Annotation CCLII

”On whom he will, he hath mercy; and whom he will, he hardeneth.” — Romans 9:18

Whether God reprobates any from the purpose of his will alone.

Augustine, [in] the first book of Questions to Simplician, the second question, when in the exposition of this passage he was speaking of the cause of Predestination and Reprobation, seemed to assert that, when God had foreknown the whole human race in Adam sinning — [as] lost and dead in a certain mass, [as it were,] of iniquity and perdition — he snatched out some thence, and predestined [them] to eternal life, not from their foreseen merits, but from the good pleasure of his will, unto the showing-forth of his mercy. But the rest he left in the same mass, reprobated from the heavenly kingdom — not from their singular demerits foreseen, but from the good pleasure of his will — forsaking [them as] lost, unto the showing-forth of the divine justice, [and leaving them] in their perdition by a just judgment. Which opinion he expressed in these words:¹ “ALL men, therefore, are (since indeed, as the Apostle says, in Adam all die — from whom the origin of the offense of God is drawn into the universal race of men) a certain one mass of sin, owing punishment to the divine and highest justice; which [punishment], whether it be exacted or remitted, there is no iniquity. But from whom it should be exacted, and to whom it should be remitted, the debtors proudly [presume to] declare.” This same [thing] he pronounces more clearly [in] the sixth book of the Hypognosticon, in this manner: “NOW, therefore, let us discourse more openly [as to] how God — in whom there is no iniquity — generally uses his foreknowledge and predestination toward the human race. For to the mass of the human race, which in Adam and Eve, by [their] prevarication, was made damnable and mortal — not by the divine condition [i.e. not by how God created it], but from debt — punishment and the torment of gehenna is owed: but pardon is conferred not by merit, but by the largess of the mercy of God, the just Judge. But because the Lord, [being] just and merciful, and foreknowing of future things, out of this damnable mass — not by acceptance of persons, but by the irreprehensible judgment of his equity — those whom he foreknows, he prepares by his own gratuitous mercy, that is, he predestines to eternal life; but the rest (as I said before) he punishes with due punishment — whom he therefore punishes because he foreknew what they would be; yet he himself did not make [them], nor predestine [them] to be punished, but only (as I said) foreknew [them] in the damnable mass.”

AGAIN, in the book of the Soliloquies, chapter 28, expressing this same [thing] in more open words, he wrote these [things]:² “WE ALL, coming as [it were] a menstruous cloth from the corrupt and unclean mass, bring

—the stain of our uncleanness — which we cannot conceal even from thee at least, who seest all things. For we carry [it] on our foreheads, since we cannot be clean, unless thou hast cleansed [us], who alone art clean. But thou cleansest, out of us the sons of men, those in whom it has pleased thee to dwell: whom, by the inaccessible deep secrets of the incomprehensible judgments of thy wisdom — [judgments] always just, though hidden — without their merits, thou hast predestined before the world, called out of the world, justified in the world, and thou magnifiest them after the world. But these [things] thou dost not do for all: which all the wasting-away wise men of the earth marvel at. And I, O Lord, considering this, am affrighted, and am stupefied at the height of the riches of thy wisdom and knowledge — to which I do not attain — and [at] the incomprehensible judgments of thy justice, since from the same clay thou makest some vessels indeed unto honor, but others unto everlasting contumely. Those, therefore, whom thou hast chosen for thyself out of the many into thy holy temple, those thou cleansest, pouring out upon them clean water: whose names and number thou knowest, who alone numberest the multitude of the stars, and callest them all by name: who [are] also written in the book of life: who can in no way perish, to whom all things work together unto good, even [their] very sins. For when they fall, they are not dashed to pieces: because thou puttest under thy hand, keeping all their bones, that not one of these be crushed.³ And yet the death of sinners is most evil: of those, I say, whom — before thou madest heaven and earth, according to the deep abyss of thy hidden judgments (yet always just) — thou hast foreknown unto eternal death: whose numbering of names and of depraved merits is with thee, [thou] who hast numbered the number of the sand of the sea, and hast measured the depth of the abyss; whom thou hast left in their uncleannesses: to whom all things work together unto evil: and their very prayer is turned into sin: so that even if they ascend up to the heavens, and set their nest among the stars of heaven, they shall perish in the end like a dunghill.”

THIS is Augustine’s opinion; which of old seems to have vehemently displeased very many of the ancient fathers.

Prosper, bishop of Riez, admonished Augustine concerning this matter by a letter, in these words: “MANY of the servants of Christ, who abide in the city of Marseilles, in the writings of thy holiness which thou hast composed against the Pe-lagian heretics, think [it] contrary to the opinion of the fathers and to the ecclesiastical sense, whatsoever in them thou hast disputed concerning the calling of the elect according to the purpose of God. For this purpose of the calling of God — by which, either before the beginning of the world, or in the very founding of the human race, the discretion [separating] of those-to-be-chosen and those-to-be-rejected is said [to have been] made, so that, according to what pleased the Creator, some are created vessels of honor, others vessels of contumely — they say both takes away from the fallen the care of rising again, and brings to the saints an occasion of torpor: on the ground that on either side the labor is superfluous, if neither the rejected [man] can by any industry enter [in], nor the elect [man] by any negligence fall out.”

Hilary, bishop of Arles, signifying the same matter to Augustine by a letter, writes thus to him: “Most blessed Lord, and with all affection to be

—sired [longed for]. These are the [things] which are bandied about at Marseilles, or also in other places in Gaul: that it is [something] new and useless to preaching, that certain [men] are said to be chosen according to the purpose of God.” And below: “AND they testify that they prove this not only by the testimonies of other catholics, but also by the more ancient disputation of thy holiness [i.e. Augustine’s own earlier writings].”

Faustus, bishop of the Gauls [of Riez], the name of Augustine suppressed, assails his opinion [in] the second book On the Grace of God, and the Arbitrament of the Human Mind, chapter six, in these words: “It was said, not from works, but from the caller: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ In these words the impiety of the gentile [pagan] persuasion wishes this to be understood: that God — without any examination of a moderator between good and evil, [acting] not by the order of one ruling, but by the right of one domineering — renders that one worthy of [his] affection, this one [worthy] of hatred; receives that one with zeal, excludes this one by [his] command [sovereign power]. And between two lost [men] let there be no consideration of labor, none of devotion: but let the one, without reason, be taken up (his duties ceasing — i.e. though he has done nothing), the other, without discretion, be damned. And thus, while in either [case] there exists the matter neither of merit nor of fault, the cause of the future judgment is altogether taken away.”

Ambrose, bishop of Compsa, although he professes that he greatly venerates Augustine, and attributes to him as much as he would dare to concede to any of the illustrious doctors of the Church: yet he assails this opinion concerning the mass of perdition — first devised by Augustine himself (as he [Ambrose] says) — with five-and-twenty objections: which, if anyone desires to know, let him read his Commentaries on the ninth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, where he has reduced into a compendium [the things] which he had earlier written against this opinion in a prolix volume.

FOR the understanding of these and of passages of this kind, it is worthy of notice that — even as we said in the preceding Annotation, [that] the order of divine providence toward those-to-be-blessed is distinguished by a twofold distinction of grades, the former, namely, and the latter — so now we say [that] the order of divine providence toward the reprobate is comprised by a twofold variety of grades: of which some are prior and eternal, such as Hatred, Neglect, Deletion [blotting-out], and Reprobation; which are diametrically opposed to the prior grades of the divine order — that is, to Dilection, Election, Enrollment [Conscription], and Predestination. These indeed have no cause in the divine foreknowledge, except the mind of God so willing, [and] looking-forward to the showing-forth of the divine justice. And in this sense, as I judge, are to be understood the opinions of the Fathers which establish no cause of Reprobation. But others are the posterior and temporal grades of the same Post-position [setting-behind] or Repulsion — namely, Obtusion [dulling], Blinding, Hardening, and eternal damnation: whose meritorious cause is the reprobates’ unbelief, iniquity, and obstinacy; which, when God had foreknown [them] from eternity, he rightly appointed for them the due punishments — namely, Obtusion, Blinding, Obduration [hardening], and the damnation of eternal punishment. According to the consideration of which [grades] it was said by very many fathers that evil works foreseen are the meritorious cause of the divine Reprobation and Repulsion — that is, of the posterior effects of the divine Post-position, which are produced only from the evil merits of the reprobate — the prophet

—saying:⁴ “Thy perdition [is] from thyself, O Israel; only from me [is] thy help.”