Annotation LXXXVII

”He went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard,” etc. — Matthew 20:1

Whether those called by God are called on account of [their] merits.

Chrysostom, homily 56 on Matthew, asking why [the householder] did not hire all the laborers into the vineyard immediately from the beginning, so answers the question that he seems to ascribe the grace of the divine calling — which is given freely — to the will and faith of those called, in these words: “He would indeed have hired all from the beginning, but from the will of the called this difference resulted. Therefore some are called at the [first] morning [hour], some at the third, some at the sixth, some at the ninth, some at the eleventh hour — because then they were about to obey. Which Paul also plainly signified, saying: ‘But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb.’¹ But when did it please him? Assuredly, when [Paul] was about to obey. For [God] would have [called him] even from [his] first infancy; but because he knew that he would resist, he willed [it] then, when he knew that the calling would penetrate his mind. So too, when he afterward called the thief, he could have called him earlier; but that [thief], [if] called, would not have obeyed. For if Paul had not obeyed from the beginning, much less would that thief [have].”

This same solution of the question — very often repeated by Chrysostom, with almost the same examples and words — Augustine once employed, in the book of Six Questions against the Pagans, question 2. Where, answering Porphyry — [who was] asking why Christ did not come in the earlier ages to call all men to the way of salvation and to the truth — he says thus: “Let us say only this, for brevity’s sake, in the solution of this question: that Christ willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among them, when he knew, and where he knew there to be, those who were going to believe in him. For in those times and in those places in which the gospel was not preached, he foreknew that all [men] would be, in [the case of] its preaching, such as many were in his bodily presence — who were unwilling to believe in him, even [when] the dead were raised by him.”

Afterward reproving this response, Augustine, in the book On the Good of Perseverance, chapter 9, and in the second book of the Retractations, chapter 31, [in reference] to the second question, says: “What I said, I did not say as though anyone was worthy of the calling from his own merits; but, as the Apostle says, [that] it was said ‘not from works, but from Him who calls’ —² ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’” Which calling he asserts pertains to the purpose of God — not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace; and whence he likewise says: “We know that to those who love God all things work together for good — [to those] who, according to [his] purpose, are called [to be] holy.”³ Concerning which calling he says: “That he may hold you worthy of his holy calling.” Wherefore, [see] below the elucidation of Chrysostom’s sentence, Annotation 251.