XLI. Salvian; the author of the *Praedestinatus*; Gennadius of Marseilles

All these things, both collectively and individually, Salvian, the anonymous author of the Predestinatus, Isidore of Seville, Avitus, Arnobius the Younger, and Gennadius of Marseilles lucidly confirm, each by his own authority. First of all, Salvian¹, most gravely assailing those who imagined that God must be relieved of care for the things which he had made, adds:

If, therefore, God inserted into even the least living creatures this affection for their own work, did he alone deprive himself of love for his creatures, especially since every love of good things in us has descended from his good love? For he himself is the fountain and origin of all; and because, as it is written², “in him we live and move and are,” from him certainly we have received every affection by which we love our prosperity. For the whole world and the whole human race are a pledge of their Creator. And therefore, from that very affection by which he made us love our pledges, he willed us to understand how much he himself loved his pledges. For just as, according as we read³, “the invisible things of him are beheld, being understood through the things that are made,” so he willed his love toward us to be understood through the love which he gave us toward our own. And just as, according as it is written⁴, he willed every paternity in heaven and on earth to be named from himself, so he willed the affection of a father in himself to be acknowledged by us.

And why do I say of a father? Rather, more than of a father. For the voice of the Savior in the Gospel proves this when he says⁵: “For God so loved this world that he gave his only Son for the life of the world.” But the Apostle also says⁶: “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. How has he not also given us all things with him?”

Then he proceeds⁷:

This, therefore, is what I said above: that God loves us more than a father loves his son. For the matter is evident, that God loves us beyond the affection for sons, since for our sake he did not spare his own Son. And what more? I add: and this a just Son, and this an only-begotten Son, and this a Son who is God. And what more can be said? And this for us, that is, for the evil, for the unjust, for the most impious. Who can estimate this love of God toward us?

From this divine love it follows⁸

that whenever we endure evils, that prophetic saying⁹ can also be said to us: “Go into the flame of the fire which you have kindled.” And by this, according to the sacred judgment¹⁰, each sinner prepares for himself what he suffers. Therefore there is nothing which we can impute to God for our calamities. We are the authors of our calamities. For God is loving and merciful, and, as it is written¹¹, wills no one to perish or to be harmed. We therefore do all things against ourselves. Nothing, then, nothing is more cruel against us than we ourselves: we, I say, we torment ourselves even against the will of God.

For as regards God, says¹² the author of the Predestinatus, these words¹³ of the Apostle are most true:

“The same God is rich in all of you.”

And again¹⁴: “The grace of God has appeared to all men, instructing and teaching us, that¹⁵ every man may be perfect in Christ.” And because Paul knew that the Son of God was born for all and suffered for all, therefore he cries out¹⁶, saying: “This is pleasing before God our Savior, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Whence also the Lord himself cries out to us daily in his Gospels¹⁷, saying: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will cause you to rest.” Whence, to teach that he repels no man from his largess—ready, liberal, abounding, never doing less—he speaks in his Gospels¹⁸, saying: “Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it is opened.” For the Scripture of the Old Testament also, inviting all nations to hear¹⁹, said: “Hear these things, all you who inhabit the world, you earthborn and sons of men, rich and poor together as one.” And therefore the same Apostle, seeing that God wills all men, but not all men will God, recalling the future judgment²⁰, cries out, saying: “We must all be manifested before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive the things proper to the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil.” Whence also²¹ the Apostle Peter says: “The grace of God is over all and in all of you.” All the prophets call, all the apostles call, Christ calls all, throughout the whole world innumerable priests of God call all to the grace and mercy of God and to indulgence. Only two or three²² petty men, having a blind heart, go forth with these apostatic books; feigning themselves to be Catholic men, they wound the whole world. Introducing through them a new kind of blasphemy, they say

that God does not will all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth; and, suffering the obscurity of one passage²³, they will to bring the darkness of their shadows upon so great a light and so immense a splendor.

Lest this should turn out according to their wish, Arnobius the Younger wrote thus²⁴:

He loved the curse of Adam, which is taken away through Christ, and it will come upon him; and he willed not the blessing which is brought through Christ, and it will surely be removed far from him. Note that it came about from choice that he did not will it, on account of the heresy which says: God predestined some to blessing, others to cursing. For thus he is proved to have the curse from his own love and not to have the reward of blessing from his own unwillingness.

And much more fully elsewhere²⁵:

Act vigilantly and not calumniously, and thou seest the general grace of God poured out upon the whole race of men. Grace, diffused with manifold largess, precedes all. God descended from heaven when man did not will it; he taught by example and word when man did not ask; he wrought many signs and powers to manifest himself when man was ignorant; he was mocked, crucified, died among murderers, was buried, rose again, and ascended into the heavens. Christ wrought all these things for man’s salvation, for man’s redemption, for man’s glory.

Mark, O Predestinarian, what I say to thee. Christ’s grace precedes generally the good will of all … if indeed he was born for all, if indeed he suffered for all, if thou dost not deny that he died for all, if with the Apostle²⁶ thou affirmest that he wills all men to be saved.

Come now, withdraw thyself from general grace, approach special grace, and similarly cry out with the Apostle: not every man generally will be saved, but²⁷ “every man whosoever shall invoke the name of the Lord, he shall be saved.” Go, therefore, to the office of the physician, who came of his own accord to the city, certainly without our asking. The physician came upon us all, opened his shop, and sent forth a voice by which, crying out as a herald²⁸, he said: “Come to me, all.” Now, after this voice, will precedes grace. “For if you will,” he says²⁹, “and will hear me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you will not, the sword shall devour you.”

And again³⁰:

Now perhaps let him who teaches predestination and breaks down the choice of men hear me; let him suppose that I exclude the liberty of choice in such a manner that I think those who sin do so from rejection by God. That we sin will be shown to belong to our choice, we who contemn grace. See how great is the liberty of thy choice. The Lord is denied by his servant, so that man may say to God: “I will not believe thee,” and may make for himself a temple where he worships an idol, or a synagogue where he denies his Savior. Therefore, whatever evil we do, we incur through liberty, because the just Lord does not deign to accept compelled services. But if we do anything good, it will be imputed to the Giver, who furnishes all good things to those who flee to him, according to that which he himself deigned to promise again³¹: “Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.” Let us therefore knock, and with the prophet let us sing in this Psalm³²: “Open to me the gates of justice; having entered them, I will confess to the Lord.” We cry out these things with divine supports and aids.

From these things, moreover, those which Gennadius of Marseilles has³³ in these words must in no way be torn away:

The predestinarians are those who say that God does not create all for this purpose, that all may be saved, but that the world may be adorned by the multitude of men. Although by a general preaching³⁴ he says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you,” nevertheless he does not call all with that will that all may follow him who calls. Nor are all those who, by his inspiration, obey the call said to receive perseverance in carrying out a good work; but after many labors and fruits of justice, if they are not of the number of those to be saved, the powers of acting are to be withdrawn from them, lest they endure in good. And, on the contrary, those who are predestined to eternal life, even if for a long time they wallow in unbelief or every kind of sin, will receive an occasion by which they may both believe in God and live according to the precept of God, that they may possess the fellowship of the saints. By such a definition they strive to teach that God accepts the persons of men; that he draws some, even unwilling, to salvation after many evil works; and that he rejects others after good works and compels them into evil, whereby they perish eternally.