1. Hebrew Bible, Job, 1.1, 14.1-14.5, 42.5-42.17 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 127, 148, 160, 164, 166, 244, 248, 251, 263, 270| 1.1. "הֲלֹא־את [אַתָּה] שַׂכְתָּ בַעֲדוֹ וּבְעַד־בֵּיתוֹ וּבְעַד כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ מִסָּבִיב מַעֲשֵׂה יָדָיו בֵּרַכְתָּ וּמִקְנֵהוּ פָּרַץ בָּאָרֶץ׃", 1.1. "אִישׁ הָיָה בְאֶרֶץ־עוּץ אִיּוֹב שְׁמוֹ וְהָיָה הָאִישׁ הַהוּא תָּם וְיָשָׁר וִירֵא אֱלֹהִים וְסָר מֵרָע׃", 14.1. "וְגֶבֶר יָמוּת וַיֶּחֱלָשׁ וַיִּגְוַע אָדָם וְאַיּוֹ׃", 14.1. "אָדָם יְלוּד אִשָּׁה קְצַר יָמִים וּשְׂבַע־רֹגֶז׃", 14.2. "תִּתְקְפֵהוּ לָנֶצַח וַיַּהֲלֹךְ מְשַׁנֶּה פָנָיו וַתְּשַׁלְּחֵהוּ׃", 14.2. "כְּצִיץ יָצָא וַיִּמָּל וַיִּבְרַח כַּצֵּל וְלֹא יַעֲמוֹד׃", 14.3. "אַף־עַל־זֶה פָּקַחְתָּ עֵינֶךָ וְאֹתִי תָבִיא בְמִשְׁפָּט עִמָּךְ׃", 14.4. "מִי־יִתֵּן טָהוֹר מִטָּמֵא לֹא אֶחָד׃", 14.5. "אִם חֲרוּצִים יָמָיו מִסְפַּר־חֳדָשָׁיו אִתָּךְ חקו [חֻקָּיו] עָשִׂיתָ וְלֹא יַעֲבוֹר׃", 42.5. "לְשֵׁמַע־אֹזֶן שְׁמַעְתִּיךָ וְעַתָּה עֵינִי רָאָתְךָ׃", 42.6. "עַל־כֵּן אֶמְאַס וְנִחַמְתִּי עַל־עָפָר וָאֵפֶר׃", 42.7. "וַיְהִי אַחַר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֶת־הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה אֶל־אִיּוֹב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־אֱלִיפַז הַתֵּימָנִי חָרָה אַפִּי בְךָ וּבִשְׁנֵי רֵעֶיךָ כִּי לֹא דִבַּרְתֶּם אֵלַי נְכוֹנָה כְּעַבְדִּי אִיּוֹב׃", 42.8. "וְעַתָּה קְחוּ־לָכֶם שִׁבְעָה־פָרִים וְשִׁבְעָה אֵילִים וּלְכוּ אֶל־עַבְדִּי אִיּוֹב וְהַעֲלִיתֶם עוֹלָה בַּעַדְכֶם וְאִיּוֹב עַבְדִּי יִתְפַּלֵּל עֲלֵיכֶם כִּי אִם־פָּנָיו אֶשָּׂא לְבִלְתִּי עֲשׂוֹת עִמָּכֶם נְבָלָה כִּי לֹא דִבַּרְתֶּם אֵלַי נְכוֹנָה כְּעַבְדִּי אִיּוֹב׃", 42.9. "וַיֵּלְכוּ אֱלִיפַז הַתֵּימָנִי וּבִלְדַּד הַשּׁוּחִי צֹפַר הַנַּעֲמָתִי וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֲלֵיהֶם יְהוָה וַיִּשָּׂא יְהוָה אֶת־פְּנֵי אִיּוֹב׃", 42.11. "וַיָּבֹאוּ אֵלָיו כָּל־אֶחָיו וְכָל־אחיתיו [אַחְיוֹתָיו] וְכָל־יֹדְעָיו לְפָנִים וַיֹּאכְלוּ עִמּוֹ לֶחֶם בְּבֵיתוֹ וַיָּנֻדוּ לוֹ וַיְנַחֲמוּ אֹתוֹ עַל כָּל־הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר־הֵבִיא יְהוָה עָלָיו וַיִּתְּנוּ־לוֹ אִישׁ קְשִׂיטָה אֶחָת וְאִישׁ נֶזֶם זָהָב אֶחָד׃", 42.12. "וַיהוָה בֵּרַךְ אֶת־אַחֲרִית אִיּוֹב מֵרֵאשִׁתוֹ וַיְהִי־לוֹ אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר אֶלֶף צֹאן וְשֵׁשֶׁת אֲלָפִים גְּמַלִּים וְאֶלֶף־צֶמֶד בָּקָר וְאֶלֶף אֲתוֹנוֹת׃", 42.13. "וַיְהִי־לוֹ שִׁבְעָנָה בָנִים וְשָׁלוֹשׁ בָּנוֹת׃", 42.14. "וַיִּקְרָא שֵׁם־הָאַחַת יְמִימָה וְשֵׁם הַשֵּׁנִית קְצִיעָה וְשֵׁם הַשְּׁלִישִׁית קֶרֶן הַפּוּךְ׃", 42.15. "וְלֹא נִמְצָא נָשִׁים יָפוֹת כִּבְנוֹת אִיּוֹב בְּכָל־הָאָרֶץ וַיִּתֵּן לָהֶם אֲבִיהֶם נַחֲלָה בְּתוֹךְ אֲחֵיהֶם׃", 42.16. "וַיְחִי אִיּוֹב אַחֲרֵי־זֹאת מֵאָה וְאַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וירא [וַיִּרְאֶה] אֶת־בָּנָיו וְאֶת־בְּנֵי בָנָיו אַרְבָּעָה דֹּרוֹת׃", 42.17. "וַיָּמָת אִיּוֹב זָקֵן וּשְׂבַע יָמִים׃", | 1.1. "THERE was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was whole-hearted and upright, and one that feared God, and shunned evil.", 14.1. "Man that is born of a woman Is of few days, and full of trouble.", 14.2. "He cometh forth like a flower, and withereth; He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.", 14.3. "And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such a one, And bringest me into judgment with Thee?", 14.4. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.", 14.5. "Seeing his days are determined, The number of his months is with Thee, And Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;", 42.5. "I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth Thee;", 42.6. "Wherefore I abhor my words, and repent, Seeing I am dust and ashes.", 42.7. "And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath.", 42.8. "Now therefore, take unto you seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, that I do not unto you aught unseemly; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.’", 42.9. "So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the LORD commanded them; and the LORD accepted Job.", 42.10. "And the LORD changed the fortune of Job, when he prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.", 42.11. "Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house; and they bemoaned him, and comforted him concerning all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him; every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one a ring of gold.", 42.12. "So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. .", 42.13. "He had also seven sons and three daughters.", 42.14. "And he called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch.", 42.15. "And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren.", 42.16. "And after this Job lived a hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’sons, even four generations.", 42.17. "So Job died, being old and full of days.", |
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2. Hebrew Bible, Psalms, 5.13, 24.17, 34.18, 37.4, 37.23, 51.5, 51.7, 54.8, 57.4, 68.14, 110.3, 110.10, 115.3, 144.16, 148.7 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, in romans •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 23, 101, 127, 142, 148, 149, 160, 161, 164, 166, 178, 235, 244, 251, 256, 264| 5.13. "כִּי־אַתָּה תְּבָרֵךְ צַדִּיק יְהוָה כַּצִּנָּה רָצוֹן תַּעְטְרֶנּוּ׃", 34.18. "צָעֲקוּ וַיהוָה שָׁמֵעַ וּמִכָּל־צָרוֹתָם הִצִּילָם׃", 37.4. "וְהִתְעַנַּג עַל־יְהוָה וְיִתֶּן־לְךָ מִשְׁאֲלֹת לִבֶּךָ׃", 37.4. "וַיַּעְזְרֵם יְהוָה וַיְפַלְּטֵם יְפַלְּטֵם מֵרְשָׁעִים וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם כִּי־חָסוּ בוֹ׃", 37.23. "מֵיְהוָה מִצְעֲדֵי־גֶבֶר כּוֹנָנוּ וְדַרְכּוֹ יֶחְפָּץ׃", 51.5. "כִּי־פְשָׁעַי אֲנִי אֵדָע וְחַטָּאתִי נֶגְדִּי תָמִיד׃", 51.7. "הֵן־בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִּי׃", 54.8. "בִּנְדָבָה אֶזְבְּחָה־לָּךְ אוֹדֶה שִּׁמְךָ יְהוָה כִּי־טוֹב׃", 57.4. "יִשְׁלַח מִשָּׁמַיִם וְיוֹשִׁיעֵנִי חֵרֵף שֹׁאֲפִי סֶלָה יִשְׁלַח אֱלֹהִים חַסְדּוֹ וַאֲמִתּוֹ׃", 68.14. "אִם־תִּשְׁכְּבוּן בֵּין שְׁפַתָּיִם כַּנְפֵי יוֹנָה נֶחְפָּה בַכֶּסֶף וְאֶבְרוֹתֶיהָ בִּירַקְרַק חָרוּץ׃", 110.3. "עַמְּךָ נְדָבֹת בְּיוֹם חֵילֶךָ בְּהַדְרֵי־קֹדֶשׁ מֵרֶחֶם מִשְׁחָר לְךָ טַל יַלְדֻתֶיךָ׃", 115.3. "וֵאלֹהֵינוּ בַשָּׁמָיִם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־חָפֵץ עָשָׂה׃", 148.7. "הַלְלוּ אֶת־יְהוָה מִן־הָאָרֶץ תַּנִּינִים וְכָל־תְּהֹמוֹת׃", | 5.13. "For Thou dost bless the righteous; O LORD, Thou dost encompass him with favour as with a shield.", 34.18. "They cried, and the LORD heard, And delivered them out of all their troubles.", 37.4. "So shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and He shall give thee the petitions of thy heart.", 37.23. "It is of the LORD that a man's goings are established; and He delighted in his way.", 51.5. "For I know my transgressions; And my sin is ever before me.", 51.7. "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.", 54.8. "With a freewill-offering will I sacrifice unto Thee; I will give thanks unto Thy name, O LORD, for it is good.", 57.4. "He will send from heaven, and save me, when he that would swallow me up taunteth, Selah; God shall send forth His mercy and His truth.", 68.14. "When ye lie among the sheepfolds, The wings of the dove are covered with silver, And her pinions with the shimmer of gold. .", 110.3. "Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy warfare; in adornments of holiness, from the womb of the dawn, Thine is the dew of thy youth.", 115.3. "But our God is in the heavens; Whatsoever pleased Him He hath done.", 148.7. "Praise the LORD from the earth, Ye sea-monsters, and all deeps;", |
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3. Hebrew Bible, Proverbs, 8.35 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 160, 161, 187, 198, 235, 251, 252, 253, 254, 270, 271, 283, 295, 297| 8.35. "כִּי מֹצְאִי מצאי [מָצָא] חַיִּים וַיָּפֶק רָצוֹן מֵיְהוָה׃", | 8.35. "For whoso findeth me findeth life, And obtaineth favour of the LORD.", |
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4. Hebrew Bible, Leviticus, 15.18, 18.19 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28| 15.18. "וְאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב אִישׁ אֹתָהּ שִׁכְבַת־זָרַע וְרָחֲצוּ בַמַּיִם וְטָמְאוּ עַד־הָעָרֶב׃", 18.19. "וְאֶל־אִשָּׁה בְּנִדַּת טֻמְאָתָהּ לֹא תִקְרַב לְגַלּוֹת עֶרְוָתָהּ׃", | 15.18. "The woman also with whom a man shall lie carnally, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the even.", 18.19. "And thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is impure by her uncleanness.", |
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5. Hebrew Bible, Genesis, 17.4 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 194| 17.4. "אֲנִי הִנֵּה בְרִיתִי אִתָּךְ וְהָיִיתָ לְאַב הֲמוֹן גּוֹיִם׃", | 17.4. "’As for Me, behold, My covet is with thee, and thou shalt be the father of a multitude of nations.", |
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6. Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy, 4.19, 17.3 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 26| 4.19. "וּפֶן־תִּשָּׂא עֵינֶיךָ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וְרָאִיתָ אֶת־הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְאֶת־הַיָּרֵחַ וְאֶת־הַכּוֹכָבִים כֹּל צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם וְנִדַּחְתָּ וְהִשְׁתַּחֲוִיתָ לָהֶם וַעֲבַדְתָּם אֲשֶׁר חָלַק יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֹתָם לְכֹל הָעַמִּים תַּחַת כָּל־הַשָּׁמָיִם׃", 17.3. "וַיֵּלֶךְ וַיַּעֲבֹד אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ לָהֶם וְלַשֶּׁמֶשׁ אוֹ לַיָּרֵחַ אוֹ לְכָל־צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־צִוִּיתִי׃", | 4.19. "and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou be drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath allotted unto all the peoples under the whole heaven.", 17.3. "and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have commanded not;", |
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7. Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah, 1.5 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 148, 166| 1.5. "בְּטֶרֶם אצורך [אֶצָּרְךָ] בַבֶּטֶן יְדַעְתִּיךָ וּבְטֶרֶם תֵּצֵא מֵרֶחֶם הִקְדַּשְׁתִּיךָ נָבִיא לַגּוֹיִם נְתַתִּיךָ׃", | 1.5. "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, And before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.", |
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8. Hebrew Bible, 1 Kings, 14.12-14.13 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 263| 14.12. "וְאַתְּ קוּמִי לְכִי לְבֵיתֵךְ בְּבֹאָה רַגְלַיִךְ הָעִירָה וּמֵת הַיָּלֶד׃", 14.13. "וְסָפְדוּ־לוֹ כָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְקָבְרוּ אֹתוֹ כִּי־זֶה לְבַדּוֹ יָבֹא לְיָרָבְעָם אֶל־קָבֶר יַעַן נִמְצָא־בוֹ דָּבָר טוֹב אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּבֵית יָרָבְעָם׃", | 14.12. "Arise thou therefore, get thee to thy house; and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die.", 14.13. "And all Israel shall make lamentation for him, and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave; because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.", |
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| 9. Pindar, Pythian Odes, 2 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11 |
| 10. Pindar, Nemean Odes, 6.1-6.7 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11 |
11. Herodotus, Histories, 1.131-1.140 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 37 | 1.131. As to the customs of the Persians, I know them to be these. It is not their custom to make and set up statues and temples and altars, but those who do such things they think foolish, because, I suppose, they have never believed the gods to be like men, as the Greeks do; ,but they call the whole circuit of heaven Zeus, and to him they sacrifice on the highest peaks of the mountains; they sacrifice also to the sun and moon and earth and fire and water and winds. ,From the beginning, these are the only gods to whom they have ever sacrificed; they learned later to sacrifice to the “heavenly” Aphrodite from the Assyrians and Arabians. She is called by the Assyrians Mylitta, by the Arabians Alilat, by the Persians Mitra. 1.132. And this is their method of sacrifice to the aforesaid gods: when about to sacrifice, they do not build altars or kindle fire, employ libations, or music, or fillets, or barley meal: when a man wishes to sacrifice to one of the gods, he leads a beast to an open space and then, wearing a wreath on his tiara, of myrtle usually, calls on the god. ,To pray for blessings for himself alone is not lawful for the sacrificer; rather, he prays that the king and all the Persians be well; for he reckons himself among them. He then cuts the victim limb from limb into portions, and, after boiling the flesh, spreads the softest grass, trefoil usually, and places all of it on this. ,When he has so arranged it, a Magus comes near and chants over it the song of the birth of the gods, as the Persian tradition relates it; for no sacrifice can be offered without a Magus. Then after a little while the sacrificer carries away the flesh and uses it as he pleases. 1.133. The day which every man values most is his own birthday. On this day, he thinks it right to serve a more abundant meal than on other days: oxen or horses or camels or asses, roasted whole in ovens, are set before the rich; the poorer serve the lesser kinds of cattle. ,Their courses are few, the dainties that follow many, and not all served together. This is why the Persians say of Greeks that they rise from table still hungry, because not much dessert is set before them: were this too given to Greeks (the Persians say) they would never stop eating. ,They are very partial to wine. No one may vomit or urinate in another's presence: this is prohibited among them. Moreover, it is their custom to deliberate about the gravest matters when they are drunk; ,and what they approve in their deliberations is proposed to them the next day, when they are sober, by the master of the house where they deliberate; and if, being sober, they still approve it, they act on it, but if not, they drop it. And if they have deliberated about a matter when sober, they decide upon it when they are drunk. 1.134. When one man meets another on the road, it is easy to see if the two are equals; for, if they are, they kiss each other on the lips without speaking; if the difference in rank is small, the cheek is kissed; if it is great, the humbler bows and does obeisance to the other. ,They honor most of all those who live nearest them, next those who are next nearest, and so going ever onwards they assign honor by this rule: those who dwell farthest off they hold least honorable of all; for they think that they are themselves in all regards by far the best of all men, that the rest have only a proportionate claim to merit, until those who live farthest away have least merit of all. ,Under the rule of the Medes, one tribe would even govern another; the Medes held sway over all alike and especially over those who lived nearest to them; these ruled their neighbors, and the neighbors in turn those who came next to them, on the same scheme by which the Persians assign honor; for the nation kept advancing its rule and dominion. 1.135. But the Persians more than all men welcome foreign customs. They wear the Median dress, thinking it more beautiful than their own, and the Egyptian cuirass in war. Their luxurious practices are of all kinds, and all borrowed: the Greeks taught them pederasty. Every Persian marries many lawful wives, and keeps still more concubines. 1.136. After valor in battle it is accounted noble to father the greatest number of sons: the king sends gifts yearly to him who gets most. Strength, they believe, is in numbers. ,They educate their boys from five to twenty years old, and teach them only three things: riding and archery and honesty. A boy is not seen by his father before he is five years old, but lives with the women: the point of this is that, if the boy should die in the interval of his rearing, the father would suffer no grief. 1.137. This is a law which I praise; and it is a praiseworthy law, too, which does not allow the king himself to slay any one for a single offense, or any other Persian to do incurable harm to one of his servants for one offense. Not until an accounting shows that the offender's wrongful acts are more and greater than his services may a man give rein to his anger. ,They say that no one has ever yet killed his father or mother; when such a thing has been done, it always turns out on inquest that the doer is shown to be a changeling or the fruit of adultery; for it is not to be believed (say they) that a son should kill his true parent. 1.138. Furthermore, of what they may not do, they may not speak, either. They hold lying to be the most disgraceful thing of all and next to that debt; for which they have many other reasons, but this in particular: it is inevitable (so they say) that the debtor also speak some falsehood. The citizen who has leprosy or the white sickness may not come into town or mingle with other Persians. They say that he is so afflicted because he has sinned in some way against the sun. ,Every stranger who gets such a disease, many drive out of the country; and they do the same to white doves, for the reason given. Rivers they especially revere; they will neither urinate nor spit nor wash their hands in them, nor let anyone else do so. 1.139. There is another thing that always happens among them; we have noted it although the Persians have not: their names, which agree with the nature of their persons and their nobility, all end in the same letter, that which the Dorians call san, and the Ionians sigma; you will find, if you search, that not some but all Persian names alike end in this letter. 1.140. So much I can say of them from my own certain knowledge. But there are other matters concerning the dead which are secretly and obscurely told: how the dead bodies of Persians are not buried before they have been mangled by birds or dogs. ,That this is the way of the Magi, I know for certain; for they do not conceal the practice. But this is certain, that before the Persians bury the body in earth they embalm it in wax. These Magi are as unlike the priests of Egypt as they are unlike all other men: ,for the priests consider it sacrilege to kill anything that lives, except what they sacrifice; but the Magi kill with their own hands every creature, except dogs and men; they kill all alike, ants and snakes, creeping and flying things, and take great pride in it. Leaving this custom to be such as it has been from the first, I return now to my former story. |
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| 12. Plato, Timaeus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11 |
| 13. Plato, Republic, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134 |
| 14. Plato, Phaedrus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11 |
| 15. Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, None (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11 |
| 16. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, None (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11, 59 |
| 17. Aristotle, Metaphysics, None (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11 |
| 18. Lucullus, Fragments, 24 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 256 |
19. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 12.10-12.11 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 170 | 12.10. But judging them little by little thou gavest them a chance to repent,though thou wast not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn,and that their way of thinking would never change. 12.11. For they were an accursed race from the beginning,and it was not through fear of any one that thou didst leave them unpunished for their sins. |
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| 20. Dead Sea Scrolls, Community Rule, 2.2, 3.13-4.1, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, 4.20, 4.24, 8.15, 8.21, 8.22, 8.23, 8.24, 25 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 23 |
| 21. Dead Sea Scrolls, War Scroll, 13.9-13.11 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 24 |
| 22. Cicero, On Divination, -6 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 37 |
| 23. Cicero, On Fate, -15 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 295 |
| 24. Cicero, On Invention, a b c\n0 -55.167 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 109 |
| 25. Dead Sea Scrolls, Hodayot, None (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 23 |
26. Philo of Alexandria, On The Life of Abraham, 236-238, 240-243, 239 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 | 239. For it is in these things that their powers consist, either in figures and in colours, or in the faculty of speaking or hearing which depends on the voice, or in the flavours, or in odours, or by the subjects of touch, whether they are soft or hard, or rough, or smooth, or hot, or cold. For all these things are supplied to each of the passions by means of the outward senses. |
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| 27. Philo of Alexandria, De Providentia, 1 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 30 |
| 28. Philo of Alexandria, On The Decalogue, 45 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 |
29. Philo of Alexandria, On The Creation of The World, 151-160, 162-164, 161 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 | 161. Now, the first approaches of the male to the female have a pleasure in them which brings on other pleasures also, and it is through this pleasure that the formation and generation of children is carried on. And what is generated by it appears to be attached to nothing rather than to it, since they rejoice in pleasure, and are impatient at pain, which is its contrary. On which account even the infant when first brought forth cries, being as it seems in pain at the cold. For coming forth on a sudden into the air from a very warm, and indeed, hot region namely, the womb, in which it has been abiding a considerable time, the air being a cold place and one to which it is wholly unaccustomed, it is alarmed, and pours forth tears as the most evident proof of its grief and of its impatience at pain. |
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30. Philo of Alexandria, On Curses, 63, 62 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 | 62. But the soul that is united to virtue has for its inhabitants those persons who are preeminent for virtue, persons whom the double cavern has received in pairs, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebeckah, Leah and Jacob, virtues and those who possess them; Chebron itself keeping the treasure-house of the memorials of knowledge and wisdom, which is more ancient than Janis and the whole land of Egypt, for nature has made the soul more ancient than the body, that is than Egypt, and virtue more ancient than vice, that is than Janis (and the name Janis, being interpreted, means the command of answer), estimating seniority rather by dignity than by length of time. XVIII. |
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31. Philo of Alexandria, On The Sacrifices of Cain And Abel, 15-17, 14 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 | 14. What, then, is the truth in these matters which we are considering? Why, that wickedness is older than virtue in point of time, but younger in power and rank. Therefore, when the birth of the two is narrated, let Cain have the precedence; but when a comparison of their pursuits is instituted, then let Abel be the first; |
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| 32. Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation, 1.107-1.108 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 30 |
| 33. Philo of Alexandria, Questions On Genesis, 1.90-1.99 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 |
34. Philo of Alexandria, Who Is The Heir, 292-293 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 | 293. In the next verses it is said, "And in the fourth generation they shall return hither," not merely in order that the time may be exactly marked out to him, in which his descendants shall become inhabitants of the holy land, but also in order to represent to him the perfect and complete re-establishment of virtue; and this takes place as it were in the fourth generation, but how it does so it is worth while to consider. |
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35. Philo of Alexandria, That God Is Unchangeable, 47-48 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 | 48. For, in the case of other plants and other animals, we cannot call either the good that is caused by them deserving of praise, nor the evil that they do deserving of blame; for all their motions in either direction, and, all their changes, have no design about them, but are involuntary. But the soul of man, being the only one which has received from God the power of voluntary motion, and which in this respect has been made to resemble God, and being as far as possible emancipated from the authority of that grievous and severe mistress, necessity, may rightly be visited with reproach if she does not pay due honour to the being who has emancipated her. And therefore, in such a case, she will most deservedly suffer the implacable punishment denounced against slavish and ungrateful minds. |
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| 36. Philo of Alexandria, On The Preliminary Studies, 81-85, 87-88, 86 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 28 |
37. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 1.84-1.87, 1.107-1.108, 1.113-1.115, 3.32, 3.63 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 26, 28, 30 | 1.84. But the high priest is commanded to wear a similar dress when he goes into the holy of holies to offer incense, because linen is not made of any animal that dies, as woollen garments are. He is also commanded to wear another robe also, having very beautiful embroidery and ornament upon it, so that it may seem to be a copy and representation of the world. And the description of the ornament is a clear proof of this; 1.85. for in the first place the whole of the round robe is of hyacinthine colour, a tunic reaching to the feet, being an emblem of the air, since the air also is by nature black, and in a manner may be said to be reaching to the feet, as it is extended from above from the regions about the moon, to the lowest places of the earth. 1.86. Next there was a woven garment in the form of a breastplate upon it, and this was a symbol of the heaven; for on the points of the shoulders are two emerald stones of most exceeding value, one on one side and one on the other, each perfectly round and single on each side, as emblems of the hemispheres, one of which is above the earth and the other under the earth. 1.87. Then on his chest there are twelve precious stones of different colours, arranged in four rows of three stones in each row, being fashioned so as an emblem of the zodiac. For the zodiac also consists of twelve animals, and so divides the four seasons of the year, allotting three animals to each season. 1.107. Let the high priest, therefore, take a pure virgin to be his wife; I say a virgin, meaning not only one with whom no other man has even been connected, but one in connection with whom no other man has ever been named in reference to the agreement of marriage, even though her body may be pure.XXI. 1.108. But besides this, injunctions are given to the particular and inferior priests concerning their marriages, which are the very same in most points, which are given to those who have the supreme priesthood. But they are permitted with impunity to marry not only maidens but widows also; not, indeed, all widows, but those whose husbands are dead. For the law thinks it fitting to remove all quarrels and disputes from the life of the priests. And if they had husbands living there very likely might be disputes from the jealousy which is caused by the love of men for women. But when the first husband is dead, then with him the hostility which could be felt towards the second husband dies also. 1.113. but the high priest he absolutely forbade to mourn in any case whatever; and may we not say that this was rightly done? For as to the ministrations which belong to the other priests, one individual can perform them instead of another, so that, even if some be in mourning, still none of the usual observances need be omitted; but there is no one besides the high priest himself, who is permitted to perform his duties instead of him; for which reason, he must always be kept free from all defilement, never touching any dead body, in order that, being always ready to offer up prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the whole world at suitable seasons, he may continue to fulfil the duties of his office without hindrance. 1.114. And otherwise too, besides this consideration, the man who has been assigned to God, and who has become the leader of his sacred band of worshippers, ought to be disconnected with, and alienated from, all things of creation, not being so much the slave of the love of either parents, or children, or brothers, as either to omit or to delay any one of those holy actions, which it is by all means better should be done at once; 1.115. and God commands the high priest neither to rend his clothes over his very nearest relations when they die, nor to take from his head the ensign of the priesthood, nor in short to depart from the holy place on any plea of mourning, that, showing proper respect to the place, and to the sacred ornaments with which he himself is crowned, he may show himself superior to pity, and pass the whole of his life exempt from all sorrow. 3.32. And there are particular periods affecting the health of the woman when a man may not touch her, but during that time he must abstain from all connection with her, respecting the laws of nature. And, at the same time, he must learn not to waste his vigour in the pursuit of an unseemly and barbarous pleasure; for such conduct would be like that of a husbandman who, out of drunkenness or sudden insanity, should sow wheat or barley in lakes or flooded torrents, instead of over the fertile plains; for it is proper to cast seed upon fields when they are dry, in order that it may bear abundant fruit. 3.63. And the law takes such exceeding pains to prevent any irregularity taking place with respect to marriages, that even in the case of husbands and wives who have come together for legitimate embraces, in strict accordance with the laws of marriage, after they have arisen from their beds it does not allow them to touch anything before they have had recourse to washings and ablutions; keeping them very far from adultery and from all accusations referring to adultery.XI. |
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38. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 2.8.14, 2.128, 2.162, 2.164-2.166, 5.124 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 26, 30 | 2.128. 5. And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sunrising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. 2.162. 14. But then as to the two other orders at first mentioned: the Pharisees are those who are esteemed most skillful in the exact explication of their laws, and introduce the first sect. These ascribe all to fate [or providence], and to God, 2.164. But the Sadducees are those that compose the second order, and take away fate entirely, and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil; 2.165. and they say, that to act what is good, or what is evil, is at men’s own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please. They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades. 2.166. Moreover, the Pharisees are friendly to one another, and are for the exercise of concord, and regard for the public; but the behavior of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them. And this is what I had to say concerning the philosophic sects among the Jews. 5.124. ince he who is grown old in wars did never make so great a mistake. Our laws of war do also ever inflict capital punishment on those that in the least break into good order, while at this time they have seen an entire army run into disorder. |
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39. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 13.171-13.173, 18.1.3, 18.16-18.17 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 30 | 13.171. 9. At this time there were three sects among the Jews, who had different opinions concerning human actions; the one was called the sect of the Pharisees, another the sect of the Sadducees, and the other the sect of the Essenes. 13.172. Now for the Pharisees, they say that some actions, but not all, are the work of fate, and some of them are in our own power, and that they are liable to fate, but are not caused by fate. But the sect of the Essenes affirm, that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination. 13.173. And for the Sadducees, they take away fate, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal; but they suppose that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves the causes of what is good, and receive what is evil from our own folly. However, I have given a more exact account of these opinions in the second book of the Jewish War. 18.16. 4. But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent: 18.17. but this doctrine is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them. |
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40. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 107 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 192| 107. ut possit animo captus Alcides agi, | |
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| 41. Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1, 2.16, 4.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 17, 37 |
| 42. Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 17 |
43. New Testament, 1 John, 1.8, 2.2, 3.12 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, in romans •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 194, 244, 245, 248, 283| 1.8. Ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔχομεν, ἑαυτοὺς πλανῶμεν καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν. 2.2. καὶ αὐτὸς ἱλασμός ἐστιν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, οὐ περὶ τῶν ἡμετέρων δὲ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου. 3.12. οὐ καθὼς Καὶν ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἦν καὶ ἔσφαξεν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ· καὶ χάριν τίνος ἔσφαξεν αὐτόν; ὅτι τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ πονηρὰ ἦν, τὰ δὲ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ δίκαια. | 1.8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 2.2. And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. 3.12. unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his works were evil, and his brother's righteous. |
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44. New Testament, James, 1.5-1.6, 3.2, 4.6 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 101, 161, 188| 1.5. Εἰ δέ τις ὑμῶν λείπεται σοφίας, αἰτείτω παρὰ τοῦ διδόντος θεοῦ πᾶσιν ἁπλῶς καὶ μὴ ὀνειδίζοντος, καὶ δοθήσεται αὐτῷ· 1.6. αἰτείτω δὲ ἐν πίστει, μηδὲν διακρινόμενος, ὁ γὰρ διακρινόμενος ἔοικεν κλύδωνι θαλάσσης ἀνεμιζομένῳ καὶ ῥιπιζομένῳ· 3.2. πολλὰ γὰρ πταίομεν ἅπαντες. εἴ τις ἐν λόγῳ οὐ πταίει, οὗτος τέλειος ἀνήρ, δυνατὸς χαλιναγωγῆσαι καὶ ὅλον τὸ σῶμα. 4.6. μείζονα δὲ δίδωσιν χάριν· διὸ λέγει Ὁ θεὸς ὑπερηφάνοις ἀντιτάσσεται ταπεινοῖς δὲ δίδωσιν χάριν. | 1.5. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him. 1.6. But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. 3.2. For in many things we all stumble. If anyone doesn't stumble in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. 4.6. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." |
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45. New Testament, Titus, 2.11 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 269| 2.11. Ἐπεφάνη γὰρ ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις παιδεύουσα ἡμᾶς, | 2.11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, |
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46. New Testament, John, 1.9-1.13, 2.6, 2.23-2.25, 3.5, 4.1-4.2, 6.29, 6.44, 6.62-6.66, 7.39, 8.24, 8.34, 8.36, 12.32, 14.3, 15.5 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 109, 134, 161, 164, 170, 172, 173, 174, 187, 188, 189, 198, 220, 221, 225, 235, 244, 245, 248, 255, 293| 1.9. Ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. 1.10. ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω. 1.11. Εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον. 1.12. ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, 1.13. οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκὸς οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς ἀλλʼ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν. 2.6. ἦσαν δὲ ἐκεῖ λίθιναι ὑδρίαι ἓξ κατὰ τὸν καθαρισμὸν τῶν Ἰουδαίων κείμεναι, χωροῦσαι ἀνὰ μετρητὰς δύο ἢ τρεῖς. 2.23. Ὡς δὲ ἦν ἐν τοῖς Ἰεροσολύμοις ἐν τῷ πάσχα ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, θεωροῦντες αὐτοῦ τὰ σημεῖα ἃ ἐποίει· 2.24. αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὑτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας 2.25. καὶ ὅτι οὐ χρείαν εἶχεν ἵνα τις μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν τί ἦν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ. 3.5. ἀπεκρίθη [ὁ] Ἰησοῦς Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ. 4.1. ?̔Ως οὖν ἔγνω ὁ κύριος ὅτι ἤκουσαν οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ὅτι Ἰησοῦς πλείονας μαθητὰς ποιεῖ καὶ βαπτίζει [ἢ] Ἰωάνης, 4.2. — καίτοιγε Ἰησοῦς αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐβάπτιζεν ἀλλʼ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ, 6.29. ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ ἔργον τοῦ θεοῦ ἵνα πιστεύητε εἰς ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ἐκεῖνος. 6.44. οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν, κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ. 6.62. ἐὰν οὖν θεωρῆτε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀναβαίνοντα ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον; 6.63. τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν τὸ ζωοποιοῦν, ἡ σὰρξ οὐκ ὠφελεῖ οὐδέν· τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ λελάληκα ὑμῖν πνεῦμά ἐστιν καὶ ζωή ἐστιν· 6.64. ἀλλὰ εἰσὶν ἐξ ὑμῶν τινὲς οἳ οὐ πιστεύουσιν. Ἤιδει γὰρ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὁ Ἰησοῦς τίνες εἰσὶν οἱ μὴ πιστεύοντες καὶ τίς ἐστιν ὁ παραδώσων αὐτόν. 6.65. καὶ ἔλεγεν Διὰ τοῦτο εἴρηκα ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ δεδομένον αὐτῷ ἐκ τοῦ πατρός. 6.66. Ἐκ τούτου πολλοὶ ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ ἀπῆλθον εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω καὶ οὐκέτι μετʼ αὐτοῦ περιεπάτουν. 7.39. Τοῦτο δὲ εἶπεν περὶ τοῦ πνεύματος οὗ ἔμελλον λαμβάνειν οἱ πιστεύσαντες εἰς αὐτόν· οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὔπω ἐδοξάσθη. 8.24. εἶπον οὖν ὑμῖν ὅτι ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν· ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ πιστεύσητε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι, ἀποθανεῖσθε ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν. 8.34. ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς [ὁ] Ἰησοῦς Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν δοῦλός ἐστιν [τῆς ἁμαρτίας]· 8.36. ἐὰν οὖν ὁ υἱὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλευθερώσῃ, ὄντως ἐλεύθεροι ἔσεσθε. 12.32. κἀγὼ ἂν ὑψωθῶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς, πάντας ἑλκύσω πρὸς ἐμαυτόν. 14.3. καὶ ἐὰν πορευθῶ καὶ ἑτοιμάσω τόπον ὑμῖν, πάλιν ἔρχομαι καὶ παραλήμψομαι ὑμᾶς πρὸς ἐμαυτόν, ἵνα ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ καὶ ὑμεῖς ἦτε. 15.5. ὁ μένων ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ οὗτος φέρει καρπὸν πολύν, ὅτι χωρὶς ἐμοῦ οὐ δύνασθε ποιεῖν οὐδέν. | 1.9. The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world. 1.10. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn't recognize him. 1.11. He came to his own, and those who were his own didn't receive him. 1.12. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God's children, to those who believe in his name: 1.13. who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 2.6. Now there were six water pots of stone set there after the Jews' manner of purifying, containing two or three metretes apiece. 2.23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, observing his signs which he did. 2.24. But Jesus didn't trust himself to them, because he knew everyone, 2.25. and because he didn't need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man. 3.5. Jesus answered, "Most assuredly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can't enter into the Kingdom of God! 4.1. Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 4.2. (although Jesus himself didn't baptize, but his disciples), 6.29. Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." 6.44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. 6.62. Then what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 6.63. It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life. 6.64. But there are some of you who don't believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who didn't believe, and who it was who would betray him. 6.65. He said, "For this cause have I said to you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father." 6.66. At this, many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. 7.39. But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus wasn't yet glorified. 8.24. I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins." 8.34. Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. 8.36. If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 12.32. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." 14.3. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. 15.5. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. |
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47. New Testament, 1 Peter, 1.1-1.2 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 145, 292| 1.1. ΠΕΤΡΟΣ ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκλεκτοῖς παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς Πόντου, Γαλατίας, Καππαδοκίας, Ἀσίας, καὶ Βιθυνίας, 1.2. κατὰ πρόγνωσιν θεοῦ πατρός, ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος, εἰς ὑπακοὴν καὶ ῥαντισμὸν αἵματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ· χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη. | 1.1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones who are living as strangers in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 1.2. according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled in his blood: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. |
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48. New Testament, Romans, 3.23, 4.4-4.6, 5.5, 5.12, 5.19, 9.18-9.23, 11.1-11.36 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty •‘evil will’, in romans •‘evil will’, stoic dead will Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 38, 52, 101, 121, 127, 142, 144, 148, 161, 164, 166, 169, 170, 173, 178, 187, 188, 189, 220, 221, 223, 225, 244, 245, 248, 254, 269, 270, 271, 279, 280, 286, 293, 295, 297| 3.23. πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, 4.4. τῷ δὲ ἐργαζομένῳ ὁ μισθὸς οὐ λογίζεται κατὰ χάριν ἀλλὰ κατὰ ὀφείλημα· 4.5. τῷ δὲ μὴ ἐργαζομένῳ, πιστεύοντι δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἀσεβῆ, λογίζεται ἡ πίστις αὐτοῦ εἰς δικαιοσύνην, 4.6. καθάπερ καὶ Δαυεὶδ λέγει τὸν μακαρισμὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ᾧ ὁ θεὸς λογίζεται δικαιοσύνην χωρὶς ἔργων 5.5. ἡ δὲἐλπὶς οὐ καταισχύνει.ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκέχυται ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου τοῦ δοθέντος ἡμῖν· 5.12. Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ διʼ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον-. 5.19. ὥσπερ γὰρ διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοί, οὕτως καὶ διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλοί. 9.18. ἄρα οὖν ὃν θέλει ἐλεεῖ, ὃν δὲ θέλεισκληρύνει. 9.19. Ἐρεῖς μοι οὖν Τί ἔτι μέμφεται; 9.20. τῷ γὰρ βουλήματι αὐτοῦ τίς ἀνθέστηκεν; ὦ ἄνθρωπε, μενοῦνγε σὺ τίς εἶ ὁ ἀνταποκρινόμενος τῷ θεῷ;μὴ ἐρεῖ τὸ πλάσμα τῷ πλάσαντιΤί με ἐποίησας οὕτως; 9.21. ἢ οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίανὁ κεραμεὺς τοῦ πηλοῦἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ φυράματος ποιῆσαι ὃ μὲν εἰς τιμὴν σκεῦος, ὃ δὲ εἰς ἀτιμίαν; 9.22. εἰ δὲ θέλων ὁ θεὸς ἐνδείξασθαι τὴν ὀργὴν καὶ γνωρίσαι τὸ δυνατὸν αὐτοῦἤνεγκενἐν πολλῇ μακροθυμίᾳσκεύη ὀργῆςκατηρτισμέναεἰς ἀπώλειαν, 9.23. ἵνα γνωρίσῃ τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ σκεύη ἐλέους, ἃ προητοίμασεν εἰς δόξαν, 11.1. Λέγω οὖν, μὴἀπώσατο ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ;μὴ γένοιτο· καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ Ἰσραηλείτης εἰμί, ἐκ σπέρματος Ἀβραάμ, φυλῆς Βενιαμείν. 11.2. οὐκ ἀπώσατο ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦὃν προέγνω. ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ἐν Ἠλείᾳ τί λέγει ἡ γραφή, ὡς ἐντυγχάνει τῷ θεῷ κατὰ τοῦ Ἰσραήλ; 11.3. Κύριε, τοὺς προφήτας σου ἀπέκτειναν, τὰ θυσιαστήριά σου κατέσκαψαν, κἀγὼ ὑπελείφθην μόνος, καὶ ζητοῦσιν τὴν ψυχήν μου. 11.4. ἀλλὰ τί λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ χρηματισμός;Κατέλιπονἐμαυτῷἑπτακισχιλίους ἄνδρας, οἵτινες οὐκ ἔκαμψαν γόνυ τῇ Βάαλ. 11.5. οὕτως οὖν καὶ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ λίμμα κατʼ ἐκλογὴν χάριτος γέγονεν· 11.6. εἰ δὲ χάριτι, οὐκέτι ἐξ ἔργων, ἐπεὶ ἡ χάρις οὐκέτι γίνεται χάρις. 11.7. τί οὖν; ὃ ἐπιζητεῖ Ἰσραήλ, τοῦτο οὐκ ἐπέτυχεν, ἡ δὲ ἐκλογὴ ἐπέτυχεν· οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ ἐπωρώθησαν, 11.8. καθάπερ γέγραπται Ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς πνεῦμα κατανύξεως, ὀφθαλμοὺς τοῦ μὴ βλέπειν καὶ ὦτα τοῦ μὴ ἀκούειν, ἕως τῆς σήμερον ἡμέρας. 11.9. καὶ Δαυεὶδ λέγει 11.10. 11.11. Λέγω οὖν, μὴ ἔπταισαν ἵνα πέσωσιν; μὴ γένοιτο· ἀλλὰ τῷ αὐτῶν παραπτώματι ἡ σωτηρία τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, εἰς τὸπαραζηλῶσαιαὐτούς. 11.12. εἰ δὲ τὸ παράπτωμα αὐτῶν πλοῦτος κόσμου καὶ τὸ ἥττημα αὐτῶν πλοῦτος ἐθνῶν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῶν. 11.13. Ὑμῖν δὲ λέγω τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. ἐφʼ ὅσον μὲν οὖν εἰμὶ ἐγὼ ἐθνῶν ἀπόστολος, τὴν διακονίαν μου δοξάζω, 11.14. εἴ πως παραζηλώσω μου τὴν σάρκα καὶ σώσω τινὰς ἐξ αὐτῶν. 11.15. εἰ γὰρ ἡ ἀποβολὴ αὐτῶν καταλλαγὴ κόσμου, τίς ἡ πρόσλημψις εἰ μὴ ζωὴ ἐκ νεκρῶν; 11.16. εἰ δὲ ἡ ἀπαρχὴ ἁγία, καὶ τὸ φύραμα· καὶ εἰ ἡ ῥίζα ἁγία, καὶ οἱ κλάδοι. 11.17. Εἰ δέ τινες τῶν κλάδων ἐξεκλάσθησαν, σὺ δὲ ἀγριέλαιος ὢν ἐνεκεντρίσθης ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ συνκοινωνὸς τῆς ῥίζης τῆς πιότητος τῆς ἐλαίας ἐγένου, μὴ κατακαυχῶ τῶν κλάδων· 11.18. εἰ δὲ κατακαυχᾶσαι, οὐ σὺ τὴν ῥίζαν βαστάζεις ἀλλὰ ἡ ῥίζα σέ. 11.19. ἐρεῖς οὖν Ἐξεκλάσθησαν κλάδοι ἵνα ἐγὼ ἐνκεντρισθῶ. καλῶς· 11.20. τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ ἐξεκλάσθησαν, σὺ δὲ τῇ πίστει ἕστηκας. 11.21. μὴ ὑψηλὰ φρόνει, ἀλλὰ φοβοῦ· εἰ γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τῶν κατὰ φύσιν κλάδων οὐκ ἐφείσατο, οὐδὲ σοῦ φείσεται. ἴδε οὖν χρηστότητα καὶ ἀποτομίαν θεοῦ· 11.22. ἐπὶ μὲν τοὺς πεσόντας ἀποτομία, ἐπὶ δὲ σὲ χρηστότης θεοῦ, ἐὰν ἐπιμένῃς τῇ χρηστότητι, ἐπεὶ καὶ σὺ ἐκκοπήσῃ. 11.23. κἀκεῖνοι δέ, ἐὰν μὴ ἐπιμένωσι τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ, ἐνκεντρισθήσονται· δυνατὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ θεὸς πάλιν ἐνκεντρίσαι αὐτούς. 11.24. εἰ γὰρ σὺ ἐκ τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἐξεκόπης ἀγριελαίου καὶ παρὰ φύσιν ἐνεκεντρίσθης εἰς καλλιέλαιον, πόσῳ μᾶλλον οὗτοι οἱ κατὰ φύσιν ἐνκεντρισθήσονται τῇ ἰδίᾳ ἐλαίᾳ. 11.25. Οὐ γὰρ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο, ἵνα μὴ ἦτε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς φρόνιμοι, ὅτι πώρωσις ἀπὸ μέρους τῷ Ἰσραὴλ γέγονεν ἄχρι οὗ τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν εἰσέλθῃ, καὶ οὕτως πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ σωθήσεται· 11.26. καθὼς γέγραπται 11.27. 11.28. κατὰ μὲν τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἐχθροὶ διʼ ὑμᾶς, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἐκλογὴν ἀγαπητοὶ διὰ τοὺς πατέρας· 11.29. ἀμεταμέλητα γὰρ τὰ χαρίσματα καὶ ἡ κλῆσις τοῦ θεοῦ. 11.30. ὥσπερ γὰρ ὑμεῖς ποτὲ ἠπειθήσατε τῷ θεῷ, νῦν δὲ ἠλεήθητε τῇ τούτων ἀπειθίᾳ, 11.31. οὕτως καὶ οὗτοι νῦν ἠπείθησαν τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει ἵνα καὶ αὐτοὶ νῦν ἐλεηθῶσιν· 11.32. συνέκλεισεν γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τοὺς πάντας εἰς ἀπειθίαν ἵνα τοὺς πάντας ἐλεήσῃ. 11.33. Ὢ βάθος πλούτου καὶ σοφίας καὶ γνώσεως θεοῦ· ὡς ἀνεξεραύνητα τὰ κρίματα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀνεξιχνίαστοι αἱ ὁδοὶ αὐτοῦ. 11.34. 11.35. 11.36. ὅτι ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα· αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας· ἀμήν. | 3.23. for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; 4.4. Now to him who works, the reward is not accounted as of grace, but as of debt. 4.5. But to him who doesn't work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. 4.6. Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, 5.5. and hope doesn't disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 5.12. Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned. 5.19. For as through the one man's disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one will many be made righteous. 9.18. So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. 9.19. You will say then to me, "Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?" 9.20. But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?" 9.21. Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? 9.22. What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, 9.23. and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, 11.1. I ask then, Did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 11.2. God didn't reject his people, which he foreknew. Or don't you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel: 11.3. "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life." 11.4. But how does God answer him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 11.5. Even so then at this present time also there is a remt according to the election of grace. 11.6. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 11.7. What then? That which Israel seeks for, that he didn't obtain, but the elect obtained it, and the rest were hardened. 11.8. According as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day." 11.9. David says, "Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, A stumbling block, and a retribution to them. 11.10. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Bow down their back always." 11.11. I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 11.12. Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? 11.13. For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry; 11.14. if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. 11.15. For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead? 11.16. If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches. 11.17. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; 11.18. don't boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. 11.19. You will say then, "Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in." 11.20. True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don't be conceited, but fear; 11.21. for if God didn't spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 11.22. See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 11.23. They also, if they don't continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 11.24. For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? 11.25. For I don't desire, brothers, to have you ignorant of this mystery, so that you won't be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, 11.26. and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, "There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, And he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 11.27. This is my covet to them, When I will take away their sins." 11.28. Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake. 11.29. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 11.30. For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, 11.31. even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 11.32. For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. 11.33. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! 11.34. "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" 11.35. "Or who has first given to him, And it will be repaid to him again?" 11.36. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen. |
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49. New Testament, Philippians, 2.13 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 271, 293| 2.13. θεὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας· | 2.13. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. |
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50. New Testament, Galatians, 4.19, 5.6 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 245, 248, 257| 4.19. τεκνία μου, οὓς πάλιν ὠδίνω μέχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν· 5.6. ἐν γὰρ Χριστῷ [Ἰησοῦ] οὔτε περιτομή τι ἰσχύει οὔτε ἀκροβυστία, ἀλλὰ πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη. | 4.19. My little children, of whom I am again in travail untilChrist is formed in you-- 5.6. For in Christ Jesusneither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faithworking through love. |
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51. New Testament, Ephesians, 2.1-2.3, 2.8-2.9 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 94, 136, 160, 172, 178, 257, 270, 293| 2.1. καὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν, 2.2. ἐν αἷς ποτὲ περιεπατήσατε κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθίας· 2.3. ἐν οἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν, ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν, καὶ ἤμεθα τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί·— 2.8. καὶ τοῦτο 2.9. οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον· οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται. | 2.1. You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, 2.2. in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience; 2.3. among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 2.8. for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 2.9. not of works, that no one would boast. |
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| 52. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 30 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 37 |
53. New Testament, Luke, 2.14, 4.58, 12.6, 14.2, 14.21-14.23 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 142, 166, 178, 220, 221, 225, 231, 263, 264| 2.14. Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας. 12.6. οὐχὶ πέντε στρουθία πωλοῦνται ἀσσαρίων δύο; καὶ ἓν ἐξ αὐτῶν οὐκ ἔστιν ἐπιλελησμένον ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ. 14.2. καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπός τις ἦν ὑδρωπικὸς ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ. 14.21. καὶ παραγενόμενος ὁ δοῦλος ἀπήγγειλεν τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ ταῦτα. τότε ὀργισθεὶς ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης εἶπεν τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ Ἔξελθε ταχέως εἰς τὰς πλατείας καὶ ῥύμας τῆς πόλεως, καὶ τοὺς πτωχοὺς καὶ ἀναπείρους καὶ τυφλοὺς καὶ χωλοὺς εἰσάγαγε ὧδε. 14.22. καὶ εἶπεν ὁ δοῦλος Κύριε, γέγονεν ὃ ἐπέταξας, καὶ ἔτι τόπος ἐστίν. 14.23. καὶ εἶπεν ὁ κύριος πρὸς τὸν δοῦλον Ἔξελθε εἰς τὰς ὁδοὺς καὶ φραγμοὺς καὶ ἀνάγκασον εἰσελθεῖν, ἵνα γεμισθῇ μου ὁ οἶκος· | 2.14. "Glory to God in the highest, On earth peace, good will toward men." 12.6. "Aren't five sparrows sold for two assaria? Not one of them is forgotten by God. 14.2. Behold, a certain man who had dropsy was in front of him. 14.21. "That servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.' 14.22. "The servant said, 'Lord, it is done as you commanded, and there is still room.' 14.23. "The lord said to the servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. |
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54. Plutarch, On Isis And Osiris, 1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 12 | 1. All good things, my dear Clea, The priestess for whom Plutarch composed his collection of stories about the Bravery of Women ( Moralia , 242 e ff.). sensible men must ask from the gods; and especially do we pray that from those mighty gods we may, in our quest, gain a knowledge of themselves, so far as such a thing is attainable by men. Cf. Plutarch, Moralia , 780 f - 781 a and 355 c, infra . For we believe that there is nothing more important for man to receive, or more ennobling for God of His grace to grant, than the truth. God gives to men the other things for which they express a desire, but of sense and intelligence He grants them only a share, inasmuch as these are His especial possessions and His sphere of activity. For the Deity is not blessed by reason of his possession of gold and silver, Cf. Themistius, Oration xxxiii. p. 365 b-d. nor strong because of thunder and lightning, but through knowledge and intelligence. of all the things that Homer said about the gods, he has expressed most beautifully this thought: Iliad , xiii. 354; quoted also in Moralia , 32 a, and Life and Writings of Homer , ii. 114. Both, indeed, were in lineage one, and of the same country, Yet was Zeus the earlier born and his knowledge was greater. Thereby the poet plainly declares that the primacy of Zeus is nobler since it is elder in knowledge and in wisdom. I think also that a source of happiness in the eternal life, which is the lot of God, is that events which come to pass do not escape His prescience. But if His knowledge and meditation on the nature of Existence should be taken away, then, to my mind, His immortality is not living, but a mere lapse of time. Cf. Moralia , 781 a. |
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55. New Testament, Acts, 9.3-9.7, 13.48, 24.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 225, 235, 283| 9.3. Ἐν δὲ τῷ πορεύεσθαι ἐγένετο αὐτὸν ἐγγίζειν τῇ Δαμασκῷ, ἐξέφνης τε αὐτὸν περιήστραψεν φῶς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, 9.4. καὶ πεσὼν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἤκουσεν φωνὴν λέγουσαν αὐτῷ Σαούλ Σαούλ, τί με διώκεις; 9.5. εἶπεν δέ Τίς εἶ, κύριε; ὁ δέ Ἐγώ εἰμι Ἰησοῦς ὃν σὺ διώκεις· 9.6. ἀλλὰ ἀνάστηθι καὶ εἴσελθε εἰς τὴν πόλιν, καὶ λαληθήσεταί σοι ὅτι σε δεῖ ποιεῖν. 9.7. οἱ δὲ ἄνδρες οἱ συνοδεύοντες αὐτῷ ἱστήκεισαν ἐνεοί, ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς μηδένα δὲ θεωροῦντες. 13.48. ἀκούοντα δὲ τὰ ἔθνη ἔχαιρον καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον· 24.2. κληθέντος δὲ [αὐτοῦ] ἤρξατο κατηγορεῖν ὁ Τέρτυλλος λέγων Πολλῆς εἰρήνης τυγχάνοντες διὰ σοῦ καὶ διορθωμάτων γινομένων τῷ ἔθνει τούτῳ διὰ τῆς σῆς προνοίας | 9.3. As he traveled, it happened that he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him. 9.4. He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 9.5. He said, "Who are you, Lord?"The Lord said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 9.6. But rise up, and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do." 9.7. The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. 13.48. As the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of God. As many as were appointed to eternal life believed. 24.2. When he was called, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, "Seeing that by you we enjoy much peace, and that excellent measures are coming to this nation, |
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56. New Testament, 2 Corinthians, 3.5-3.6, 5.19-5.21, 8.16, 13.7 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 161, 173, 235, 245| 3.5. οὐχ ὅτι ἀφʼ ἑαυτῶν ἱκανοί ἐσμεν λογίσασθαί τι ὡς ἐξ αὑτῶν, ἀλλʼ ἡ ἱκανότης ἡμῶν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, 3.6. ὃς καὶ ἱκάνωσεν ἡμᾶς διακόνους καινῆς διαθήκης, οὐ γράμματος ἀλλὰ πνεύματος, τὸ γὰρ γράμμα ἀποκτείνει, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζωοποιεῖ. 5.19. ὡς ὅτι θεὸς ἦν ἐν Χριστῷ κόσμον καταλλάσσων ἑαυτῷ, μὴ λογιζόμενος αὐτοῖς τὰ παραπτώματα αὐτῶν, καὶ θέμενος ἐν ἡμῖν τὸν λόγον τῆς καταλλαγῆς. 5.20. Ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ οὖν πρεσβεύομεν ὡς τοῦ θεοῦ παρακαλοῦντος διʼ ἡμῶν· δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, καταλλάγητε τῷ θεῷ. 5.21. τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς γενώμεθα δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ. 8.16. Χάρις δὲ τῷ θεῷ τῷ διδόντι τὴν αὐτὴν σπουδὴν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ Τίτου, 13.7. εὐχόμεθα δὲ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν μὴ ποιῆσαι ὑμᾶς κακὸν μηδέν, οὐχ ἵνα ἡμεῖς δόκιμοι φανῶμεν, ἀλλʼ ἵνα ὑμεῖς τὸ καλὸν ποιῆτε, ἡμεῖς δὲ ὡς ἀδόκιμοι ὦμεν. | |
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57. New Testament, 1 Timothy, 2.4, 3.1 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 189, 231, 235, 255, 260| 2.4. ὃς πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλει σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν. 3.1. πιστὸς ὁ λόγος. Εἴ τις ἐπισκοπῆς ὀρέγεται, καλοῦ ἔργου ἐπιθυμεῖ. | 2.4. who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth. 3.1. This is a faithful saying: if a man seeks the office of an overseer, he desires a good work. |
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58. New Testament, 1 Corinthians, 2.14, 3.1-3.3, 4.6-4.7, 6.7-6.8 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134, 142, 145, 153, 160, 172, 189, 221, 244, 248, 252, 253, 259, 260, 270, 279| 2.14. ψυχικὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος οὐ δέχεται τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ θεοῦ, μωρία γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐστίν, καὶ οὐ δύναται γνῶναι, ὅτι πνευματικῶς ἀνακρίνεται· 3.1. Κἀγώ, ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἠδυνήθην λαλῆσαι ὑμῖν ὡς πνευματικοῖς ἀλλʼ ὡς σαρκίνοις, ὡς νηπίοις ἐν Χριστῷ. 3.2. γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα, οὐ βρῶμα, οὔπω γὰρ ἐδύνασθε. 3.3. Ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ [ἔτι] νῦν δύνασθε, ἔτι γὰρ σαρκικοί ἐστε. ὅπου γὰρ ἐν ὑμῖν ζῆλος καὶ ἔρις, οὐχὶ σαρκικοί ἐστε καὶ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον περιπατεῖτε; 4.6. Ταῦτα δέ, ἀδελφοί, μετεσχημάτισα εἰς ἐμαυτὸν καὶ Ἀπολλὼν διʼ ὑμᾶς, ἵνα ἐν ἡμῖν μάθητε τό Μὴ ὑπὲρ ἃ γέγραπται, ἵνα μὴ εἷς ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἑνὸς φυσιοῦσθε κατὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου. 4.7. τίς γάρ σε διακρίνει; τί δὲ ἔχεις ὃ οὐκ ἔλαβες; εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔλαβες, τί καυχᾶσαι ὡς μὴ λαβών; 6.7. ἤδη μὲν οὖν ὅλως ἥττημα ὑμῖν ἐστὶν ὅτι κρίματα ἔχετε μεθʼ ἑαυτῶν· διὰ τί οὐχὶ μᾶλλον ἀδικεῖσθε; διὰ τί οὐχὶ μᾶλλον ἀποστερεῖσθε; 6.8. ἀλλὰ ὑμεῖς ἀδικεῖτε καὶ ἀποστερεῖτε, καὶ τοῦτο ἀδελφούς. | 2.14. Now thenatural man doesn't receive the things of God's Spirit, for they arefoolishness to him, and he can't know them, because they arespiritually discerned. 3.1. Brothers, I couldn't speak to you as to spiritual, but as tofleshly, as to babies in Christ. 3.2. I fed you with milk, not withmeat; for you weren't yet ready. Indeed, not even now are you ready, 3.3. for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy,strife, and factions among you, aren't you fleshly, and don't you walkin the ways of men? 4.6. Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred tomyself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not tothink beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffedup against one another. 4.7. For who makes you different? And what doyou have that you didn't receive? But if you did receive it, why do youboast as if you had not received it? 6.7. Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you, that you havelawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather bedefrauded? 6.8. No, but you yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and thatagainst your brothers. |
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59. New Testament, Matthew, 6.10, 12.33, 19.14 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 101, 231, 235| 6.10. ἐλθάτω ἡ βασιλεία σου, γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς· 12.33. Ἢ ποιήσατε τὸ δένδρον καλὸν καὶ τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ καλόν, ἢ ποιήσατε τὸ δένδρον σαπρὸν καὶ τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ σαπρόν· ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ καρποῦ τὸ δένδρον γινώσκεται. 19.14. ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν Ἄφετε τὰ παιδία καὶ μὴ κωλύετε αὐτὰ ἐλθεῖν πρός με, τῶν γὰρ τοιούτων ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. | 6.10. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. 12.33. "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by its fruit. 19.14. But Jesus said, "Allow the little children, and don't forbid them to come to me; for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven." |
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| 60. Tertullian, On The Soul, 40 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 59 |
| 61. Alcinous, Handbook of Platonism, 26.1-26.2 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 12 |
| 62. Clement of Alexandria, A Discourse Concerning The Salvation of Rich Men, 21.1-21.2 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 59, 270 |
| 63. Tertullian, On The Apparel of Women, 1 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 59 |
| 64. Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Fate, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 181.13-182.20 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 37 |
| 65. Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 2.2-2.4, 4.11, 5.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 98, 252, 270 |
| 66. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 5.14.1 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15 |
67. Irenaeus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.1.14, 1.13.6, 2.5.4, 3.20.3, 4.37, 5.14.1, 5.28.1 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15, 52, 54 | 4.37. And they make moon and stars appear on the ceiling after this manner. In the central part of the ceiling, having fastened a mirror, placing a dish full of water equally (with the mirror) in the central portion of the floor, and setting in a central place likewise a candle, emitting a faint light from a higher position than the dish - in this way, by reflection, (the magician) causes the moon to appear by the mirror. But frequently, also, they suspend on high from the ceiling, at a distance, a drum, but which, being covered with some garment, is concealed by the accomplice, in order that (the heavenly body) may not appear before the (proper) time. And afterwards placing a candle (within the drum), when the magician gives the signal to the accomplice, he removes so much of the covering as may be sufficient for effecting an imitation representing the figure of the moon as it is at that particular time. He smears, however, the luminous parts of the drum with cinnabar and gum; and having pared around the neck and bottom of a flagon of glass ready behind, he puts a candle in it, and places around it some of the requisite contrivances for making the figures shine, which some one of the accomplices has concealed on high; and on receiving the signal, he throws down from above the contrivances, so to make the moon appear descending from the sky. And the same result is achieved by means of a jar in sylvan localities. For it is by means of a jar that the tricks in a house are performed. For having set up an altar, subsequently is (placed upon it) the jar, having a lighted lamp; when, however, there are a greater number of lamps, no such sight is displayed. After then the enchanter invokes the moon, he orders all the lights to be extinguished, yet that one be left faintly burning; and then the light, that which streams from the jar, is reflected on the ceiling, and furnishes to those present a representation of the moon; the mouth of the jar being kept covered for the time which it would seem to require, in order that the representation of full moon should be exhibited on the ceiling. |
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| 68. Maximus of Tyre, Dialexeis, 5 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 12 |
| 69. Origen, Commentary On Romans, 4.5.1, 5.15 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 251, 263 |
70. Origen, On First Principles, 2.9.5-2.9.8, 3.1.5, 3.1.8, 3.1.18-3.1.21 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15, 169, 258, 270, 271 | 2.9.5. Now, when we say that this world was established in the variety in which we have above explained that it was created by God, and when we say that this God is good, and righteous, and most just, there are numerous individuals, especially those who, coming from the school of Marcion, and Valentinus, and Basilides, have heard that there are souls of different natures, who object to us, that it cannot consist with the justice of God in creating the world to assign to some of His creatures an abode in the heavens, and not only to give such a better habitation, but also to grant them a higher and more honourable position; to favour others with the grant of principalities; to bestow powers upon some, dominions on others; to confer upon some the most honourable seats in the celestial tribunals; to enable some to shine with more resplendent glory, and to glitter with a starry splendour; to give to some the glory of the sun, to others the glory of the moon, to others the glory of the stars; to cause one star to differ from another star in glory. And, to speak once for all, and briefly, if the Creator God wants neither the will to undertake nor the power to complete a good and perfect work, what reason can there be that, in the creation of rational natures, i.e., of beings of whose existence He Himself is the cause, He should make some of higher rank, and others of second, or third, or of many lower and inferior degrees? In the next place, they object to us, with regard to terrestrial beings, that a happier lot by birth is the case with some rather than with others; as one man, e.g., is begotten of Abraham, and born of the promise; another, too, of Isaac and Rebekah, and who, while still in the womb, supplants his brother, and is said to be loved by God before he is born. Nay, this very circumstance — especially that one man is born among the Hebrews, with whom he finds instruction in the divine law; another among the Greeks, themselves also wise, and men of no small learning; and then another among the Ethiopians, who are accustomed to feed on human flesh; or among the Scythians, with whom parricide is an act sanctioned by law; or among the people of Taurus, where strangers are offered in sacrifice — is a ground of strong objection. Their argument accordingly is this: If there be this great diversity of circumstances, and this diverse and varying condition by birth, in which the faculty of free-will has no scope (for no one chooses for himself either where, or with whom, or in what condition he is born); if, then, this is not caused by the difference in the nature of souls, i.e., that a soul of an evil nature is destined for a wicked nation, and a good soul for a righteous nation, what other conclusion remains than that these things must be supposed to be regulated by accident and chance? And if that be admitted, then it will be no longer believed that the world was made by God, or administered by His providence; and as a consequence, a judgment of God upon the deeds of each individual will appear a thing not to be looked for. In which matter, indeed, what is clearly the truth of things is the privilege of Him alone to know who searches all things, even the deep things of God. 2.9.6. We, however, although but men, not to nourish the insolence of the heretics by our silence, will return to their objections such answers as occur to us, so far as our abilities enable us. We have frequently shown, by those declarations which we were able to produce from the holy Scriptures, that God, the Creator of all things, is good, and just, and all-powerful. When He in the beginning created those beings which He desired to create, i.e., rational natures, He had no other reason for creating them than on account of Himself, i.e., His own goodness. As He Himself, then, was the cause of the existence of those things which were to be created, in whom there was neither any variation nor change, nor want of power, He created all whom He made equal and alike, because there was in Himself no reason for producing variety and diversity. But since those rational creatures themselves, as we have frequently shown, and will yet show in the proper place, were endowed with the power of free-will, this freedom of will incited each one either to progress by imitation of God, or reduced him to failure through negligence. And this, as we have already stated, is the cause of the diversity among rational creatures, deriving its origin not from the will or judgment of the Creator, but from the freedom of the individual will. Now God, who deemed it just to arrange His creatures according to their merit, brought down these different understandings into the harmony of one world, that He might adorn, as it were, one dwelling, in which there ought to be not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay (and some indeed to honour, and others to dishonour), with those different vessels, or souls, or understandings. And these are the causes, in my opinion, why that world presents the aspect of diversity, while Divine Providence continues to regulate each individual according to the variety of his movements, or of his feelings and purpose. On which account the Creator will neither appear to be unjust in distributing (for the causes already mentioned) to every one according to his merits; nor will the happiness or unhappiness of each one's birth, or whatever be the condition that falls to his lot, be deemed accidental; nor will different creators, or souls of different natures, be believed to exist. 2.9.7. But even holy Scripture does not appear to me to be altogether silent on the nature of this secret, as when the Apostle Paul, in discussing the case of Jacob and Esau, says: For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him who calls, it was said, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And after that, he answers himself, and says, What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? And that he might furnish us with an opportunity of inquiring into these matters, and of ascertaining how these things do not happen without a reason, he answers himself, and says, God forbid. For the same question, as it seems to me, which is raised concerning Jacob and Esau, may be raised regarding all celestial and terrestrial creatures, and even those of the lower world as well. And in like manner it seems to me, that as he there says, The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, so it might also be said of all other things, When they were not yet created, neither had yet done any good or evil, that the decree of God according to election may stand, that (as certain think) some things on the one hand were created heavenly, some on the other earthly, and others, again, beneath the earth, not of works (as they think), but of Him who calls, what shall we say then, if these things are so? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. As, therefore, when the Scriptures are carefully examined regarding Jacob and Esau, it is not found to be unrighteousness with God that it should be said, before they were born, or had done anything in this life, the elder shall serve the younger; and as it is found not to be unrighteousness that even in the womb Jacob supplanted his brother, if we feel that he was worthily beloved by God, according to the deserts of his previous life, so as to deserve to be preferred before his brother; so also is it with regard to heavenly creatures, if we notice that diversity was not the original condition of the creature, but that, owing to causes that have previously existed, a different office is prepared by the Creator for each one in proportion to the degree of his merit, on this ground, indeed, that each one, in respect of having been created by God an understanding, or a rational spirit, has, according to the movements of his mind and the feelings of his soul, gained for himself a greater or less amount of merit, and has become either an object of love to God, or else one of dislike to Him; while, nevertheless, some of those who are possessed of greater merit are ordained to suffer with others for the adorning of the state of the world, and for the discharge of duty to creatures of a lower grade, in order that by this means they themselves may be participators in the endurance of the Creator, according to the words of the apostle: For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope. Keeping in view, then, the sentiment expressed by the apostle, when, speaking of the birth of Esau and Jacob, he says, Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid, I think it right that this same sentiment should be carefully applied to the case of all other creatures, because, as we formerly remarked, the righteousness of the Creator ought to appear in everything. And this, it appears to me, will be seen more clearly at last, if each one, whether of celestial or terrestrial or infernal beings, be said to have the causes of his diversity in himself, and antecedent to his bodily birth. For all things were created by the Word of God, and by His Wisdom, and were set in order by His Justice. And by the grace of His compassion He provides for all men, and encourages all to the use of whatever remedies may lead to their cure, and incites them to salvation. 2.9.8. As, then, there is no doubt that at the day of judgment the good will be separated from the bad, and the just from the unjust, and all by the sentence of God will be distributed according to their deserts throughout those places of which they are worthy, so I am of opinion some such state of things was formerly the case, as, God willing, we shall show in what follows. For God must be believed to do and order all things and at all times according to His judgment. For the words which the apostle uses when he says, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour and some to dishonour; and those which he adds, saying, If a man purge himself, he will be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, unto every good work, undoubtedly point out this, that he who shall purge himself when he is in this life, will be prepared for every good work in that which is to come; while he who does not purge himself will be, according to the amount of his impurity, a vessel unto dishonour, i.e., unworthy. It is therefore possible to understand that there have been also formerly rational vessels, whether purged or not, i.e., which either purged themselves or did not do so, and that consequently every vessel, according to the measure of its purity or impurity, received a place, or region, or condition by birth, or an office to discharge, in this world. All of which, down to the humblest, God providing for and distinguishing by the power of His wisdom, arranges all things by His controlling judgment, according to a most impartial retribution, so far as each one ought to be assisted or cared for in conformity with his deserts. In which certainly every principle of equity is shown, while the inequality of circumstances preserves the justice of a retribution according to merit. But the grounds of the merits in each individual case are only recognised truly and clearly by God Himself, along with His only-begotten Word, and His Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit. 3.1.5. Seeing, then, that these positions are thus established by a sort of natural evidence, is it not superfluous to throw back the causes of our actions on those things which happen to us from without, and thus transfer the blame from ourselves, on whom it wholly lies? For this is to say that we are like pieces of wood, or stones, which have no motion in themselves, but receive the causes of their motion from without. Now such an assertion is neither true nor becoming, and is invented only that the freedom of the will may be denied; unless, indeed, we are to suppose that the freedom of the will consists in this, that nothing which happens to us from without can incite us to good or evil. And if any one were to refer the causes of our faults to the natural disorder of the body, such a theory is proved to be contrary to the reason of all teaching. For, as we see in very many individuals, that after living unchastely and intemperately, and after being the captives of luxury and lust, if they should happen to be aroused by the word of teaching and instruction to enter upon a better course of life, there takes place so great a change, that from being luxurious and wicked men, they are converted into those who are sober, and most chaste and gentle; so, again, we see in the case of those who are quiet and honest, that after associating with restless and shameless individuals, their good morals are corrupted by evil conversation, and they become like those whose wickedness is complete. And this is the case sometimes with men of mature age, so that such have lived more chastely in youth than when more advanced years have enabled them to indulge in a freer mode of life. The result of our reasoning, therefore, is to show that those things which happen to us from without are not in our own power; but that to make a good or bad use of those things which do so happen, by help of that reason which is within us, and which distinguishes and determines how these things ought to be used, is within our power. 3.1.5. Such being the case, to say that we are moved from without, and to put away the blame from ourselves, by declaring that we are like to pieces of wood and stones, which are dragged about by those causes that act upon them from without, is neither true nor in conformity with reason, but is the statement of him who wishes to destroy the conception of free-will. For if we were to ask such an one what was free-will, he would say that it consisted in this, that when purposing to do some thing, no external cause came inciting to the reverse. But to blame, on the other hand, the mere constitution of the body, is absurd; for the disciplinary reason, taking hold of those who are most intemperate and savage (if they will follow her exhortation), effects a transformation, so that the alteration and change for the better is most extensive — the most licentious men frequently becoming better than those who formerly did not seem to be such by nature; and the most savage men passing into such a state of mildness, that those persons who never at any time were so savage as they were, appear savage in comparison, so great a degree of gentleness having been produced within them. And we see other men, most steady and respectable, driven from their state of respectability and steadiness by intercourse with evil customs, so as to fall into habits of licentiousness, often beginning their wickedness in middle age, and plunging into disorder after the period of youth has passed, which, so far as its nature is concerned, is unstable. Reason, therefore, demonstrates that external events do not depend on us, but that it is our own business to use them in this way or the opposite, having received reason as a judge and an investigator of the manner in which we ought to meet those events that come from without. 3.1.8. Let us begin, then, with those words which were spoken to Pharaoh, who is said to have been hardened by God, in order that he might not let the people go; and, along with his case, the language of the apostle also will be considered, where he says, Therefore He has mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardens. For it is on these passages chiefly that the heretics rely, asserting that salvation is not in our own power, but that souls are of such a nature as must by all means be either lost or saved; and that in no way can a soul which is of an evil nature become good, or one which is of a virtuous nature be made bad. And hence they maintain that Pharaoh, too, being of a ruined nature, was on that account hardened by God, who hardens those that are of an earthly nature, but has compassion on those who are of a spiritual nature. Let us see, then, what is the meaning of their assertion; and let us, in the first place, request them to tell us whether they maintain that the soul of Pharaoh was of an earthly nature, such as they term lost. They will undoubtedly answer that it was of an earthly nature. If so, then to believe God, or to obey Him, when his nature opposed his so doing, was an impossibility. And if this were his condition by nature, what further need was there for his heart to be hardened, and this not once, but several times, unless indeed because it was possible for him to yield to persuasion? Nor could any one be said to be hardened by another, save him who of himself was not obdurate. And if he were not obdurate of himself, it follows that neither was he of an earthly nature, but such an one as might give way when overpowered by signs and wonders. But he was necessary for God's purpose, in order that, for the saving of the multitude, He might manifest in him His power by his offering resistance to numerous miracles, and struggling against the will of God, and his heart being by this means said to be hardened. Such are our answers, in the first place, to these persons; and by these their assertion may be overturned, according to which they think that Pharaoh was destroyed in consequence of his evil nature. And with regard to the language of the Apostle Paul, we must answer them in a similar way. For who are they whom God hardens, according to your view? Those, namely, whom you term of a ruined nature, and who, I am to suppose, would have done something else had they not been hardened. If, indeed, they come to destruction in consequence of being hardened, they no longer perish naturally, but in virtue of what befalls them. Then, in the next place, upon whom does God show mercy? On those, namely, who are to be saved. And in what respect do those persons stand in need of a second compassion, who are to be saved once by their nature, and so come naturally to blessedness, except that it is shown even from their case, that, because it was possible for them to perish, they therefore obtain mercy, that so they may not perish, but come to salvation, and possess the kingdom of the good. And let this be our answer to those who devise and invent the fable of good or bad natures, i.e., of earthly or spiritual souls, in consequence of which, as they say, each one is either saved or lost. 3.1.8. Let us begin, then, with what is said about Pharaoh— that he was hardened by God, that he might not send away the people; along with which will be examined also the statement of the apostle, Therefore has He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens. And certain of those who hold different opinions misuse these passages, themselves also almost destroying free-will by introducing ruined natures incapable of salvation, and others saved which it is impossible can be lost; and Pharaoh, they say, as being of a ruined nature, is therefore hardened by God, who has mercy upon the spiritual, but hardens the earthly. Let us see now what they mean. For we shall ask them if Pharaoh was of an earthy nature; and when they answer, we shall say that he who is of an earthy nature is altogether disobedient to God: but if disobedient, what need is there of his heart being hardened, and that not once, but frequently? Unless perhaps, since it was possible for him to obey (in which case he would certainly have obeyed, as not being earthy, when hard pressed by the signs and wonders), God needs him to be disobedient to a greater degree, in order that He may manifest His mighty deeds for the salvation of the multitude, and therefore hardens his heart. This will be our answer to them in the first place, in order to overturn their supposition that Pharaoh was of a ruined nature. And the same reply must be given to them with respect to the statement of the apostle. For whom does God harden? Those who perish, as if they would obey unless they were hardened, or manifestly those who would be saved because they are not of a ruined nature. And on whom has He mercy? Is it on those who are to be saved? And how is there need of a second mercy for those who have been prepared once for salvation, and who will by all means become blessed on account of their nature? Unless perhaps, since they are capable of incurring destruction, if they did not receive mercy, they will obtain mercy, in order that they may not incur that destruction of which they are capable, but may be in the condition of those who are saved. And this is our answer to such persons. 3.1.18. Let us now look to the expression, It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. For our opponents assert, that if it does not depend upon him that wills, nor on him that runs, but on God that shows mercy, that a man be saved, our salvation is not in our own power. For our nature is such as to admit of our either being saved or not, or else our salvation rests solely on the will of Him who, if He wills it, shows mercy, and confers salvation. Now let us inquire, in the first place, of such persons, whether to desire blessings be a good or evil act; and whether to hasten after good as a final aim be worthy of praise. If they were to answer that such a procedure was deserving of censure, they would evidently be mad; for all holy men both desire blessings and run after them, and certainly are not blameworthy. How, then, is it that he who is not saved, if he be of an evil nature, desires blessing, and runs after them, but does not find them? For they say that a bad tree does not bring forth good fruits, whereas it is a good fruit to desire blessings. And how is the fruit of a bad tree good? And if they assert that to desire blessings, and to run after them, is an act of indifference, i.e., neither good nor bad, we shall reply, that if it be an indifferent act to desire blessings, and to run after them, then the opposite of that will also be an indifferent act, viz., to desire evils, and to run after them; whereas it is certain that it is not an indifferent act to desire evils, and to run after them, but one that is manifestly wicked. It is established, then, that to desire and follow after blessings is not an indifferent, but a virtuous proceeding. 3.1.18. Let us look next at the passage: So, then, it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. For they who find fault say: If it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy, salvation does not depend upon ourselves, but upon the arrangement made by Him who has formed us such as we are, or on the purpose of Him who shows mercy when he pleases. Now we must ask these persons the following questions: Whether to desire what is good is virtuous or vicious; and whether the desire to run in order to reach the goal in the pursuit of what is good be worthy of praise or censure? And if they shall say that it is worthy of censure, they will return an absurd answer; since the saints desire and run, and manifestly in so acting do nothing that is blameworthy. But if they shall say that it is virtuous to desire what is good, and to run after what is good, we shall ask them how a perishing nature desires better things; for it is like an evil tree producing good fruit, since it is a virtuous act to desire better things. They will give (perhaps) a third answer, that to desire and run after what is good is one of those things that are indifferent, and neither beautiful nor wicked. Now to this we must say, that if to desire and to run after what is good be a thing of indifference, then the opposite also is a thing of indifference, viz., to desire what is evil, and to run after it. But it is not a thing of indifference to desire what is evil, and to run after it. And therefore also, to desire what is good, and to run after it, is not a thing of indifference. Such, then, is the defense which I think we can offer to the statement, that it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. Solomon says in the book of Psalms (for the Song of Degrees is his, from which we shall quote the words): Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman wakes in vain: not dissuading us from building, nor teaching us not to keep watch in order to guard the city in our soul, but showing that what is built without God, and does not receive a guard from Him, is built in vain and watched to no purpose, because God might reasonably be entitled the Lord of the building; and the Governor of all things, the Ruler of the guard of the city. As, then, if we were to say that such a building is not the work of the builder, but of God, and that it was not owing to the successful effort of the watcher, but of the God who is over all, that such a city suffered no injury from its enemies, we should not be wrong, it being understood that something also had been done by human means, but the benefit being gratefully referred to God who brought it to pass; so, seeing that the (mere) human desire is not sufficient to attain the end, and that the running of those who are, as it were, athletes, does not enable them to gain the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus — for these things are accomplished with the assistance of God — it is well said that it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. As if also it were said with regard to husbandry what also is actually recorded: I planted, Apollos watered; and God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase. Now we could not piously assert that the production of full crops was the work of the husbandman, or of him that watered, but the work of God. So also our own perfection is brought about, not as if we ourselves did nothing; for it is not completed by us, but God produces the greater part of it. And that this assertion may be more clearly believed, we shall take an illustration from the art of navigation. For in comparison with the effect of the winds, and the mildness of the air, and the light of the stars, all co-operating in the preservation of the crew, what proportion could the art of navigation be said to bear in the bringing of the ship into harbour? — since even the sailors themselves, from piety, do not venture to assert often that they had saved the ship, but refer all to God; not as if they had done nothing, but because what had been done by Providence was infinitely greater than what had been effected by their art. And in the matter of our salvation, what is done by God is infinitely greater than what is done by ourselves; and therefore, I think, is it said that it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. For if in the manner which they imagine we must explain the statement, that it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy, the commandments are superfluous; and it is in vain that Paul himself blames some for having fallen away, and approves of others as having remained upright, and enacts laws for the Churches: it is in vain also that we give ourselves up to desire better things, and in vain also (to attempt) to run. But it is not in vain that Paul gives such advice, censuring some and approving of others; nor in vain that we give ourselves up to the desire of better things, and to the chase after things that are pre-eminent. They have accordingly not well explained the meaning of the passage. 3.1.19. Besides these, there is the passage, Both to will and to do are of God. And some assert that, if to will be of God, and to do be of God, and if, whether we will evil or do evil, these (movements) come to us from God, then, if so, we are not possessed of free-will. But again, on the other hand, when we will better things, and do things that are more excellent, seeing that willing and doing are from God, it is not we who have done the more excellent things, but we only appeared (to perform them), while it was God that bestowed them; so that even in this respect we do not possess free-will. Now to this we have to answer, that the language of the apostle does not assert that to will evil is of God, or to will good is of Him (and similarly with respect to doing better and worse); but that to will in a general way, and to run in a general way, (are from Him). For as we have from God (the property) of being living things and human beings, so also have we that of willing generally, and, so to speak, of motion in general. And as, possessing (the property) of life and of motion, and of moving, e.g., these members, the hands or the feet, we could not rightly say that we had from God this species of motion, whereby we moved to strike, or destroy, or take away another's goods, but that we had received from Him simply the generic power of motion, which we employed to better or worse purposes; so we have obtained from God (the power) of acting, in respect of our being living things, and (the power) to will from the Creator while we employ the power of will, as well as that of action, for the noblest objects, or the opposite. 3.1.20. Still the declaration of the apostle will appear to drag us to the conclusion that we are not possessed of freedom of will, in which, objecting against himself, he says, Therefore has He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens. You will say then unto me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will? Nay but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? For it will be said: If the potter of the same lump make some vessels to honour and others to dishonour, and God thus form some men for salvation and others for ruin, then salvation or ruin does not depend upon ourselves, nor are we possessed of free-will. Now we must ask him who deals so with these passages, whether it is possible to conceive of the apostle as contradicting himself. I presume, however, that no one will venture to say so. If, then, the apostle does not utter contradictions, how can he, according to him who so understands him, reasonably find fault, censuring the individual at Corinth who had committed fornication, or those who had fallen away, and had not repented of the licentiousness and impurity of which they had been guilty? And how can he bless those whom he praises as having done well, as he does the house of Onesiphorus in these words: The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain: but, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me. The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day. It is not consistent for the same apostle to blame the sinner as worthy of censure, and to praise him who had done well as deserving of approval; and again, on the other hand, to say, as if nothing depended on ourselves, that the cause was in the Creator why the one vessel was formed to honour, and the other to dishonour. And how is this statement correct: For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad, since they who have done evil have advanced to this pitch of wickedness because they were created vessels unto dishonour, while they that have lived virtuously have done good because they were created from the beginning for this purpose, and became vessels unto honour? And again, how does not the statement made elsewhere conflict with the view which these persons draw from the words which we have quoted (that it is the fault of the Creator that one vessel is in honour and another in dishonour), viz., that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work; for if he who purges himself becomes a vessel unto honour, and he who allows himself to remain unpurged becomes a vessel unto dishonour, then, so far as these words are concerned, the Creator is not at all to blame. For the Creator makes vessels of honour and vessels of dishonour, not from the beginning according to His foreknowledge, since He does not condemn or justify beforehand according to it; but (He makes) those into vessels of honour who purged themselves, and those into vessels of dishonour who allowed themselves to remain unpurged: so that it results from older causes (which operated) in the formation of the vessels unto honour and dishonour, that one was created for the former condition, and another for the latter. But if we once admit that there were certain older causes (at work) in the forming of a vessel unto honour, and of one unto dishonour, what absurdity is there in going back to the subject of the soul, and (in supposing) that a more ancient cause for Jacob being loved and for Esau being hated existed with respect to Jacob before his assumption of a body, and with regard to Esau before he was conceived in the womb of Rebecca? 3.1.21. And at the same time, it is clearly shown that, as far as regards the underlying nature, as there is one (piece of) clay which is under the hands of the potter, from which piece vessels are formed unto honour and dishonour; so the one nature of every soul being in the hands of God, and, so to speak, there being (only) one lump of reasonable beings, certain causes of more ancient date led to some being created vessels unto honour, and others vessels unto dishonour. But if the language of the apostle convey a censure when he says, Nay but, O man, who are you that replies against God? it teaches us that he who has confidence before God, and is faithful, and has lived virtuously, would not hear the words, Who are you that replies against God? Such an one, e.g., as Moses was, For Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice; and as God answers Moses, so does a saint also answer God. But he who does not possess this confidence, manifestly, either because he has lost it, or because he investigates these matters not from a love of knowledge, but from a desire to find fault, and who therefore says, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will? would merit the language of censure, which says, Nay but, O man, who are you that replies against God? |
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| 71. Plotinus, Enneads, 1.1.5, 1.2.6, 1.4, 1.6, 1.7.9, 2.2-2.3, 2.3.1, 2.4.4, 2.9.1-2.9.3, 2.9.5, 3.2.9-3.2.10, 3.2.17, 3.3.4-3.3.5, 3.3.19-3.3.21, 3.5.4, 3.7.34, 3.9.3, 4.3.5, 4.3.13, 4.4, 4.7.9, 4.8.5, 5.1.1, 5.3.6, 6.8.1-6.8.4 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 288 |
72. Porphyry, Letter To Marcella, 24 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 33 | 24. No god is responsible for a man's evils, for he has chosen his lot himself. The prayer which is accompanied by base actions is impure, and |45 therefore not acceptable to God; but that which is accompanied by noble actions is pure, and at the same time acceptable. There are four first principles that must be upheld concerning God—faith, truth, love, hope. We must have faith that our only salvation is in turning to God. And having faith, we must strive with all our might to know the truth about God. And when we know this, we must love Him we do know. And when we love Him we must nourish our souls on good hopes for our life, for it is by their good hopes good men are superior to bad ones. Let then these four principles be firmly held. |
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| 73. Nag Hammadi, The Sentences of Sextus, 374, 373 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15 |
| 74. Nag Hammadi, The Teachings of Silvanus, 114-115, 104 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15 |
| 75. Porphyry, Aids To The Study of The Intelligibles, 31 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 33 |
| 76. Nag Hammadi, The Three Steles of Seth, 125 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15 |
| 77. Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation For The Gospel, 11.28.15 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 33 |
| 78. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 16 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 37 |
| 79. Augustine, De Correptione Et Gratia, 17.8 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 252 |
| 80. Augustine, De Diversis Quaestionibus Ad Simplicianum, 1.10-1.12, 1.14-1.15, 1.20, 2.5-2.22 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 95, 142, 143, 144, 145, 153, 213, 256, 271, 279, 280, 281, 286, 290, 291, 292, 297 |
| 81. Augustine, De Diversis Quaestionibus Octoginta Tribus, 68.5-68.6, 80.4 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 109, 153, 198 |
82. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 3.35, 3.46, 4.11 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 187, 254 | 3.35. 50. The fifth rule Tichonius lays down is one he designates of times, - a rule by which we can frequently discover or conjecture quantities of time which are not expressly mentioned in Scripture. And he says that this rule applies in two ways: either to the figure of speech called synecdoche, or to legitimate numbers. The figure synecdoche either puts the part for the whole, or the whole for the part. As, for example, in reference to the time when, in the presence of only three of His disciples, our Lord was transfigured on the mount, so that His face shone as the sun, and His raiment was white as snow, one evangelist says that this event occurred after eight days, Luke 9:28 while another says that it occurred after six days. Now both of these statements about the number of days cannot be true, unless we suppose that the writer who says after eight days, counted the latter part of the day on which Christ uttered the prediction and the first part of the day on which he showed its fulfillment as two whole days; while the writer who says after six days, counted only the whole unbroken days between these two. This figure of speech, which puts the part for the whole, explains also the great question about the resurrection of Christ. For unless to the latter part of the day on which He suffered we join the previous night, and count it as a whole day, and to the latter part of the night in which He arose we join the Lord's day which was just dawning, and count it also a whole day, we cannot make out the three days and three nights during which He foretold that He would be in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:40 51. In the next place, our author calls those numbers legitimate which Holy Scripture more highly favors such as seven, or ten, or twelve, or any of the other numbers which the diligent reader of Scripture soon comes to know. Now numbers of this sort are often put for time universal; as for example, Seven times in the day do I praise You, means just the same as His praise shall continually be in my mouth. And their force is exactly the same, either when multiplied by ten, as seventy and seven hundred (whence the seventy years mentioned in Jeremiah may be taken in a spiritual sense for the whole time during which the Church is a sojourner among aliens); Jeremiah 25:11 or when multiplied into themselves, as ten into ten gives one hundred, and twelve into twelve gives one hundred and forty-four, which last number is used in the Apocalypse to signify the whole body of the saints. Revelation 7:4 Hence it appears that it is not merely questions about times that are to be settled by these numbers, but that their significance is of much wider application, and extends to many subjects. That number in the Apocalypse, for example, mentioned above, has not reference to times, but to men. 4.11. 26. For teaching, of course, true eloquence consists, not in making people like what they disliked, nor in making them do what they shrank from, but in making clear what was obscure; yet if this be done without grace of style, the benefit does not extend beyond the few eager students who are anxious to know whatever is to be learned, however rude and unpolished the form in which it is put; and who, when they have succeeded in their object, find the plain truth pleasant food enough. And it is one of the distinctive features of good intellects not to love words, but the truth in words. For of what service is a golden key, if it cannot open what we want it to open? Or what objection is there to a wooden one if it can, seeing that to open what is shut is all we want? But as there is a certain analogy between learning and eating, the very food without which it is impossible to live must be flavored to meet the tastes of the majority. |
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| 83. Augustine, De Dono Perseverantiae, 1, 10-12, 20-21, 30, 41, 52, 7-9, 19 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 143 |
| 84. Augustine, Faith And Works, 31 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 164 |
| 85. Augustine, De Catechizandis Rudibus, 30 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134 |
| 86. Augustine, De Fide Et Symbolo, 19 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 254 |
| 87. Augustine, De Genesi Contra Manichaeos Libri Duo, 1.12, 1.16, 2.10, 2.43 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, in romans •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 95, 98, 144, 291 |
| 88. Augustine, De Gratia Christi Et De Peccato Originali Contra Pelagium Et Coelestinum, 1.6, 1.10, 2.37 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169, 251, 254 |
| 89. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, 1.4, 1.16, 1.20-1.21, 1.29, 1.32, 3.4-3.11, 3.19, 3.31, 3.45, 3.47-3.55, 3.60 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 33, 34, 98, 136, 144, 153, 166, 213, 292, 297 |
| 90. Augustine, De Magistro, 37-38 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 98, 101 |
| 91. Augustine, On The Morals of The Manichaeans, 1.1, 1.9, 1.20 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 98 |
| 92. Augustine, De Musica, 2-6, 1 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 98 |
| 93. Augustine, Commentary On Genesis, 3.15-3.16, 3.24-3.25, 4.16, 5.21, 5.23, 5.42, 5.44, 6.8-6.10, 6.13-6.17, 6.19, 6.22-6.29, 6.33-6.40, 8.32, 8.42, 9.14, 9.33, 10.27, 11.3, 11.5, 11.8-11.13, 11.17, 11.22 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 148, 149, 166, 251, 254, 290 |
| 94. Augustine, De Beata Vita, 21, 33 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 96 |
95. Augustine, De Baptismo Contra Donatistas, 1.14, 4.31, 5.33 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 121 | 1.14. 22. It is to no purpose, then, that they say to us, "If you acknowledge our baptism, what do we lack that should make you suppose that we ought to think seriously of joining your communion?" For we reply, We do not acknowledge any baptism of yours; for it is not the baptism of schismatics or heretics, but of God and of the Church, wheresoever it may be found, and wherever it may be transferred. But it is in no sense yours, except because you entertain false opinions, and do sacrilegious acts, and have impiously separated yourselves from the Church. For if everything else in your practice and opinions were true, and still you were to persist in this same separation, contrary to the bond of brotherly peace, contrary to the union of all the brethren, who have been manifest, according to the promise, in all the world; the particulars of whose history, and the secrets of whose hearts, you never could have known or considered in every case, so as to have a right to condemn them; who, moreover, cannot be liable to condemnation for submitting themselves to the judges of the Church rather than to one of the parties to the dispute - in this one thing, at least, in such a case, you are deficient, in which he is deficient who lacks charity. Why should we go over our argument again? Look and see yourselves in the apostle, how much there is that you lack. For what does it matter to him who lacks charity, whether he be carried away outside the Church at once by some blast of temptation, or remain within the Lord's harvest, so as to be separated only at the final winnowing? And yet even such, if they have once been born in baptism, need not be born again. |
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| 96. Augustine, The Soul And Its Origin, 1.1, 1.10, 1.12, 1.14, 4.9, 4.11, 4.16 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 160, 174, 188, 220, 269 |
| 97. Ambrosiaster, Commentary On Romans, 4.4, 7.22 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 251, 259 |
| 98. Augustine, Breviculus Collationis Cum Donatistis, 7 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134 |
99. Augustine, Confessions, 1.7, 5.9, 7.5, 7.22, 7.27, 8.10, 8.12-9.11, 8.19, 8.21, 8.22, 9.1, 9.2, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 9.14, 9.34, 10.60, 13.8, 13.15 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 144, 291 | 5.9. 16. And behold, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was descending into hell burdened with all the sins that I had committed, both against You, myself, and others, many and grievous, over and above that bond of original sin whereby we all die in Adam. 1 Corinthians 15:22 For none of these things had Thou forgiven me in Christ, neither had He abolished by His cross the enmity which, by my sins, I had incurred with You. For how could He, by the crucifixion of a phantasm, which I supposed Him to be? As true, then, was the death of my soul, as that of His flesh appeared to me to be untrue; and as true the death of His flesh as the life of my soul, which believed it not, was false. The fever increasing, I was now passing away and perishing. For had I then gone hence, whither should I have gone but into the fiery torments meet for my misdeeds, in the truth of Your ordice? She was ignorant of this, yet, while absent, prayed for me. But You, everywhere present, hearkened to her where she was, and had pity upon me where I was, that I should regain my bodily health, although still frenzied in my sacrilegious heart. For all that peril did not make me wish to be baptized, and I was better when, as a lad, I entreated it of my mother's piety, as I have already related and confessed. But I had grown up to my own dishonour, and all the purposes of Your medicine I madly derided, who would not suffer me, though such a one, to die a double death. Had my mother's heart been smitten with this wound, it never could have been cured. For I cannot sufficiently express the love she had for me, nor how she now travailed for me in the spirit with a far keener anguish than when she bore me in the flesh. 17. I cannot conceive, therefore, how she could have been healed if such a death of mine had transfixed the bowels of her love. Where then would have been her so earnest, frequent, and unintermitted prayers to You alone? But could Thou, most merciful God, despise the contrite and humble heart of that pure and prudent widow, so constant in almsdeeds, so gracious and attentive to Your saints, not permitting one day to pass without oblation at Your altar, twice a day, at morning and even-tide, coming to Your church without intermission - not for vain gossiping, nor old wives' fables, 1 Timothy 5:10 but in order that she might listen to You in Your sermons, and Thou to her in her prayers? Could You- You by whose gift she was such - despise and disregard without succouring the tears of such a one, wherewith she entreated You not for gold or silver, nor for any changing or fleeting good, but for the salvation of the soul of her son? By no means, Lord. Assuredly You were near, and were hearing and doing in that method in which You had predetermined that it should be done. Far be it from You that Thou should delude her in those visions and the answers she had from You - some of which I have spoken of, and others not, - which she kept Luke 2:19 in her faithful breast, and, always petitioning, pressed upon You as Your autograph. For Thou, because Your mercy endures for ever, condescendest to those whose debts You have pardoned, to become likewise a debtor by Your promises. |
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| 100. Augustine, Contra Academicos, 1.1, 2.5, 2.8, 3.27, 3.31, 3.35, 3.43 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 96, 283 |
| 101. Augustine, Contra Adimantum Manichaei Discipulum, 26.1 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 101 |
| 102. Augustine, Contra Adversarium Legis Et Prophetarum, 2.40 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 174, 188 |
103. Augustine, Contra Duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, 1.5-1.8, 1.11-1.14, 1.27, 1.36, 1.40-1.42, 2.2, 2.15, 2.18-2.23, 4.3-4.4, 4.6-4.7, 4.11, 4.13, 4.16, 4.29 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 170, 172, 173, 174, 188, 251, 252, 254, 257 | 1.5. But in defending free will they hasten to confide rather in it for doing righteousness than in God's aid, and to glory every one in himself, and not in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:31 But who of us will say that by the sin of the first man free will perished from the human race? Through sin freedom indeed perished, but it was that freedom which was in Paradise, to have a full righteousness with immortality; and it is on this account that human nature needs divine grace, since the Lord says, If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed John 8:36 - free of course to live well and righteously. For free will in the sinner up to this extent did not perish - that by it all sin, especially they who sin with delight and with love of sin; what they are pleased to do gives them pleasure. Whence also the apostle says, When you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. Romans 6:20 Behold, they are shown to have been by no means able to serve sin except by another freedom. They are not, then, free from righteousness except by the choice of the will, but they do not become free from sin save by the grace of the Saviour. For which reason the admirable Teacher also distinguished these very words: For when you were the servants, says he, of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit did you have, then, in those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being freed from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life. Romans 6:20 He called them free from righteousness, not freed; but from sin not free, lest they should attribute this to themselves, but most watchfully he preferred to say freed, referring this to that declaration of the Lord, If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed. Since, then, the sons of men do not live well unless they are made the sons of God, why is it that this writer wishes to give the power of good living to free will, when this power is not given save by God's grace through Jesus Christ our Lord, as the gospel says: And as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God? John 1:12 1.6. But lest perchance they say that they are aided to this - that they may have power to become the sons of God, but that they may deserve to receive this power they have first received Him by free will with no assistance of grace (because this is the purpose of their endeavour to destroy grace, that they may contend that it is given according to our deservings); lest perchance, then, they so divide that evangelical statement as to refer merit to that portion of it wherein it is said, But as many as received Him, and then say that in that which follows, He gave them power to become the sons of God, grace is not given freely, but is repaid to this merit; if it is asked of them what is the meaning of received Him, will they say anything else than believed on Him? And in order, therefore, that they may know that this also pertains to grace, let them read what the apostle says: And that you be in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which indeed is to them a cause of perdition, but of your salvation, and that of God; for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. Philippians 1:28-29 Certainly he said that both were given. Let them read what he said also: Peace be to the brethren, and love, with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 6:23 Let them also read what the Lord Himself says: No man can come to me, except the Father who has sent me shall draw him. John 6:44 Where, lest any one should suppose that anything else is said in the words come to me than believe in me, a little after, when He was speaking of His body and blood, and many were offended at His discourse, He says, The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life; but there are some of you which believe not. John 6:64 Then the Evangelist added, For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed, and who should betray Him. And He said, Therefore I said to you that no man can come unto me except it were given him of my Father. He repeated, to wit, the saying in which He had said, No man can come unto me, except the Father who has sent me shall draw him. And He declared that He said this for the sake of believers and unbelievers, explaining what He had said, except the Father who has sent me shall draw him, by repeating the very same thing in other words in that which He said, except it were given him of my Father. Because he is drawn to Christ to whom it is given to believe in Christ. Therefore the power is given that they who believe in Him should become the sons of God, since this very thing is given, that they believe in Him. And unless this power be given from God, out of free will there can be none; because it will not be free for good if the deliverer have not made it free; but in evil he has a free will in whom a deceiver, either secret or manifest, has grafted the love of wickedness, or he himself has persuaded himself of it. 1.7. It is not, therefore, true, as some affirm that we say, and as that correspondent of yours ventures moreover to write, that all are forced into sin, as if they were unwilling, by the necessity of their flesh; but if they are already of the age to use the choice of their own mind, they are both retained in sin by their own will, and by their own will are hurried along from sin to sin. For even he who persuades and deceives does not act in them, except that they may commit sin by their will, either by ignorance of the truth or by delight in iniquity, or by both evils - as well of blindness as of weakness. But this will, which is free in evil things because it takes pleasure in evil, is not free in good things, for the reason that it has not been made free. Nor can a man will any good thing unless he is aided by Him who cannot will evil - that is, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For everything which is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:23 And thus the good will which withdraws itself from sin is faithful, because the just lives by faith. Habakkuk 2:4 And it pertains to faith to believe in Christ. And no man can believe in Christ - that is, come to Him - unless it be given to him. Romans 1:17 No man, therefore, can have a righteous will, unless, with no foregoing merits, he has received the true, that is, the gratuitous grace from above. 1.8. These proud and haughty people will not have this; and yet they do not maintain free will by purifying it, but demolish it by exaggerating it. For they are angry with us who say these things, for no other reason than that they disdain to glory in the Lord. Yet Pelagius feared the episcopal judgment of Palestine; and when it was objected to him that he said that the grace of God is given according to our merits, he denied that he said so, and condemned those who said this with an anathema. And yet nothing else is found to be defended in the books which he afterwards wrote, thinking that he had made a fraud upon the men who were his judges, by lying or by hiding his meaning, I know not how, in ambiguous words. 1.11. Yet what it is they wish, what they purpose, to what result they are striving to bring the matter, the words that are added by that writer declare, when he asserts that I say, that therefore they who are born innocent are guilty, and that it is the work of the devil, not of God, that they are born of this diabolical intercourse. Since, therefore, I neither say that this intercourse of husband and wife is diabolical, especially in the case of believers, which is effected for the sake of generating children who are afterwards to be regenerated; nor that any men are made by the devil, but, in so far as they are men, by God; and nevertheless that even of believing husband and wife are born guilty persons (as if a wild olive were produced from an olive), on account of original sin, and on this account they are under the devil unless they are born again in Christ, because the devil is the author of the fault, not of the nature: what, on the other hand, are they labouring to bring about who say that infants inherit no original sin, and therefore are not under the devil, except that that grace of God in infants may be made of no effect, by which He has plucked us out, as the apostle says, from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love? 1 Corinthians 1:13 [VII.] When, indeed, they deny that infants are in the power of darkness even before the help of the Lord the deliverer, they are in such wise praising in them the Creator's work as to destroy the mercy of the Redeemer. And because I confess this both in grown-up people and in infants, he says that this is without any ambiguity Manicheism, although it is the most ancient catholic dogma by which the new heretical dogma of these men is overturned. 1.12. They say, says he, that the saints in the Old Testament were not without sins - that is that they were not free from crimes even by amendment, but they were seized by death in their guilt. Nay, I say that either before the law, or in the time of the Old Testament, they were freed from sins - not by their own power, because cursed is every one that has put his hope in man, Jeremiah 17:5 and without any doubt those are under this curse whom also the sacred Psalm notifies, who trust in their own strength; nor by the old covet which genders to bondage, Galatians 4:24 although it was divinely given by the grace of a sure dispensation; nor by that law itself, holy and just and good as it was, where it is written, You shall not covet, Exodus 20:7 since it was not given as being able to give life, but it was added for the sake of transgression until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; but I say that they were freed by the blood of the Redeemer Himself, who is the one Mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 But those enemies of the grace of God, which is given to small and great through Jesus Christ our Lord, say that the men of God of old were of a perfect righteousness, lest they should be supposed to have needed the incarnation, the passion, and resurrection of Christ, by belief in whom they were saved. 1.13. He says, They say that even the Apostle Paul, even all the apostles, were always polluted by immoderate lust. What man, however profane he may be, would dare to say this? But doubtless this man thus misrepresents because they contend that what the apostle said, I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not, Romans 7:18 and other such things, he said not of himself, but that he introduced the person of somebody else, I know not who, who was suffering these things. Wherefore that passage in his epistle must be carefully considered and investigated, that their error may not lurk in any obscurity of his. Although, therefore, the apostle is here arguing broadly, and with great and lasting conflict maintaining grace against those who were boasting in the law, yet we do come upon a few matters which pertain to the matter in hand. On which subject he says: Because by the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all them that believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans 3:20 And again: Where is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? of works? No; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law. Romans 3:27 And again: For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but by the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Because the law works wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Romans 4:13, etc. And in another place: Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Romans 5:20 In still another place: For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:14 And again in another place: Do you not know, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law), that the law has dominion over a man so long as he lives? For the woman which is under a husband is joined to her husband by the law so long as he lives; but if her husband be dead, she is freed from the law of her husband. Romans 7:1-2 And a little after: Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should belong to another, who has risen from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh the passions of sins which are by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death, but now we are delivered from the law of death in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. With these and such like testimonies that teacher of the Gentiles showed with sufficient evidence that the law could not take away sin, but rather increased it, and that grace takes it away; since the law knew how to command, to which command weakness gives way, while grace knows to assist, whereby love is infused. And lest any one, on account of these testimonies, should reproach the law, and contend that it is evil, the apostle, seeing what might occur to those who ill understand it, himself proposed to himself the same question. What shall we say, then? said he. Is the law sin? Far from it. But I did not know sin except by the law. Romans 7:7 He had already said before, For by the law is the knowledge of sin. It is not, therefore, the taking away, but the knowledge of sin. 1.14. And from this point he now begins - and, it was on account of this that I undertook the consideration of these things - to introduce his own person, and to speak as if about himself; where the Pelagians will not have it that the apostle himself is to be understood, but say that he has transfigured another person into himself - that is, a man placed still under the law, not yet freed by grace. And here, indeed, they ought at least to concede that in the law no one is justified, as the same apostle says elsewhere; but that the law avails for the knowledge of sin, and for the transgression of the law itself, so that sin, being known and increased, grace may be sought for through faith. But they do not fear that those things should be understood concerning the apostle which he might also say concerning his past, but they fear those things which follow. For here he says: I had not known lust if the law had not said, You shall not covet. But the occasion being taken, sin wrought in me by the commandment all manner of lust. For without the law sin was dead. But I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died, and the commandment which was for life was found for me to be death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? By no means. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death to me by that which is good, that the sinner or the sin might become by the commandment excessive. All these things, as I have said, the apostle can seem to have commemorated from his past life: so that from what he says, For I was alive without the law once, he may have wished his first age from infancy to be understood, before the years of reason; but in that he added, But when the commandment came, sin revived, but I died, he would fain show himself able to receive the commandment, but not to do it, and therefore a transgressor of the law. 1.27. But concerning that concupiscence of the flesh of which they speak, I believe that they are deceived, or that they deceive; for with this even he that is baptized must struggle with a pious mind, however carefully he presses forward, and is led by the Spirit of God. But although this is called sin, it is certainly so called not because it is sin, but because it is made by sin, as a writing is said to be some one's hand because the hand has written it. But they are sins which are unlawfully done, spoken, thought, according to the lust of the flesh, or to ignorance- things which, once done, keep their doers guilty if they are not forgiven. And this very concupiscence of the flesh is in such wise put away in baptism, that although it is inherited by all that are born, it in no respect hurts those that are born anew. And yet from these, if they carnally beget children, it is again derived; and again it will be hurtful to those that are born, unless by the same form it is remitted to them as born again, and remains in them in no way hindering the future life, because its guilt, derived by generation, has been put away by regeneration; and thus it is now no more sin, but is called so, whether because it became what it is by sin, or because it is stirred by the delight of sinning, although by the conquest of the delight of righteousness consent is not given to it. Nor is it on account of this, the guilt of which has already been taken away in the laver of regeneration, that the baptized say in their prayer, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; Matthew 6:12 but on account of sins which are committed, whether in consentings to it, when what is right is overcome by that which pleases, or when by ignorance evil is accepted as if it were good. And they are committed, whether by acting, or by speaking, or - and this is the easiest and the quickest - by thinking. From all which things what believer ever will boast that he has his heart pure? Or who will boast that he is pure from sin? Proverbs 20:9 Certainly that which follows in the prayer is said on account of concupiscence: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For every one, as it is written, is tempted when he is drawn away of his own concupiscence, and enticed; then, when concupiscence has conceived, it brings forth sin. James 1:14 1.36. We maintain, says he, that men are the work of God, and that no one is forced unwillingly by His power either into evil or good, but that man does either good or ill of his own will; but that in a good work he is always assisted by God's grace, while in evil he is incited by the suggestions of the devil. To this I answer, that men, in so far as they are men, are the work of God; but in so far as they are sinners, they are under the devil, unless they are plucked from thence by Him who became the Mediator between God and man, for no other reason than because He could not be a sinner from men. And that no one is forced by God's power unwillingly either into evil or good, but that when God forsakes a man, he deservedly goes to evil, and that when God assists, without deserving he is converted to good. For a man is not good if he is unwilling, but by the grace of God he is even assisted to the point of being willing; because it is not vainly written, For it is God that works in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure, Philippians 2:13 and, The will is prepared by God. Proverbs 8:35 1.40. They say, We confess that the grace of Christ is necessary to all, both to grown-up people and to infants; and we anathematize those who say that a child born of two baptized people ought not to be baptized. I know in what sense you say such things as these - not according to the Apostle Paul, but according to the heretic Pelagius;- to wit, that baptism is necessary for infants, not for the sake of the remission of sins, but only for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; for you give them outside the kingdom of heaven a place of salvation and life eternal, even if they have not been baptized. Nor do you regard what is written, Whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who believes not shall be condemned. Mark 16:16 For which reason, in the Church of the Saviour, infants believe by means of other people, even as they have derived those sins which are remitted them in baptism from other people. Nor do you think thus, that they cannot have life who have been without the body and blood of Christ, although He said Himself, Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall have no life in you. John 6:34 Or if you are forced by the words of the gospel to confess that infants departing from the body cannot have either life or salvation unless they have been baptized, ask why those who are not baptized are compelled to undergo the judgment of the second death, by the judgment of Him who condemns nobody undeservingly, and you will find what you do not want - original sin! 1.41. We condemn, says he, those who affirm that baptism does not do away all sins, because we know that full cleansing is conferred by these mysteries. We also say this; but you do not say that infants are also by those same mysteries freed from the bonds of their first birth and of their hateful descent. On which account it behooves you, like other heretics also, to be separated from the Church of Christ, which holds this of old time. 1.42. But now the manner in which he concludes the letter by saying, Let no one therefore seduce you, nor let the wicked deny that they think these things. But if they speak the truth, either let a hearing be given, or let those very bishops who now disagree with me condemn what I have above said that they hold with the Manicheans, as we condemn those things which they declare concerning us, and a full agreement shall be made; but if they will not, know that they are Manicheans, and abstain from their company;- this is rather to be despised than rebuked. For which of us hesitates to pronounce an anathema against the Manicheans, who say that from the good God neither proceed men, nor was ordained marriage, nor was given the law, which was ministered to the Hebrew people by Moses! But against the Pelagians also, not without reason, we pronounce an anathema, for that they are so hostile to God's grace, which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord, as to say that it is given not freely, but according to our merits, and thus grace is no more grace; Romans 11:6 and place so much in free will by which man is plunged into the abyss, as to say that by making good use of it man deserves grace - although no man can make good use of it except by grace, which is not repaid according to debt, but is given freely by God's mercy. And they so contend that infants are already saved, that they dare deny that they are to be saved by the Saviour. And holding and disseminating these execrable dogmas, they still over and above constantly demand a hearing, when, as condemned, they ought to repent. 2.2. The Manicheans say that the good God is not the Creator of all natures; the Pelagians that God is not the Purifier, the Saviour, the Deliverer of all ages among men. The catholic Church condemns both; as well maintaining God's creation against the Manicheans, that no nature may be denied to be framed by Him, as maintaining against the Pelagians that in all ages human nature must be sought after as ruined. The Manicheans rebuke the concupiscence of the flesh, not as if it were an accidental vice, but as if it were a nature bad from eternity; the Pelagians approve it as if it were no vice, but even a natural good. The catholic faith condemns both, saying to the Manicheans, It is not nature, but it is vice; saying to the Pelagians, It is not of the Father, but it is of the world; in order that both may allow it as an evil sickness to be cured - the former by ceasing to believe it, as it were, incurable, the latter by ceasing to proclaim it as laudable. The Manicheans deny that to a good man the beginning of evil came from free will; the Pelagians say that even a bad man has free will sufficiently to perform the good commandment. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the former, God made man upright, Ecclesiastes 7:30 and saying to the latter, If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. John 8:36 The Manicheans say that the soul, as a particle of God, has sin by the commixture of an evil nature; the Pelagians say that the soul is upright, not indeed a particle, but a creature of God, and has not even in this corruptible life any sin. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the Manicheans, Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree evil and its fruit evil, Matthew 12:33 which would not be said to man who cannot make his own nature, unless because sin is not nature, but vice; and saying to the Pelagians, If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 In these diseases, opposed as they are to one another, the Manicheans and the Pelagians are at issue, with dissimilar will but with similar vanity, separated by different opinions, but close together by a perverse mind. 2.15. Since in the case of those two twins we have without a doubt one and the same case, the difficulty of the question why the one died in one way, and the other in another, is solved by the apostle as it were by not solving it; for, when he had proposed something of the same kind about two twins, seeing that it was said (not of works, since they had not as yet done anything either of good or of evil, but of Him that calls), The older shall serve the younger, Romans 9:11 and, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated; Romans 9:11 and he had prolonged the horror of this deep thing even to the point of saying, Therefore has He mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardens: Romans 9:18 he perceived at once what the trouble was, and opposed to himself the words of a gainsayer which he was to check by apostolic authority. For he says, You say, then, unto me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will? And to him who says this he answered, O man, who are you that repliest against God? Does the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Hath not the potter power of the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? Romans 9:19 Then, following on, he opened up this great and hidden secret as far as he judged it fit that it should be disclosed to men, saying, But if God, willing to show His wrath and to demonstrate His power, endured in much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, even that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory. Romans 9:22-23 This is not only the assistance, but, moreover, the proof of God's grace- the assistance, namely, in the vessels of mercy, but the proof in the vessels of wrath; for in these He shows His anger and makes known His power, because His goodness is so mighty that He even uses the evil well; and in those He makes known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, because what the justice of a punisher requires from the vessels of wrath, the grace of the Deliverer remits to the vessels of mercy. Nor would the kindness which is bestowed on some freely appear, unless to other equally guilty and from the same mass God showed what was really due to both, and condemned them with a righteous judgment. For who makes you to differ? 1 Corinthians 4:7 says the same apostle to a man as it were boasting concerning himself and his own benefits. For who makes you to differ from the vessels of wrath; of course, from the mass of perdition which has sent all by one into damnation? Who makes you to differ? And as if he had answered, My faith makes me to differ - my purpose, my merit, - he says, For what have you which you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you boast as if you received it not?- that is, as if that by which you are made to differ were of your own. Therefore He makes you to differ who bestows that whence you are made to differ, by removing the penalty that is due, by conferring the grace which is not due. He makes to differ, who, when the darkness was upon the face of the abyss, said, Let there be light; and there was light, and divided - that is, made to differ - between the light and the darkness. Genesis 1:2 For when there was only darkness, He did not find what He should make to differ; but by making the light, He made to differ; so that it may be said to the justified wicked, For you were sometime darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Ephesians 5:8 And thus he who glories must glory not in himself, but in the Lord. He makes to differ who - of those who are not yet born, and who have not yet done any good or evil, that His purpose, according to the election, might stand not of works, but of Himself that calls - said, The older shall serve the younger, and commending that very purpose afterwards by the mouth of the prophet, said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Malachi 1:2 Because he said the election, and in this God does not find made by another what He may choose, but Himself makes what He may find; just as it is written of the remt of Israel: There is made a remt by the election of grace; but if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. Romans 11:5 On which account you are certainly foolish who, when the Truth declares, Not of works, but of Him that calls, it was said, say that Jacob was loved on account of future works which God foreknew that he would do, and thus contradict the apostle when he says, Not of works; as if he could not have said, Not of present, but of future works. But he says, Not of works, that He might commend grace; but if of grace, now is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. For grace, not due, but free, precedes, that by it good works may be done; but if good works should precede, grace should be repaid, as it were, to works, and thus grace should be no more grace. 2.18. For they have thought that it was to be objected to us that we say that God inspires into unwilling and resisting man the desire, not of any very great good, but even of imperfect good. Possibly, then, they themselves are keeping open, in some sense at least, a place for grace, as thinking that man may have the desire of good without grace, but only of imperfect good; while of perfect, he could not easily have the desire with grace, but except with it they could not have it at all. Truly, even in this way, too, they are saying that God's grace is given according to our merits, which Pelagius, in the ecclesiastical meeting in the East, condemned, in the fear of being condemned. For if without God's grace the desire of good begins with ourselves, merit itself will have begun - to which, as if of debt, comes the assistance of grace; and thus God's grace will not be bestowed freely, but will be given according to our merit. But that he might furnish a reply to the future Pelagius, the Lord does not say, Without me it is with difficulty that you can do anything, but He says, Without me you can do nothing. John 15:5 And, that He might also furnish an answer to these future heretics, in that very same evangelical saying He does not say, Without me you can perfect nothing, but do nothing. For if He had said perfect, they might say that God's aid is necessary not for beginning good, which is of ourselves, but for perfecting it. But let them hear also the apostle. For when the Lord says, Without me you can do nothing, in this one word He comprehends both the beginning and the ending. The apostle, indeed, as if he were an expounder of the Lord's saying, distinguished both very clearly when he says, Because He who has begun a good work in you will perfect it even to the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6 But in the Holy Scriptures, in the writings of the same apostle, we find more about that of which we are speaking. For we are now speaking of the desire of good, and if they will have this to begin of ourselves and to be perfected by God, let them see what they can answer to the apostle when he says, Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. 2 Corinthians 3:5 To think anything, he says - he certainly means, to think anything good; but is it less to think than to desire. Because we think all that we desire, but we do not desire all that we think; because sometimes also we think what we do not desire. Since, then, it is a smaller thing to think than to desire - for a man may think good which he does not yet desire, and by advancing may afterwards desire what before without desire he thought of - how are we not sufficient as of ourselves to that which is less, that is, to the thinking of something good, but our sufficiency is of God; while to that which is greater - that is, to the desire of some good thing - without the divine help, we are sufficient of free will? For what the apostle says here is not, Not that we are sufficient as of ourselves to think that which is perfect; but he says, to think anything, to which nothing is the contrary. And this is the meaning of what the Lord says, Without me you can do nothing. 2.19. But assuredly, as to what is written, The preparation of the heart is man's part, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord, Proverbs 16:1 they are misled by an imperfect understanding, so as to think that to prepare the heart - that is, to begin good - pertains to man without the aid of God's grace. Be it far from the children of promise thus to understand it! As if, when they heard the Lord saying, Without me you can do nothing, John 15:5 they would convict Him by saying, Behold without You we can prepare the heart; or when they heard from Paul the apostle, Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, 2 Corinthians 3:5 as if they would also convict him, saying, Behold, we are sufficient of ourselves to prepare our heart, and thus also to think some good thing; for who can without good thought prepare his heart for good? Be it far from any thus to understand the passage, except the proud maintainers of free will and forsakers of the catholic faith! Therefore, since it is written, It is man's part to prepare the heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord, it is that man prepares his heart, not, however, without the aid of God, who so touches the heart that man prepares the heart. But in the answer of the tongue - that is, in that which the divine tongue answers to the prepared heart - man has no part; but the whole is from the Lord God. 2.20. For as it is said, It is man's part to prepare his heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord; so also is it said, Open your mouth, and I will fill it. For although, save by His assistance without whom we can do nothing, we cannot open our mouth, yet we open it by His aid and by our own agency, while the Lord fills it without our agency. For what is to prepare the heart and to open the mouth, but to prepare the will? And yet in the same scriptures is read, The will is prepared by the Lord, Proverbs viii and, You shall open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. So God admonishes us to prepare our will in what we read, It is man's part to prepare his heart; and yet, that man may do this, God helps him, because the will is prepared by the Lord. And, Open your mouth. This He so says by way of command, as that nobody can do this unless it is done by His aid, to whom it is said, You shall open my lips. Are any of these men so foolish as to contend that the mouth is one thing, the lips another; and to say with marvellous triviality that man opens his own mouth, and God opens man's lips? And yet God restrains them from even that absurdity where He says to Moses His servant, I will open your mouth, and I will instruct you what you ought to speak. Exodus 4:12 In that clause, therefore, where He says, Open your mouth and I will fill it, it seems, as it were, that one of them pertains to man, the other to God. But in this, where it is said, I will open your mouth and will instruct you, both belong to God. Why is this, except that in one of these cases He co-operates with man as the agent, in the other He does it alone? 2.21. Wherefore God does many good things in man which man does not do; but man does none which God does not cause man to do. Accordingly, there would be no desire of good in man from the Lord if it were not a good; but if it is a good, we have it not save from Him who is supremely and incommunicably good. For what is the desire for good but love, of which John the apostle speaks without any ambiguity, and says, Love is of God? 1 John 4:7 Nor is its beginning of ourselves, and its perfection of God; but if love is of God, we have the whole of it from God. May God by all means turn away this folly of making ourselves first in His gifts, Himself last - because His mercy shall prevent me. And it is He to whom is faithfully and truthfully sung, For You have prevented him with the blessings of sweetness. And what is here more fitly understood than that very desire of good of which we are speaking? For good begins then to be longed for when it has begun to grow sweet. But when good is done by the fear of penalty, not by the love of righteousness, good is not yet well done. Nor is that done in the heart which seems to be done in the act when a man would rather not do it if he could evade it with impunity. Therefore the blessing of sweetness is God's grace, by which is caused in us that what He prescribes to us delights us, and we desire it - that is, we love it; in which if God does not precede us, not only is it not perfected, but it is not even begun, from us. For, if without Him we are able to do nothing actually, we are able neither to begin nor to perfect, - because to begin, it is said His mercy shall prevent me; to finish, it is said, His mercy shall follow me. 2.22. Why, then, is it that, in what follows, where they mention what they themselves think, they say they confess That grace also assists the good purpose of every one, but that yet it does not infuse the desire of virtue into a reluctant heart? Because they so say this as if man of himself, without God's assistance, has a good purpose and a desire of virtue; and this precedent merit is worthy of being assisted by the subsequent grace of God. For they think, perchance, that the apostle thus said, For we know that He works all things for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to the purpose, Romans 8:28 so as to wish the purpose of man to be understood, which purpose, as a good merit, the mercy of the God that calls might follow; being ignorant that it is said, Who are called according to the purpose, so that there may be understood the purpose of God, not man, whereby those whom He foreknew and predestinated as conformed to the image of His Son, He elected before the foundation of the world. For not all the called are called according to purpose, since many are called, few are chosen. Matthew 20:16 They, therefore, are called according to the purpose, who were elected before the foundation of the world. of this purpose of God, that also was said which I have already mentioned concerning the twins Esau and Jacob, That according to the election the purpose of God might remain, not of works, but of Him that calls; it was said, that the elder shall serve the younger. Romans 9:11 This purpose of God is also mentioned in that place where, writing to Timothy, he says, Labour with the gospel according to the power of God, who saves us and calls us with this holy calling; not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the eternal ages, but is now made manifest by the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 1:8 This, then, is the purpose of God, whereof it is said, He works together all things for good for those who are called according to the purpose. But subsequent grace indeed assists man's good purpose, but the purpose would not itself exist if grace did not precede. The desire of man, also, which is called good, although in beginning to exist it is aided by grace, yet does not begin without grace, but is inspired by Him of whom the apostle says, But thanks be to God, who has given the same desire for you in the heart of Titus. 2 Corinthians 8:16 If God gives desire that every one may have it for others, who else will give it that a man may have it for himself? 2.23. Since these things are so, I see that nothing is commanded to man by the Lord in the Holy Scriptures, for the sake of trying his free will, which is not found either to begin by His goodness, or to be asked in order to demonstrate the aid of grace; nor does man at all begin to be changed by the beginning of faith from evil to good, unless the unbought and gratuitous mercy of God effects this in him. of which one recalling his thought, as we read in the Psalms, says, Shall God forget to be gracious? Or will He restrain His mercies in His anger? And I said, Now have I begun; this change is of the right hand of the Most High. When, therefore, he had said, Now have I begun, he does not say, This change is of my will, but of the right hand of the Most High. So, therefore, let God's grace be thought of, that from the beginning of his good changing, even to the end of his completion, he who glories may glory in the Lord; because, as no one can perfect good without the Lord, so no one can begin it without the Lord. But let this be the end of this book, that the attention of the reader may be refreshed and strengthened for what follows. 4.3. Let every one who, with a catholic mind, shudders at these impious and damnable doctrines, in this tripartite division, shun the lurking-places and snares of this fivefold error, and be so careful between one and another as in such wise to decline from the Manicheans as not to incline to the Pelagians; and again, so to separate himself from the Pelagians as not to associate himself with the Manicheans; or, if he should already be taken hold of in one or the other bondage, that he should not so pluck himself out of the hands of either as to rush into those of the other. Because they seem to be contrary to one another; since the Manicheans manifest themselves by vituperating these five points, and the Pelagians conceal themselves by praising them. Wherefore he condemns and shuns both, whoever he may be, who according to the rule of the catholic faith so glorifies the Creator in men, that are born of the good creature of flesh and soul (for this the Manichean will not have), as that he yet confesses that on account of the corruption which has passed over into them by the sin of the first man, even infants need a Saviour (for this the Pelagian will not have). He who so distinguishes the evil of shameful concupiscence from the blessing of marriage, as neither, like the Manicheans, to reproach the source of our birth, nor, like the Pelagians, to praise the source of our disorder. He who so maintains the law to have been given holy and just and good through Moses by a holy and just and good God (which Manicheus, in opposition to the apostle, denies), as to say that it both shows forth sin and yet does not take it away, and commands righteousness which yet it does not give (which, again, in opposition to the apostle, Pelagius denies). He who so asserts free will as to say that the evil of both angel and man began, not from I know not what nature always evil, which is no nature, but from the will itself, which overturns Manichean heresy, and nevertheless that even thus the captive will cannot breathe into a wholesome liberty save by God's grace, which overturns the Pelagian heresy. He who so praises in God the holy men of God, not only after Christ manifested in the flesh and subsequently, but even those of the former times, whom the Manicheans dare to blaspheme, as yet to believe their own confessions concerning themselves, more than the lies of the Pelagians. For the word of the saints is, If we should say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 4.4. These things being so, what advantage is it to new heretics, enemies of the cross of Christ and opposers of divine grace, that they seem sound from the error of the Manicheans, if they are dying by another pestilence of their own? What advantage is it to them, that in the praise of the creature they say that the good God is the maker of those that are born, by whom all things were made, and that the children of men are His work, whom the Manicheans say are the work of the prince of darkness; when between them both, or among them both, God's creation, which is in infants, is perishing? For both of them refuse to have it delivered by Christ's flesh and blood, - the one, because they destroy that very flesh and blood, as if He did not take upon Him these at all in man or of man; and the other, because they assert that there is no evil in infants from which they should be delivered by the sacrament of this flesh and blood. Between them lies the human creature in infants, with a good origination, with a corrupted propagation, confessing for its goods a most excellent Creator, seeking for its evils a most merciful Redeemer, having the Manicheans as disparagers of its benefits, having the Pelagians as deniers of its evils, and both as persecutors. And although in infancy there is no power to speak, yet with its silent look and its hidden weakness it addresses the impious vanity of both, saying to the one, Believe that I am created by Him who creates good things; and saying to the other, Allow me to be healed by Him who created me. The Manicheans say, There is nothing of this infant save the good soul to be delivered; the rest, which belongs not to the good God, but to the prince of darkness, is to be rejected. The Pelagians say, Certainly there is nothing of this infant to be delivered, because we have shown the whole to be safe. Both lie; but now the accuser of the flesh alone is more bearable than the praiser, who is convicted of cruelty against the whole. But neither does the Manichean help the human soul by blaspheming God, the Author of the entire man; nor does the Pelagian permit the divine grace to come to the help of human infancy by denying original sin. Therefore it is by the catholic faith that God has mercy, seeing that by condemning both mischievous doctrines it comes to the help of the infant for salvation. It says to the Manicheans, Hear the apostle crying, 'Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you?' 1 Corinthians 6:19 and believe that the good God is the Creator of bodies, because the temple of the Holy Ghost cannot be the work of the prince of darkness. It says to the Pelagians, The infant that you look upon 'was conceived in iniquity, and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.' Why, as if in defending it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. Allow the wretched creatures to receive remission of sins, through Him who alone neither as small nor great could have any sin. 4.6. In that particular, indeed, wherein they say that death passed to us by Adam, not sins, they have not the Manicheans as their adversaries: since they, too, deny that original sin from the first man, at first of pure and upright body and spirit, and afterwards depraved by free will, subsequently passed and passes as sin into all with death; but they say that the flesh was evil from the beginning, and was created by an evil spirit and along with an evil spirit; but that a good soul- a portion, to wit, of God - for the deserts of its defilement by food and drink, in which it was before bound up, came into man, and thus by means of copulation was bound in the chain of the flesh. And thus the Manicheans agree with the Pelagians that it was not the guilt of the first man that passed into the human race- neither by the flesh, which they say was never good; nor by the soul, which they assert comes into the flesh of man with the merits of its own defilements with which it was polluted before the flesh. But how do the Pelagians say that only death passed upon us by Adam's means? For if we die because he died, but he died because be sinned, they say that the punishment passed without the guilt, and that innocent infants are punished with an unjust penalty by deriving death without the deserts of death. This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death - that is, the penalty of sin- without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was due. Therefore, commending His love to them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer for them an undeserved death. This special prerogative of the Mediator the Pelagians endeavour to make void, so that this should no longer be special in the Lord, if Adam in such wise suffered a death due to him on account of his guilt, as that infants, drawing from him no guilt, should suffer undeserved death. For although very much good is conferred on the good by means of death, whence some have fitly argued even of the benefit of death; yet from this what can be declared except the mercy of God, since the punishment of sin is converted into beneficent uses? 4.7. But these speak thus who wish to wrest men from the apostle's words into their own thought. For where the apostle says, By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men, Romans 5:12 they will have it there understood not that sin passed over, but death. What, then, is the meaning of what follows, Whereto all have sinned? For either the apostle says that in that one man all have sinned of whom he had said, By one man sin entered into the world, or else in that sin, or certainly in death. For it need not disturb us that he said not in which [using the feminine form of the pronoun], but in whom [using the masculine] all have sinned; since death in the Greek language is of the masculine gender. Let them, then, choose which they will, - for either in that man all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all were in him; or in that sin all have sinned, because that was the doing of all in general which all those who were born would have to derive; or it remains for them to say that in that death all sinned. But in what way this can be understood, I do not clearly see. For all die in the sin; they do not sin in the death; for when sin precedes, death follows - not when death precedes, sin follows. Because sin is the sting of death - that is, the sting by whose stroke death occurs, not the sting with which death strikes. Just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death, because by that cup death is caused, not because the cup is caused by the death, or is given by death. But if sin cannot be understood by those words of the apostle as being that wherein all have sinned, because in Greek, from which the Epistle is translated, sin is expressed in the feminine gender, it remains that all men are understood to have sinned in that first man, because all men were in him when he sinned; and from him sin is derived by birth, and is not remitted save by being born again. For thus also the sainted Hilary understood what is written, wherein all have sinned; for he says, wherein, that is, in Adam, all have sinned. Then he adds, It is manifest that all have sinned in Adam, as it were in the mass; for he himself was corrupted by sin, and all whom he begot were born under sin. When he wrote this, Hilary, without any ambiguity, indicated how we should understand the words, wherein all have sinned. 4.11. But those enemies of grace never endeavour to lay more secret snares for more vehement opposition to that same grace than when they praise the law, which, without doubt, is worthy to be praised. Because, by their different modes of speaking, and by variety of words in all their arguments, they wish the law to be understood as grace- that, to wit, we may have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, whereby we may know those things which have to be done - not the inspiration of love, that, when known, we may do them with a holy love, which is properly grace. For the knowledge of the law without love puffs up, does not edify, according to the same apostle, who most openly says, Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. 1 Corinthians 8:1 Which saying is like to that in which it is said, The letter kills, the spirit makes alive. 2 Corinthians 3:6 For Knowledge puffs up, corresponds to The letter kills: and, Love edifies, to The spirit makes alive; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us. Romans 5:5 Therefore the knowledge of the law makes a proud transgressor; but, by the gift of charity, he delights to be a doer of the law. We do not then make void the law through faith, but we establish the law, Romans 3:31 which by terrifying leads to faith. Thus certainly the law works wrath, that the mercy of God may bestow grace on the sinner, frightened and turned to the fulfilment of the righteousness of the law through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is that wisdom of God of which it is written, She carries law and mercy on her tongue, Proverbs 3:16 - law whereby she frightens, mercy by which she may help - law by His servant, mercy by Himself - the law, as it were, in the staff which Elisha sent to raise up the son of the widow, and it failed to raise him up, For if a law had been given which could have given life, righteousness would altogether have been by the law, Galatians 3:21 but mercy, as it were, in Elisha himself, who, wearing the figure of Christ, by giving life to the dead was joined in the signification of the great sacrament, as it were, of the New Testament. 4.13. What does it profit them, that in the praise of that same free will they say that grace assists the good purpose of every one? This would be received without scruple as being said in a catholic spirit, if they did not attribute merit to the good purpose, to which merit now a wage is paid of debt, not according to grace, but would understand and confess that even that very good purpose, which the grace which follows assists could not have been in the man if grace had not preceded it. For how is there a good purpose in a man without the mercy of God first, since it is that very good will which is prepared by the Lord? Proverbs 8:35 But when they had said this, that grace also assists every one's good purpose, and presently added, yet does not infuse the love of virtue into a resisting heart, it might be fitly understood, if it were not said by those whose meaning is known. For, for the resisting heart a hearing for the divine call is first procured by the grace of God itself, and then in that heart, now no more resisting, the desire of virtue is kindled. Nevertheless, in all things which any one does according to God, His mercy precedes him. And this they will not have, because they choose to be not Catholics, but Pelagians. For it much delights a proud impiety, that even that which a man is forced to confess to be given by the Lord should seem to be not bestowed on himself, but repaid; so that, to wit, the children of perdition, not of the promise, may be thought themselves to have made themselves good, and God to have repaid to those who are now good, having been made so by themselves, the reward due for that their work. 4.16. But wherefore does God make these men sheep, and those not, since with Him there is no acceptance of persons? This is the very question which the blessed apostle thus answers to those who propose it with more curiosity than propriety, O man, who are you that repliest against God? Does the thing formed say to him that formed it, Wherefore have you made me thus? Romans 9:20 This is the very question which belongs to that depth desiring to look into which the same apostle was in a certain measure terrified, and exclaimed, Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, that it should be recompensed to Him again? Because of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory for ages of ages. Let them not, then, dare to pry into that unsearchable question who defend merit before grace, and therefore even against grace, and wish first to give unto God, that it may be given to them again - first, of course, to give something of free will, that grace may be given them again as a reward; and let them wisely understand or faithfully believe that even what they think that they have first given, they have received from Him, from whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things. But why this man should receive, and that should not receive, when neither of them deserves to receive, and whichever of them receives, receives undeservingly - let them measure their own strength, and not search into things too strong for them. Let it suffice them to know that there is no unrighteousness with God. For when the apostle could find no merits for which Jacob should take precedence of his twin-brother with God, he said, What, then, shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with God? Away with the thought! For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion. Therefore it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. Let, therefore, His free compassion be grateful to us, even although this profound question be still unsolved; which, nevertheless, is so far solved as the same apostle solves it, saying, But if God, willing to show His wrath, and to demonstrate His power, endured in much patience the vessels of wrath which are fitted to destruction; and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared for glory. Romans 9:22-23 Certainly wrath is not repaid unless it is due, lest there be unrighteousness with God; but mercy, even when it is bestowed, and not due, is not unrighteousness with God. And hence, let the vessels of mercy understand how freely mercy is afforded to them, because to the vessels of wrath with whom they have common cause and measure of perdition, is repaid wrath, righteous and due. This is now enough in opposition to those who, by freedom of will, desire to destroy the liberality of grace. 4.29. But now also to the most glorious martyr Cyprian, let me add, for the sake of more amply confuting these men, the most blessed Ambrose; because even Pelagius praised him so much as to say that in his writings could be found nothing to be blamed even by his enemies. Since, then, the Pelagians say that there is no original sin with which infants are born, and object to the Catholics the guilt of the Manichean heresy, who withstand them on behalf of the most ancient faith of the Church, let this catholic man of God, Ambrose, praised even by Pelagius himself in the truth of the faith, answer them concerning this matter. When he was expounding the prophet Isaiah, he says: Christ was, therefore, without spot, because He was not stained even in the usual condition itself of birth. And in another place in the same work, speaking of the Apostle Peter, he says: He offered himself, which he thought before to be sin, asking for himself that not only his feet but his head also should be washed, because he had directly understood that by the washing of the feet, for those who fell in the first man, the filth of the obnoxious succession was abolished. Also in the same work he says: It was preserved, therefore, that of a man and woman, that is, by that mingling of bodies, no one could be seen to be free from sin; but He who is free from sin is free also from this kind of conception. Also writing against the Novatians he says: All of us men are born under sin. And our very origin is in corruption, as you have it read in the words of David, 'For lo, I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins has my mother brought me forth.' Also in the apology of the prophet David, he says: Before we are born we are spotted with contagion, and before the use of light we receive the mischief of that origin. We are conceived in iniquity. Also speaking of the Lord, he says: It was certainly fitting that He who was not to have the sin of a bodily fall, should feel no natural contagion of generation. Rightly, therefore, David with weeping deplored in himself these defilements of nature, and the fact that the stain had begun in man before his life. Again, in the Ark of Noah he says: Therefore by one Lord Jesus the coming salvation is declared to the nations; for He only could be righteous, although every generation should go astray, nor for any other reason than that, being born of a virgin, He was not at all bound by the ordice of a guilty generation. 'Behold,' he says, 'I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins has my mother brought me forth;' he who was esteemed righteous beyond others so speaks. Whom, then, should I now call righteous unless Him who is free from those chains, whom the bonds of our common nature do not hold fast? Behold, this holy man, most approved, even by the witness of Pelagius, in the catholic faith, condemned the Pelagians who deny original sin with such evidence as this; and yet he does not with the Manicheans deny either God to be the Creator of those who are born, or condemn marriage, which God ordained and blessed. |
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| 104. Augustine, Contra Epistolam Manichaei, 4 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 284 |
| 105. Augustine, Reply To Faustus, 19.24, 22.22, 22.78 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 36, 117, 143, 284 |
| 106. Augustine, Contra Felicem, 2.11 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 143 |
| 107. Augustine, Against Julian, 1.4-1.18, 1.24-1.31, 1.34, 1.63, 1.86, 2.77, 2.166, 3.110, 4.15, 4.44, 4.83, 4.90, 6.17, 6.78 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 178, 189, 251, 252, 254, 263, 264 |
| 108. Augustine, Contra Litteras Petiliani Donatistae Cirtensis Episcopi, 2.185-2.186, 2.232 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134, 251 |
| 109. Augustine, Contra Mendacium Ad Consentium, 24, 28 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 160 |
| 110. Augustine, Contra Secundinum Manichaeum, 12, 19 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 117 |
| 111. Augustine, De Agone Christiano, 14 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 98 |
| 112. Augustine, De Natura Boni Contra Manichaeos, 48, 31 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134 |
| 113. Methodius of Olympus, Symposium, 8.16 (4th cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 89 |
| 114. Augustine, Soliloquiorum Adscriptorum Caput Postremum [Incertus], 1.1-1.3, 1.23 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 96, 134, 283 |
115. Augustine, De Nuptiis Et Concupiscentia, 1.1, 1.21-1.22, 1.24, 1.28, 2.4, 2.15-2.16, 2.20, 2.24, 2.31-2.32, 2.50-2.51 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, in romans •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169, 170, 188, 251 | 1.1. Our new heretics, my dearest son Valerius, who maintain that infants born in the flesh have no need of that medicine of Christ whereby sins are healed, are constantly affirming, in their excessive hatred of us, that we condemn marriage and that divine procedure by which God creates human beings by means of men and women, inasmuch as we assert that they who are born of such a union contract that original sin of which the apostle says, By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all sinned; and because we do not deny, that of whatever kind of parents they are born, they are still under the devil's dominion, unless they be born again in Christ, and by His grace be removed from the power of darkness and translated into His kingdom, Colossians 1:15 who willed not to be born from the same union of the two sexes. Because, then, we affirm this doctrine, which is contained in the oldest and unvarying rule of the catholic faith, these propounders of the novel and perverse dogma, who assert that there is no sin in infants to be washed away in the laver of regeneration, Titus 3:5 in their unbelief or ignorance calumniate us, as if we condemned marriage, and as if we asserted to be the devil's work what is God's own work - the human being which is born of marriage. Nor do they reflect that the good of marriage is no more impeachable on account of the original evil which is derived therefrom, than the evil of adultery and fornication is excusable on account of the natural good which is born of them. For as sin is the work of the devil, from whencesoever contracted by infants; so man is the work of God, from whencesoever born. Our purpose, therefore, in this book, so far as the Lord vouchsafes us in His help, is to distinguish between the evil of carnal concupiscence from which man who is born therefrom contracts original sin, and the good of marriage. For there would have been none of this shame-producing concupiscence, which is impudently praised by impudent men, if man had not previously sinned; while as to marriage, it would still have existed even if no man had sinned, since the procreation of children in the body that belonged to that life would have been effected without that malady which in the body of this death Romans 7:24 cannot be separated from the process of procreation. 1.21. That, therefore, which is born of the lust of the flesh is really born of the world, and not of God; but it is born of God, when it is born again of water and of the Spirit. The guilt of this concupiscence, regeneration alone remits, even as natural generation contracts it. What, then, is generated must be regenerated, in order that likewise since it cannot be otherwise, what has been contracted may be remitted. It is, no doubt, very wonderful that what has been remitted in the parent should still be contracted in the offspring; but nevertheless such is the case. That this mysterious verity, which unbelievers neither see nor believe, might get some palpable evidence in its support, God in His providence has secured in the example of certain trees. For why should we not suppose that for this very purpose the wild olive springs from the olive? Is it not indeed credible that, in a thing which has been created for the use of mankind, the Creator provided and appointed what should afford an instructive example, applicable to the human race? It is a wonderful thing, then, how those who have been themselves delivered by grace from the bondage of sin, should still beget those who are tied and bound by the self-same chain, and who require the same process of loosening? Yes; and we admit the wonderful fact. But that the embryo of wild olive trees should latently exist in the germs of true olives, who would deem credible, if it were not proved true by experiment and observation? In the same manner, therefore, as a wild olive grows out of the seed of the wild olive, and from the seed of the true olive springs also nothing but a wild olive, notwithstanding the very great difference there is between the wild olive and the olive; so what is born in the flesh, either of a sinner or of a just man, is in both instances a sinner, notwithstanding the vast distinction which exists between the sinner and the righteous man. He that is begotten is no sinner as yet in act, and is still new from his birth; but in guilt he is old. Human from the Creator, he is a captive of the destroyer, and needs a redeemer. The difficulty, however, is how a state of captivity can possibly befall the offspring, when the parents have been themselves previously redeemed from it. Now it is no easy matter to unravel this intricate point, or to explain it in a set discourse; therefore unbelievers refuse to accept it as true; just as if in that other point about the wild olive and the olive, which we gave in illustration, any reason could be easily found, or explanation clearly given, why the self-same shoot should sprout out of so dissimilar a stock. The truth, however, of this can be discovered by any one who is willing to make the experiment. Let it then serve for a good example for suggesting belief of what admits not of ocular demonstration. 1.22. Now the Christian faith unfalteringly declares, what our new heretics have begun to deny, both that they who are cleansed in the laver of regeneration are redeemed from the power of the devil, and that those who have not yet been redeemed by such regeneration are still captive in the power of the devil, even if they be infant children of the redeemed, unless they be themselves redeemed by the self-same grace of Christ. For we cannot doubt that that blessing of God applies to every stage of human life, which the apostle describes when he says concerning Him: Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Colossians 1:13 From this power of darkness, therefore, of which the devil is the prince - in other words, from the power of the devil and his angels - infants are delivered when they are baptized; and whosoever denies this, is convicted by the truth of the Church's very sacraments, which no heretical novelty in the Church of Christ is permitted to destroy or change, so long as the Divine Head rules and helps the entire body which He owns - small as well as great. It is true, then, and in no way false, that the devil's power is exorcised in infants, and that they renounce him by the hearts and mouths of those who bring them to baptism, being unable to do so by their own; in order that they may be delivered from the power of darkness, and be translated into the kingdom of their Lord. What is that, therefore, within them which keeps them in the power of the devil until they are delivered from it by Christ's sacrament of baptism? What is it, I ask, but sin? Nothing else, indeed, has the devil found which enables him to put under his own control that nature of man which the good Creator made good. But infants have committed no sin of their own since they have been alive. Only original sin, therefore, remains, whereby they are made captive under the devil's power, until they are redeemed therefrom by the laver of regeneration and the blood of Christ, and pass into their Redeemer's kingdom, - the power of their enthraller being frustrated, and power being given them to become sons of God instead of children of this world. John 1:12 1.24. But if, in like manner, the question be asked of the concupiscence of the flesh, how it is that acts now bring shame which once were free from shame, will not her answer be, that she only began to have existence in men's members after sin? [XXII.] And, therefore, that the apostle designated her influence as the law of sin, Romans 7:23 inasmuch as she subjugated man to herself when he was unwilling to remain subject to his God; and that it was she who made the first married pair ashamed at that moment when they covered their loins; even as all are still ashamed, and seek out secret retreats for cohabitation, and dare not have even the children, whom they have themselves thus begotten, to be witnesses of what they do. It was against this modesty of natural shame that the Cynic philosophers, in the error of their astonishing shamelessness, struggled so hard: they thought that the intercourse indeed of husband and wife, since it was lawful and honourable, should therefore be done in public. Such barefaced obscenity deserved to receive the name of dogs; and so they went by the title of Cynics. 1.28. If the question arises, how this concupiscence of the flesh remains in the regenerate, in whose case has been effected a remission of all sins whatever; seeing that human semination takes place by its means, even when the carnal offspring of even a baptized parent is born: or, at all events, if it may be in the case of a baptized parent concupiscence and not be sin, why should this same concupiscence be sin in the offspring?- the answer to be given is this: Carnal concupiscence is remitted, indeed, in baptism; not so that it is put out of existence, but so that it is not to be imputed for sin. Although its guilt is now taken away, it still remains until our entire infirmity be healed by the advancing renewal of our inner man, day by day, when at last our outward man shall be clothed with incorruption. 1 Corinthians 15:53 It does not remain, however, substantially, as a body, or a spirit; but it is nothing more than a certain affection of an evil quality, such as languor, for instance. There is not, to be sure, anything remaining which may be remitted whenever, as the Scripture says, the Lord forgives all our iniquities. But until that happens which immediately follows in the same passage, Who heals all your infirmities, who redeems your life from corruption, there remains this concupiscence of the flesh in the body of this death. Now we are admonished not to obey its sinful desires to do evil: Let not sin reign in your mortal body. Romans 6:12 Still this concupiscence is daily lessened in persons of continence and increasing years, and most of all when old age makes a near approach. The man, however, who yields to it a wicked service, receives such great energies that, even when all his members are now failing through age, and those special parts of his body are unable to be applied to their proper function, he does not ever cease to revel in a still increasing rage of disgraceful and shameless desire. 2.4. But he has added other words of mine, where I have said: Nor do they reflect that the good of marriage is no more impeachable by reason of the original evil which is derived therefrom, than the evil of adultery and fornication can be excused by reason of the natural good which is born of them. For as sin is the work of the devil, whether derived from this source or from that; so is man, whether born of this or that, the work of God. Here, too, he has left out some words, in which he was afraid of catholic ears. For to come to the words here quoted, it had previously been said by us: Because, then, we affirm this doctrine, which is contained in the oldest and unvarying rule of the catholic faith, these propounders of novel and perverse dogmas, who deny that there is in infants any sin to be washed away in the laver of regeneration, in their unbelief or ignorance calumniate us as if we condemned marriage, and as if we asserted to be the devil's work what is God's own work, to wit, the human being which is born of marriage. All this passage he has passed over, and merely quoted the words which follow it, as given above. Now, in the omitted words he was afraid of the clause which suits all hearts in the catholic Church and appeals to the very faith which has been firmly established and transmitted from ancient times with unfaltering voice and excites their hostility most strongly against us. The clause is this: They deny that there is in infants any sin to be washed away in the laver of regeneration. For all persons run to church with their infants for no other reason in the world than that the original sin which is contracted in them by their first and natural birth may be cleansed by the regeneration of their second birth. 2.15. He then proceeds to ask: Why, then, are they in the devil's power whom God created? And he finds an answer to his own question apparently from a phrase of mine. Because of sin, says he, not because of nature. Then framing his answer in reference to mine, he says: But as there cannot be offspring without the sexes, so there cannot be sin without the will. Yes, indeed, such is the truth. For even as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so also has death passed through to all men, for in him all have sinned. Romans 5:12 By the evil will of that one man all sinned in him, since all were that one man, from whom, therefore, they individually derived original sin. For you allege, says he, that the reason why they are in the devil's power is because they are born of the union of the two sexes. I plainly aver that it is by reason of transgression that they are in the devil's power, and that their participation, moreover, of this transgression is due to the circumstance that they are born of the said union of the sexes, which cannot even accomplish its own honourable function without the incident of shameful lust. This has also, in fact, been said by Ambrose, of most blessed memory, bishop of the church in Milan, when he gives as the reason why Christ's birth in the flesh was free from all sinful fault, that His conception was not the result of a union of the two sexes; whereas there is not one among human beings conceived in such union who is without sin. These are his precise words: On that account, and being man, He was tried by every sort of temptation, and in the likeness of man He bore them all; inasmuch, however, as He was born of the Spirit, He abstained from all sin. For every man is a liar, and none is without sin, but God only. It has accordingly, adds he, been constantly observed, that clearly no one who is born of a man and a woman, that is to say, through the union of their bodies, is free from sin; for whoever is free from sin is free also from conception of this kind. Well now, will you dare, you disciples of Pelagius and Cœlestius, to call this man a Manichean? As the heretic Jovinian did, when the holy bishop maintained the permanent virginity of the blessed Mary even after child-bearing, in opposition to this man's impiety. If, however, you do not dare to call him a Manichean, why do you call us Manicheans when we defend the catholic faith in the self-same cause and with the self same opinions? But if you will taunt that most faithful man with having entertained Manichean error in this matter, there is no help for it, you must enjoy your taunts as best you may, and so fill up Jovinian's measure more fully; as for ourselves, we can patiently endure along with such a man of God your taunts and jibes. And yet your heresiarch Pelagius commends Ambrose's faith and extreme purity in the knowledge of the Scriptures so greatly, as to declare that not even an enemy could venture to find fault with him. Observe, then, to what length you have gone, and refrain from following any further in the audacious steps of Jovinian. And yet that man, although by his excessive commendation of marriage he put it on a par with holy virginity, never denied the necessity of Christ to save those who are born of marriage even fresh from their mother's womb, and to redeem them from the power of the devil. This, however, you deny; and because we oppose you in defense of those who cannot yet speak for themselves, and in defense of the very foundations of the catholic faith, you taunt us, with being Manicheans. But let us now see what comes next. 2.16. He puts to us, then, another question, saying, Whom, then, do you confess to be the author of infants? The true God? I answer: Yes; the true God. He then remarks, But He did not make evil; and again asks, Whether we confess the devil to be the creator of infants? Then again he answers, But he did not create human nature. He then closes the subject, as it were, with this inference: Since union is evil, and the condition of our bodies is degraded, therefore you ascribe our bodies to an evil creator. My answer to this is, I do not ascribe to an evil creator our bodies, but our sins; by reason of which it came to pass that, whereas in our bodies, that is to say, in what God has made, all was honourable and well-pleasing, there yet accrued in the intercourse of male and female what caused shame, so that their union was not such as might have been in the body of that unimpaired life, but such as we see with a blush in the body of this death. But God, says he, has divided in sex what He would unite in operation. So that from Him comes the union of bodies, from whom first came the creation of bodies. We have already furnished an answer to this statement, when we said that these bodies are of God. But as regards the disobedience of the members of these bodies, this comes through the lust of the flesh which is not of the Father. 1 John 2:16 He goes on to say, that it is impossible for evil fruits to spring from so many good things, such as bodies, sexes, and their unions; or that human beings should be made by God for the purpose of their being, by lawful right, as you maintain, held in possession by the devil. Now it has been already affirmed, that they are not thus held because they are men, which designation belongs to their nature, of which the devil is not the author; but because they are sinners, which designation is the result of that fault of nature of which the devil is the author. 2.20. This, however, I would not say, as implying at all that we must look for some other creator than the supreme and true God, of either human seed or of man himself who comes from the seed; but as meaning, that the seed would have issued from the human being by the quiet and normal obedience of his members to his will's command, if sin had not preceded. The question now before us does not concern the nature of human seed, but its corruption. Now the nature has God for its author; it is from its corruption that original sin is derived. If, indeed, the seed had itself no corruption, what means that passage in the Book of Wisdom, Not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that their malice was inbred, and that their cogitation would never be changed; for their seed was accursed from the beginning? Wisdom 12:10-11 Now whatever may be the particular application of these words, they are spoken of mankind. How, then, is the malice of every man inbred, and his seed cursed from the beginning, unless it be in respect of the fact, that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned? Romans 5:12 But where is the man whose evil cogitation can never be changed, unless because it cannot be effected by himself, but only by divine grace; without the assistance of which, what are human beings, but that which the Apostle Peter says of them, when he describes them as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed? 2 Peter 2:12 Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, in a certain passage, having both conditions in view - even the wrath of God with which we are born, and the grace whereby we are delivered - says: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ; by whose grace we are saved. Ephesians 2:3-5 What, then, is man's natural malice, and the seed cursed from the beginning; and what are the natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, and what the by nature children of wrath? Was this the condition of the nature which was formed in Adam? God forbid! Inasmuch as his pure nature, however, was corrupted in him, it has run on in this condition by natural descent through all, and still is running; so that there is no deliverance for it from this ruin, except by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2.24. But let him inform us how it was that his soul would be cut off from his people if he had not been circumcised on the eighth day. How could he have so sinned, how so offended God, as to be punished for the neglect of others towards him with so severe a sentence, had there been no original sin in the case? For thus ran the commandment of God concerning the circumcision of infants: The uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, his soul shall be cut off from his people; because he has broken my covet. Genesis 17:14 Let him tell us, if he can, how that child broke God's covet - an innocent babe, so far as he was personally concerned, of eight days' age; and yet there is by no means any falsehood uttered here by God or Holy Scripture. The fact is, the covet of God which he then broke was not this which commanded circumcision, but that which forbade the tree; when by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned. Romans 5:12 And in his case the expiation of this was signified by the circumcision of the eighth day, that is, by the sacrament of the Mediator who was to be incarnate. For it was through this same faith in Christ, who was to come in the flesh, and was to die for us, and on the third day (which coming after the seventh or Sabbath day, was to be the eighth) to rise again, that even holy men were saved of old. For He was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification. Romans 4:25 Ever since circumcision was instituted among the people of God, which was at that time the sign of the righteousness of faith, it availed also to signify the cleansing even in infants of the original and primitive sin, just as baptism in like manner from the time of its institution began to be of avail for the renewal of man. Not that there was no justification by faith before circumcision; for even when he was still in uncircumcision, Abraham was himself justified by faith, being the father of those nations which should also imitate his faith. Romans 4:10-11 In former times, however, the sacramental mystery of justification by faith lay concealed in every mode. Still it was the self-same faith in the Mediator which saved the saints of old, both small and great - not the old covet, which genders to bondage; Galatians 4:24 not the law, which was not so given as to be able to give life; Galatians 3:21 but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 7:25 For as we believe that Christ has come in the flesh, so they believed that He was to come; as, again, we believe that He has died, so they believed that He would die; and as we believe that He has risen from the dead, so they believed that He would rise again; while both we and they believe alike, that He will hereafter come to judge the quick and the dead. Let not this man, then, throw any hindrance in the way of its salvation upon human nature, by setting up a bad defense of its merits; because we are all born under sin, and are delivered therefrom by the only One who was born without sin. 2.31. Let us now look at those three clauses of his, than which three, he says, nothing more profane could possibly be uttered: Either God did not make man, or else He made him for the devil; or, at any rate, the devil framed God's image, that is, man. Now, the first and the last of these sentences, even he himself must allow, if he be not reckless and perverse, were never uttered by us. The dispute is confined to that which he puts second between the other two. In respect of this, he is so far mistaken as to suppose that we had said that God made man for the devil; as if, in the case of human beings whom God creates of human parents, His care and purpose and provision were, that by means of His workmanship the devil should have as slaves those whom he is unable to make for himself. God forbid that any sort of pious belief, however childish, should ever entertain such a sentiment as this! of His own goodness God has made man - the first without sin, all others under sin- for the purposes of His own profound thoughts. For just as He knew full well what to do with reference to the malice of the devil himself, and what He does is just and good, however unjust and evil he is, about whom He takes His measures; and just as He was not unwilling to create him because He foresaw that he would be evil; so in regard to the entire human race, though not a man of it is born without the taint of sin, He who is supremely good Himself is always working out good, making some men, as it were, vessels of mercy, whom grace distinguishes from those who are vessels of wrath; while He makes others, as it were, vessels of wrath, that He may make known the riches of His glory towards the vessels of mercy. Romans 9:23 Let, then, this objector go and contest the point against the apostle, whose words I use; nay, against the very Potter, whom the apostle forbids us answering again, in the well-known words: Who are you, O man, that repliest against God! Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me like this? Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? Romans 9:20-21 Well now, will this man contend that the vessels of wrath are not under the dominion of the devil? Or else, because they are under this dominion, are they made by another creator than He who makes the vessels of mercy? Or does He make them of other material, and not out of the self-same lump? Here, then, he may object, and say: Therefore God makes these vessels for the devil. As if God knew not how to make such a use of even these for the furtherance of His own good and righteous works, as He makes of the very devil himself. 2.32. Then, does God feed the children of perdition, the goats on His left hand, Matthew 25:33 for the devil and nourish and clothe them for the devil because He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust? Matthew 5:45 He creates, then, the evil just in the same way as He feeds and nourishes the evil; because what He bestows on them by creating them appertains to the goodness of nature; and the growth which He gives them by food and nourishment, He bestows on them, of course, as a kindly help, not to their evil character, but to that same good nature which He in His goodness created. For in as far as they are human beings - this is a good of that nature whose author and maker is God; but in as far as they are born with sin and so destined to perdition unless they are born again, they belong to the seed which was cursed from the beginning, Wisdom 12:11 by the fault of the primitive disobedience. This fault, however, is turned to good account by the Maker of even the vessels of wrath, that He may make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy: Romans 9:33 and that no one may attribute to any merits of his own, pertaining as he does to the self-same mass, his deliverance through grace; but he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. 2 Corinthians 10:17 2.50. As to the passage, which he seemed to himself to indite in a pious vein, as it were, If nature is of God, there cannot be original sin in it, would not another person seem even to him to give a still more pious turn to it, thus: If nature is of God, there cannot arise any sin in it? And yet this is not true. The Manicheans, indeed, meant to assert this, and they endeavoured to steep in all sorts of evil the very nature of God itself, and not His creature, made out of nothing. For evil arose in nothing else than what was good- not, however, the supreme and unchangeable good which is God's nature, but that which was made out of nothing by the wisdom of God. This, then, is the reason why man is claimed for a divine work; for he would not be man unless he were made by the operation of God. But evil would not exist in infants, if evil had not been committed by the wilfulness of the first man, and original sin derived from a nature thus corrupted. It is not true, then, as he puts it, He is completely a Manichean who maintains original sin; but rather, he is completely a Pelagian who does not believe in original sin. For it is not simply from the time when the pestilent opinions of Manich us began to grow that in the Church of God infants about to be baptized were for the first time exorcised with exsufflation - which ceremonial was intended to show that they were not removed into the kingdom of Christ without first being delivered from the power of darkness; Colossians 1:13 nor is it in the books of Manich us that we read how the Son of man come to seek and to save that which was lost, Luke 19:10 or how by one man sin entered into the world, Romans 5:12 with those other similar passages which we have quoted above; or how God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; Exodus 20:5 or how it is written in the Psalm, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me; or again, how man was made like vanity: his days pass away like a shadow; or again, behold, You have made my days old, and my existence as nothing before You; nay, every man living is altogether vanity; or how the apostle says, every creature was made subject to vanity; Romans 8:20 or how it is written in the book of Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities; all is vanity: what profit has a man of all his labour which he takes under the sun? Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 and in the book of Ecclesiasticus, a heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their mother's womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things; Sirach 40:1 or how again the apostle writes, in Adam all die; 1 Corinthians 15:22 or how holy Job says, when speaking about his own sins, for man that is born of a woman is short-lived and full of wrath: as the flower of grass, so does he fall; and he departs like a shadow, nor shall he stay. Have You not taken account even of him, and caused him to enter into judgment in Your sight? For who shall be pure from uncleanness? Not even one, even if his life should be but of one day upon the earth. Job 14:1-5 Now when he speaks of uncleanness here, the mere perusal of the passage is enough to show that he meant sin to be understood. It is plain from the words, of what he is speaking. The same phrase and sense occur in the prophet Zechariah, in the place where the filthy garments are removed from off the high priest, and it is said to him, I have taken away your sins. Zechariah 3:4 Well now, I rather think that all these passages, and others of like import, which point to the fact that man is born in sin and under the curse, are not to be read among the dark recesses of the Manicheans, but in the sunshine of catholic truth. 2.51. What, moreover, shall I say of those commentators on the divine Scriptures who have flourished in the catholic Church? They have never tried to pervert these testimonies to an alien sense, because they were firmly established in our most ancient and solid faith, and were never moved aside by the novelty of error. Were I to wish to collect these together, and to make use of their testimony, the task would both be too long, and I should probably seem to have bestowed less preference than I ought on canonical authorities, from which one must never deviate. I will merely mention the most blessed Ambrose, to whom (as I have already observed ) Pelagius accorded so signal a testimony of his integrity in the faith. This Ambrose, however, maintained that there was nothing else in infants, which required the healing grace of Christ, than original sin. But in respect of Cyprian, with his all-glorious crown, will any one say of him, that he either was, or ever could by any possibility have been, a Manichean, when he suffered before the pestilent heresy had made its appearance in the Roman world? And yet, in his book on the baptism of infants, he so vigorously maintains original sin as to declare, that even before the eighth day, if necessary, the infant ought to be baptized, lest his soul should be lost; and he wished it to be understood, that the infant could the more readily attain to the indulgence of baptism, inasmuch as it is not so much his own sins, but the sins of another, which are remitted to him. Well, then, let this writer dare to call these Manicheans; let him, moreover, under this scandalous imputation asperse that most ancient tradition of the Church, whereby infants are, as I have said, exorcised with exsufflation, for the purpose of being translated into the kingdom of Christ, after they are delivered from the power of darkness - that is to say, of the devil and his angels. As for ourselves, indeed, we are more ready to be associated with these men, and with the Church of Christ, so firmly rooted in this ancient faith, in suffering any amount of curse and contumely, than with the Pelagians, to be covered with the flattery of public praise. |
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| 116. Augustine, De Sermone Domini In Monte Secundum Matthaeum, 1.9, 1.32, 1.41, 1.52, 1.72, 2.23, 2.37, 2.69 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 95, 101 |
| 117. Augustine, De Spiritu Et Littera, 19, 37-38, 42, 5, 54, 56-57, 59, 50 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 264 |
| 118. Augustine, De Symbolo Ad Catechumenos, 2 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 189 |
| 119. Augustine, On The Holy Trinity, 1.2, 13.14, 15.31 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 254, 257 |
| 120. Augustine, De Utilitate Credendi Ad Honoratum, 2 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 284 |
| 121. Augustine, De Vera Religione Liber Unus, 1.13 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 144, 291 |
| 122. Augustine, Enarrationes In Psalmos, 9.2, 33.1-33.2, 35.11, 38.4, 40.15, 51.10, 52.12, 56.11, 57.11, 65.5, 66.4, 68.9, 69.27, 70.2, 85.5, 89.6, 90.17, 92.3, 96.5, 102.24, 107.8, 121.7, 123.1, 125.10, 126.6, 147.15, 148.8 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 248, 257, 264 |
| 123. Augustine, Enchiridion, 20.7 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 96, 255 |
| 124. Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiasten (Homiliae 8), 5.379-5.380 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 89 |
| 125. Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum (Homiliae 15), 6.160-6.161 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 89 |
| 126. Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Mosis, 7.1.33-7.1.34 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 89 |
| 127. Gregory of Nyssa, De Mortuis Non Esse Dolendum, 9.54 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 89 |
| 128. Augustine, In Heptateuchum Locutionum Libri Septem, 2.20, 3.40 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169 |
129. Augustine, The City of God, 1.28, 5.8-5.11, 5.26, 13.3, 13.23, 14.26, 15.1-15.2, 16.27, 18.41, 19.15, 21.24, 22.24, 22.29 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 12, 192, 194, 220, 263, 269 | 1.28. Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, you faithful servants of Christ, though your chastity was made the sport of your enemies. You have a grand and true consolation, if you maintain a good conscience, and know that you did not consent to the sins of those who were permitted to commit sinful outrage upon you. And if you should ask why this permission was granted, indeed it is a deep providence of the Creator and Governor of the world; and unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out. Romans 11:33 Nevertheless, faithfully interrogate your own souls, whether you have not been unduly puffed up by your integrity, and continence, and chastity; and whether you have not been so desirous of the human praise that is accorded to these virtues, that you have envied some who possessed them. I, for my part, do not know your hearts, and therefore I make no accusation; I do not even hear what your hearts answer when you question them. And yet, if they answer that it is as I have supposed it might be, do not marvel that you have lost that by which you can win men's praise, and retain that which cannot be exhibited to men. If you did not consent to sin, it was because God added His aid to His grace that it might not be lost, and because shame before men succeeded to human glory that it might not be loved. But in both respects even the faint-hearted among you have a consolation, approved by the one experience, chastened by the other; justified by the one, corrected by the other. As to those whose hearts, when interrogated, reply that they have never been proud of the virtue of virginity, widowhood, or matrimonial chastity, but, condescending to those of low estate, rejoiced with trembling in these gifts of God, and that they have never envied any one the like excellences of sanctity and purity, but rose superior to human applause, which is wont to be abundant in proportion to the rarity of the virtue applauded, and rather desired that their own number be increased, than that by the smallness of their numbers each of them should be conspicuous - even such faithful women, I say, must not complain that permission was given to the barbarians so grossly to outrage them; nor must they allow themselves to believe that God overlooked their character when He permitted acts which no one with impunity commits. For some most flagrant and wicked desires are allowed free play at present by the secret judgment of God, and are reserved to the public and final judgment. Moreover, it is possible that those Christian women, who are unconscious of any undue pride on account of their virtuous chastity, whereby they sinlessly suffered the violence of their captors, had yet some lurking infirmity which might have betrayed them into a proud and contemptuous bearing, had they not been subjected to the humiliation that befell them in the taking of the city. As, therefore, some men were removed by death, that no wickedness might change their disposition, so these women were outraged lest prosperity should corrupt their modesty. Neither those women then, who were already puffed up by the circumstance that they were still virgins, nor those who might have been so puffed up had they not been exposed to the violence of the enemy, lost their chastity, but rather gained humility; the former were saved from pride already cherished, the latter from pride that would shortly have grown upon them. We must further notice that some of those sufferers may have conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides so long as the body is inviolate, and did not understand that the purity both of the body and the soul rests on the steadfastness of the will strengthened by God's grace, and cannot be forcibly taken from an unwilling person. From this error they are probably now delivered. For when they reflect how conscientiously they served God, and when they settle again to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise desert those who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid and when they consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is chastity, they are shut up to the conclusion that He could never have permitted these disasters to befall His saints, if by them that saintliness could be destroyed which He Himself had bestowed upon them, and delights to see in them. 5.8. But, as to those who call by the name of fate, not the disposition of the stars as it may exist when any creature is conceived, or born, or commences its existence, but the whole connection and train of causes which makes everything become what it does become, there is no need that I should labor and strive with them in a merely verbal controversy, since they attribute the so-called order and connection of causes to the will and power of God most high, who is most rightly and most truly believed to know all things before they come to pass, and to leave nothing unordained; from whom are all powers, although the wills of all are not from Him. Now, that it is chiefly the will of God most high, whose power extends itself irresistibly through all things which they call fate, is proved by the following verses, of which, if I mistake not, Ann us Seneca is the author:- Father supreme, You ruler of the lofty heavens, Lead me where'er it is Your pleasure; I will give A prompt obedience, making no delay, Lo! Here I am. Promptly I come to do Your sovereign will; If your command shall thwart my inclination, I will still Follow You groaning, and the work assigned, With all the suffering of a mind repugt, Will perform, being evil; which, had I been good, I should have undertaken and performed, though hard, With virtuous cheerfulness. The Fates do lead the man that follows willing; But the man that is unwilling, him they drag. Most evidently, in this last verse, he calls that fate which he had before called the will of the Father supreme, whom, he says, he is ready to obey that he may be led, being willing, not dragged, being unwilling, since the Fates do lead the man that follows willing, but the man that is unwilling, him they drag. The following Homeric lines, which Cicero translates into Latin, also favor this opinion:- Such are the minds of men, as is the light Which Father Jove himself does pour Illustrious o'er the fruitful earth. Not that Cicero wishes that a poetical sentiment should have any weight in a question like this; for when he says that the Stoics, when asserting the power of fate, were in the habit of using these verses from Homer, he is not treating concerning the opinion of that poet, but concerning that of those philosophers, since by these verses, which they quote in connection with the controversy which they hold about fate, is most distinctly manifested what it is which they reckon fate, since they call by the name of Jupiter him whom they reckon the supreme god, from whom, they say, hangs the whole chain of fates. 5.9. The manner in which Cicero addresses himself to the task of refuting the Stoics, shows that he did not think he could effect anything against them in argument unless he had first demolished divination. And this he attempts to accomplish by denying that there is any knowledge of future things, and maintains with all his might that there is no such knowledge either in God or man, and that there is no prediction of events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God, and attempts by vain arguments, and by opposing to himself certain oracles very easy to be refuted, to overthrow all prophecy, even such as is clearer than the light (though even these oracles are not refuted by him). But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his argument is triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy and refute themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more tolerable who assert the fatal influence of the stars than they who deny the foreknowledge of future events. For, to confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly. This Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. That, however, he did not do in his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive such an opinion would be; and therefore, in his book on the nature of the gods, he makes Cotta dispute concerning this against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion in favor of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defense of the Stoical position, rather than in favor of Cotta, who maintained that no divinity exists. However, in his book on divination, he in his own person most openly opposes the doctrine of the prescience of future things. But all this he seems to do in order that he may not grant the doctrine of fate, and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks that, the knowledge of future things being once conceded, fate follows as so necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied. But, let these perplexing debatings and disputations of the philosophers go on as they may, we, in order that we may confess the most high and true God Himself, do confess His will, supreme power, and prescience. Neither let us be afraid lest, after all, we do not do by will that which we do by will, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that we would do it. It was this which Cicero was afraid of, and therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also maintained that all things do not come to pass by necessity, although they contended that all things happen according to destiny. What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things? Doubtless it was this - that if all future things have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which they have been foreknown; and if they come to pass in this order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God; and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes, for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient cause. But if there is a certain order of causes according to which everything happens which does happen, then by fate, says he, all things happen which do happen. But if this be so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will; and if we grant that, says he, the whole economy of human life is subverted. In vain are laws enacted. In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations had recourse to; and there is no justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments for the wicked. And that consequences so disgraceful, and absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not follow, Cicero chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice between two things, either that something is in our own power, or that there is foreknowledge - both of which cannot be true; but if the one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who consulted very much and very skillfully for the good of humanity, of those two chose the freedom of the will, to confirm which he denied the foreknowledge of future things; and thus, wishing to make men free he makes them sacrilegious. But the religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of piety. But how so? Says Cicero; for the knowledge of future things being granted, there follows a chain of consequences which ends in this, that there can be nothing depending on our own free wills. And further, if there is anything depending on our wills, we must go backwards by the same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the conclusion that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For we go backwards through all the steps in the following order:- If there is free will, all things do not happen according to fate; if all things do not happen according to fate, there is not a certain order of causes; and if there is not a certain order of causes, neither is there a certain order of things foreknown by God - for things cannot come to pass except they are preceded by efficient causes, - but, if there is no fixed and certain order of causes foreknown by God, all things cannot be said to happen according as He foreknew that they would happen. And further, if it is not true that all things happen just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is not, says he, in God any foreknowledge of future events. Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of reason, we assert both that God knows all things before they come to pass, and that we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it. But that all things come to pass by fate, we do not say; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those who speak of fate, meaning thereby the position of the stars at the time of each one's conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delusion. But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency is attributed to the will of God, we neither deny nor do we designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may understand fate to mean that which is spoken, deriving it from fari, to speak; for we cannot deny that it is written in the sacred Scriptures, God has spoken once; these two things have I heard, that power belongs unto God. Also unto You, O God, belongs mercy: for You will render unto every man according to his works. Now the expression, Once has He spoken, is to be understood as meaning immovably, that is, unchangeably has He spoken, inasmuch as He knows unchangeably all things which shall be, and all things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate in the sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, had it not already come to be understood in another sense, into which I am unwilling that the hearts of men should unconsciously slide. But it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes of human actions; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills. For even that very concession which Cicero himself makes is enough to refute him in this argument. For what does it help him to say that nothing takes place without a cause, but that every cause is not fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and a voluntary cause? It is sufficient that he confesses that whatever happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say that those causes which are called fortuitous are not a mere name for the absence of causes, but are only latent, and we attribute them either to the will of the true God, or to that of spirits of some kind or other. And as to natural causes, we by no means separate them from the will of Him who is the author and framer of all nature. But now as to voluntary causes. They are referable either to God, or to angels, or to men, or to animals of whatever description, if indeed those instinctive movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in accordance with their own nature, they seek or shun various things, are to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of angels, I mean either the wills of good angels, whom we call the angels of God, or of the wicked angels, whom we call the angels of the devil, or demons. Also by the wills of men I mean the wills either of the good or of the wicked. And from this we conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things which come to pass unless voluntary causes, that is, such as belong to that nature which is the spirit of life. For the air or wind is called spirit, but, inasmuch as it is a body, it is not the spirit of life. The spirit of life, therefore, which quickens all things, and is the creator of every body, and of every created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In His supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all created spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling all, granting power to some, not granting it to others. For, as He is the creator of all natures, so also is He the bestower of all powers, not of all wills; for wicked wills are not from Him, being contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to bodies, they are more subject to wills: some to our wills, by which I mean the wills of all living mortal creatures, but more to the wills of men than of beasts. But all of them are most of all subject to the will of God, to whom all wills also are subject, since they have no power except what He has bestowed upon them. The cause of things, therefore, which makes but is made, is God; but all other causes both make and are made. Such are all created spirits, and especially the rational. Material causes, therefore, which may rather be said to be made than to make, are not to be reckoned among efficient causes, because they can only do what the wills of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate that there should be nothing which is dependent on our wills, when our wills themselves have a very important place in the order of causes? Cicero, then, contends with those who call this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself by the name of fate; to which we have an abhorrence, especially on account of the word, which men have become accustomed to understand as meaning what is not true. But, whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain, and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his opinion more than the Stoics do. For he either denies that God exists, - which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has labored to do, in his book De Natura Deorum, - or if he confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of future things, what is that but just the fool saying in his heart there is no God? For one who is not prescient of all future things is not God. Wherefore our wills also have just so much power as God willed and foreknew that they should have; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it within most certain limits; and whatever they are to do, they are most assuredly to do, for He whose foreknowledge is infallible foreknew that they would have the power to do it, and would do it. Wherefore, if I should choose to apply the name of fate to anything at all, I should rather say that fate belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger, who has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our will is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call Fate. 5.10. Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread of which the Stoics labored to make such distinctions among the causes of things as should enable them to rescue certain things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to it. Among those things which they wished not to be subject to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that they would not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be called our necessity which is not in our power, but even though we be unwilling effects what it can effect - as, for instance, the necessity of death - it is manifest that our wills by which we live up-rightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity; for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we should certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing itself - for if we will, it is; if we will not, it is not - for we should not will if we were unwilling. But if we define necessity to be that according to which we say that it is necessary that anything be of such or such a nature, or be done in such and such a manner, I know not why we should have any dread of that necessity taking away the freedom of our will. For we do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should live forever, and foreknow all things; as neither is His power diminished when we say that He cannot die or fall into error - for this is in such a way impossible to Him, that if it were possible for Him, He would be of less power. But assuredly He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can neither die nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also, when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and do themselves whatever we do by willing, and which would not be done if we were unwilling. But when any one suffers anything, being unwilling by the will of another, even in that case will retains its essential validity, - we do not mean the will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we resolve it into the power of God. For if a will should simply exist, but not be able to do what it wills, it would be overborne by a more powerful will. Nor would this be the case unless there had existed will, and that not the will of the other party, but the will of him who willed, but was not able to accomplish what he willed. Therefore, whatsoever a man suffers contrary to his own will, he ought not to attribute to the will of men, or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will who gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that because God foreknew what would be in the power of our wills, there is for that reason nothing in the power of our wills. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing. Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in the power of our wills did not foreknow nothing, but something, assuredly, even though He did foreknow, there is something in the power of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled, either, retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we embrace both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The former, that we may believe well; the latter, that we may live well. For he lives ill who does not believe well concerning God. Wherefore, be it far from us, in order to maintain our freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations are had recourse to; for these also He foreknew, and they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they would be of. Prayers, also, are of avail to procure those things which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered them; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not therefore sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Nay, it cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this did God foreknow. 5.11. Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent, creator and maker of every soul and of every body; by whose gift all are happy who are happy through verity and not through vanity; who made man a rational animal consisting of soul and body, who, when he sinned, neither permitted him to go unpunished, nor left him without mercy; who has given to the good and to the evil, being in common with stones, vegetable life in common with trees, sensuous life in common with brutes, intellectual life in common with angels alone; from whom is every mode, every species, every order; from whom are measure, number, weight; from whom is everything which has an existence in nature, of whatever kind it be, and of whatever value; from whom are the seeds of forms and the forms of seeds, and the motion of seeds and of forms; who gave also to flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive fecundity, disposition of members, and the salutary concord of its parts; who also to the irrational soul has given memory, sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition to these, has given intelligence and will; who has not left, not to speak of heaven and earth, angels and men, but not even the entrails of the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without an harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts - that God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of His providence. 5.26. And on this account, Theodosius not only preserved during the lifetime of Gratian that fidelity which was due to him, but also, after his death, he, like a true Christian, took his little brother Valentinian under his protection, as joint emperor, after he had been expelled by Maximus, the murderer of his father. He guarded him with paternal affection, though he might without any difficulty have got rid of him, being entirely destitute of all resources, had he been animated with the desire of extensive empire, and not with the ambition of being a benefactor. It was therefore a far greater pleasure to him, when he had adopted the boy, and preserved to him his imperial dignity, to console him by his very humanity and kindness. Afterwards, when that success was rendering Maximus terrible, Theodosius, in the midst of his perplexing anxieties, was not drawn away to follow the suggestions of a sacrilegious and unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, whose abode was in the desert of Egypt - for he had learned that this servant of God (whose fame was spreading abroad) was endowed with the gift of prophecy - and from him he received assurance of victory. Immediately the slayer of the tyrant Maximus, with the deepest feelings of compassion and respect, restored the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire from which he had been driven. Valentinianus being soon after slain by secret assassination, or by some other plot or accident, Theodosius, having again received a response from the prophet, and placing entire confidence in it, marched against the tyrant Eugenius, who had been unlawfully elected to succeed that emperor, and defeated his very powerful army, more by prayer than by the sword. Some soldiers who were at the battle reported to me that all the missiles they were throwing were snatched from their hands by a vehement wind, which blew from the direction of Theodosius' army upon the enemy; nor did it only drive with greater velocity the darts which were hurled against them, but also turned back upon their own bodies the darts which they themselves were throwing. And therefore the poet Claudian, although an alien from the name of Christ, nevertheless says in his praises of him, O prince, too much beloved by God, for you Æolus pours armed tempests from their caves; for you the air fights, and the winds with one accord obey your bugles. But the victor, as he had believed and predicted, overthrew the statues of Jupiter, which had been, as it were, consecrated by I know not what kind of rites against him, and set up in the Alps. And the thunderbolts of these statues, which were made of gold, he mirthfully and graciously presented to his couriers who (as the joy of the occasion permitted) were jocularly saying that they would be most happy to be struck by such thunderbolts. The sons of his own enemies, whose fathers had been slain not so much by his orders as by the vehemence of war, having fled for refuge to a church, though they were not yet Christians, he was anxious, taking advantage of the occasion, to bring over to Christianity, and treated them with Christian love. Nor did he deprive them of their property, but, besides allowing them to retain it, bestowed on them additional honors. He did not permit private animosities to affect the treatment of any man after the war. He was not like Cinna, and Marius, and Sylla, and other such men, who wished not to finish civil wars even when they were finished, but rather grieved that they had arisen at all, than wished that when they were finished they should harm any one. Amid all these events, from the very commencement of his reign, he did not cease to help the troubled church against the impious by most just and merciful laws, which the heretical Valens, favoring the Arians, had vehemently afflicted. Indeed, he rejoiced more to be a member of this church than he did to be a king upon the earth. The idols of the Gentiles he everywhere ordered to be overthrown, understanding well that not even terrestrial gifts are placed in the power of demons, but in that of the true God. And what could be more admirable than his religious humility, when, compelled by the urgency of certain of his intimates, he avenged the grievous crime of the Thessalonians, which at the prayer of the bishops he had promised to pardon, and, being laid hold of by the discipline of the church, did pece in such a way that the sight of his imperial loftiness prostrated made the people who were interceding for him weep more than the consciousness of offense had made them fear it when enraged? These and other similar good works, which it would be long to tell, he carried with him from this world of time, where the greatest human nobility and loftiness are but vapor. of these works the reward is eternal happiness, of which God is the giver, though only to those who are sincerely pious. But all other blessings and privileges of this life, as the world itself, light, air, earth, water, fruits, and the soul of man himself, his body, senses, mind, life, He lavishes on good and bad alike. And among these blessings is also to be reckoned the possession of an empire, whose extent He regulates according to the requirements of His providential government at various times. Whence, I see, we must now answer those who, being confuted and convicted by the most manifest proofs, by which it is shown that for obtaining these terrestrial things, which are all the foolish desire to have, that multitude of false gods is of no use, attempt to assert that the gods are to be worshipped with a view to the interest, not of the present life, but of that which is to come after death. For as to those who, for the sake of the friendship of this world, are willing to worship vanities, and do not grieve that they are left to their puerile understandings, I think they have been sufficiently answered in these five books; of which books, when I had published the first three, and they had begun to come into the hands of many, I heard that certain persons were preparing against them an answer of some kind or other in writing. Then it was told me that they had already written their answer, but were waiting a time when they could publish it without danger. Such persons I would advise not to desire what cannot be of any advantage to them; for it is very easy for a man to seem to himself to have answered arguments, when he has only been unwilling to be silent. For what is more loquacious than vanity? And though it be able, if it like, to shout more loudly than the truth, it is not, for all that, more powerful than the truth. But let men consider diligently all the things that we have said, and if, perchance, judging without party spirit, they shall clearly perceive that they are such things as may rather be shaken than torn up by their most impudent garrulity, and, as it were, satirical and mimic levity, let them restrain their absurdities, and let them choose rather to be corrected by the wise than to be lauded by the foolish. For if they are waiting an opportunity, not for liberty to speak the truth, but for license to revile, may not that befall them which Tully says concerning some one, Oh, wretched man! Who was at liberty to sin? Wherefore, whoever he be who deems himself happy because of license to revile, he would be far happier if that were not allowed him at all; for he might all the while, laying aside empty boast, be contradicting those to whose views he is opposed by way of free consultation with them, and be listening, as it becomes him, honorably, gravely, candidly, to all that can be adduced by those whom he consults by friendly disputation. 13.3. But a question not to be shirked arises: Whether in very truth death, which separates soul and body, is good to the good? For if it be, how has it come to pass that such a thing should be the punishment of sin? For the first men would not have suffered death had they not sinned. How, then, can that be good to the good, which could not have happened except to the evil? Then, again, if it could only happen to the evil, to the good it ought not to be good, but non-existent. For why should there be any punishment where there is nothing to punish? Wherefore we must say that the first men were indeed so created, that if they had not sinned, they would not have experienced any kind of death; but that, having become sinners, they were so punished with death, that whatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished with the same death. For nothing else could be born of them than that which they themselves had been. Their nature was deteriorated in proportion to the greatness of the condemnation of their sin, so that what existed as punishment in those who first sinned, became a natural consequence in their children. For man is not produced by man, as he was from the dust. For dust was the material out of which man was made: man is the parent by whom man is begotten. Wherefore earth and flesh are not the same thing, though flesh be made of earth. But as man the parent is, such is man the offspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman to posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine sentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made, not when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned. For neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body and mind which we see in children. For God ordained that infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in the fashion of their life and of their death; as it is written, Man when he was in honor understood not; he became like the beasts that have no understanding. Nay more, infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the most tender offspring of other animals; as if the force that dwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other living things so much the more eminently, as its energy has been longer restrained, and the time of its exercise delayed, just as an arrow flies the higher the further back it has been drawn. To this infantine imbecility the first man did not fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying. And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death. And if infants are delivered from this bondage of sin by the Redeemer's grace, they can suffer only this death which separates soul and body; but being redeemed from the obligation of sin, they do not pass to that second endless and penal death. 13.23. For as those bodies of ours, that have a living soul, though not as yet a quickening spirit, are called soul-informed bodies, and yet are not souls but bodies, so also those bodies are called spiritual, - yet God forbid we should therefore suppose them to be spirits and not bodies - which, being quickened by the Spirit, have the substance, but not the unwieldiness and corruption of flesh. Man will then be not earthly but heavenly, - not because the body will not be that very body which was made of earth, but because by its heavenly endowment it will be a fit inhabitant of heaven, and this not by losing its nature, but by changing its quality. The first man, of the earth earthy, was made a living soul, not a quickening spirit, - which rank was reserved for him as the reward of obedience. And therefore his body, which required meat and drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, and which had no absolute and indestructible immortality, but by means of the tree of life warded off the necessity of dying, and was thus maintained in the flower of youth - this body, I say, was doubtless not spiritual, but animal; and yet it would not have died but that it provoked God's threatened vengeance by offending. And though sustece was not denied him even outside Paradise, yet, being forbidden the tree of life, he was delivered over to the wasting of time, at least in respect of that life which, had he not sinned, he might have retained perpetually in Paradise, though only in an animal body, till such time as it became spiritual in acknowledgment of his obedience. Wherefore, although we understand that this manifest death, which consists in the separation of soul and body, was also signified by God when He said, In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die, Genesis 2:17 it ought not on that account to seem absurd that they were not dismissed from the body on that very day on which they took the forbidden and death-bringing fruit. For certainly on that very day their nature was altered for the worse and vitiated, and by their most just banishment from the tree of life they were involved in the necessity even of bodily death, in which necessity we are born. And therefore the apostle does not say, The body indeed is doomed to die on account of sin, but he says, The body indeed is dead because of sin. Then he adds, But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. Romans 8:10-11 Then accordingly shall the body become a quickening spirit which is now a living soul; and yet the apostle calls it dead, because already it lies under the necessity of dying. But in Paradise it was so made a living soul, though not a quickening spirit, that it could not properly be called dead, for, save through the commission of sin, it could not come under the power of death. Now, since God by the words, Adam, where are you? pointed to the death of the soul, which results when He abandons it, and since in the words, Earth you are, and unto earth shall you return, Genesis 3:19 He signified the death of the body, which results when the soul departs from it, we are led, therefore, to believe that He said nothing of the second death, wishing it to be kept hidden, and reserving it for the New Testament dispensation, in which it is most plainly revealed. And this He did in order that, first of all, it might be evident that this first death, which is common to all, was the result of that sin which in one man became common to all. But the second death is not common to all, those being excepted who were called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Romans 8:28-29 Those the grace of God has, by a Mediator, delivered from the second death. Thus the apostle states that the first man was made in an animal body. For, wishing to distinguish the animal body which now is from the spiritual, which is to be in the resurrection, he says, It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Then, to prove this, he goes on, There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And to show what the animated body is, he says, Thus it was written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:42-45 He wished thus to show what the animated body is, though Scripture did not say of the first man Adam, when his soul was created by the breath of God, Man was made in an animated body, but Man was made a living soul. Genesis 2:7 By these words, therefore, The first man was made a living soul, the apostle wishes man's animated body to be understood. But how he wishes the spiritual body to be understood he shows when he adds, But the last Adam was made a quickening spirit, plainly referring to Christ, who has so risen from the dead that He cannot die any more. He then goes on to say, But that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. And here he much more clearly asserts that he referred to the animal body when he said that the first man was made a living soul, and to the spiritual when he said that the last man was made a quickening spirit. The animal body is the first, being such as the first Adam had, and which would not have died had he not sinned, being such also as we now have, its nature being changed and vitiated by sin to the extent of bringing us under the necessity of death, and being such as even Christ condescended first of all to assume, not indeed of necessity, but of choice; but afterwards comes the spiritual body, which already is worn by anticipation by Christ as our head, and will be worn by His members in the resurrection of the dead. Then the apostle subjoins a notable difference between these two men, saying, The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy, and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 1 Corinthians 15:47-49 So he elsewhere says, As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ; Galatians 3:27 but in very deed this shall be accomplished when that which is animal in us by our birth shall have become spiritual in our resurrection. For, to use his words again, We are saved by hope. Romans 8:24 Now we bear the image of the earthly man by the propagation of sin and death, which pass on us by ordinary generation; but we bear the image of the heavenly by the grace of pardon and life eternal, which regeneration confers upon us through the Mediator of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. And He is the heavenly Man of Paul's passage, because He came from heaven to be clothed with a body of earthly mortality, that He might clothe it with heavenly immortality. And he calls others heavenly, because by grace they become His members, that, together with them, He may become one Christ, as head and body. In the same epistle he puts this yet more clearly: Since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 - that is to say, in a spiritual body which shall be made a quickening spirit. Not that all who die in Adam shall be members of Christ - for the great majority shall be punished in eternal death - but he uses the word all in both clauses, because, as no one dies in an animal body except in Adam, so no one is quickened a spiritual body save in Christ. We are not, then, by any means to suppose that we shall in the resurrection have such a body as the first man had before he sinned, nor that the words, As is the earthy such are they also that are earthy, are to be understood of that which was brought about by sin; for we are not to think that Adam had a spiritual body before he fell, and that, in punishment of his sin, it was changed into an animal body. If this be thought, small heed has been given to the words of so great a teacher, who says, There is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body; as it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul. Was it after sin he was made so? Or was not this the primal condition of man from which the blessed apostle selects his testimony to show what the animal body is? 14.26. In Paradise, then, man lived as he desired so long as he desired what God had commanded. He lived in the enjoyment of God, and was good by God's goodness; he lived without any want, and had it in his power so to live eternally. He had food that he might not hunger, drink that he might not thirst, the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There was in his body no corruption, nor seed of corruption, which could produce in him any unpleasant sensation. He feared no inward disease, no outward accident. Soundest health blessed his body, absolute tranquillity his soul. As in Paradise there was no excessive heat or cold, so its inhabitants were exempt from the vicissitudes of fear and desire. No sadness of any kind was there, nor any foolish joy; true gladness ceaselessly flowed from the presence of God, who was loved out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. 1 Timothy 1:5 The honest love of husband and wife made a sure harmony between them. Body and spirit worked harmoniously together, and the commandment was kept without labor. No languor made their leisure wearisome; no sleepiness interrupted their desire to labor. In tanta facilitate rerum et felicitate hominum, absit ut suspicemur, non potuisse prolem seri sine libidinis morbo: sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur illa membra qua c tera, et sine ardoris illecebroso stimulo cum tranquillitate animi et corporis nulla corruptione integritatis infunderetur gremio maritus uxoris. Neque enim quia experientia probari non potest, ideo credendum non est; quando illas corporis partes non ageret turbidus calor, sed spontanea potestas, sicut opus esset, adhiberet; ita tunc potuisse utero conjugis salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen immitti, sicut nunc potest eadem integritate salva ex utero virginis fluxus menstrui cruoris emitti. Eadem quippe via posset illud injici, qua hoc potest ejici. Ut enim ad pariendum non doloris gemitus, sed maturitatis impulsus feminea viscera relaxaret: sic ad fœtandum et concipiendum non libidinis appetitus, sed voluntarius usus naturam utramque conjungeret. We speak of things which are now shameful, and although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by modesty than to extend it as our moderate faculty of discourse might suggest. For since that which I have been speaking of was not experienced even by those who might have experienced it - I mean our first parents (for sin and its merited banishment from Paradise anticipated this passionless generation on their part) - when sexual intercourse is spoken of now, it suggests to men's thoughts not such a placid obedience to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but such violent acting of lust as they themselves have experienced. And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind conceives the matter clearly. But Almighty God, the supreme and supremely good Creator of all natures, who aids and rewards good wills, while He abandons and condemns the bad, and rules both, was not destitute of a plan by which He might people His city with the fixed number of citizens which His wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned human race, discriminating them not now by merits, since the whole mass was condemned as if in a vitiated root, but by grace, and showing, not only in the case of the redeemed, but also in those who were not delivered, how much grace He has bestowed upon them. For every one acknowledges that he has been rescued from evil, not by deserved, but by gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company of those with whom he might justly have borne a common punishment, and is allowed to go scathless. Why, then, should God not have created those whom He foresaw would sin, since He was able to show in and by them both what their guilt merited, and what His grace bestowed, and since, under His creating and disposing hand, even the perverse disorder of the wicked could not pervert the right order of things? 15.1. of the bliss of Paradise, of Paradise itself, and of the life of our first parents there, and of their sin and punishment, many have thought much, spoken much, written much. We ourselves, too, have spoken of these things in the foregoing books, and have written either what we read in the Holy Scriptures, or what we could reasonably deduce from them. And were we to enter into a more detailed investigation of these matters, an endless number of endless questions would arise, which would involve us in a larger work than the present occasion admits. We cannot be expected to find room for replying to every question that may be started by unoccupied and captious men, who are ever more ready to ask questions than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I trust we have already done justice to these great and difficult questions regarding the beginning of the world, or of the soul, or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil. This, however, is their end, and of it we are to speak afterwards. At present, as we have said enough about their origin, whether among the angels, whose numbers we know not, or in the two first human beings, it seems suitable to attempt an account of their career, from the time when our two first parents began to propagate the race until all human generation shall cease. For this whole time or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who are born succeed, is the career of these two cities concerning which we treat. of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain was the first-born, and he belonged to the city of men; after him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For as in the individual the truth of the apostle's statement is discerned, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual, 1 Corinthians 15:46 whence it comes to pass that each man, being derived from a condemned stock, is first of all born of Adam evil and carnal, and becomes good and spiritual only afterwards, when he is grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the human race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their course by a series of deaths and births, the citizen of this world was the first-born, and after him the stranger in this world, the citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace a citizen above. By grace - for so far as regards himself he is sprung from the same mass, all of which is condemned in its origin; but God, like a potter (for this comparison is introduced by the apostle judiciously, and not without thought), of the same lump made one vessel to honor, another to dishonor. Romans 9:21 But first the vessel to dishonor was made, and after it another to honor. For in each individual, as I have already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that from which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily remain; afterwards is that which is well-approved, to which we may by advancing attain, and in which, when we have reached it we may abide. Not, indeed, that every wicked man shall be good, but that no one will be good who was not first of all wicked; but the sooner any one becomes a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title, and abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded of Cain that he built a city, Genesis 4:17 but Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the saints is above, although here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in the day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end. 15.2. There was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a symbol and foreshadowing image of this city, which served the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be rather than of making it present; and this image was itself called the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though not itself the reality. of this city which served as an image, and of that free city it typified, Paul writes to the Galatians in these terms: Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covets; the one from the mount Sinai, which genders to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, you barren that bear not; break forth and cry, you that travail not, for the desolate has many more children than she which has an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what says the Scripture? Cast out the bond woman and her son: for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And we, brethren, are not children of the bond woman, but of the free, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Galatians 4:21-31 This interpretation of the passage, handed down to us with apostolic authority, shows how we ought to understand the Scriptures of the two covets - the old and the new. One portion of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly city, not having a significance of its own, but signifying another city, and therefore serving, or being in bondage. For it was founded not for its own sake, but to prefigure another city; and this shadow of a city was also itself foreshadowed by another preceding figure. For Sarah's handmaid Agar, and her son, were an image of this image. And as the shadows were to pass away when the full light came, Sarah, the free woman, who prefigured the free city (which again was also prefigured in another way by that shadow of a city Jerusalem), therefore said, Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac, or, as the apostle says, with the son of the free woman. In the earthly city, then, we find two things - its own obvious presence, and its symbolic presentation of the heavenly city. Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin, but to the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin; whence the former are called vessels of wrath, the latter vessels of mercy. Romans 9:22-23 And this was typified in the two sons of Abraham - Ishmael, the son of Agar the handmaid, being born according to the flesh, while Isaac was born of the free woman Sarah, according to the promise. Both, indeed, were of Abraham's seed; but the one was begotten by natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the one birth, human action is revealed; in the other, a divine kindness comes to light. 16.27. When it is said, The male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people, because he has broken my covet, Genesis 17:14 some may be troubled how that ought to be understood, since it can be no fault of the infant whose life it is said must perish; nor has the covet of God been broken by him, but by his parents, who have not taken care to circumcise him. But even the infants, not personally in their own life, but according to the common origin of the human race, have all broken God's covet in that one in whom all have sinned. Now there are many things called God's covets besides those two great ones, the old and the new, which any one who pleases may read and know. For the first covet, which was made with the first man, is just this: In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Genesis 2:17 Whence it is written in the book called Ecclesiasticus, All flesh waxes old as does a garment. For the covet from the beginning is, You shall die the death. Sirach 15:17 Now, as the law was more plainly given afterward, and the apostle says, Where no law is, there is no prevarication, Romans 4:15 on what supposition is what is said in the psalm true, I accounted all the sinners of the earth prevaricators, except that all who are held liable for any sin are accused of dealing deceitfully (prevaricating) with some law? If on this account, then, even the infants are, according to the true belief, born in sin, not actual but original, so that we confess they have need of grace for the remission of sins, certainly it must be acknowledged that in the same sense in which they are sinners they are also prevaricators of that law which was given in Paradise, according to the truth of both scriptures, I accounted all the sinners of the earth prevaricators, and Where no law is, there is no prevarication. And thus, be cause circumcision was the sign of regeneration, and the infant, on account of the original sin by which God's covet was first broken, was not undeservedly to lose his generation unless delivered by regeneration, these divine words are to be understood as if it had been said, Whoever is not born again, that soul shall perish from his people, because he has broken my covet, since he also has sinned in Adam with all others. For had He said, Because he has broken this my covet, He would have compelled us to understand by it only this of circumcision; but since He has not expressly said what covet the infant has broken, we are free to understand Him as speaking of that covet of which the breach can be ascribed to an infant. Yet if any one contends that it is said of nothing else than circumcision, that in it the infant has broken the covet of God because, he is not circumcised, he must seek some method of explanation by which it may be understood without absurdity (such as this) that he has broken the covet, because it has been broken in him although not by him. Yet in this case also it is to be observed that the soul of the infant, being guilty of no sin of neglect against itself, would perish unjustly, unless original sin rendered it obnoxious to punishment. 18.41. But let us omit further examination of history, and return to the philosophers from whom we digressed to these things. They seem to have labored in their studies for no other end than to find out how to live in a way proper for laying hold of blessedness. Why, then, have the disciples dissented from their masters, and the fellow disciples from one another, except because as men they have sought after these things by human sense and human reasonings? Now, although there might be among them a desire of glory, so that each wished to be thought wiser and more acute than another, and in no way addicted to the judgment of others, but the inventor of his own dogma and opinion, yet I may grant that there were some, or even very many of them, whose love of truth severed them from their teachers or fellow disciples, that they might strive for what they thought was the truth, whether it was so or not. But what can human misery do, or how or where can it reach forth, so as to attain blessedness, if divine authority does not lead it? Finally, let our authors, among whom the canon of the sacred books is fixed and bounded, be far from disagreeing in any respect. It is not without good reason, then, that not merely a few people prating in the schools and gymnasia in captious disputations, but so many and great people, both learned and unlearned, in countries and cities, have believed that God spoke to them or by them, i.e. the canonical writers, when they wrote these books. There ought, indeed, to be but few of them, lest on account of their multitude what ought to be religiously esteemed should grow cheap; and yet not so few that their agreement should not be wonderful. For among the multitude of philosophers, who in their works have left behind them the monuments of their dogmas, no one will easily find any who agree in all their opinions. But to show this is too long a task for this work. But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping city, that the rest who have differed from or opposed him in opinion have been disapproved? The Epicureans asserted that human affairs were not under the providence of the gods; and the Stoics, holding the opposite opinion, agreed that they were ruled and defended by favorable and tutelary gods. Yet were not both sects famous among the Athenians? I wonder, then, why Anaxagoras was accused of a crime for saying that the sun was a burning stone, and denying that it was a god at all; while in the same city Epicurus flourished gloriously and lived securely, although he not only did not believe that the sun or any star was a god, but contended that neither Jupiter nor any of the gods dwelt in the world at all, so that the prayers and supplications of men might reach them! Were not both Aristippus and Antisthenes there, two noble philosophers and both Socratic? Yet they placed the chief end of life within bounds so diverse and contradictory, that the first made the delight of the body the chief good, while the other asserted that man was made happy mainly by the virtue of the mind. The one also said that the wise man should flee from the republic; the other, that he should administer its affairs. Yet did not each gather disciples to follow his own sect? Indeed, in the conspicuous and well-known porch, in gymnasia, in gardens, in places public and private, they openly strove in bands each for his own opinion, some asserting there was one world, others innumerable worlds; some that this world had a beginning, others that it had not; some that it would perish, others that it would exist always; some that it was governed by the divine mind, others by chance and accident; some that souls are immortal, others that they are mortal - and of those who asserted their immortality, some said they transmigrated through beasts, others that it was by no means so; while of those who asserted their mortality, some said they perished immediately after the body, others that they survived either a little while or a longer time, but not always; some fixing supreme good in the body, some in the mind, some in both; others adding to the mind and body external good things; some thinking that the bodily senses ought to be trusted always, some not always, others never. Now what people, senate, power, or public dignity of the impious city has ever taken care to judge between all these and other nearly innumerable dissensions of the philosophers, approving and accepting some, and disapproving and rejecting others? Has it not held in its bosom at random, without any judgment, and confusedly, so many controversies of men at variance, not about fields, houses, or anything of a pecuniary nature, but about those things which make life either miserable or happy? Even if some true things were said in it, yet falsehoods were uttered with the same licence; so that such a city has not amiss received the title of the mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as we remember we have already explained. Nor does it matter to the devil, its king, how they wrangle among themselves in contradictory errors, since all alike deservedly belong to him on account of their great and varied impiety. But that nation, that people, that city, that republic, these Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted, by no means confounded with similar licence false prophets with the true prophets; but, agreeing together, and differing in nothing, acknowledged and upheld the authentic authors of their sacred books. These were their philosophers, these were their sages, divines, prophets, and teachers of probity and piety. Whoever was wise and lived according to them was wise and lived not according to men, but according to God who has spoken by them. If sacrilege is forbidden there, God has forbidden it. If it is said, Honor your father and your mother, Exodus 20:12 God has commanded it. If it is said, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, and other similar commandments, not human lips but the divine oracles have enounced them. Whatever truth certain philosophers, amid their false opinions, were able to see, and strove by laborious discussions to persuade men of - such as that God had made this world, and Himself most providently governs it, or of the nobility of the virtues, of the love of country, of fidelity in friendship, of good works and everything pertaining to virtuous manners, although they knew not to what end and what rule all these things were to be referred - all these, by words prophetic, that is, divine, although spoken by men, were commended to the people in that city, and not inculcated by contention in arguments, so that he who should know them might be afraid of contemning, not the wit of men, but the oracle of God. 19.15. This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has created man. For let them, He says, have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every creeping thing which creeps on the earth. Genesis 1:26 He did not intend that His rational creature, who was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation, - not man over man, but man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative position of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the condition of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not find the word slave in any part of Scripture until righteous Noah branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a name, therefore, introduced by sin and not by nature. The origin of the Latin word for slave is supposed to be found in the circumstance that those who by the law of war were liable to be killed were sometimes preserved by their victors, and were hence called servants. And these circumstances could never have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a just war, our adversaries must be sinning; and every victory, even though gained by wicked men, is a result of the first judgment of God, who humbles the vanquished either for the sake of removing or of punishing their sins. Witness that man of God, Daniel, who, when he was in captivity, confessed to God his own sins and the sins of his people, and declares with pious grief that these were the cause of the captivity. Daniel ix The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow - that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offense. But our Master in heaven says, Every one who does sin is the servant of sin. John 8:34 And thus there are many wicked masters who have religious men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 2 Peter 2:19 And beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste men's hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover, when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the master. But by nature, as God first created us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin. This servitude is, however, penal, and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance; for if nothing had been done in violation of that law, there would have been nothing to restrain by penal servitude. And therefore the apostle admonishes slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve them heartily and with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their masters, they may themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness pass away, and all principality and every human power be brought to nothing, and God be all in all. 21.24. And this reasoning is equally conclusive against those who, in their own interest, but under the guise of a greater tenderness of spirit, attempt to invalidate the words of God, and who assert that these words are true, not because men shall suffer those things which are threatened by God, but because they deserve to suffer them. For God, they say, will yield them to the prayers of His saints, who will then the more earnestly pray for their enemies, as they shall be more perfect in holiness, and whose prayers will be the more efficacious and the more worthy of God's ear, because now purged from all sin whatsoever. Why, then, if in that perfected holiness their prayers be so pure and all-availing, will they not use them in behalf of the angels for whom eternal fire is prepared, that God may mitigate His sentence and alter it, and extricate them from that fire? Or will there, perhaps, be some one hardy enough to affirm that even the holy angels will make common cause with holy men (then become the equals of God's angels), and will intercede for the guilty, both men and angels, that mercy may spare them the punishment which truth has pronounced them to deserve? But this has been asserted by no one sound in the faith; nor will be. Otherwise there is no reason why the Church should not even now pray for the devil and his angels, since God her Master has ordered her to pray for her enemies. The reason, then, which prevents the Church from now praying for the wicked angels, whom she knows to be her enemies, is the identical reason which shall prevent her, however perfected in holiness, from praying at the last judgment for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire. At present she prays for her enemies among men, because they have yet opportunity for fruitful repentance. For what does she especially beg for them but that God would grant them repentance, as the apostle says, that they may return to soberness out of the snare of the devil, by whom they are held captive according to his will? 2 Timothy 2:25-26 But if the Church were certified who those are, who, though they are still abiding in this life, are yet predestinated to go with the devil into eternal fire, then for them she could no more pray than for him. But since she has this certainty regarding no man, she prays for all her enemies who yet live in this world; and yet she is not heard in behalf of all. But she is heard in the case of those only who, though they oppose the Church, are yet predestinated to become her sons through her intercession. But if any retain an impenitent heart until death, and are not converted from enemies into sons, does the Church continue to pray for them, for the spirits, i.e., of such persons deceased? And why does she cease to pray for them, unless because the man who was not translated into Christ's kingdom while he was in the body, is now judged to be of Satan's following? It is then, I say, the same reason which prevents the Church at any time from praying for the wicked angels, which prevents her from praying hereafter for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire; and this also is the reason why, though she prays even for the wicked so long as they live, she yet does not even in this world pray for the unbelieving and godless who are dead. For some of the dead, indeed, the prayer of the Church or of pious individuals is heard; but it is for those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not spend their life so wickedly that they can be judged unworthy of such compassion, nor so well that they can be considered to have no need of it. As also, after the resurrection, there will be some of the dead to whom, after they have endured the pains proper to the spirits of the dead, mercy shall be accorded, and acquittal from the punishment of the eternal fire. For were there not some whose sins, though not remitted in this life, shall be remitted in that which is to come, it could not be truly said, They shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in that which is to come. Matthew 12:32 But when the Judge of quick and dead has said, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, and to those on the other side, Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels, and These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life, it were excessively presumptuous to say that the punishment of any of those whom God has said shall go away into eternal punishment shall not be eternal, and so bring either despair or doubt upon the corresponding promise of life eternal. Let no man then so understand the words of the Psalmist, Shall God forget to be gracious? Shall He shut up in His anger His tender mercies as if the sentence of God were true of good men, false of bad men, or true of good men and wicked angels, but false of bad men. For the Psalmist's words refer to the vessels of mercy and the children of the promise, of whom the prophet himself was one; for when he had said, Shall God forget to be gracious? Shall He shut up in His anger His tender mercies? and then immediately subjoins, And I said, Now I begin: this is the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High, he manifestly explained what he meant by the words, Shall he shut up in His anger His tender mercies? For God's anger is this mortal life, in which man is made like to vanity, and his days pass as a shadow. Yet in this anger God does not forget to be gracious, causing His sun to shine and His rain to descend on the just and the unjust; Matthew 5:45 and thus He does not in His anger cut short His tender mercies, and especially in what the Psalmist speaks of in the words, Now I begin: this change is from the right hand of the Most High; for He changes for the better the vessels of mercy, even while they are still in this most wretched life, which is God's anger, and even while His anger is manifesting itself in this miserable corruption; for in His anger He does not shut up His tender mercies. And since the truth of this divine canticle is quite satisfied by this application of it, there is no need to give it a reference to that place in which those who do not belong to the city of God are punished in eternal fire. But if any persist in extending its application to the torments of the wicked, let them at least understand it so that the anger of God, which has threatened the wicked with eternal punishment, shall abide, but shall be mixed with mercy to the extent of alleviating the torments which might justly be inflicted; so that the wicked shall neither wholly escape, nor only for a time endure these threatened pains, but that they shall be less severe and more endurable than they deserve. Thus the anger of God shall continue, and at the same time He will not in this anger shut up His tender mercies. But even this hypothesis I am not to be supposed to affirm because I do not positively oppose it. As for those who find an empty threat rather than a truth in such passages as these: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire; and These shall go away into eternal punishment; Matthew 25:41, 46 and They shall be tormented for ever and ever; Revelation 20:10 and Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, Isaiah 66:24 - such persons, I say, are most emphatically and abundantly refuted, not by me so much as by the divine Scripture itself. For the men of Nineveh repented in this life, and therefore their repentance was fruitful, inasmuch as they sowed in that field which the Lord meant to be sown in tears that it might afterwards be reaped in joy. And yet who will deny that God's prediction was fulfilled in their case, if at least he observes that God destroys sinners not only in anger but also in compassion? For sinners are destroyed in two ways - either, like the Sodomites, the men themselves are punished for their sins, or, like the Ninevites, the men's sins are destroyed by repentance. God's prediction, therefore, was fulfilled - the wicked Nineveh was overthrown, and a good Nineveh built up. For its walls and houses remained standing; the city was overthrown in its depraved manners. And thus, though the prophet was provoked that the destruction which the inhabitants dreaded, because of his prediction, did not take place, yet that which God's foreknowledge had predicted did take place, for He who foretold the destruction knew how it should be fulfilled in a less calamitous sense. But that these perversely compassionate persons may see what is the purport of these words, How great is the abundance of Your sweetness, Lord, which You have hidden for them that fear You, let them read what follows: And You have perfected it for them that hope in You. For what means, You have hidden it for them that fear You, You have perfected it for them that hope in You, unless this, that to those who through fear of punishment seek to establish their own righteousness by the law, the righteousness of God is not sweet, because they are ignorant of it? They have not tasted it. For they hope in themselves, not in Him; and therefore God's abundant sweetness is hidden from them. They fear God, indeed, but it is with that servile fear which is not in love; for perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18 Therefore to them that hope in Him He perfects His sweetness, inspiring them with His own love, so that with a holy fear, which love does not cast out, but which endures for ever, they may, when they glory, glory in the Lord. For the righteousness of God is Christ, who is of God made unto us, as the apostle says, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 This righteousness of God, which is the gift of grace without merits, is not known by those who go about to establish their own righteousness, and are therefore not subject to the righteousness of God, which is Christ. Romans 10:3 But it is in this righteousness that we find the great abundance of God's sweetness, of which the psalm says, Taste and see how sweet the Lord is. And this we rather taste than partake of to satiety in this our pilgrimage. We hunger and thirst for it now, that hereafter we may be satisfied with it when we see Him as He is, and that is fulfilled which is written, I shall be satisfied when Your glory shall be manifested. It is thus that Christ perfects the great abundance of His sweetness to them that hope in Him. But if God conceals His sweetness from them that fear Him in the sense that these our objectors fancy, so that men's ignorance of His purpose of mercy towards the wicked may lead them to fear Him and live better, and so that there may be prayer made for those who are not living as they ought, how then does He perfect His sweetness to them that hope in Him, since, if their dreams be true, it is this very sweetness which will prevent Him from punishing those who do not hope in Him? Let us then seek that sweetness of His, which He perfects to them that hope in Him, not that which He is supposed to perfect to those who despise and blaspheme Him; for in vain, after this life, does a man seek for what he has neglected to provide while in this life. Then, as to that saying of the apostle, For God has concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all, Romans 11:32 it does not mean that He will condemn no one; but the foregoing context shows what is meant. The apostle composed the epistle for the Gentiles who were already believers; and when he was speaking to them of the Jews who were yet to believe, he says, For as you in times past believed not God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. Then he added the words in question with which these persons beguile themselves: For God concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all. All whom, if not all those of whom he was speaking, just as if he had said, Both you and them? God then concluded all those in unbelief, both Jews and Gentiles, whom He foreknew and predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that they might be confounded by the bitterness of unbelief, and might repent and believingly turn to the sweetness of God's mercy, and might take up that exclamation of the psalm, How great is the abundance of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for them that fear You, but have perfected to them that hope, not in themselves, but in You. He has mercy, then, on all the vessels of mercy. And what means all? Both those of the Gentiles and those of the Jews whom He predestinated, called, justified, glorified: none of these will be condemned by Him; but we cannot say none of all men whatever. 22.24. But we must now contemplate the rich and countless blessings with which the goodness of God, who cares for all He has created, has filled this very misery of the human race, which reflects His retributive justice. That first blessing which He pronounced before the fall, when He said, Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth, Genesis 1:28 He did not inhibit after man had sinned, but the fecundity originally bestowed remained in the condemned stock; and the vice of sin, which has involved us in the necessity of dying, has yet not deprived us of that wonderful power of seed, or rather of that still more marvellous power by which seed is produced, and which seems to be as it were inwrought and inwoven in the human body. But in this river, as I may call it, or torrent of the human race, both elements are carried along together - both the evil which is derived from him who begets, and the good which is bestowed by Him who creates us. In the original evil there are two things, sin and punishment; in the original good, there are two other things, propagation and conformation. But of the evils, of which the one, sin, arose from our audacity, and the other, punishment, from God's judgment, we have already said as much as suits our present purpose. I mean now to speak of the blessings which God has conferred or still confers upon our nature, vitiated and condemned as it is. For in condemning it He did not withdraw all that He had given it, else it had been annihilated; neither did He, in penally subjecting it to the devil, remove it beyond His own power; for not even the devil himself is outside of God's government, since the devil's nature subsists only by the supreme Creator who gives being to all that in any form exists. of these two blessings, then, which we have said flow from God's goodness, as from a fountain, towards our nature, vitiated by sin and condemned to punishment, the one, propagation, was conferred by God's benediction when He made those first works, from which He rested on the seventh day. But the other, conformation, is conferred in that work of His wherein He works hitherto. John 5:17 For were He to withdraw His efficacious power from things, they should neither be able to go on and complete the periods assigned to their measured movements, nor should they even continue in possession of that nature they were created in. God, then, so created man that He gave him what we may call fertility, whereby he might propagate other men, giving them a congenital capacity to propagate their kind, but not imposing on them any necessity to do so. This capacity God withdraws at pleasure from individuals, making them barren; but from the whole race He has not withdrawn the blessing of propagation once conferred. But though not withdrawn on account of sin, this power of propagation is not what it would have been had there been no sin. For since man placed in honor fell, he has become like the beasts, and generates as they do, though the little spark of reason, which was the image of God in him, has not been quite quenched. But if conformation were not added to propagation, there would be no reproduction of one's kind. For even though there were no such thing as copulation, and God wished to fill the earth with human inhabitants, He might create all these as He created one without the help of human generation. And, indeed, even as it is, those who copulate can generate nothing save by the creative energy of God. As, therefore, in respect of that spiritual growth whereby a man is formed to piety and righteousness, the apostle says, Neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters, but God that gives the increase, 1 Corinthians 3:7 so also it must be said that it is not he that generates that is anything, but God that gives the essential form; that it is not the mother who carries and nurses the fruit of her womb that is anything, but God that gives the increase. For He alone, by that energy wherewith He works hitherto, causes the seed to develop, and to evolve from certain secret and invisible folds into the visible forms of beauty which we see. He alone, coupling and connecting in some wonderful fashion the spiritual and corporeal natures, the one to command, the other to obey, makes a living being. And this work of His is so great and wonderful, that not only man, who is a rational animal, and consequently more excellent than all other animals of the earth, but even the most diminutive insect, cannot be considered attentively without astonishment and without praising the Creator. It is He, then, who has given to the human soul a mind, in which reason and understanding lie as it were asleep during infancy, and as if they were not, destined, however, to be awakened and exercised as years increase, so as to become capable of knowledge and of receiving instruction, fit to understand what is true and to love what is good. It is by this capacity the soul drinks in wisdom, and becomes endowed with those virtues by which, in prudence, fortitude, temperance, and righteousness, it makes war upon error and the other inborn vices, and conquers them by fixing its desires upon no other object than the supreme and unchangeable Good. And even though this be not uniformly the result, yet who can competently utter or even conceive the grandeur of this work of the Almighty, and the unspeakable boon He has conferred upon our rational nature, by giving us even the capacity of such attainment? For over and above those arts which are called virtues, and which teach us how we may spend our life well, and attain to endless happiness - arts which are given to the children of the promise and the kingdom by the sole grace of God which is in Christ - has not the genius of man invented and applied countless astonishing arts, partly the result of necessity, partly the result of exuberant invention, so that this vigor of mind, which is so active in the discovery not merely of superfluous but even of dangerous and destructive things, betokens an inexhaustible wealth in the nature which can invent, learn, or employ such arts? What wonderful - one might say stupefying - advances has human industry made in the arts of weaving and building, of agriculture and navigation! With what endless variety are designs in pottery, painting, and sculpture produced, and with what skill executed! What wonderful spectacles are exhibited in the theatres, which those who have not seen them cannot credit! How skillful the contrivances for catching, killing, or taming wild beasts! And for the injury of men, also, how many kinds of poisons, weapons, engines of destruction, have been invented, while for the preservation or restoration of health the appliances and remedies are infinite! To provoke appetite and please the palate, what a variety of seasonings have been concocted! To express and gain entrance for thoughts, what a multitude and variety of signs there are, among which speaking and writing hold the first place! What ornaments has eloquence at command to delight the mind! What wealth of song is there to captivate the ear! How many musical instruments and strains of harmony have been devised! What skill has been attained in measures and numbers! With what sagacity have the movements and connections of the stars been discovered! Who could tell the thought that has been spent upon nature, even though, despairing of recounting it in detail, he endeavored only to give a general view of it? In fine, even the defense of errors and misapprehensions, which has illustrated the genius of heretics and philosophers, cannot be sufficiently declared. For at present it is the nature of the human mind which adorns this mortal life which we are extolling, and not the faith and the way of truth which lead to immortality. And since this great nature has certainly been created by the true and supreme God, who administers all things He has made with absolute power and justice, it could never have fallen into these miseries, nor have gone out of them to miseries eternal, - saving only those who are redeemed - had not an exceeding great sin been found in the first man from whom the rest have sprung. Moreover, even in the body, though it dies like that of the beasts, and is in many ways weaker than theirs, what goodness of God, what providence of the great Creator, is apparent! The organs of sense and the rest of the members, are not they so placed, the appearance, and form, and stature of the body as a whole, is it not so fashioned, as to indicate that it was made for the service of a reasonable soul? Man has not been created stooping towards the earth, like the irrational animals; but his bodily form, erect and looking heavenwards, admonishes him to mind the things that are above. Then the marvellous nimbleness which has been given to the tongue and the hands, fitting them to speak, and write, and execute so many duties, and practise so many arts, does it not prove the excellence of the soul for which such an assistant was provided? And even apart from its adaptation to the work required of it, there is such a symmetry in its various parts, and so beautiful a proportion maintained, that one is at a loss to decide whether, in creating the body, greater regard was paid to utility or to beauty. Assuredly no part of the body has been created for the sake of utility which does not also contribute something to its beauty. And this would be all the more apparent, if we knew more precisely how all its parts are connected and adapted to one another, and were not limited in our observations to what appears on the surface; for as to what is covered up and hidden from our view, the intricate web of veins and nerves, the vital parts of all that lies under the skin, no one can discover it. For although, with a cruel zeal for science, some medical men, who are called anatomists, have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes even of sick persons who died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of the disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured, yet those relations of which I speak, and which form the concord, or, as the Greeks call it, harmony, of the whole body outside and in, as of some instrument, no one has been able to discover, because no one has been audacious enough to seek for them. But if these could be known, then even the inward parts, which seem to have no beauty, would so delight us with their exquisite fitness, as to afford a profounder satisfaction to the mind - and the eyes are but its ministers - than the obvious beauty which gratifies the eye. There are some things, too, which have such a place in the body, that they obviously serve no useful purpose, but are solely for beauty, as e.g. the teats on a man's breast, or the beard on his face; for that this is for ornament, and not for protection, is proved by the bare faces of women, who ought rather, as the weaker sex, to enjoy such a defense. If, therefore, of all those members which are exposed to our view, there is certainly not one in which beauty is sacrificed to utility, while there are some which serve no purpose but only beauty, I think it can readily be concluded that in the creation of the human body comeliness was more regarded than necessity. In truth, necessity is a transitory thing; and the time is coming when we shall enjoy one another's beauty without any lust - a condition which will specially redound to the praise of the Creator, who, as it is said in the psalm, has put on praise and comeliness. How can I tell of the rest of creation, with all its beauty and utility, which the divine goodness has given to man to please his eye and serve his purposes, condemned though he is, and hurled into these labors and miseries? Shall I speak of the manifold and various loveliness of sky, and earth, and sea; of the plentiful supply and wonderful qualities of the light; of sun, moon, and stars; of the shade of trees; of the colors and perfume of flowers; of the multitude of birds, all differing in plumage and in song; of the variety of animals, of which the smallest in size are often the most wonderful - the works of ants and bees astonishing us more than the huge bodies of whales? Shall I speak of the sea, which itself is so grand a spectacle, when it arrays itself as it were in vestures of various colors, now running through every shade of green, and again becoming purple or blue? Is it not delightful to look at it in storm, and experience the soothing complacency which it inspires, by suggesting that we ourselves are not tossed and shipwrecked? What shall I say of the numberless kinds of food to alleviate hunger, and the variety of seasonings to stimulate appetite which are scattered everywhere by nature, and for which we are not indebted to the art of cookery? How many natural appliances are there for preserving and restoring health! How grateful is the alternation of day and night! How pleasant the breezes that cool the air! How abundant the supply of clothing furnished us by trees and animals! Who can enumerate all the blessings we enjoy? If I were to attempt to detail and unfold only these few which I have indicated in the mass, such an enumeration would fill a volume. And all these are but the solace of the wretched and condemned, not the rewards of the blessed. What then shall these rewards be, if such be the blessings of a condemned state? What will He give to those whom He has predestined to life, who has given such things even to those whom He has predestined to death? What blessings will He in the blessed life shower upon those for whom, even in this state of misery, He has been willing that His only-begotten Son should endure such sufferings even to death? Thus the apostle reasons concerning those who are predestined to that kingdom: He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also give us all things? Romans 8:32 When this promise is fulfilled, what shall we be? What blessings shall we receive in that kingdom, since already we have received as the pledge of them Christ's dying? In what condition shall the spirit of man be, when it has no longer any vice at all; when it neither yields to any, nor is in bondage to any, nor has to make war against any, but is perfected, and enjoys undisturbed peace with itself? Shall it not then know all things with certainty, and without any labor or error, when unhindered and joyfully it drinks the wisdom of God at the fountain-head? What shall the body be, when it is in every respect subject to the spirit, from which it shall draw a life so sufficient, as to stand in need of no other nutriment? For it shall no longer be animal, but spiritual, having indeed the substance of flesh, but without any fleshly corruption. 22.29. And now let us consider, with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how the saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, and when the flesh shall live no longer in a fleshly but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand the nature of that employment, or, shall I rather say, repose and ease, for it has never come within the range of my bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding, what is our understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then shall be that peace of God which, as the apostle says, passes all understanding, Philippians 4:7 - that is to say, all human, and perhaps all angelic understanding, but certainly not the divine. That it passes ours there is no doubt; but if it passes that of the angels - and he who says all understanding seems to make no exception in their favor - then we must understand him to mean that neither we nor the angels can understand, as God understands, the peace which God Himself enjoys. Doubtless this passes all understanding but His own. But as we shall one day be made to participate, according to our slender capacity, in His peace, both in ourselves, and with our neighbor, and with God our chief good, in this respect the angels understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though now far behind them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For we must remember how great a man he was who said, We know in part, and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect has come; 1 Corinthians 13:9-10 and Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. 1 Corinthians 13:12 Such also is now the vision of the holy angels, who are also called our angels, because we, being rescued out of the power of darkness, and receiving the earnest of the Spirit, are translated into the kingdom of Christ, and already begin to belong to those angels with whom we shall enjoy that holy and most delightful city of God of which we have now written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels, as Christ is God's and also ours. They are God's, because they have not abandoned Him; they are ours, because we are their fellow citizens. The Lord Jesus also said, See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always see the face of my Father which is in heaven. Matthew 18:10 As, then, they see, so shall we also see; but not yet do we thus see. Wherefore the apostle uses the words cited a little ago, Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. This vision is reserved as the reward of our faith; and of it the Apostle John also says, When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1 John 3:2 By the face of God we are to understand His manifestation, and not a part of the body similar to that which in our bodies we call by that name. And so, when I am asked how the saints shall be employed in that spiritual body, I do not say what I see, but I say what I believe, according to that which I read in the psalm, I believed, therefore have I spoken. I say, then, they shall in the body see God; but whether they shall see Him by means of the body, as now we see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth, and all that is in it, that is a difficult question. For it is hard to say that the saints shall then have such bodies that they shall not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that every one who shuts his eyes shall lose the vision of God. For if the prophet Elisha, though at a distance, saw his servant Gehazi, who thought that his wickedness would escape his master's observation and accepted gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his foul leprosy, how much more shall the saints in the spiritual body see all things, not only though their eyes be shut, but though they themselves be at a great distance? For then shall be that which is perfect, of which the apostle says, We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away. Then, that he may illustrate as well as possible, by a simile, how superior the future life is to the life now lived, not only by ordinary men, but even by the foremost of the saints, he says, When I was a child, I understood as a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1 Corinthians 13:11-12 If, then, even in this life, in which the prophetic power of remarkable men is no more worthy to be compared to the vision of the future life than childhood is to manhood, Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting gifts, shall we say that when that which is perfect has come, and the corruptible body no longer oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and offers no impediment to it, the saints shall need bodily eyes to see, though Elisha had no need of them to see his servant? For, following the Septuagint version, these are the prophet's words: Did not my heart go with you, when the man came out of his chariot to meet you, and you tooked his gifts? 2 Kings 5:26 Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered it from the Hebrew, Was not my heart present when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? The prophet said that he saw this with his heart, miraculously aided by God, as no one can doubt. But how much more abundantly shall the saints enjoy this gift when God shall be all in all? Nevertheless the bodily eyes also shall have their office and their place, and shall be used by the spirit through the spiritual body. For the prophet did not forego the use of his eyes for seeing what was before them, though he did not need them to see his absent servant, and though he could have seen these present objects in spirit, and with his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant in a place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from us to say that in the life to come the saints shall not see God when their eyes are shut, since they shall always see Him with the spirit. But the question arises, whether, when their eyes are open, they shall see Him with the bodily eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body have no more power than the eyes which we now possess, manifestly God cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if they can look upon that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any place, but is all in every place. For though we say that God is in heaven and on earth, as He, Himself says by the prophet, I fill heaven and earth, Jeremiah 23:24 we do not mean that there is one part of God in heaven and another part on earth; but He is all in heaven and all on earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once, as no bodily nature can be. The eye, then, shall have a vastly superior power - the power not of keen sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they can discern nothing but bodily substances, - but the power of seeing things incorporeal. Possibly it was this great power of vision which was temporarily communicated to the eyes of the holy Job while yet in this mortal body, when he says to God, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You: wherefore I abhor myself, and melt away, and count myself dust and ashes; Job 42:5-6 although there is no reason why we should not understand this of the eye of the heart, of which the apostle says, Having the eyes of your heart illuminated. Ephesians 1:18 But that God shall be seen with these eyes no Christian doubts who believingly accepts what our God and Master says, Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 But whether in the future life God shall also be seen with the bodily eye, this is now our question. The expression of Scripture, And all flesh shall see the salvation of God, Luke 3:6 may without difficulty be understood as if it were said, And every man shall see the Christ of God. And He certainly was seen in the body, and shall be seen in the body when He judges quick and dead. And that Christ is the salvation of God, many other passages of Scripture witness, but especially the words of the venerable Simeon, who, when he had received into his hands the infant Christ, said, Now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word: for my eyes have seen Your salvation. Luke 2:29-30 As for the words of the above-mentioned Job, as they are found in the Hebrew manuscripts, And in my flesh I shall see God, no doubt they were a prophecy of the resurrection of the flesh; yet he does not say by the flesh. And indeed, if he had said this, it would still be possible that Christ was meant by God; for Christ shall be seen by the flesh in the flesh. But even understanding it of God, it is only equivalent to saying, I shall be in the flesh when I see God. Then the apostle's expression, face to face, 1 Corinthians 13:12 does not oblige us to believe that we shall see God by the bodily face in which are the eyes of the body, for we shall see Him without intermission in spirit. And if the apostle had not referred to the face of the inner man, he would not have said, But we, with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18 In the same sense we understand what the Psalmist sings, Draw near unto Him, and be enlightened; and your faces shall not be ashamed. For it is by faith we draw near to God, and faith is an act of the spirit, not of the body. But as we do not know what degree of perfection the spiritual body shall attain - for here we speak of a matter of which we have no experience, and upon which the authority of Scripture does not definitely pronounce - it is necessary that the words of the Book of Wisdom be illustrated in us: The thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our fore-castings uncertain. Wisdom 9:14 For if that reasoning of the philosophers, by which they attempt to make out that intelligible or mental objects are so seen by the mind, and sensible or bodily objects so seen by the body, that the former cannot be discerned by the mind through the body, nor the latter by the mind itself without the body - if this reasoning were trustworthy, then it would certainly follow that God could not be seen by the eye even of a spiritual body. But this reasoning is exploded both by true reason and by prophetic authority. For who is so little acquainted with the truth as to say that God has no cognisance of sensible objects? Has He therefore a body, the eyes of which give Him this knowledge? Moreover, what we have just been relating of the prophet Elisha, does this not sufficiently show that bodily things can be discerned by the spirit without the help of the body? For when that servant received the gifts, certainly this was a bodily or material transaction, yet the prophet saw it not by the body, but by the spirit. As, therefore, it is agreed that bodies are seen by the spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body shall be so great that spirit also is seen by the body? For God is a spirit. Besides, each man recognizes his own life - that life by which he now lives in the body, and which vivifies these earthly members and causes them to grow - by an interior sense, and not by his bodily eye; but the life of other men, though it is invisible, he sees with the bodily eye. For how do we distinguish between living and dead bodies, except by seeing at once both the body and the life which we cannot see save by the eye? But a life without a body we cannot see thus. Wherefore it may very well be, and it is thoroughly credible, that we shall in the future world see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth in such a way that we shall most distinctly recognize God everywhere present and governing all things, material as well as spiritual, and shall see Him, not as now we understand the invisible things of God, by the things which are made, Romans 1:20 and see Him darkly, as in a mirror, and in part, and rather by faith than by bodily vision of material appearances, but by means of the bodies we shall wear and which we shall see wherever we turn our eyes. As we do not believe, but see that the living men around us who are exercising vital functions are alive, though we cannot see their life without their bodies, but see it most distinctly by means of their bodies, so, wherever we shall look with those spiritual eyes of our future bodies, we shall then, too, by means of bodily substances behold God, though a spirit, ruling all things. Either, therefore, the eyes shall possess some quality similar to that of the mind, by which they may be able to discern spiritual things, and among these God - a supposition for which it is difficult or even impossible to find any support in Scripture, - or, which is more easy to comprehend, God will be so known by us, and shall be so much before us, that we shall see Him by the spirit in ourselves, in one another, in Himself, in the new heavens and the new earth, in every created thing which shall then exist; and also by the body we shall see Him in every body which the keen vision of the eye of the spiritual body shall reach. Our thoughts also shall be visible to all, for then shall be fulfilled the words of the apostle, Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart, and then shall every one have praise of God. 1 Corinthians 4:5 |
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| 130. Augustine, Quaestionum Evangeliorum Libri Duo, 1.6, 2.38 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134, 251 |
| 131. Ambrose, Enarrationes In Xii Paslmos, 1.18 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 256 |
| 132. Augustine, Retractiones, None (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 148, 166, 225 |
| 133. Ambrose, De Poenitentia, 1.11 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 142 |
| 134. Augustine, Sermons, None (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 255 |
| 135. Augustine, De Natura Et Gratia Ad Timasium Et Jacobum Contra Pelagium, 18, 25, 3-4, 49, 5, 67, 75, 77, 79, 8, 84, 81 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 264 |
| 136. Augustine, De Perfectione Justitiae Hominis Liber, 14, 2, 21-22, 28, 43, 9, 11 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 254 |
137. Augustine, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum., 1.27-1.32, 2.5 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 95, 270, 290 | 1.27. And since these things are so, the judgment of the book of Wisdom ought not to be repudiated, since for so long a course of years that book has deserved to be read in the Church of Christ from the station of the readers of the Church of Christ, and to be heard by all Christians, from bishops downwards, even to the lowest lay believers, penitents, and catechumens, with the veneration paid to divine authority. For assuredly, if, from those who have been before me in commenting on the divine Scriptures, I should bring forward a defense of this judgment, which we are now called upon to defend more carefully and copiously than usual against the new error of the Pelagians - that is, that God's grace is not given according to our merits, and that it is given freely to whom it is given, because it is neither of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy; but that by righteous judgment it is not given to whom it is not given, because there is no unrighteousness with God - if, therefore, I should put forth a defense of this opinion from catholic commentators on the divine oracles who have preceded us, assuredly these brethren for whose sake I am now discoursing would acquiesce, for this you have intimated in your letters. What need is there, then, for us to look into the writings of those who, before this heresy sprang up, had no necessity to be conversant in a question so difficult of solution as this, which beyond a doubt they would have done if they had been compelled to answer such things? Whence it arose that they touched upon what they thought of God's grace briefly in some passages of their writings, and cursorily; but on those matters which they argued against the enemies of the Church, and in exhortations to every virtue by which to serve the living and true God for the purpose of attaining eternal life and true happiness, they dwelt at length. But the grace of God, what it could do, shows itself artlessly by its frequent mention in prayers; for what God commands to be done would not be asked for from God, unless it could be given by Him that it should be done. 1.28. But if any wish to be instructed in the opinions of those who have handled the subject, it behooves them to prefer to all commentators the book of Wisdom, where it is read, He was taken away, that wickedness should not alter his understanding; because illustrious commentators, even in the times nearest to the apostles, preferred it to themselves, seeing that when they made use of it for a testimony they believed that they were making use of nothing but a divine testimony; and certainly it appears that the most blessed Cyprian, in order to commend the advantage of an earlier death, contended that those who end this life, wherein sin is possible, are taken away from the risks of sins. In the same treatise, among other things, he says, Why, when you are about to be with Christ, and are secure of the divine promise, do you not embrace being called to Christ, and rejoice that you are free from the devil? And in another place he says, Boys escape the peril of their unstable age. And again, in another place, he says, Why do we not hasten and run, that we may see our country, that we may hail our relatives? A great number of those who are dear to us are expecting us there - a dense and abundant crowd of parents, brethren, sons, are longing for us; already secure of their own safety, but still anxious about our salvation. By these and such like sentiments, that teacher sufficiently and plainly testifies, in the clearest light of the catholic faith, that perils of sin and trials are to be feared even until the putting off of this body, but that afterwards no one shall suffer any such things. And even if he did not testify thus, when could any manner of Christian be in doubt on this matter? How, then, should it not have been of advantage to a man who has lapsed, and who finishes his life wretchedly in that same state of lapse, and passes into the punishment due to such as he - how, I say, should it not have been of the greatest and highest advantage to such an one to be snatched by death from this sphere of temptations before his fall? 1.29. And thus, unless we indulge in reckless disputation, the entire question is concluded concerning him who is taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding. And the book of Wisdom, which for such a series of years has deserved to be read in Christ's Church, and in which this is read, ought not to suffer injustice because it withstands those who are mistaken on behalf of men's merit, so as to come in opposition to the most manifest grace of God: and this grace chiefly appears in infants, and while some of these baptized, and some not baptized, come to the end of this life, they sufficiently point to God's mercy and His judgment - His mercy, indeed, gratuitous, His judgment, of debt. For if men should be judged according to the merits of their life, which merits they have been prevented by death from actually having, but would have had if they had lived, it would be of no advantage to him who is taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding; it would be of no advantage to those who die in a state of lapse if they should die before. And this no Christian will venture to say. Wherefore our brethren, who with us on behalf of the catholic faith assail the pest of the Pelagian error, ought not to such an extent to favour the Pelagian opinion, wherein they conceive that God's grace is given according to our merits, as to endeavour (which they cannot dare) to invalidate a true sentiment, plainly and from ancient times Christian -He was taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding; and to build up that which we should think, I do not say, no one would believe, but no one would dream - to wit, that any deceased person would be judged according to those things which he would have done if he had lived for a more lengthened period. Surely thus what we say manifests itself clearly to be incontestable - that the grace of God is not given according to our merits; so that ingenious men who contradict this truth are constrained to say things which must be rejected from the ears and from the thoughts of all men. 1.30. Moreover, the most illustrious Light of predestination and grace is the Saviour Himself - the Mediator Himself between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And, pray, by what preceding merits of its own, whether of works or of faith, did the human nature which is in Him procure for itself that it should be this? Let this have an answer, I beg. That man, whence did He deserve this - to be assumed by the Word co-eternal with the Father into unity of person, and be the only-begotten Son of God? Was it because any kind of goodness in Him preceded? What did He do before? What did He believe? What did He ask, that He should attain to this unspeakable excellence? Was it not by the act and the assumption of the Word that that man, from the time He began to be, began to be the only Son of God? Did not that woman, full of grace, conceive the only Son of God? Was He not born the only Son of God, of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary - not of the lust of the flesh, but by God's peculiar gift? Was it to be feared that as age matured this man, He would sin of free will? Or was the will in Him not free on that account? And was it not so much the more free in proportion to the greater impossibility of His becoming the servant of sin? Certainly, in Him human nature- that is to say, our nature - specially received all those specially admirable gifts, and any others that may most truly be said to be peculiar to Him, by virtue of no preceding merits of its own. Let a man here answer to God if he dare, and say, Why was it not I also? And if he should hear, O man, who are you that repliest against God? Romans 9:10 let him not at this point restrain himself, but increase his impudence and say, How is it that I hear, Who are you, O man? Since I am what I hear - that is, a man, and He of whom I speak is but the same? Why should not I also be what He is? For it is by grace that He is such and so great; why is grace different when nature is common? Assuredly, there is no respect of persons with God. I say, not what Christian man, but what madman will say this? 1.31. Therefore in Him who is our Head let there appear to be the very fountain of grace, whence, according to the measure of every man, He diffuses Himself through all His members. It is by that grace that every man from the beginning of his faith becomes a Christian, by which grace that one man from His beginning became Christ. of the same Spirit also the former is born again of which the latter was born. By the same Spirit is effected in us the remission of sins, by which Spirit it was effected that He should have no sin. God certainly foreknew that He would do these things. This, therefore, is that same predestination of the saints which most especially shone forth in the Saint of saints; and who is there of those who rightly understand the declarations of the truth that can deny this predestination? For we have learned that the Lord of glory Himself was predestinated in so far as the man was made the Son of God. The teacher of the Gentiles exclaims, in the beginning of his epistles, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God (which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures) concerning His Son, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of sanctification by the resurrection of the dead. Therefore Jesus was predestinated, so that He who was to be the Son of David according to the flesh should yet be in power the Son of God, according to the Spirit of sanctification, because He was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary. This is that ineffably accomplished sole taking up of man by God the Word, so that He might truly and properly be called at the same time the Son of God and the Son of man -Son of man on account of the man taken up, and the Son of God on account of the God only-begotten who took Him up, so that a Trinity and not a Quaternity might be believed in. Such a transporting of human nature was predestinated, so great, so lofty, and so sublime that there was no exalting it more highly - just as on our behalf that divinity had no possibility of more humbly putting itself off, than by the assumption of man's nature with the weakness of the flesh, even to the death of the cross. As, therefore, that one man was predestinated to be our Head, so we being many are predestinated to be His members. Here let human merits which have perished through Adam keep silence, and let that grace of God reign which reigns through Jesus Christ our Lord, the only Son of God, the one Lord. Let whoever can find in our Head the merits which preceded that peculiar generation, seek in us His members for those merits which preceded our manifold regeneration. For that generation was not recompensed to Christ, but given; that He should be born, namely, of the Spirit and the Virgin, separate from all entanglement of sin. Thus also our being born again of water and the Spirit is not recompensed to us for any merit, but freely given; and if faith has brought us to the laver of regeneration, we ought not therefore to suppose that we have first given anything, so that the regeneration of salvation should be recompensed to us again; because He made us to believe in Christ, who made for us a Christ on whom we believe. He makes in men the beginning and the completion of the faith in Jesus who made the man Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith; Hebrews 12:2 for thus, as you know, He is called in the epistle which is addressed to the Hebrews. 1.32. God indeed calls many predestinated children of His, to make them members of His only predestinated Son, - not with that calling with which they were called who would not come to the marriage, since with that calling were called also the Jews, to whom Christ crucified is an offense, and the Gentiles, to whom Christ crucified is foolishness; but with that calling He calls the predestinated which the apostle distinguished when he said that he preached Christ, the wisdom of God and the power of God, to them that were called, Jews as well as Greeks. For thus he says But unto them which are called, 1 Corinthians 1:24 in order to show that there were some who were not called; knowing that there is a certain sure calling of those who are called according to God's purpose, whom He has foreknown and predestinated before to be conformed to the image of His Son. And it was this calling he meant when he said, Not of works, but of Him that calls; it was said to her, That the elder shall serve the younger. Romans 9:12 Did he say, Not of works, but of him that believes? Rather, he actually took this away from man, that he might give the whole to God. Therefore he said, But of Him that calls,- not with any sort of calling whatever, but with that calling wherewith a man is made a believer. 2.5. What, when we say, Your kingdom come, do we ask else, but that that should also come to us which we do not doubt will come to all saints? And therefore here also, what do they who are already holy pray for, save that they may persevere in that holiness which has been given them? For no otherwise will the kingdom of God come to them; which it is certain will come not to others, but to those who persevere to the end. |
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| 138. Augustine, De Ordine Libri Duo, 1.11, 1.18-1.19, 1.23-1.24, 1.30-1.31, 2.12, 2.28, 2.52, 2.58 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 96, 293 |
| 139. Augustine, On Patience, 19, 22 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169 |
140. Augustine, De Peccatorum Meritis Et Remissione Et De Baptismo Parvulorum, 1.13, 1.31, 1.34, 1.62, 1.67, 2.6-2.7, 2.15-2.16, 2.26-2.31, 2.48, 3.9-3.13 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 95, 144, 160, 161, 187, 188, 251, 252, 254, 260, 263, 264 | 1.13. Nevertheless, says he, death reigned from Adam even unto Moses, Romans 5:14 - that is to say, from the first man even to the very law which was promulged by the divine authority, because even it was unable to abolish the reign of death. Now death must be understood to reign, whenever the guilt of sin so dominates in men that it prevents their attainment of that eternal life which is the only true life, and drags them down even to the second death which is penally eternal. This reign of death is only destroyed in any man by the Saviour's grace, which wrought even in the saints of the olden time, all of whom, though previous to the coming of Christ in the flesh, yet lived in relation to His assisting grace, not to the letter of the law, which only knew how to command, but not to help them. In the Old Testament, indeed, that was hidden (conformably to the perfectly just dispensation of the times) which is now revealed in the New Testament. Therefore death reigned from Adam unto Moses, in all who were not assisted by the grace of Christ, that in them the kingdom of death might be destroyed, even in those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, Romans 5:14 that is, who had not yet sinned of their own individual will, as Adam did, but had drawn from him original sin, who is the figure of him that was to come, Romans 5:14 because in him was constituted the form of condemnation to his future progeny, who should spring from him by natural descent; so that from one all men were born to a condemnation, from which there is no deliverance but in the Saviour's grace. I am quite aware, indeed, that several Latin copies of the Scriptures read the passage thus: Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them who have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; but even this version is referred by those who so read it to the very same purport, for they understood those who have sinned in him to have sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; so that they are created in his likeness, not only as men born of a man, but as sinners born of a sinner, dying ones of a dying one, and condemned ones to a condemned one. However, the Greek copies from which the Latin version was made, have all, without exception or nearly so, the reading which I first adduced. 1.31. Perhaps, however, the now exploded and rejected opinion must be resumed, that souls which once sinned in their heavenly abode, descend by stages and degrees to bodies suited to their deserts, and, as a penalty for their previous life, are more or less tormented by corporeal chastisements. To this opinion Holy Scripture indeed presents a most manifest contradiction; for when recommending divine grace, it says: For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls, it was said, The elder shall serve the younger. Romans 9:11-12 And yet they who entertain such an opinion are actually unable to escape the perplexities of this question, but, embarrassed and straitened by them, are compelled to exclaim like others, O the depth! For whence does it come to pass that a person shall from his earliest boyhood show greater moderation, mental excellence, and temperance, and shall to a great extent conquer lust, shall hate avarice, detest luxury, and rise to a greater eminence and aptitude in the other virtues, and yet live in such a place as to be unable to hear the grace of Christ preached?- for how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Romans 10:14 While another man, although of a slow mind, addicted to lust, and covered with disgrace and crime, shall be so directed as to hear, and believe, and be baptized, and be taken away - or, if permitted to remain longer here, lead the rest of his life in a manner that shall bring him praise? Now where did these two persons acquire such diverse deserts, - I do not say, that the one should believe and the other not believe, for that is a matter for a man's own will; but that the one should hear in order to believe, and that the other should not hear, for this is not within man's power? Where, I say, did they acquire diverse deserts? If they had indeed passed any part of their life in heaven, so as to be thrust down, or to sink down, to this world, and to tet such bodily receptacles as are congruous to their own former life, then of course that man ought to be supposed to have led the better life previous to his present mortal body, who did not much deserve to be burdened with it, so as both to have a good disposition, and to be importuned by milder desires which he could easily overcome; and yet he did not deserve to have that grace preached to him whereby alone he could be delivered from the ruin of the second death. Whereas the other, who was hampered with a grosser body, as a penalty - so they suppose - for worse deserts, and was accordingly possessed of obtuser affections, while he was in the violent ardour of his lust succumbing to the snares of the flesh, and by his wicked life aggravating his former sins, which had brought him to such a pass, by a still more abandoned course of earthly pleasures - either heard upon the cross, Today shall you be with me in paradise, Luke 23:43 or else joined himself to some apostle, by whose preaching he became a changed man, and was saved by the washing of regeneration - so that where sin once abounded, grace did much more abound. I am at a loss to know what answer they can give to this who wish to maintain God's righteousness by human conjectures, and, knowing nothing of the depths of grace, have woven webs of improbable fable. 1.34. The Christians of Carthage have an excellent name for the sacraments, when they say that baptism is nothing else than salvation, and the sacrament of the body of Christ nothing else than life. Whence, however, was this derived, but from that primitive, as I suppose, and apostolic tradition, by which the Churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent principle, that without baptism and partaking of the supper of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life? So much also does Scripture testify, according to the words which we already quoted. For wherein does their opinion, who designate baptism by the term salvation, differ from what is written: He saved us by the washing of regeneration? Titus 3:5 or from Peter's statement: The like figure whereunto even baptism does also now save us? 1 Peter 3:21 And what else do they say who call the sacrament of the Lord's Supper life, than that which is written: I am the living bread which came down from heaven; John 6:51 and The bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world; John 6:51 and Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall have no life in you? John 6:53 If, therefore, as so many and such divine witnesses agree, neither salvation nor eternal life can be hoped for by any man without baptism and the Lord's body and blood, it is vain to promise these blessings to infants without them. Moreover, if it be only sins that separate man from salvation and eternal life, there is nothing else in infants which these sacraments can be the means of removing, but the guilt of sin - respecting which guilty nature it is written, that no one is clean, not even if his life be only that of a day. Job 14:4 Whence also that exclamation of the Psalmist: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me! This is either said in the person of our common humanity, or if of himself only David speaks, it does not imply that he was born of fornication, but in lawful wedlock. We therefore ought not to doubt that even for infants yet to be baptized was that precious blood shed, which previous to its actual effusion was so given, and applied in the sacrament, that it was said, This is my blood, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins. Matthew 26:28 Now they who will not allow that they are under sin, deny that there is any liberation. For what is there that men are liberated from, if they are held to be bound by no bondage of sin? 1.62. He then proceeds thus, saying: God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 Every infant, therefore, was destined to perish, and to lose everlasting life, if through the sacrament of baptism he believed not in the only-begotten Son of God; while nevertheless, He comes not so that he may judge the world, but that the world through Him may be saved. This especially appears in the following clause, wherein He says, He that believes in Him is not condemned; but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. John 3:18 In what class, then, do we place baptized infants but among believers, as the authority of the catholic Church everywhere asserts? They belong, therefore, among those who have believed; for this is obtained for them by virtue of the sacrament and the answer of their sponsors. And from this it follows that such as are not baptized are reckoned among those who have not believed. Now if they who are baptized are not condemned, these last, as not being baptized, are condemned. He adds, indeed: But this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. John 3:19 of what does He say, Light has come into the world, if not of His own advent? And without the sacrament of His advent, how are infants said to be in the light? And why should we not include this fact also in men's love of darkness, that as they do not themselves believe, so they refuse to think that their infants ought to be baptized, although they are afraid of their incurring the death of the body? In God, however, he declares are the works of him wrought, who comes to the light, John 3:21 because he is quite aware that his justification results from no merits of his own, but from the grace of God. For it is God, says the apostle, who works in you both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 This then is the way in which spiritual regeneration is effected in all who come to Christ from their carnal generation. He explained it Himself, and pointed it out, when He was asked, How these things could be? He left it open to no man to settle such a question by human reasoning, lest infants should be deprived of the grace of the remission of sins. There is no other passage leading to Christ; no man can be reconciled to God, or can come to God otherwise, than through Christ. 1.67. Yes, let us consider that darkness of their rational intellect, by reason of which they are even completely ignorant of God, whose sacraments they actually struggle against, while being baptized. Now my inquiry is, When and whence came they to be immersed in this darkness? Is it then the fact that they incurred it all here, and in this their own proper life forgat God through too much negligence, after a life of wisdom and religion in their mother's womb? Let those say so who dare; let them listen to it who wish to; let them believe it who can. I, however, am sure that none whose minds are not blinded by an obstinate adherence to a foregone conclusion can possibly entertain such an opinion. Is there then no evil in ignorance - nothing which needs to be purged away? What means that prayer Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance? For although those sins are more to be condemned which are knowingly committed, yet if there were no sins of ignorance, we should not have read in Scripture what I have quoted, Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance. Seeing now that the soul of an infant fresh from its mother's womb is still the soul of a human being - nay, the soul of a rational creature - not only untaught, but even incapable of instruction, I ask why, or when, or whence, it was plunged into that thick darkness of ignorance in which it lies? If it is man's nature thus to begin, and that nature is not already corrupt, then why was not Adam created thus? Why was he capable of receiving a commandment? And able to give names to his wife, and to all the animal creation? For of her he said, She shall be called Woman; Genesis 2:23 and in respect of the rest we read: Whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. Genesis 2:19 Whereas this one, although he is ignorant where he is, what he is, by whom created, of what parents born, is already guilty of offense, incapable as yet of receiving a commandment, and so completely involved and overwhelmed in a thick cloud of ignorance, that he cannot be aroused out of his sleep, so as to recognize even these facts; but a time must be patiently awaited, until he can shake off this strange intoxication, as it were, (not indeed in a single night, as even the heaviest drunkenness usually can be, but) little by little, through many months, and even years; and until this be accomplished, we have to bear in little children so many things which we punish in older persons, that we cannot enumerate them. Now, as touching this enormous evil of ignorance and weakness, if in this present life infants have contracted it as soon as they were born, where, when, how, have they by the perpetration of some great iniquity become suddenly implicated in such darkness? 2.6. Let us then drive away from our ears and minds those who say that we ought to accept the determination of our own free will and not pray God to help us not to sin. By such darkness as this even the Pharisee was not blinded; for although he erred in thinking that he needed no addition to his righteousness, and supposed himself to be saturated with abundance of it, he nevertheless gave thanks to God that he was not like other men, unjust, extortioners, adulterers, or even as the publican; for he fasted twice in the week, he gave tithes of all that he possessed. Luke 18:11-12 He wished, indeed, for no addition to his own righteousness; but yet, by giving thanks to God, he confessed that all he had he had received from Him. Notwithstanding, he was not approved, both because he asked for no further food of righteousness, as if he were already filled, and because he arrogantly preferred himself to the publican, who was hungering and thirsting after righteousness. What, then, is to be said of those who, while acknowledging that they have no righteousness, or no fullness thereof, yet imagine that it is to be had from themselves alone, not to be besought from their Creator, in whom is its store and its fountain? And yet this is not a question about prayers alone, as if the energy of our will also should not be strenuously added. God is said to be our Helper; but nobody can be helped who does not make some effort of his own accord. For God does not work our salvation in us as if he were working in insensate stones, or in creatures in whom nature has placed neither reason nor will. Why, however, He helps one man, but not another; or why one man so much, and another so much; or why one man in one way, and another in another - He reserves to Himself according to the method of His own most secret justice, and to the excellency of His power. 2.7. Now those who aver that a man can exist in this life without sin, must not be immediately opposed with incautious rashness; for if we should deny the possibility, we should derogate both from the free will of man, who in his wish desires it, and from the power or mercy of God, who by His help effects it. But it is one question, whether he could exist; and another question, whether he does exist. Again, it is one question, if he does not exist when he could exist, why he does not exist; and another question, whether such a man as had never sinned at all, not only is in existence, but also could ever have existed, or can ever exist. Now, if in the order of this fourfold set of interrogative propositions, I were asked, [1st,] Whether it be possible for a man in this life to be without sin? I should allow the possibility, through the grace of God and the man's own free will; not doubting that the free will itself is ascribable to God's grace, in other words, to the gifts of God - not only as to its existence, but also as to its being good, that is, to its conversion to doing the commandments of God. Thus it is that God's grace not only shows what ought to be done, but also helps to the possibility of doing what it shows. What indeed have we that we have not received? 1 Corinthians 4:7 Whence also Jeremiah says: I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man to walk and direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23 Accordingly, when in the Psalms one says to God, You have commanded me to keep Your precepts diligently, he at once adds not a word of confidence concerning himself but a wish to be able to keep these precepts: O that my ways, says he, were directed to keep Your statutes! Then should I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all Your commandments? Now who ever wishes for what he has already so in his own power, that he requires no further help for attaining it? To whom, however, he directs his wish - not to fortune, or fate, or some one else besides God - he shows with sufficient clearness in the following words, where he says: Order my steps in Your word; and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. From the thraldom of this execrable dominion they are liberated, to whom the Lord Jesus gave power to become the sons of God. John 1:12 From so horrible a domination were they to be freed, to whom He says, If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed. John 8:36 From these and many other like testimonies, I cannot doubt that God has laid no impossible command on man; and that, by God's aid and help, nothing is impossible, by which is wrought what He commands. In this way may a man, if he pleases, be without sin by the assistance of God. 2.15. He sets forth that this absolute weakness, or rather condemnation, of carnal generation is from the transgression of original sin, when, treating of his own sins, he shows, as it were, their causes, and says that man that is born of a woman has but a short time to live, and is full of wrath. of what wrath, but of that in which all are, as the apostle says, by nature, that is, by origin, children of wrath, Ephesians 2:3 inasmuch as they are children of the concupiscence of the flesh and of the world? He further shows that to this same wrath also pertains the death of man. For after saying, He has but a short time to live, and is full of wrath, he added, Like a flower that has bloomed, so does he fall; he is gone like a shadow, and continues not. He then subjoins: Have You not caused him to enter into judgment with You? For who is pure from uncleanness? Not even one; even should his life last but a day. In these words he in fact says, You have thrown upon man, short-lived though he be, the care of entering into judgment with You. For how brief soever be his life - even if it last but a single day - he could not possibly be clean of filth; and therefore with perfect justice must he come under Your judgment. Then, when he says again, You have numbered all my necessities, and not one of my sins has escaped You: You have sealed up my transgressions in a bag, and hast marked whatever I have done unwillingly; is it not clear enough that even those sins are justly imputed which are not committed through allurement of pleasure, but for the sake of avoiding some trouble, or pain, or death? Now these sins, too, are said to be committed under some necessity, whereas they ought all to be overcome by the love and pleasure of righteousness. Again, what he said in the clause, You have marked whatever I have done unwillingly, may evidently be connected with the saying: For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I. Romans 7:15 2.16. Now it is remarkable that the Lord Himself, after bestowing on Job the testimony which is expressed in Scripture, that is, by the Spirit of God, In all the things which happened to him he sinned not with his lips before the Lord, Job 1:22 did yet afterwards speak to him with a rebuke, as Job himself tells us: Why do I yet plead, being admonished, and hearing the rebukes of the Lord? Job 39:34 Now no man is justly rebuked unless there be in him something which deserves rebuke. [XI.] And what sort of rebuke is this - which, moreover, is understood to proceed from the person of Christ our Lord? He re-counts to him all the divine operations of His power, rebuking him under this idea - that He seems to say to him, Can you effect all these mighty works as I can? But to what purpose is all this but that Job might understand (for this instruction was divinely inspired into him, that he might foreknow Christ's coming to suffer) - that he might understand how patiently he ought to endure all that he went through, since Christ, although, when He became man for us, He was absolutely without sin, and although as God He possessed so great power, did for all that by no means refuse to obey even to the suffering of death? When Job understood this with a purer intensity of heart, he added to his own answer these words: I used before now to hear of You by the hearing of the ear; but behold now my eye sees You: therefore I abhor myself and melt away, and account myself but dust and ashes. Job 42:5-6 Why was he thus so deeply displeased with himself? God's work, in that he was man, could not rightly have given him displeasure, since it is even said to God Himself, Despise not Thou the work of Your own hands. It was indeed in view of that righteousness, in which he had discovered his own unrighteousness, that he abhorred himself and melted away, and deemed himself dust and ashes - beholding, as he did in his mind, the righteousness of Christ, in whom there could not possibly be any sin, not only in respect of His divinity, but also of His soul and His flesh. It was also in view of this righteousness which is of God that the Apostle Paul, although as touching the righteousness which is of the law he was blameless, yet counted all things not only as loss, but even as dung. Philippians 3:6-8 2.26. [3d.] Let us now consider the point which I mentioned as our third inquiry. Since by divine grace assisting the human will, man may possibly exist in this life without sin, why does he not? To this question I might very easily and truthfully answer: Because men are unwilling. But if I am asked why they are unwilling, we are drawn into a lengthy statement. And yet, without prejudice to a more careful examination, I may briefly say this much: Men are unwilling to do what is right, either because what is right is unknown to them, or because it is unpleasant to them. For we desire a thing more ardently in proportion to the certainty of our knowledge of its goodness, and the warmth of our delight in it. Ignorance, therefore, and infirmity are faults which impede the will from moving either for doing a good work, or for refraining from an evil one. But that what was hidden may come to light, and what was unpleasant may be made agreeable, is of the grace of God which helps the wills of men; and that they are not helped by it, has its cause likewise in themselves, not in God, whether they be predestinated to condemnation, on account of the iniquity of their pride, or whether they are to be judged and disciplined contrary to their very pride, if they are children of mercy. Accordingly Jeremiah, after saying, I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, and that it belongs not to any man to walk and direct his steps, Jeremiah 10:23 immediately adds, Correct me, O Lord, but with judgment, and not in Your anger; Jeremiah 10:24 as much as to say, I know that it is for my correction that I am too little assisted by You, for my footsteps to be perfectly directed: but yet do not in this so deal with me as Thou dost in Your anger, when Thou dost determine to condemn the wicked; but as Thou dost in Your judgment whereby Thou dost teach Your children not to be proud. Whence in another passage it is said, And Your judgments shall help me. 2.27. You cannot therefore attribute to God the cause of any human fault. For of all human offenses, the cause is pride. For the conviction and removal of this a great remedy comes from heaven. God in mercy humbles Himself, descends from above, and displays to man, lifted up by pride, pure and manifest grace in very manhood, which He took upon Himself out of vast love for those who partake of it. For, not even did even this One, so conjoined to the Word of God that by that conjunction he became at once the one Son of God and the same One the one Son of man, act by the antecedent merits of His own will. It behooved Him, without doubt, to be one; had there been two, or three, or more, if this could have been done, it would not have come from the pure and simple gift of God, but from man's free will and choice. This, then, is especially commended to us; this, so far as I dare to think, is the divine lesson especially taught and learned in those treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are hidden in Christ. Every one of us, therefore, now knows, now does not know- now rejoices, now does not rejoice- to begin, continue, and complete our good work, in order that he may know that it is due not to his own will, but to the gift of God, that he either knows or rejoices; and thus he is cured of vanity which elated him, and knows how truly it is said not of this earth of ours, but spiritually, The Lord will give kindness and sweet grace, and our land shall yield her fruit. A good work, moreover, affords greater delight, in proportion as God is more and more loved as the highest unchangeable Good, and as the Author of all good things of every kind whatever. And that God may be loved, His love is shed abroad in our hearts, not by ourselves, but by the Holy Ghost that is given unto us. Romans 5:5 2.28. Men, however, are laboring to find in our own will some good thing of our own - not given to us by God; but how it is to be found I cannot imagine. The apostle says, when speaking of men's good works, What have you that you did not receive? Now, if you received it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it? 1 Corinthians 4:7 But, besides this, even reason itself, which may be estimated in such things by such as we are, sharply restrains every one of us in our investigations so as that we may not so defend grace as to seem to take away free will, or, on the other hand, so assert free will as to be judged ungrateful to the grace of God, in our arrogant impiety. 2.29. Now, with reference to the passage of the apostle which I have quoted, some would maintain it to mean that whatever amount of good will a man has, must be attributed to God on this account - namely, because even this amount could not be in him if he were not a human being. Now, inasmuch as he has from God alone the capacity of being any thing at all, and of being human, why should there not be also attributed to God whatever there is in him of a good will, which could not exist unless he existed in whom it is? But in this same manner it may also be said that a bad will also may be attributed to God as its author; because even it could not exist in man unless he were a man in whom it existed; but God is the author of his existence as man; and thus also of his bad will, which could have no existence if it had not a man in whom it might exist. But to argue thus is blasphemy. 2.30. Unless, therefore, we obtain not simply determination of will, which is freely turned in this direction and that, and has its place among those natural goods which a bad man may use badly; but also a good will, which has its place among those goods of which it is impossible to make a bad use:- unless the impossibility is given to us from God, I know not how to defend what is said: What have you that you did not receive? For if we have from God a certain free will, which may still be either good or bad; but the good will comes from ourselves; then that which comes from ourselves is better than that which comes from Him. But inasmuch as it is the height of absurdity to say this, they ought to acknowledge that we attain from God even a good will. It would indeed be a strange thing if the will could so stand in some mean as to be neither good nor bad; for we either love righteousness, and it is good, and if we love it more, more good - if less, it is less good; or if we do not love it at all, it is not good. And who can hesitate to affirm that, when the will loves not righteousness in any way at all, it is not only a bad, but even a wholly depraved will? Since therefore the will is either good or bad, and since of course we have not the bad will from God, it remains that we have of God a good will; else, I am ignorant, since our justification is from it, in what other gift from Him we ought to rejoice. Hence, I suppose, it is written, The will is prepared of the Lord; Proverbs 8:35 and in the Psalms, The steps of a man will be rightly ordered by the Lord, and His way will be the choice of his will; and that which the apostle says, For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Philippians 2:13 2.31. Forasmuch then as our turning away from God is our own act, and this is evil will; but our turning to God is not possible, except He rouses and helps us, and this is good will, - what have we that we have not received? But if we received, why do we glory as if we had not received? Therefore, as he that glories must glory in the Lord, it comes from His mercy, not their merit, that God wills to impart this to some, but from His truth that He wills not to impart it to others. For to sinners punishment is justly due, because the Lord God loves mercy and truth, and mercy and truth are met together; and all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. And who can tell the numberless instances in which Holy Scripture combines these two attributes? Sometimes, by a change in the terms, grace is put for mercy, as in the passage, We beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 Sometimes also judgment occurs instead of truth, as in the passage, I will sing of mercy and judgment unto You, O Lord. 2.48. He is therefore the Saviour at once of infants and of adults, of whom the angel said, There is born unto you this day a Saviour; Luke 2:11 and concerning whom it was declared to the Virgin Mary, You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins, where it is plainly shown that He was called Jesus because of the salvation which He bestows upon us - Jesus being tantamount to the Latin Salvator, Saviour. Who then can be so bold as to maintain that the Lord Christ is Jesus only for adults and not for infants also? Who came in the likeness of sinful flesh, to destroy the body of sin, with infants' limbs fitted and suitable for no use in the extreme weakness of such body, and His rational soul oppressed with miserable ignorance! Now that such entire ignorance existed, I cannot suppose in the infant in whom the Word was made flesh, that He might dwell among us; nor can I imagine that such weakness of the mental faculty ever existed in the infant Christ which we see in infants generally. For it is owing to such infirmity and ignorance that infants are disturbed with irrational affections, and are restrained by no rational command or government, but by pains and penalties, or the terror of such; so that you can quite see that they are children of that disobedience, which excites itself in the members of our body in opposition to the law of the mind - and refuses to be still, even when the reason wishes; nay, often is either repressed only by some actual infliction of bodily pain, as for instance by flogging; or is checked only by fear, or by some such mental emotion, but not by any admonishing of the will. Inasmuch, however, as in Him there was the likeness of sinful flesh, He willed to pass through the changes of the various stages of life, beginning even with infancy, so that it would seem as if even His flesh might have arrived at death by the gradual approach of old age, if He had not been killed while young. Nevertheless, the death is inflicted in sinful flesh as the due of disobedience, but in the likeness of sinful flesh it was undergone in voluntary obedience. For when He was on His way to it, and was soon to suffer it, He said, Behold, the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me. But that all may know that I am doing my Father's will, arise, let us go hence. John 14:30-31 Having said these words, He went straightway, and encountered His undeserved death, having become obedient even unto death. 3.9. To me, however, no doubt presents itself about the whole of this passage, in which the apostle speaks of the condemnation of many through the sin of one, and the justification of many through the righteousness of One, except as to the words, Adam is the figure of Him that was to come. For this phrase in reality not only suits the sense which understands that Adam's posterity were to be born of the same form as himself along with sin, but the words are also capable of being drawn out into several distinct meanings. For we have ourselves perhaps actually contended for various senses from the words in question at different times, and very likely we shall propound yet another view, which, however, will not be incompatible with the sense here mentioned; and even Pelagius has not always expounded the passage in one way. All the rest, however, of the passage in which these doubtful words occur, if its statements are carefully examined and treated, as I have tried my best to do in the first book of this treatise, will not (in spite of the obscurity of style necessarily engendered by the subject itself) fail to show the incompatibility of any other meaning than that which has secured the adhesion of the universal Church from the earliest times - that believing infants have obtained through the baptism of Christ the remission of original sin. 3.10. Accordingly, it is not without reason that the blessed Cyprian carefully shows how from the very first the Church has held this as a well understood article of faith. When he was asserting the fitness of infants only just born to receive Christ's baptism, on a certain occasion when he was consulted whether this ought to be administered before the eighth day, he endeavoured, as far as he could, to prove that they were perfect, lest any one should suppose, from the number of the days (because it was on the eighth day that infants were before circumcised), that they so far lacked perfection. However, after bestowing upon them the full support of his argument, he still confessed that they were not free from original sin; because if he had denied this, he would have removed all reason for the very baptism which he was maintaining their fitness to receive. You can, if you wish, read for yourself the epistle of the illustrious martyr On the Baptism of Little Children; for it cannot fail to be within reach at Carthage. But I have deemed it right to transcribe some few statements of it into this letter of mine, so far as applies to the question before us; and I pray you to mark them carefully. Now with respect, says he, to the case of infants, whom you declared it would be improper to baptize if presented within the second and third day after their birth, since that due regard ought to be paid to the law of circumcision of old, so that you thought that the infant should not be baptized and sanctified before the eighth day after its birth - a far different view has been formed of the question in our council. Not a man there assented to what you thought ought to be done; but the whole of us rather determined that to no one born of men ought God's mercy and grace to be denied. For since the Lord in His gospel says, 'The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them,' Luke 9:56 so far as in us lies, not a soul ought, if possible, to be lost. You observe how in these words he supposes that it is fraught with ruin and death, not only to the flesh, but also to the soul, for one to depart this life without that saving sacrament. Wherefore, if he said nothing else, it was competent to us to conclude from his words that without sin the soul could not perish. See, however, what (when he shortly afterwards maintains the innocence of infants) he at the same time allows concerning them in the plainest terms: But if, says he, anything could hinder men from the attainment of grace, then their heavier sins might rather hinder those who have reached the stages of adults, and advanced life, and old age. Since, however, remission of sins is given even to the greatest sinners after they have believed, however much they have previously sinned against God, and since nobody is forbidden baptism and grace, how much more ought an infant not to be forbidden who newborn has done no sin, except that from having been born carnally after Adam he has contracted from his very birth the contagion of the primeval death! How, too, does this fact contribute in itself the more easily to their reception of the forgiveness of sins, that the remission which they have is not of their own sins, but of those of another! 3.11. You see with what confidence this great man expresses himself after the ancient and undoubted rule of faith. In advancing such very certain statements, his object was by help of these firm conclusions to prove the uncertain point which had been submitted to him by his correspondent, and concerning which he informs him that a decree of a council had been passed, to the effect that, if an infant were brought even before the eighth day after his birth, no one should hesitate to baptize him. Now it was not then determined or confirmed by the council that infants were held bound by original sin as if it were new, or as if it were attacked by the opposition of some one; but when another controversy was being conducted, and the question was discussed, in reference to the law of the circumcision of the flesh, whether they ought to be baptized before the eighth day. None agreed with the person who denied this; because it was not an open question admitting of discussion, but was fixed and unassailable, that the soul would forfeit eternal salvation if it ended this life without obtaining the sacrament of baptism: but at the same time infants fresh from the womb were held to be affected only by the guilt of original sin. On this account, although remission of sins was easier in their case, because the sins were derived from another, it was nevertheless indispensable. It was on sure grounds like these that the uncertain question of the eighth day was solved, and the council decided that after a man was born, not a day ought to be lost in rendering him that succour which should prevent his perishing forever. When also a reason was given for the circumcision of the flesh as being itself a shadow of what was to be, its purport was not that we should understand that baptism ought to be administered on the eighth day after birth, but rather that we are spiritually circumcised in the resurrection of Christ, who rose from the dead on the third day, indeed, after His passion, but among the days of the week, by which time is counted, on the eighth, that is, on the first day after the Sabbath. 3.12. And now, again, with a strange boldness in new controversy, certain persons are endeavouring to make us uncertain on a point which our forefathers used to bring forward as most certainly fixed, whenever they would solve such questions as seemed uncertain to some. When this controversy, indeed, first began, I am unable to say; but one thing I know, that even the holy Jerome, who is in our own day renowned for great industry and learning in ecclesiastical literature, for the solution of sundry questions treated in his writings, makes use of the same most certain assumption without exhibition of proofs. For instance, in his commentary on the prophet Jonah, when he comes to the passage where the infants were mentioned as chastened by the fast, he says: The greatest age comes first, and then all the rest is pervaded down to the least. Jonah 3:3 For there is no man without sin, whether the span of his age be but that of a single day, or he reckon many years to his life. For if the very stars are unclean in the sight of God, Job 25:4 how much more is a worm and corruption, such as are they who are held subject to the sin of the offending Adam? If, indeed, we could readily interrogate this most learned man, how many authors who have treated of the divine Scriptures. in both languages, and have written on Christian controversies, would he mention to us, who have never held any other opinion since the Church of Christ was founded - who neither received any other from their forefathers, nor handed down any other to their posterity? My own reading, indeed, has been far more limited, but yet I do not recollect ever having heard of any other doctrine on this point from Christians, who accept the two Testaments, whether established in the Catholic Church, or in any heretical or schismatic body whatever. I do not remember, I say, that I have at any time found any other doctrine in such writers as have contributed anything to literature of this kind, whether they have followed the canonical Scriptures, or have supposed that they have followed them, or had wished to be so supposed. From what quarter this question has suddenly come upon us I know not. A short time ago, in a passing conversation with certain persons while we were at Carthage, my ears were suddenly offended with such a proposition as this: That infants are not baptized for the purpose of receiving remission of sin, but that they may be sanctified in Christ. Although I was much disturbed by so novel an opinion, still, as there was no opportunity afforded me for gainsaying it, and as its propounders were not persons whose influence gave me anxiety, I readily let the subject slip into neglect and oblivion. And lo! It is now maintained with burning zeal against the Church; lo! It is committed to our permanent notice by writing; nay, the matter is brought to such a pitch of distracting influence, that we are even consulted on it by our brethren; and we are actually obliged to oppose its progress both by disputation and by writing. 3.13. A few years ago there lived at Rome one Jovinian, who is said to have persuaded nuns of even advanced age to marry - not, indeed, by seduction, as if he wanted to make any of them his wife, but by contending that virgins who dedicated themselves to the ascetic life had no more merit before God than believing wives. It never entered his mind, however, along with this conceit, to venture to affirm that children of men are born without original sin. If, indeed, he had added such an opinion, the women might have more readily consented to marry, to give birth to such pure offspring. When this man's writings (for he dared to write) were by the brethren forwarded to Jerome to refute, he not only discovered no such error in them, but, while looking out his conceits for refutation, he found among other passages this very clear testimony to the doctrine of man's original sin, from which Jerome indeed felt satisfied of the man's belief of that doctrine. These are his words when treating of it: He who says that he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk even as He walked. John 2:6 We give our opponent the option to choose which alternative he likes. Does he abide in Christ, or does he not? If he does, then, let him walk like Christ. If, however, it is a rash thing to undertake to resemble the excellences of Christ, he abides not in Christ, because he walks not as Christ did. He did no sin, neither was any guile found in His mouth; Isaiah 53:9 who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth; Isaiah 53:7 to whom the prince of this world came, and found nothing in Him; John 14:30 whom, though He had done no sin, God made sin for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 We, however, according to the Epistle of James, all commit many sins; James 3:2 and none of us is pure from uncleanness, even if his life should be but of one day. Job 14:5 For who shall boast that he has a clean heart? Or who shall be confident that he is pure from sins? We are held guilty according to the likeness of Adam's transgression. Accordingly David also says: 'Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.' |
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| 141. Ammonius Hermiae, In Aristotelis De Interpretatione Commentarius, 132.8-132.9 (5th cent. CE - 6th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 39 |
| 142. Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, 2 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 161, 169 |
| 143. Jerome, Letters, 66.8, 75.6, 124.4 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11, 169 |
| 144. Jerome, Commentary On Galatians, 3.5.8 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 248, 257 |
| 145. Jerome, Dialogi Contra Pelagianos (Dialogus Adversus Pelagianos.), 1.2-1.7 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169 |
| 146. Augustine, Letters, 1.7, 16.3, 22.7-22.9, 24.2, 27.4, 28.6, 37.2, 43.16, 70.2, 73.5, 75.6, 93.5, 93.16-93.17, 118.32, 119.5-119.6, 137.9-137.12, 140.20-140.85, 141.3-141.4, 173.2, 173.10, 175.6, 176.3, 179.7, 186.5, 187.24, 190.20, 194.14, 194.23, 202.1, 203.3, 204.2, 213.1, 214.1, 217.3, 217.18-217.19, 217.27 (7th cent. CE - 7th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 11, 12, 23, 30, 95, 160, 161, 223, 225, 231, 234, 235, 245, 260, 271, 281 |
| 147. Anon., The Apocalypse of Ezra, 4 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 23 |
| 148. Anon., Apocalypse of Abraham, 26-27 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 23 |
| 149. Chrysostom, Homiliae In Epistolam Ad Thessalonicenses, 4.1-4.3 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169 |
| 150. Chrysostom, Homilae In Epistola Ad Philippenses, 1.7, 9.2.12-9.2.16 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 169, 173 |
| 151. Anon., Cologne Mani Codex, 20.9, 20.10, 20.11, 48.16-60.7, 87.16, 87.17, 87.18, 89.11, 89.12, 89.13 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 34 |
| 152. Horace, Sermonum Quinti Horatii Flacci Poemata, 1.68 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 160 |
| 153. Epistulae Ad Galatas Expositio, Expositio Quarundam Propositionum Ex Epistula Ad Romanos, 1.13, 37.3 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 144, 145, 257 |
| 156. Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Providentia, 11.6 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 12 |
| 157. Chrysippus, De Fato, 181.13-182.20 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 37 |
| 159. Methodius of Olympus, Peri Tou Autexousio, 73-77 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 89 |
| 160. Augustine, Quaestiones Xvii In Matthaeum, 14.1-14.2 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 117, 134 |
| 161. Augustine, De Incompetentibus Nuptiis, 1.33 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 174 |
| 163. New Testament, Chapters 9, 9.11 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 178, 186, 221, 270, 271, 293 |
| 164. Nemesius, On The Nature of Man, 39-41, 35 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 293 |
| 165. In 1 Timothy, In 1 Timothy, 2.1-2.4 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 251 |
| 166. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 5.10 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 142 |
| 167. Theophilus of Alexandria, Epistulae, 96.9 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, προαίρεσις Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 15, 17 |
| 169. Augustine, De Animae Quantitate, 38, 73, 76, 80-81, 24 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 96 |
| 170. Augustine, Epistula Ad Catholicos Contra Donatistas, 39, 23 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134 |
| 171. Augustine, Quaestiones Expositae Contra Paganos Vi, 15 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 134 |
| 172. Epistulae Ad Galatas Expositio, In Epistulam Iohannis Ad Parthos Tractus, 5.9 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic “non-free free will” Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 95 |
| 173. Epistulae Ad Galatas Expositio, Epistulae Ad Galatas Expositio, 46 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 144 |
| 176. Ambrosiaster, Commentariorum In Philippenses, 1.7, 2.13 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’ Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 173, 264 |
| 177. Victorinus, -4, -4 Tagged with subjects: •‘evil will’ •‘evil will’, stoic dead will •‘evil will’, desiring-faculty Found in books: Wilson (2018), Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, 253 |
