For establishing and vindicating these things the Anonymous author uses a manifold argument, and first of all that which the Apostle1, speaking of God, furnishes in these words: “Who wills all men to be saved.” Concerning this testimony he writes at the beginning2:
We receive this clause of the Apostle’s words so integrally and fully that we subtract from it nothing of the preceding or subsequent things which pertain to it. For, to set aside the other testimonies of the divine eloquences, this passage suffices to render void that which they calumniously object and to defend that which they impiously deny.
Then he relates the entire sequence of the discourse, which is as follows3:
I beseech, therefore, first of all, that supplications, petitions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, and for kings and all who are in high station, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and chastity. For this is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all.
Having set these things forth, he immediately infers:
Concerning this rule of apostolic doctrine, therefore, with which the universal Church is imbued, lest we wander away by our own judgment4 into a diverse understanding, let us inquire what the universal Church itself thinks; because there can be nothing doubtful in the precept if obedience agrees in practice. Therefore the Apostle—indeed, through the Apostle the Lord, who was speaking in the Apostle—commanded that supplications, petitions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and for those who are in high station. The devotion of all priests and all the faithful concordantly holds this law of supplication in such a manner that there is no part of the world in which prayers of this kind are not celebrated by Christian peoples. Therefore the Church everywhere supplicates God not only for the saints and those already regenerated in Christ, but also for all unbelievers and enemies of the cross of Christ; for all worshipers of idols; for all who persecute Christ in his members; for the Jews, upon whose blindness the light of the Gospel does not shine;
for heretics and schismatics, who are estranged from the unity of faith and charity. But what does she ask for these except that, having abandoned their errors, they be converted to God, receive faith, receive charity, and, liberated from the darkness of ignorance, come to the knowledge of the truth? Because they cannot furnish this for themselves—oppressed by the weight of evil custom and bound by the chains of the devil—nor are they able to overcome their deceptions, to which they have adhered so pertinaciously that they love falsehood as much as truth is to be loved, the merciful and just Lord wills that supplication be made to him for all men; so that, when we see innumerable men rescued from such profound evils, we may not doubt that God has furnished that which he was entreated to furnish; and, giving thanks for those who have been saved, we may hope that even those who have not yet been illuminated5 are, by the same operation of divine grace, to be taken out of the power of darkness
and to be transferred into the kingdom of God before they depart from this life.
This is the sum of that most excellent disputation: for expounders of the Scriptures, lest they be carried about by every wind6 of doctrine, nothing ought to be preferred, nothing regarded as prior, to seeking and discovering, concerning the testimony before their hands, the opinion and faith of the Catholic Church, and, having discovered it, following it. For the Church is ruled by the same Spirit who is the principal Author of the Scriptures; whence those who follow the Church follow that very Spirit by whose7 inspiration the holy men of God spoke. But the Catholic Church, by her prayers solemnly poured forth to God, has demonstrated most openly that it is known and certain to her that by the apostolic words is signified the universal salvific will of God, which passes over no one and assists all. Therefore it is neither lawful to subject the apostolic words to another power of signification nor to call into doubt the universal amplitude of the divine salvific will.
Footnotes
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I Tim. II. 4. ↩
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On the Calling of All Nations, book I, chap. XII, cols. 185–186. ↩
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I Tim. II. 1–7. ↩
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Irenaeus, Polycarp, the Church of Smyrna, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, Basil, both Gregories—of Nyssa and Nazianzus—Cyril of Jerusalem, and Epiphanius handed down the same rule with the same purpose; Thomassin relates and diligently weighs their testimonies in the Theological Prolegomena, chaps. XVIII–XIX. From these it appears whence the Fathers of Trent in Session IV drew their decree, by which they pronounced anathema upon those who twist Sacred Scripture to their own meanings, contrary to that meaning which holy Mother Church has held and holds. ↩
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It will be helpful to notice the distinction which Petau subtly notes in On God, book X, chap. III, § III, as existing between these forms of speech: that God wills all men to be saved, and that all are justified, or all are illuminated through Christ. “For these very things—to be justified, to be illuminated, and similar things—God does not effect by himself alone, nor do they depend upon his will alone, as matters stand and as he himself decreed that they should be done, who determined to bring no one to his grace except one spontaneously willing and consenting. Therefore, when we read that all are justified by Christ, we can interpret this only of those who are willing. The same judgment would apply if he had said not that he wills all to be saved, but that he saves all. For he determined not to execute this without us. But it is evident that not all are justified nor all saved, not because the will of God is wanting to them, but because they themselves are wanting to the divine will. Therefore, when it is said thus, ‘God wills all to be saved,’ insofar as he is said to will, that is said which is placed in his will alone. For that he may will, he does not derive it from the will of men, but from his goodness alone.
“Wherefore, when he wills all to be saved, he excepts no one, because no cause for making an exception is sought outside himself. For he wills because thus it pleases him. But when he justifies, illuminates, and saves, he employs συνεργούς, that is, cooperators, and συναιτίους, joint causes; and if they resist, that which God willed does not come to pass. For it was not falsely said: ‘How often I willed, and thou wouldst not.’” Nor did the great Leo write falsely, Sermon XXXV, otherwise XXXIV, col. 130: “Let us therefore consider the ineffable generosity of the divine gifts toward us; let us be cooperators with the grace of God operating in us. For the kingdom of heaven does not come to those who sleep, nor is the beatitude of eternity thrust upon those who are torpid in leisure and sloth; but because, as the Apostle says, ‘If we suffer together, we shall also be glorified together,’ that way must be run by us which the Lord himself testified that he is; who, though no merits of works supported us, provided for us both by sacrament and
example: that by the former he might advance those called to adoption unto salvation, and by the latter instruct them unto labor.” ↩
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Eph. IV. 14. ↩
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II Pet. I. 21. ↩