In the same century as Hincmar, Paschasius Radbertus shone by the fame of his learning and exquisite wisdom1, being both the author of other works2 and of an extensive commentary on Matthew, in which he has the following3 upon the words4 of the Savior, “Thy will be done”:
For there is no one who can resist or contradict God so that his will should not be done, especially since it is written5: “All things whatsoever the Lord willed, he has done in heaven and on earth.” But we pray this: that through grace we may join the liberty of our choice to his will, so that he who lives may now live not for himself, but that the will of God may freely be fulfilled in all. Concerning this will, indeed, the holy Apostle testifies6, saying: “The will of God is your sanctification, that you abstain from carnal desires.” And elsewhere7 the Lord says: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life” … When, therefore, we say, “Thy will be done,” it must be considered with what faith or with what charity we say it, because no one who hesitates concerning the will of the Father ever prays rightly. Therefore it is great faith, great devotion, great security concerning the immutable goodness of the Lord, to know that he wills nothing evil; indeed, according to the Apostle8, “he wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” No one, therefore, can say these things from the heart unless he has believed for certain that God dispenses all things which are seen or which are not seen, prosperous or adverse, for our advantages. For it is necessary to believe with devout faith that he is more provident for our
salvation without any intermission, and dispensatively solicitous, than we ourselves are for ourselves. Whence, if anyone holds these things with a deliberate or fixed mind, he always depends upon his will, presuming nothing concerning himself, and continually implores by day and night that his will be done in us—a will which can never be deceived, never be changed, and never be depraved by any affections. For his will is the salvation of all.
Namely, I. there is in God a salvific will, and it is universal, efficacious, provident without any intermission, and dispensatively solicitous; moved by it, he himself so moderates and tempers all things that they conduce to the advantage and felicity of men. Gildas, surnamed the Wise, explains this in many words9 and finally concludes10:
God11 with us has magnified his mercy, willing all men to be saved and12 calling sinners no less than those who think themselves just; in the time of persecution, by the aforesaid gratuitous gift, as we know, he kindled for us the most brilliant lamps of the holy martyrs, lest Britain be overspread by the dense gloom of a black night. If the sepulchers of their bodies and the places of their passions were not now taken from the citizens by the mournful separation caused by the barbarians, on account of our very many sins, they would instill no small ardor of divine charity into the minds of those who behold them.
But it is II. of the highest moment, every hesitation having been utterly repelled, to rest in this salvific will of God with great faith, great devotion, and great security, and to promise oneself all things from the goodness of God. For if any with wavering mind distrust the divine benignity, they will indeed be able to say with mouth and words, “Thy will be done,” but they will not be able to say it with heart and affection. Therefore, that which Ratherius of Verona inculcates13 must be held fixed by all: that God does not abandon the souls of men by a just judgment before they themselves abandon him, although he has by no means abandoned even innumerable souls who abandon
him, but this more from mercy than from justice.
But whence does it arise, III. that the salvific will of God is so often defrauded of its effect, since no one can resist it, no one can contradict it, especially since it is written, “All things whatsoever the Lord willed, he has done in heaven and on earth”? Does it arise from this, that it is sterile? On the contrary, it must be believed with devout faith that God is more provident for our salvation without any intermission, and dispensatively solicitous, than we ourselves are for ourselves. Or does it arise from this, that it is not universal? On the contrary, the will of God is the salvation of all. Therefore it arises from this alone: that God wills men to obtain salvation under this condition, if they themselves also join the liberty of choice prepared by divine grace to his will, so that he who lives may now live not for himself, but that the will of God may freely be fulfilled in all.
Wherefore, unless men resisted him by their own will—concerning which, according to the report14 of Dorotheus, ὁ ἀββᾶς Ποιμὴν ἔλεγεν, ὅτι τὸ θέλημα τεῖχός ἐστι χαλκοῦν ἀνάμεσον ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, “Abba Pastor was accustomed to say that the will is a brazen wall between God and man”—there would not be even one who would not be eternally blessed.
Footnotes
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See the verses of Bishop Engelmodus to Abbot Radbertus prefixed to the latter’s works, published at Paris in 1618. ↩
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Among these is preeminent the work which he entitled On the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and in which, according to Sirmond, he was the first so to explain the genuine sense of the Catholic Church that he opened the way for the others who afterward wrote much upon the same argument. ↩
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On Matthew, book IV, cols. 325–326. ↩
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Matt. VI. 10. ↩
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Ps. CXXXIV. 6. ↩
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I Thess. IV. ↩
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John VI. 40. ↩
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I Tim. II. 4. ↩
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On the Ruin of Britain, a plaintive book, part I, §§ III–VII, in Gallandi, vol. XII, p. 194. ↩
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Ibid., § VIII. ↩
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God with us, that is, Emmanuel, which in Matt. I. 23 is interpreted “God with us.” ↩
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Matt. IX. 13, compared with Mark II. 17 and Luke V. 32. ↩
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Sermon I, otherwise II, On Lent, n. 2, col. 579, Verona ed., 1765. ↩
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Dorotheus the Archimandrite flourished toward the end of the sixth century, as the Bollandists prove in Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. I, p. 592; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. VI, p. 145, and vol. X, p. 160; and Gallandi, vol. XII, Prolegomena, chap. XVIII, § I. He reported the excellent saying of Pastor in the work Διδασκαλίαι ψυχωφελεῖς διάφοροι, “Various Teachings Very Profitable to Souls,” Teaching V, § II, in Gallandi, vol. XII, p. 398. ↩