the priest, after these words, to give thanks to the Lord our God; and they reply that it is meet and right. For since our heart is not in our power, but is lifted up by divine help, that it may ascend, and savor the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, not the things that are upon the earth (Col 3:1-2): to whom are thanks to be given for this so great a matter, except to the Lord our God who does it, who, by such a benefit, freeing us from the depth of this world, chose us, and predestined us before the foundation of the world?

14. 34. But they say that the determination of predestination is opposed to the usefulness of preaching. As though indeed it were opposed to the preaching Apostle. Did not that Teacher of the gentiles, in faith and truth, both so often commend predestination, and not cease to preach the word of God? Was it because he said, It is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure (Phil 2:13), that he did not himself exhort us both to will the things that please God and to work them? Or because he said, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6), did he not himself urge men to begin and to persevere to the end? Surely the Lord himself commanded men to believe, and said, Believe in God, believe also in me (Jn 14:1): nor is his statement therefore false, nor his determination empty, where he says, No one comes to me, that is, no one believes in me, unless it has been given to him by my Father (Jn 6:65). Nor again, because this determination is true, is that precept therefore empty. Why then do we judge the determination of predestination, which divine Scripture commends, useless to preaching, precept, exhortation, rebuke, all of which divine Scripture frequently employs?

14. 35. Or will anyone dare to say that God did not foreknow to whom he was going to give that they should believe, or whom he was going to give to his Son, that of them he should lose none (See Jn 18:9)? And if he certainly foreknew these things, surely he foreknew his own benefits, by which he deigns to free us. This is the predestination of the saints, nothing else: namely, the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits, by which most certainly are freed whoever are freed. But the rest—where are they left, except in the mass of perdition, by the just judgment of God?

There the Tyrians and Sidonians were left, who could even have believed, if they had seen those wondrous signs of Christ. But since it was not given them that they should believe, even the means by which they might believe was denied. From which it appears that some have in their very natural endowment a divine gift of understanding, by which they may be moved to faith, if they either hear words or behold signs suited to their minds: and yet, if by the deeper judgment of God they are not, by the predestination of grace, separated from the mass of perdition, neither are those divine words or deeds applied to them through which they could believe, if they certainly heard or saw such things.

In the same mass of perdition were left also the Jews, who could not believe though such great and clear mighty works were done in their sight. For why they could not believe, the Gospel did not pass over in silence, saying: But though he had done such signs before them, they did not believe in him; that the word of the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them (Jn 12:37-40).

The eyes of the Tyrians and Sidonians, then, were not so blinded, nor their heart so hardened: since they would have believed, if they had seen such signs as these saw. But neither did it profit them that they could believe, because they had not been predestined by him whose judgments are inscrutable, and ways past finding out; nor would it have harmed these that they could not believe, if they had been so predestined that God would enlighten them, blind as they were, and would take away the heart of stone from them, hardened as they were.

But what the Lord said of the Tyrians and Sidonians (See 10.24) can perhaps be understood in some other way: yet that no one comes to Christ except him to whom it has been given, and that it is given to those who were chosen in him before the foundation of the world, he without doubt confesses, by whom the divine word is heard with the ears of the flesh, not with deaf ears of the heart. And yet this predestination, which is set forth clearly enough even by the words of the Gospel, did not prevent the Lord from saying, both for the sake of beginning, what I mentioned a little before: Believe in God, believe also in me (Jn 14:1); and for the sake of persevering: One ought always to pray, and not to lose heart (Lk 18:1). For those to whom it is given hear these things and do them; but those to whom it is not given do not do them, whether they hear or do not hear. For to you, he says, it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven; but to them it is not given (Matt 13:11). Of which the one pertains to the mercy, the other to the judgment, of him to whom our soul says, Mercy and judgment will I sing to you, O Lord (Ps 101:1 (100:1)).

14. 36. Neither, then, must the preaching of persevering and advancing faith be impeded by the preaching of predestination, so that those to whom it is given to obey may hear what they ought: for how shall they hear without a preacher? (Rom 10:14). Nor again must the preaching of predestination be impeded by the preaching of advancing faith that remains to the end, so that he who lives faithfully and obediently may not be lifted up about that very obedience as about a good of his own not received, but he who glories, let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31). For in nothing must one glory, since nothing is ours Cyprian, Ad Quir. 3.4..

This Cyprian most faithfully saw, and most confidently determined, by which he surely declared a most certain predestination. For if in nothing must one glory, since nothing is ours, surely neither must one glory about the most persevering obedience; nor is it to be called ours, as though it were not given us from above. And so it too is a gift of God, which God foreknew he would give to those called by him with that calling of which it is said: The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance (Rom 11:29), with every Christian confessing it.

This, then, is the predestination which we faithfully and humbly preach. Nor yet did that same teacher and doer, who both believed in Christ, and most perseveringly lived in holy obedience even to suffering for Christ, therefore cease to preach the Gospel, to exhort to faith and devout conduct, and to perseverance itself to the end, because he said, in nothing must one glory, since nothing is ours, where he declared without any ambiguity the true grace of God, that is, the grace that is not given according to our merits: which, since God foreknew he would give it, predestination was without doubt preached by these words of Cyprian: and if this did not prevent Cyprian from preaching obedience, neither surely ought it to prevent us.

14. 37. Although, then, we say that obedience is a gift of God, we nonetheless exhort men to it. But to those who obediently hear the exhortation of truth, the gift of God itself has been given, that is, to hear obediently: but to those who do not so hear, it has not been given. For not just anyone, but Christ, says: No one comes to me, unless it has been given to him by my Father (Jn 6:65); and: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given (Matt 13:11). And concerning continence: Not all, he says, receive this word, but those to whom it is given (Matt 19:11). And when the Apostle was exhorting spouses to conjugal chastity: I wish, he says, that all men were as I myself; but each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that (1 Cor 7:7). Where he shows clearly enough that not only continence is a gift of God, but the chastity of the married also.

Though these things are true, we nonetheless exhort to them, as much as it is given to each of us to be able to exhort; because this too is a gift of him in whose hand are both we and our words (Wis 7:16). Whence the Apostle too: According to the grace, he says, that was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation (1 Cor 3:10). And in another place: To each, he says, as the Lord gave: I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:5-7). And by this, just as he rightly exhorts and preaches, but only the one who has received this gift, so the one who has received this gift surely hears obediently the one who rightly exhorts and preaches.

Hence it is that the Lord, when he was speaking to those who had the ears of the flesh open, nonetheless said: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Lk 8:8): which without doubt he knew not all had. But from whom they have them, whoever have them, the Lord himself shows, where he says: I will give them a heart to know me, and ears that hear (Bar 2:31). Ears to hear, therefore, are the very gift of obeying, that those who had it might come to him, to whom no one comes unless it has been given to him by his Father.

We exhort, therefore, and we preach; but those who have ears to hear hear us obediently; while in those who do not have them, what is written comes to pass: that hearing they may not hear (Matt 13:13); hearing, that is, with the sense of the body, they may not hear with the assent of the heart. But why these have ears to hear, and those do not have them—that is, why it is given to these by the Father to come to the Son, but to those it is not given—who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? (Rom 11:34), or who are you, O man, to answer back to God? (Rom 9:20). Is what is open therefore to be denied, because what is hidden cannot be comprehended? are we, I say, for that reason going to say that what we clearly perceive to be so is not so, because we cannot find out why it is so?

15. 38. But they say, as you write: "No one can be roused by the goads of rebuke, if it is said in an assembly of the Church, with many listening: The determined opinion of the will of God concerning predestination is such that some of you, having received from unbelief the will to obey, have come to faith, or, having received perseverance, remain in the faith; but the rest of you who linger in the delight of sins have not yet risen for this reason, because the help of merciful grace has not yet raised you up. Nevertheless, if any of you are not yet called, whom his grace shall have predestined to be chosen, you will receive that same grace by which you may will and be chosen; and if any of you obey, if you are predestined to be rejected, the strength to obey will be withdrawn, so that you cease to obey" Hilary, Letter 226.2, 5 (among Augustine's letters)..

When these things are said, they ought no more to deter us from confessing the true grace of God, that is, the grace that is not given according to our merits, and from confessing, according to it, the predestination of the saints, than we are deterred from confessing the foreknowledge of God, if someone speaks of it to the people in this way, saying: "Whether you now live rightly or not rightly, you will be afterward such as God foreknew you would be, either good if good, or evil if evil."

For if, on hearing this, some turn to torpor and sluggishness, and, prone from labor to lust, go after their own desires, is what was said about the foreknowledge of God therefore to be thought false? Is it not true that if God foreknew they would be good, they will be good, in however great wickedness they are now engaged; but if evil, they will be evil, in however great goodness they are now discerned?

There was a certain man in our monastery who, when the brothers rebuked him for doing some things that ought not to be done, and not doing things that ought to be done, would answer: Whatever I am now, I will be such as God foreknew I would be. And he indeed spoke the truth, and yet by this truth made no progress toward good; but he made such progress toward evil that, deserting the fellowship of the monastery, he became a dog returned to his own vomit; and yet what he is going to be is still uncertain. Are the true things that are said about the foreknowledge of God, then, on account of souls of this kind, either to be denied or to be kept silent; at that time, namely, when, if they are not said, men go into other errors?

16. 39. There are also those who for this reason either do not pray, or pray coldly, because they have learned, the Lord saying it, that God knows what is necessary for us before we ask it of him (Matt 6:8). Is the truth of this statement, on account of such people, to be thought to be abandoned, or to be erased from the Gospel? On the contrary, since it is agreed that God has prepared some things to be given even to those who do not pray, such as the beginning of faith, and others only to those who pray, such as perseverance to the end, surely he who thinks he has this of himself does not pray that he may have it. Care must therefore be taken, lest, while we fear that exhortation grow lukewarm, prayer be extinguished and elation be kindled.

16. 40. Let the truth be spoken, then, above all where some question impels that it be spoken; and let those grasp it who can: lest perhaps, when it is kept silent on account of those who cannot grasp it, those who can grasp the truth, by which falsity is guarded against, be not only defrauded of the truth but even seized by falsity. For it is easy, indeed even useful, that some truth be kept silent on account of those who cannot grasp it. For whence is that saying of the Lord: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (Jn 16:12)? and that of the Apostle: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal: as to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, nor indeed are you even now able (1 Cor 3:1-2)?

Although it can happen, by a certain manner of speaking, that what is said be both milk for little ones and solid food for the grown. As: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1), what Christian can keep silent? who can grasp it? or what greater can be found in sound doctrine? Yet this is neither kept silent from little ones nor hidden from the grown for the little ones' sake.

But there is one reason for keeping a truth silent, another for the necessity of speaking a truth. To seek out or set down all the reasons for keeping a truth silent would be long: yet among them is this one also, lest we make worse those who do not understand, while we wish to make more learned those who do understand, who, when we keep silent some such thing, are indeed not made more learned, but neither are they made worse.

But when a true matter is such that, when we speak it, the one who cannot grasp it becomes worse for us; and when we keep silent, the one who can grasp it becomes worse: what do we think ought to be done? Is not the truth rather to be spoken, that he who can grasp it may grasp it, than kept silent, so that not only do both not grasp it, but even the more intelligent one is himself the worse? Whereas if he heard and grasped it, through him still more would learn. For the more capable he is of learning, the more fit he is to teach others. The enemy of grace presses on, and urges by all means, that it be believed to be given according to our merits, and that thus grace is no longer grace (See Rom 11:6): and shall we be unwilling to say what, with Scripture as witness, we can say? For we fear, it seems, lest, when we speak, the one who cannot grasp the truth be offended; and do we not fear lest, when we keep silent, the one who can grasp the truth be seized by falsity?

16. 41. For either predestination must be preached, just as holy Scripture clearly proclaims it, so that in the predestined the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance, or it must be confessed that the grace of God is given according to our merits, which the Pelagians hold: although this opinion, as we have often already said, is read, in the Acts of the eastern bishops, to have been condemned even by the mouth of Pelagius himself Augustine, De gestis Pelag. 14.30-37.. Now these men, on account of whom we are doing this, are so far removed from the heretical perversity of the Pelagians that, although they are not yet willing to confess that those are predestined who through the grace of God become obedient and remain so, they nonetheless now confess that this grace anticipates the will of those to whom it is given: precisely so, of course, that grace may not be believed to be given other than freely, as the truth declares, but rather according to the merits of a preceding will, as against the truth the Pelagian error gainsays. Grace, therefore, anticipates even faith: otherwise, if faith anticipates it, without doubt the will too anticipates it, since faith cannot exist without the will. But if grace anticipates faith, since it anticipates the will, surely it anticipates all obedience; it anticipates also love, by which alone God is truly and sweetly obeyed; and grace works all these things in the one to whom it is given, and whose all these things it anticipates.

17. 41. Among these goods there remains perseverance to the end, which is asked daily of the Lord in vain, if the Lord does not work it, through his grace, in the one whose prayers he hears. See now how alien from the truth it is to deny that perseverance to the end of this life is a gift of God: since to this life he himself gives an end when he wills; and if he gives it before an impending fall, he makes the man persevere to the end. But the bounty of God's goodness is more wonderful, and more evident to the faithful, in that even to infants, whose age is not such that obedience may be given them, this grace is given.

These his gifts, then, to whomever God grants them, he without doubt foreknew that he would grant, and in his foreknowledge he prepared. Whom therefore he predestined, them he also called (Rom 8:30) with that calling which it does not weary me often to mention, of which it is said: The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance (Rom 11:29). For to arrange in his foreknowledge—which cannot be deceived or changed—his own future works, this is altogether, and nothing else, to predestine. But just as the man whom he foreknew would be chaste, although he holds this uncertain, acts that he may be chaste, so the man whom he predestined would be chaste, although he holds this uncertain, does not for that reason fail to act that he may be chaste, since he hears that by the gift of God he will be what he will be; rather, his love even rejoices; nor is he puffed up, as though he had not received it (See 1 Cor 13:4; 1 Cor 4:6). Not only, then, is he not impeded from this work by the preaching of predestination, but he is even helped to this, that when he glories, he may glory in the Lord (See 1 Cor 1:31).

17. 42. But what I have said about chastity can be said most truly about faith, about devotion, about love, about perseverance, and—not to go through them one by one—about all obedience by which God is obeyed. But those who place only the beginning of faith and perseverance to the end so within our power that they do not think them gifts of God, nor that God works our thoughts and wills for having and retaining them, while they grant that he gives the rest, when these are obtained from him by the faith of the believer—why are they not afraid that exhortation to those other things, and the preaching of those other things, is impeded by the determination of predestination? Or do they perhaps say that these too are not predestined? Then neither are they given by God, or he did not know he would give them. But if they are both given, and he foreknew he would give them, surely he predestined them.

Just as, therefore, they themselves also exhort to chastity, love, devotion, and the rest which they confess to be gifts of God, and cannot deny to have been foreknown by him, and thereby predestined, and yet do not say that their exhortations are impeded by the preaching of the predestination of God—that is, by the preaching about these future gifts of his of the foreknowledge of God—so let them see that their exhortations to faith and to perseverance are not impeded, if these too, which is true, are said to be gifts of God, and foreknown, that is, predestined to be given; but that rather there is impeded and overthrown by this preaching of predestination only that most ruinous error by which it is said that the grace of God is given according to our merits: so that he who glories may glory not in the Lord, but in himself.

17. 43. That we may explain this more openly for the somewhat slow, let those to whom it has been granted to fly ahead in talent bear with my delaying. The apostle James says: 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). It is also written in the Proverbs of Solomon: For the Lord gives wisdom (Prov 2:6). And concerning continence it is read in the book of Wisdom, whose authority great and learned men have used, who long before us treated the divine words: there, then, it is read: Since I knew that no one can be continent unless God grant it; and this itself was of wisdom, to know whose gift it was (Wis 8:21). These, then, are gifts of God, that is—to say nothing of others—wisdom and continence. These men acquiesce in this too: for they are not Pelagians, that against this clear truth they should contend with hard and heretical perversity.

"But," they say, "that these may be given us by God, faith obtains, which begins from ourselves": and this faith, both to begin to have it, and to remain in it to the end, they contend is ours, as though we did not receive this from the Lord. Here without doubt the Apostle is contradicted, when he says: For what do you have that you did not receive? (1 Cor 4:7). Contradicted too is the martyr Cyprian, who says: In nothing must one glory, since nothing is ours Cyprian, Ad Quir. 3.4..

When we have said these things, and many others which it is tiresome to repeat, and have shown that both the beginning of faith and perseverance to the end are gifts of God, and that God could not but foreknow his own future gifts, both what was to be given and to whom it was to be given, and thereby that those whom he frees and crowns are predestined by him, they think it must be answered "that the determination of predestination is opposed to the usefulness of preaching, in that, when this is heard, no one can be roused by the goads of rebuke."

Saying these things, they do not want "it preached to men that the gifts of God are these: that one comes to faith and remains in faith, lest more despair than exhortation seem to be brought, while those who hear consider that it is uncertain to human ignorance on whom God bestows these gifts and on whom he does not bestow them." Why, then, do they themselves too preach with us that wisdom and continence are gifts of God? But if, when these are preached as gifts of God, the exhortation by which we exhort men to be wise and continent is not impeded, what reason at last is there that they should think the exhortation impeded by which we exhort men to come to faith, and to remain in it to the end, if these too are said to be gifts of God, which is proved with his Scriptures as witnesses?

17. 44. Behold—to say nothing of continence, and to argue in this place of wisdom alone: surely the above-mentioned apostle James says: The wisdom that is from above is first indeed chaste, then peaceable, modest, open to persuasion, full of mercy and good fruits, beyond price, without dissimulation (Jas 3:17). Do you see, I beg you, with how many and how great goods wisdom comes down from the Father of lights, filled? For every best gift, as the same one says, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (Jas 1:17). Why then—to pass over the rest—do we rebuke the unchaste and the contentious, to whom nonetheless we preach that chaste and peaceable wisdom is a gift of God, and we do not fear lest, moved by the uncertainty of the divine will, they find in this preaching more of despair than of exhortation, nor be roused by the goads of rebuke against themselves, but rather against us, because we rebuke them for not having these things, which we ourselves say are not produced by human will, but bestowed by divine bounty?

Why, finally, did the preaching of this grace not deter the apostle James himself from rebuking the restless, and saying: If you have bitter zeal, and there are contentions in your hearts, do not glory and be liars against the truth: this is not the wisdom coming down from above; but earthly, animal, devilish: for where there is zeal and contention, there is inconstancy and every depraved work (Jas 3:14-16)? Just as, therefore, the restless are to be rebuked, with the divine words as witnesses, and with the very acts which these men hold in common with us, and this rebuke is not impeded by the fact that we preach peaceable wisdom, by which the contentious are rebuked and healed, to be a gift of God: so unbelievers, or those not remaining in faith, are to be rebuked, this rebuke not being impeded by the preaching of the grace of God, which commends both faith itself and remaining in it as gifts of God.

For although wisdom is obtained from faith, as James himself, when he had said, 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, soon added, But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing (Jas 1:5-6): yet, because faith is given before it is asked of him to whom it is given, it is not for that reason to be said not to be a gift of God, but to be from us, because it was given to us when we were not asking.

For the Apostle says most plainly: Peace to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 6:23). From whom, then, peace and love come, from him comes faith also, for which reason we ask that it be given by him not only to be increased in those who have it, but even to be given to those who do not have it.

17. 45. Nor do these men, on account of whom we say these things, who cry out that exhortation is impeded by the preaching of predestination and grace, exhort only to those gifts which they contend are not given by God but are from us, such as the beginning of faith, and perseverance in it to the end: which they certainly ought to do, that they should only exhort unbelievers to believe, and the faithful to remain in belief.

But those things which, together with us, they do not deny to be gifts of God, that together with us they may demolish the Pelagian error—such as chastity, continence, patience, and the rest by which one lives rightly, and which are obtained from the Lord by faith—they ought only to have shown to be prayed for, and to have prayed for them, whether for themselves or for others, but not to have exhorted anyone to take them up and retain them.

But since they exhort to these things too, as they can, and confess that men are to be exhorted, they surely show clearly enough that exhortations, whether to faith or to perseverance to the end, are not impeded by that preaching, because we preach that these too are gifts of God, and are bestowed on anyone not by himself, but by him.

17. 46. But indeed, "each one by his own fault deserts the faith, when he yields and consents to the temptation by which he is dealt with that he may desert the faith." Who denies it? But perseverance in faith is not for that reason to be said not to be a gift of God. For he asks for it daily who says: Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13); and if he is heard, he receives it: and by this, asking daily that he may persevere, he surely places the hope of his perseverance not in himself, but in God. But I do not wish to exaggerate with my words, but rather leave it to them to consider, that they may see what sort of thing it is which they have persuaded themselves of, "that by the preaching of predestination more of despair than of exhortation is brought to those who hear." For this is to say that a man then despairs of his salvation, when he has learned to place his hope not in himself, but in God: while the Prophet cries out: Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man (Jer 17:5).

17. 47. These gifts of God, then, which are given to the elect, called according to the purpose of God, among which gifts is both to begin to believe and to persevere in faith to the end of this life, as we have proved by so great an attestation of reasons and authorities: these gifts of God, I say, if there is no predestination such as we defend, are not foreknown by God; but they are foreknown: this, therefore, is the predestination which we defend.

18. 47. Hence sometimes the same predestination is signified even by the name of foreknowledge, as the Apostle says: God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew (Rom 11:2). Here what he says, he foreknew, is not rightly understood except as: he predestined: which the context of that very passage shows. For he was speaking of the remnant of the Jews, who were made safe, while the rest perished. For above he had said that the Prophet had said to Israel: All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people that does not believe and contradicts (Rom 10:21): and, as though it were answered, Where then have the promises of God to Israel been fulfilled? he immediately added: I say then: Has God rejected his people? God forbid: for I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1): as though he said, For I too am of that very people.

Then he added what we are now treating of: God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew. And to show that the remnant had been left by the grace of God, not by the merits of their works, he went on and added: Or do you not know what the Scripture says in Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? (Rom 11:2), and the rest. But what does the divine response say to him? he says. I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee before Baal (Rom 11:4). For he does not say: They have been left for me; or: They have left themselves for me; but: I have left for myself. So then, he says, at this present time too a remnant has been made through the election of grace. But if by grace, then no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace (Rom 11:5-6).

And connecting those things which I have already interposed above: What then? and answering this question: What Israel was seeking, he says, this it did not obtain; but the election obtained it; while the rest were blinded (Rom 11:7). In this election, then, and in this remnant, which was made through the election of grace, he wished the people to be understood, which God for that reason did not reject, because he foreknew it. This is that election, by which he chose those whom he willed in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and blameless before him in love, predestining them to adoption as sons (Eph 1:4-5). No one, therefore, who understands these things, is permitted to deny or to doubt that, where the Apostle says, God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew, he wished to signify predestination. For he foreknew the remnant, which he himself was going to make according to the election of grace. This, then, is: he predestined: for without doubt he foreknew, if he predestined; but to have predestined is to have foreknown this which he himself was going to do.

19. 48. What, then, prevents us, when in some expositors of the word of God we read of the foreknowledge of God, and the calling of the elect is being treated, from understanding the same predestination? For perhaps they preferred to use this word in that matter, which is both more easily understood, and does not conflict—rather even agrees—with the truth that is preached about the predestination of grace. This I know, that no one has been able to argue against that predestination which we defend according to the holy Scriptures except by erring. Yet I think that, for those who seek the opinions of the expositors on this matter, the holy men, everywhere praiseworthily renowned in the Christian faith and doctrine, Cyprian and Ambrose, whose so clear testimonies we have set down, ought to suffice, and ought to suffice for both: that is, that they both believe through all and preach through all the freely given grace of God, as it is to be believed and preached, and that they do not suppose this same preaching to be opposed to the preaching by which we exhort the lazy or rebuke the wicked:

because these men too, when they so preached the grace of God that one of them said, In nothing must one glory, since nothing is ours Cyprian, Ad Quir. 3.4., while the other said, Our heart and our thoughts are not in our power Ambrose, De fuga saec. 1.2., did nonetheless not cease to exhort and rebuke, that the divine precepts might be fulfilled. Nor did they fear lest it be said to them: Why do you exhort us? why do you also rebuke, if nothing good for us to have is ours, and if our heart is not in our power?

That these things might not be said to them, those holy men could in no way fear with that mind by which they understood that it has been granted to very few that, with no man preaching to them, they should receive the doctrine of salvation through God himself or through the angels of heaven; but that it has been granted to many that they should believe God through men. Yet in whatever way the word of God is spoken to a man, without doubt that he so hear it as to obey it is a gift of God.

19. 49. Whence the above-mentioned most excellent expositors of the divine words both preached the true grace of God, as it is to be preached, that is, the grace which no human merits precede; and they urgently exhorted to the doing of the divine precepts, that those who had the gift of obedience might hear what commands were to be obeyed. For if any merits of ours precede grace, surely it is the merit either of some deed, or word, or thought, where the good will itself too is understood; but he most briefly embraced all kinds of merits who says, In nothing must one glory, since nothing is ours Cyprian, Ad Quir. 3.4.. And he who says, Our heart and our thoughts are not in our power Ambrose, De fuga saec. 1.2., did not pass over even deeds and words themselves: for there is no deed or word of man that does not proceed from the heart and thought. But what more could Cyprian, the most glorious martyr and most lucid teacher, do about this matter than where he admonished us that we ought, in the Lord's Prayer, to pray even for the enemies of the Christian faith? where he showed what he held about the beginning of faith, that this too is a gift of God: and he showed that the Church of Christ prays daily for perseverance to the end, because God grants this too only to those who will have persevered.

The blessed Ambrose too, when he was expounding what the evangelist Luke says, It seemed good to me also (Lk 1:3), says: It can be that what he declares seemed good to him did not seem good to him alone. For it seemed good not by human will only, but as it pleased him who speaks in me, Christ (See 2 Cor 13:3), who works that what is good may seem good to us also: for whom he pities, he also calls. And therefore he who follows Christ can, when asked why he wished to be a Christian, answer: 'It seemed good to me also.' When he says this, he does not deny that it seemed good to God: for the will of men is prepared by God (Prov 8:35 (according to the Septuagint)). For that God may be honored by a holy man is the grace of God Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke 1.10..

And likewise in the same work, that is, in the Exposition of the same Gospel, when he had come to that place where the Samaritans were unwilling to receive the Lord as he was going to Jerusalem: Learn at the same time, he says, that he was unwilling to be received by those converted with a not simple mind. For if he had willed it, he would have made the devout out of the undevout.

But why they did not receive him, the Evangelist himself recounted, saying: 'Because his face was that of one going to Jerusalem' (Lk 9:53). But the disciples were eager that he be received within Samaria. Yet God calls those whom he deigns, and makes religious whom he wills Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke 7.27..

What more evident, what more illustrious, do we seek from the expositors of the word of God, if it is a delight to hear even from them what is clear in the Scriptures? But to these two, who ought to have sufficed, let us add holy Gregory as a third, who testifies that both to believe in God and to confess what we believe is a gift of God, saying: Confess, I beg you, the Trinity of one Godhead: but if you wish otherwise, say that it is of one nature; and God will be entreated that a voice be given you by the Holy Spirit: that is, God will be asked to permit that a voice be given you by which you may be able to confess what you believe. For he will give it, I am certain; he who gave what is first will give also what is second Gregory of Nazianzus, Sermon 44.; he who gave to believe will give also to confess.

19. 50. These so great teachers, saying that there is nothing of which we may glory as of our own, which God has not given us; and that our very heart and our thoughts are not in our power; and giving all to God, and confessing that we receive from him that we be converted to him so as to remain, that what is good may seem good to us also, and that we may will it, that we may honor God and receive Christ, that out of the undevout we may be made devout and religious, that we may believe in the Trinity itself, and confess also with the voice what we believe: all this they surely attribute to the grace of God, acknowledge as gifts of God, and testify to be from him, not from us.

But will anyone say that they so confessed this grace of God as to dare to deny his foreknowledge, which not only the learned but even the unlearned confess? Further, if they so knew God to give these things that they were not ignorant that he had foreknown he would give them, and could not be ignorant to whom he was going to give them, without doubt they knew predestination, which, preached through the Apostles, we defend more laboriously and carefully against the new heretics: nor yet, when they preached obedience, and fervently exhorted to it as each one could, could it in any way be rightly said to them: If you do not want the obedience to which you incite us to grow cold in our heart, do not preach to us this grace of God, by which you confess that God gives the things which you exhort us to do.

20. 51. Wherefore, if both the Apostles, and the teachers of the Church who succeeded them and imitated them, did both, that is, both truly preached the grace of God, which is not given according to our merits, and instructed devout obedience by wholesome precepts: what is it that these men of ours, hemmed in by the unconquerable force of truth, think they rightly say: Even if what is said about the predestination of God's benefits is true, it is nonetheless not to be preached to the people See Hilary, Letter 226.2 (among Augustine's letters); Prosper, Letter 225.3 (among Augustine's letters).? It is to be preached, by all means, so that he who has ears to hear may hear (Lk 8:8). But who has them, if he has not received them from him who says: I will give them a heart to know me, and ears that hear (Bar 2:31)?

Certainly let him who has not received reject it: provided, however, that he who grasps it take it and drink, drink and live. For just as devotion is to be preached, that by him who has ears to hear God may be rightly worshiped; chastity is to be preached, that by him who has ears to hear nothing unlawful may be perpetrated with the genital members; love is to be preached, that by him who has ears to hear God and neighbor may be loved: so this predestination of God's benefits is also to be preached, that he who has ears to hear may glory not in himself, but in the Lord.

20. 52. But as for their saying that it was not necessary that so many hearts of the less intelligent be disturbed by the uncertainty of a discussion of this kind: since with no less profit the catholic faith was defended for so many years without this determination of predestination, both against others and especially against the Pelagians, in so many books of catholics, both others' and our own preceding ones Hilary, Letter 226.8 (among Augustine's letters).: I greatly wonder that they say this, and do not consider—to say nothing here of others—our very books, both composed and published before the Pelagians began to appear, and see in how many places of them we were cutting down the Pelagian heresy, while not knowing it would come, by preaching the grace by which God frees us from our evil errors and ways, with no good merits of ours preceding, doing this according to his freely given mercy. This I began to understand more fully in that discussion which I wrote to Simplician, of blessed memory, bishop of the Church of Milan, at the outset of my episcopate, when I both recognized and asserted that the beginning of faith is a gift of God See Augustine, De praed. sanct. 4.8..

...even in the books of the Confessions.

20. 53. But what of my little works could have become more frequently and more delightfully known than the books of my Confessions? Since I published these too before the Pelagian heresy existed, in them I certainly said to our God, and said often: Give what you command, and command what you will Augustine, Confess. 10.31.45, 37.60.. These words of mine Pelagius at Rome, when they had been mentioned in his presence by a certain brother and fellow bishop of mine, could not bear, and, contradicting them somewhat more heatedly, almost quarreled with the man who had mentioned them. But what does God command first and above all, except that we believe in him? And this, then, he himself gives, if it is rightly said to him: Give what you command.

And in those same books, what I related about my conversion, when God converted me to that faith which I was laying waste with most wretched and most furious loquacity, do you not remember it to have been so related that I showed I had been granted to my mother's faithful and daily tears that I might not perish See Augustine, Confess. 3.11.19-12.21; 9.8.17.? Where I surely preached that God by his grace converts to it the wills of men, not only turned away from the right faith, but even hostile to the right faith. And concerning advancing perseverance, how I prayed to God you both know and can review when you wish. And so all the gifts of God which in that same work I either wished for or praised, who would dare, I do not say to deny, but even to doubt, that God foreknew he would give, and could never have been ignorant to whom he would give them? This is the manifest and certain predestination of the saints: which afterward, more carefully and laboriously, when we were now arguing against the Pelagians, necessity compelled us to defend. For we have learned that each several heresy has brought into the Church its own questions, against which divine Scripture is defended more carefully than it would be if no such necessity compelled it. And what compelled the passages of the Scriptures by which predestination is commended to be defended more copiously and more clearly by this labor of ours, except that the Pelagians say the grace of God is given according to our merits? which is nothing other than the total denial of grace.

21. 54. In order, then, that this opinion, displeasing to God and hostile to the freely given benefits of God by which we are freed, may be destroyed, we defend, according to the Scriptures, from which we have already said much, that both the beginning of faith, and perseverance in it to the end, are gifts of God. For if we say that the beginning of faith is from us, so that by it we may merit to receive the other gifts of God, the Pelagians conclude that the grace of God is given according to our merits. This the catholic faith so abhorred that Pelagius himself, fearing to be condemned, condemned it.

And likewise, if we say that our perseverance is from us, not from the Lord, they answer that we have the beginning of faith from ourselves just as the end, arguing thus: that much more do we have that beginning from ourselves, if from ourselves we have to remain to the end, since to complete is greater than to begin: and so again and again they conclude that the grace of God is given according to our merits. But if both are a gift of God, and God foreknew he would give these his gifts (who can deny it?), predestination must be preached, that the true grace of God—that is, the grace not given according to our merits—may be defended with an insuperable fortification.

21. 55. And I indeed, in that book whose title is On Rebuke and Grace, which could not suffice for all who love us, think I so set it down that even to persevere to the end is a gift of God Augustine, De corr. et gratia 10.26. that, before that, if forgetfulness does not deceive me, I either nowhere, or almost nowhere, wrote it so expressly and evidently. But I have said this now in such a way that it is not as though no one before me had said it. For the blessed Cyprian, in the Lord's Prayer, as we have already shown, so expounded our petitions that he said in the very first petition we ask perseverance: asserting that we pray this, by saying, Hallowed be your name (Matt 6:9), when we have already been sanctified in baptism, that we may persevere in what we have begun to be.

Yet let them see, those by whose love I ought not to be ungrateful, who profess, as you write, to embrace all my writings except this which has come into question: let them see, I say, whether in the latter parts of the first book—of those two which, at the beginning of my episcopate, before the Pelagian heresy appeared, I wrote to Simplician, bishop of Milan—there remains anything by which it may be called into doubt that the grace of God is not given according to our merits; and whether there I did not deal sufficiently with the fact that the beginning of faith too is a gift of God; and whether from the things said there it does not consequently shine forth, even if it is not expressed, that perseverance to the end too is granted only by him who predestined us to his kingdom and glory.

Then the letter itself, which I wrote against the Pelagians to the holy Paulinus, bishop of Nola, which letter they have only now begun to contradict, did I not publish it very many years ago? Let them also examine the one I gave to Sixtus, a priest of the Roman Church, when we contended against the Pelagians in a most fierce struggle; and they will find it such as the one to Paulinus is. Whence let them recall that, against the Pelagian heresy, some years ago now, these things were said and written which it is to be wondered at that they now displease them.

Although I would not want anyone so to embrace all my writings as to follow me, except in those things in which he perceives that I have not erred. For I am now, for that reason, making books in which I have undertaken to revise my little works, so that I may show that I have not followed even myself in all things; but I think that, by God's mercy, I have written with progress, yet have not begun from perfection: since I speak more arrogantly than truly, if even now I say that I have already, at this age, come to perfection in writing without any error. But it matters how much and in what things one errs, and how easily each one corrects it, or with how great obstinacy he tries to defend his error. For a man is of good hope, if the last day of this life finds him so making progress that there be added to him the things which were lacking to him as he made progress, and he be judged rather to be perfected than to be punished.

21. 56. Wherefore, if to men, who loved me for this reason, that some usefulness of my labor reached them before they loved me, I do not wish to be ungrateful, how much more to God, whom we would not love unless he had first loved us, and made us his lovers? since love is from him (See 1 Jn 4:7): as those said whom he made great, not only his lovers, but even his preachers. But what is more ungrateful than to deny the very grace of God, by saying that it is given according to our merits? This the catholic faith abhorred in the Pelagians, this it charged against Pelagius himself as a capital crime: this Pelagius himself condemned, not indeed out of love of the truth of God, but nonetheless out of fear of his own condemnation.

But whoever, as a catholic believer abhors saying that the grace of God is given according to our merits, let him not withdraw even faith itself from the grace of God, by which he obtained mercy to be faithful (See 1 Cor 7:25): and thereby let him attribute to the grace of God perseverance also to the end, by which he obtains the mercy that he asks for daily, that he be not led into temptation. But between the beginning of faith and the perfection of perseverance are those middle things by which we live rightly, which they too agree are granted us by God when faith obtains them. Now all these things, namely the beginning of faith, and the rest of his gifts to the end, God foreknew he would bestow on those called by him. It is therefore a matter of excessive contentiousness to contradict predestination, or to doubt about predestination.

22. 57. It must not, however, be so preached to the people that, among an unskilled multitude or one of slower understanding, it may seem in a certain way to be refuted by its very preaching: just as even the foreknowledge of God seems to be refuted (which surely they cannot deny), if it is said to men: "Whether you run or sleep, what he who cannot be deceived foreknew of you, that you will be." But it is the mark of a deceitful or unskilled physician to bind on even a useful medicine in such a way that it either does no good or does harm.

But it must be said: So run that you may obtain (1 Cor 9:24), and that by your very running you may know yourselves to have been so foreknown that you would run lawfully (See 2 Tim 2:5): and, if in any other way the foreknowledge of God can be preached, that the sluggishness of man may be repelled.

22. 58. Although, then, the determined opinion of the will of God concerning predestination is such that some, out of unbelief, having received the will to obey, are converted to faith, or persevere in faith; while the rest, who linger in the delight of damnable sins, if they too are predestined, have not yet risen for this reason, because the help of merciful grace has not yet raised them up; for if any are not yet called, whom his grace has predestined to be chosen, they will receive that same grace by which they may will and be chosen; but if any obey, yet are not predestined to his kingdom and glory, they are temporary, and will not remain to the end in that same obedience:

although, then, these things are true, they are nonetheless not to be said in this way to many listeners, so that the address be turned to them themselves, and there be said to them those words of these men, which you set down in your letter, and which I interposed above: The determined opinion of the will of God concerning predestination is such that some of you, out of unbelief, having received the will to obey, have come to faith. What need is there to say, some of you? For if we speak to the Church of God, if we speak to believers, why, by saying that some of them have come to faith, should we seem to do an injury to the rest, when we can more fittingly say: The determined opinion of the will of God concerning predestination is such that out of unbelief you have come to faith, having received the will to obey, and, having received perseverance, you remain in faith?

22. 59. Nor is that which follows to be said at all, that is: "But the rest of you who linger in the delight of sins have not yet risen for this reason, because the help of merciful grace has not yet raised you up"; when it can and ought to be well and fittingly said: But if any of you still linger in the delight of damnable sins, take hold of the most wholesome discipline (See Ps 2:12); yet when you have done this, do not be lifted up as about your own works, or glory as though you had not received this: for it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure (Phil 2:13); and by the Lord your steps are directed (See Ps 37:23 (36:23)), that you may will his way: but from your own good and right running learn that you belong to the predestination of divine grace.

22. 60. Likewise, what follows, and is said: "Nevertheless, if any of you are not yet called, whom his grace shall have predestined to be chosen, you will receive that same grace by which you may will and be chosen," is said more harshly than it can be said, if we consider that we speak not to just any men, but to the Church of Christ. For why is it not rather said thus: And if any are not yet called, let us pray for them that they may be called?

For perhaps they are so predestined that they may be granted to our prayers, and receive that same grace by which they may will and be made chosen. For God, who fulfilled all the things which he predestined, for this reason willed us to pray even for the enemies of the faith; that from this we might understand that he himself grants even to unbelievers that they believe, and makes them willing out of unwilling.

22. 61. But now, what is connected to those words, I wonder whether in any way any weak person among the Christian people can patiently hear, when it is said to them: "And if any of you obey, if you are predestined to be rejected, the strength to obey will be withdrawn, so that you cease to obey." For to say this, what does it seem to be other than to curse, or in a certain way to prophesy evils? But if it pleases, or is necessary, to say something even about those who do not persevere, why is it not rather said at least in such a way as I said a little before See Augustine, De dono persev. 22.58.: first, that this be said not about those very people who listen among the congregation, but about others, to them: that is, that it be not said: "If any of you obey, if you are predestined to be rejected"; but: If any obey; and the rest in the third person of the verb, not in the second? For a thing not to be wished for, but to be abhorred, is being said, and most harshly and most odiously it is dashed, as it were, against the foreheads of the hearers by being directed at them, when he who speaks to them says: "And if there are any of you who obey, if you are predestined to be rejected, the strength to obey will be withdrawn, so that you cease to obey."

For what is lost to the sense, if it be said thus: But if any obey, yet are not predestined to his kingdom and glory, they are temporary, and will not remain to the end in that same obedience? Is not the same thing said both more truly and more fittingly, so that we may seem not to be wishing the evil upon them, as it were, but to be reporting about others what they may hate, and not think pertains to themselves, by hoping and praying for better things? But in that way in which they think it should be said, the same opinion can be pronounced, in almost the same words, even about the foreknowledge of God, which surely they cannot deny, so that it be said: "And if any of you obey, if you are foreknown to be rejected, you will cease to obey." Surely this is most true: just so, indeed, but most reprehensible, most importunate, most unfitting; applied not by false speech, but unwholesomely, to the health of human weakness.

22. 62. Even that manner which we have said must be used in the preaching of predestination, I do not think ought to suffice for one who speaks before the people, unless he add this or something of this kind, saying: You, therefore, ought to hope for that very perseverance in obeying from the Father of lights, from whom comes down every best gift and every perfect gift (Jas 1:17), and to ask for it in daily prayers, and, by doing this, to be confident that you are not alien from the predestination of his people; because even that you do this, he himself bestows.

But far be it from you to despair of yourselves for this reason, that you are bidden to have your hope in him, not in yourselves. For cursed is everyone who places his hope in man (Jer 17:5): and it is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man (Ps 118:8 (117:8)); because blessed are all who trust in him (Ps 2:12). Holding this hope, serve the Lord in fear, and exult before him with trembling (Ps 2:11): since about the eternal life which the God who does not lie promised to the children of promise before eternal times, no one can be secure, until this life, which is a temptation upon the earth (See Job 7:1), has been completed: but he will make us persevere in him until the end of this life, to whom we say daily: Lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:13).

When these and such things are said, whether to a few Christians or to the multitude of the Church, why do we fear to preach the predestination of the saints and the true grace of God—that is, the grace not given according to our merits—as holy Scripture preaches it? Or is it indeed to be feared that a man then despair of himself, when his hope is shown to be placed in God, but he would not despair, if, most proud and most wretched, he placed it in himself?

23. 63. And would that the slow of heart and the weak, who cannot, or cannot yet, understand the Scriptures or their expositions, would so hear or not hear our discussions on this question, that they might rather look to their own prayers, which the Church has always had and will have from its beginnings, until this age is ended. For about this matter, which we are now compelled, against the new heretics, not only to mention, but plainly to guard and defend, the Church has never kept silent in its prayers, even if at some time it did not think it must be brought forth in sermons when no adversary was pressing. For when has there not been prayer in the Church for unbelievers and its enemies, that they might believe? When has any believer had an unbelieving friend, neighbor, or spouse, and not asked of the Lord for that person a mind obedient to the Christian faith? But who has ever not prayed for himself, that he might remain in the Lord? Or who, when the priest, over the faithful, invokes the Lord, if he ever said, Grant them, O Lord, to persevere in you to the end, has dared to reproach him, not only with his voice, but even with his thought, and not rather, over such a blessing of his, with believing heart and confessing mouth, answered Amen: since in the Lord's Prayer itself the faithful pray nothing else, when they say especially that, Lead us not into temptation, except that they may persevere in holy obedience?

Just as, then, in these prayers, so also in this faith the Church was born, and grows, and has grown: the faith by which it is believed that the grace of God is not given according to the merits of those who receive it. For the Church would not pray that faith be given to unbelievers, unless it believed that God converts to himself the wills of men both turned away and hostile; nor would the Church pray that it might persevere in the faith of Christ, not deceived or overcome by the temptations of the world, unless it believed that the Lord so has our heart in his power that the good which we do not hold except by our own will, we nonetheless do not hold unless he works in us also to will it.

For if the Church asks these things of him indeed, but thinks they are given to itself by itself, it has prayers that are not true, but perfunctory: which be far from us. For who would truly groan, desiring to receive what he prays for from the Lord, if he supposed he takes this from himself, not from him?

23. 64. Especially since we do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself, says the Apostle, intercedes for us with unspeakable groanings. And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God (Rom 8:26-27). What is, the Spirit himself intercedes, except: makes us intercede, with unspeakable groanings, but true ones, since the Spirit is truth? For it is he of whom in another place he says: God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father (Gal 4:6). And here, what is crying, except: making us cry, by that figure of speech by which we say a glad day, which makes us glad?

Which he makes plain elsewhere, where he says: For you did not receive the spirit of slavery again unto fear; but you received the Spirit of adoption as sons, in whom we cry: Abba, Father (Rom 8:15). There he said crying; but here, in whom we cry: disclosing, that is, how he had said crying, that is, as I have already explained, making us cry. Whence we understand that this very thing too is a gift of God, that with a true heart and spiritually we cry to God.

Let them consider, then, how they are deceived, who think it is from us, not given to us, that we ask, seek, knock: and say that this is what it means that grace is preceded by our merit, so that grace follows, when we receive on asking, and find on seeking, and it is opened to those who knock: and they are unwilling to understand that this too is a divine gift, that we pray, that is, ask, seek, and knock. For we received the Spirit of adoption as sons, in whom we cry: Abba, Father. This the blessed Ambrose too saw. For he says: Even to pray to God is a matter of spiritual grace: as it is written, 'No one says, the Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit' See 1 Cor 12:3; Ambrose, Commentary on Isaiah (a lost work)..

23. 65. These things, then, which the Church asks of the Lord, and has always asked since it began to be, God so foreknew he would give to those called by him that in that very predestination he has already given them: which the Apostle declares without ambiguity. For writing to Timothy, he says: Labor together with 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 before eternal times, but is now made manifest through the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ (2 Tim 1:8-10). Let him, then, say that the Church at some time did not have in its faith the truth of this predestination and grace, which is now defended with more careful concern against the new heretics: let him, I say, say this, who dares to say that the Church at some time did not pray, or did not pray truly, either that unbelievers might believe, or that the faithful might persevere. And if it always prayed for these goods, it always certainly believed them to be gifts of God: nor was it ever lawful for it to deny that they were foreknown by him. And by this the faith of this predestination, which is now defended with new solicitude against the new heretics, the Church of Christ never failed to have.

24. 66. But why say more? I think I have taught sufficiently, or rather more than sufficiently, that both to begin to believe in the Lord and to remain in the Lord to the end are gifts of God. But the other goods pertaining to the devout life, by which God is rightly worshiped, even those on whose account we are doing this grant to be gifts of God. Moreover, they cannot deny that God foreknew all his gifts, and on whom he was going to bestow them.

As, therefore, the rest are to be preached, so that he who preaches them may be heard obediently, so predestination is to be preached, that he who hears these things obediently may glory not in man, and thereby not in himself either, but in the Lord: because this too is a command of God; and to hear this command obediently, that is, that he who glories may glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31), is, like the rest, a gift of God. And whoever does not have this gift, I do not hesitate to say, whatever other things he has, he has them in vain. We desire that the Pelagians may have it; but that these men of ours may have it more fully. Let us not, then, be prompt in disputations, and lazy in prayers. Let us pray, dearly beloved, let us pray that the God of grace may grant even to our enemies, and especially to our brothers and lovers, to understand and confess that, after the immense and ineffable ruin in which we all fell in one man, no one is freed except by the grace of God; and that it is not rendered according to the merits of those who receive it, as though owed, but, as true grace, is given freely with no merits preceding.

24. 67. But there is no more illustrious example of predestination than Jesus himself: whence I argued already in the first book Augustine, De praed. sanct. 15.30-31., and chose to commend it at the end of this one: there is, I say, no more illustrious example of predestination than the Mediator himself. Whatever believer wishes to understand it well, let him attend to him, and in him find himself also: the believer, I say, who believes and confesses in him the true human nature, that is, ours, though singularly taken up by God the Word, raised to the only Son of God, in such a way that he who took it up and what he took up were one person in the Trinity. For by the assuming of the man no quaternity was made, but the Trinity remained, that assumption ineffably bringing about the truth of one person in God and man. For we do not say that Christ is only God, as the Manichean heretics do; nor only man, as the Photinian heretics do; nor man in such a way that he has something less than what certainly pertains to human nature, whether the soul, or in the soul itself the rational mind, or the flesh not taken from a woman, but made from the Word turned and changed into flesh; all of which three falsehoods and vanities the Apollinarian heretics made into three various and diverse factions; but we say that Christ is true God, born of God the Father without any beginning of time; and the same true man, born of a human mother in a certain fullness of time; nor does his humanity, by which he is less than the Father, diminish anything of his divinity, by which he is equal to the Father. But both of these is one Christ, who both, according to his Godhead, said most truly, I and the Father are one (Jn 10:30), and, according to his manhood, said most truly, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28).

He, therefore, who made this man, from the seed of David, a righteous man who would never be unrighteous, without any merit of his preceding will, himself makes the righteous out of the unrighteous, without any merit of their preceding will, that the one might be the head, these the members, of him. He, therefore, who made that man, without any preceding merits of his, so that he should draw from his origin no sin that should be forgiven him, nor perpetrate any by his will, himself, with no preceding merits of theirs, makes those who believe in him, to whom he forgives every sin; he who made him such that he never had, nor will have, an evil will, himself makes in his members a good will out of an evil one. Both him, then, and us he predestined; because both in him, that he should be our head, and in us, that we should be his body, he foreknew not our merits as going to precede, but his own works as going to be.

24. 68. Those who read these things, if they understand, let them give thanks to God; but those who do not understand, let them pray that he may be their inward teacher, from whose face are knowledge and understanding (See Prov 2:6 (according to the Septuagint)). But those who think that I err, let them again and again carefully consider what has been said, lest perhaps they themselves err. As for me, since through those who read my labors I become not only more learned, but even more corrected, I acknowledge God to be favorable to me; and this I expect above all through the teachers of the Church, if what I write comes into their hands too, and they deign to know it.