XLVI. Fastidius; Gaudentius of Brescia

But so great and so abundant a mercy brings it about that God is patient, invites all to penance, and awaits the repentance of all; that he pursues men with a more earnest benevolence than they love themselves; to such a degree that those who perish must be judged to perish against the will of God.

Fastidius¹, not the least among the bishops of Britain who flourished in the fifth century, excellently establishes these things when, inquiring into the causes² on account of which God does not immediately punish sinners, he says:

The miserable and ungrateful, improvident concerning their own salvation, impute even this to God, that their destruction is deferred; not knowing that by the providence of God they are preserved for a twofold reason: both that provision may be made for the human race by his long patience, and lest he be judged impatient if he should will immediately to condemn those who sin. For if he were not so patient, the origin of the human race would long since have ceased; nor would we have just men from sinners if God willed at once to punish those who sin. For we know and read of not a few who previously, deceived either by the blindness of ignorance, or by reason of unbelief, or by the vanity of youth, were held liable by manifold and diverse kinds of sins, and who afterward, through the most clement patience of God sustaining them, were converted from error and performed works of justice yet greater than the sins they had previously committed. For God does not pardon sins, but defers their punishment; nor does he free from death a sinner who perseveres,

but patiently awaits that he may be converted even late and live; as the blessed Apostle Peter says³: “The Lord delayeth not his promises, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should be converted to penance.” For, as loving, benign, and clement, he does not strike thee immediately precisely so that thou mayest recognize how great his loving-kindness toward thee is, how great his clemency, since he prefers to await thee as a sinner and an impious man and to save thee when converted, rather than to punish thee when sinning; as the Lord himself speaks through the prophet⁴, and by the benignity of his own voice expresses how much mercy and loving-kindness he wills to bestow upon man, saying: “And if the wicked man turn himself away from all his iniquities which he hath wrought, and keep my commandments, and do judgment and justice and mercy, living he shall live, and shall not die; all his transgressions, whatsoever he hath wrought, shall not be remembered; in his justice which he hath wrought he shall live.” And⁵: “Is it by my will that I will the death of the unjust man, saith the Lord Adonai, rather than that he turn himself from his evil way, and that I cause him to live?” And elsewhere⁶: “The iniquity of the wicked shall not harm him on whatever day he shall turn himself away from his iniquity.” And⁷ again: “Return, O children who are returning, and I will heal your contrition.”

Behold how God admonishes and provokes thee that thou mayest be converted from thy sins even late and be able to be saved. Behold in what manner he exhorts one already liable to death that he may live; how gently, how clemently he invites him, so that he does not deny a father’s loving-kindness even to sinners. And he still calls those children who by sinning lost God as Father, just as in another place⁸, with a mournful voice and a kind of lamentation, he himself testifies that he has lost sinners, saying: “I have become without children; I have lost my people because of their sins.”

From this, therefore, recognize how God loves thee, whom he prefers to live rather than to perish. And dost thou contemn and despise him who loves thee more than thou thyself dost, who wills thee, though desiring to die,

to live? “I will not,” says⁹ the Lord, “the death of sinners, but that they be converted and live.” Thou, therefore, didst will to die by sinning; he wills thee to live by converting. O foolish, irreverent, and ungrateful man, who not even in this dost consent to God, who wills to have mercy upon thee; who prefers to save thee by his loving-kindness rather than that thou perish by thy sin!

Of this most benevolent charity of God, and of the incredible patience by which he sustains the impious and the wicked, Gaudentius of Brescia speaks¹⁰ no less clearly when, concerning the cup of salvation mentioned in the Psalms, he writes:

“But the sinners of the earth,” he says¹¹, “shall drink this cup.” Rightly, according to this understanding¹², he says that “the sinners of the earth shall drink”; because the sinners of heaven—the angels who became demons—do not merit to drink the cup of salvation, but the sinners of the earth shall receive the cup¹³ of salvation against the poisons of demons and the diseases of vices, and shall invoke the name of the Lord. For¹⁴ “everyone whosoever shall invoke the name of the Lord shall be saved.” This cup is given to sinners to drink because¹⁵ “they that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill.” “I came not,” he says¹⁶, “to call the just, but sinners

to penance.” For the Wisdom of God invites such men to this bowl of the salutary mixture when she exhorts them with a sublime voice and¹⁷ says: “Whosoever is foolish, let him turn aside to me.” And to those who lack understanding she says: “Come, eat of my breads, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.” The foolish man is therefore invited by the Wisdom of God that he may become wise, and the sinner that he may be converted and live.

We are all generally called to this cup of divine mercy; for all have sinned, as the Apostle says¹⁸, and need the glory of God. But if all have sinned and need the glory of God—for his majesty is assuredly the remedy—whom, then, shall we call healthy, for whom the office of a physician is not necessary, unless perhaps those who, already healed by him, no longer need medicine?

Marcus the Hermit¹⁹ commends this universal mercy of God the Savior in a distinguished manner when he writes: καὶ ὄντως ἐχθροὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰσιν οἱ πονηροὶ λογισμοί, οἱ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ γενέσθαι διακωλύοντες· εἴπερ ὁ μὲν θέλει πάντας ἀνθρώπους σωθῆναι, καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν· ἐκεῖνοι δὲ διὰ προσπαθείας ἡμᾶς πλανῶσι, καὶ τῆς σωτηρίας ἡμᾶς ἀπείργουσι, “and truly evil thoughts are enemies of God, preventing his will from being done. For he wills²⁰ all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth; but they, through attachment, lead us astray and exclude us from salvation.”

Whence it is easy to answer one who asks how it comes about that, although God of himself wills and desires the salvation of all, so many nevertheless fall headlong into everlasting destruction. It comes about, namely, because the attainment of salvation is a gift in such a way that it is at the same time a recompense and a crown, and consequently a mixed work: first, the work of God who prevents, excites, and assists; then, the work of man, who adds his own diligence and freely joins his own consent. But there are very many who, to their greatest harm, freely will not that which they could and which they ought, and freely choose in turn that from which they are deterred and which they ought not.

Let Cassiodorus²¹ be heard in his commentary upon these words of the Psalm²², “The Lord is sweet to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works,” when he writes:

What is more magnificent than to be sweet to all? What again is more magnificent than to expend tender mercies upon all his works, which glory in him as their Author? Someone may say: Why, therefore, are sinners to be condemned, whom it is not doubtful are his creature? But observe that he says that tender mercies are to be conferred upon the works of the Lord. For he crowns that which prevenient grace bestows in us by a hidden judgment; he condemns that which is constructed by the machination of the devil. For the force placed in the words resolves the question most completely. The works of the Lord are always chosen; our works or those of the devil are without doubt condemned.