DE GRATIA ET LIBERO ARBITRIO: A TREATISE ON GRACE AND FREE-WILL. BY AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO; ADDRESSED TO VALENTINUS AND THE MONKS OF ADRUMETUM, AND COMPLETED IN ONE BOOK: WRITTEN IN A. D. 426 OR A. D. 427. Extract from "The Retractations," Book II. chap. 66, respecting this Treatise. THERE are some persons who suppose that the freedom of the will is denied whenever God's grace is maintained, and who on their side defend their liberty of will so peremptorily as to deny the grace of God. This grace, as they assert, is bestowed according to our own merits. It is in consequence of their opinions that I wrote the book entitled De Gratiâ et Libero Arbitrio. This work I addressed to the monks of Adrumetum,1 in whose monastery first arose the controversy 1 Adrumetum, a maritime city of Africa, was the metropolis of the Province of Byzacium, as Procopius informs us, De Aedificiis Justiniani VI. It was in a monastery here that the monks resided for whose instruction Augustine composed the two following treatises, the former entitled De Gratiâ et Libero Arbitrio, and the latter De Correptione et Gratia, in the year of Christ 426 or 427. In our opinion, no later date can be well assigned to these writings, inasmuch as they are mentioned in The Retractations, which was published about the year 427; nor can they be placed earlier in date, because they are in that work mentioned the very last. on that subject, and that in such a manner that some of them were obliged to consult me thereon. The work begins with these words: "Propter eos qui liberum hominis arbitrium sic prædicant" [" With reference to those persons who preach up the liberty of the human will "]. TWO LETTERS WRITTEN BY AUGUSTINE TO VALENTINUS AND THE MONKS OF ADRUMETUM; AND FORWARDED WITH THE FOLLOWING TREATISE. LETTER I. [The 214th of Augustine's Epistles.] TO MY VERY DEAR LORD AND BROTHER VALENTINUS, WORTHY OF ALL HONOUR AMONG THE MEMBERS OF CHRIST, AND TO THE BRETHREN THAT ARE WITH YOU, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD. TWO 1. WO young men, Cresconius and Felix, have found their way to us and introduced themselves as belonging to your brotherhood. They told us that your monastery was disturbed with no small commotion, because certain amongst you preach up Grace in such a manner as to deny that the will of man is free; and maintain-a more serious matter--that in the day of judgment God will not render to every man according to his works. At the same time, they pointed out to us, that several of you do not entertain this opinion, but allow that the free-will of man is assisted by the grace of God, so as to enable us to think and to do aright; so that, when the Lord shall come to render unto every man according to his works,2 He shall find those works of ours good which God has prepared for us to walk in. They who think this think rightly. See the Second Letter, chap. ii. 3 Eph. ii. 10. 2 2. "I therefore beseech you, brethren," even as the apostle besought the Corinthians, "by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you." For, in the first place, the Lord Jesus, as it is written in the Gospel of the Apostle John, " came not to condemn the world, but that the world by Himself might be saved."1 Then, afterwards, as the Apostle Paul writes, "God shall judge the world when He shall come,” as the whole Church confesses in the Creed, "to judge the quick and the dead." Now, I would ask, if there is no grace of God, how does He save the world? and if there is no freewill, how does He judge the world? That book of mine, therefore, or epistle, which the above-mentioned brethren have brought with them to you, I wish you to understand in accordance with this faith, so that you may neither deny God's grace, nor uphold free-will in such wise as to separate the latter from the grace of God, as if without it we could by any means either think or do anything in God's way,-an achievement which is quite beyond our power. On this account, indeed, it is, that the Lord when speaking of the fruits of righteousness said, "Without me ye can do nothing." 3. From this you may understand why I wrote the letter which has been referred to, to Sixtus, presbyter of the Church at Rome, against the new set of Pelagian heretics, who say that the grace of God is bestowed according to our own merits, so that he who glories has to glory not in the Lord, but in himself, that is to say, in man, not in the Lord. This, however, the apostle forbids in these words: "Let no man glory in man;" while in another passage he says, "He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord." But these heretics, under the idea that they are justified by their own selves, just as if God did not bestow on them this gift, but they themselves obtained it by themselves, consistently enough glory in themselves, and not in the Lord. Now, the apostle asks the question, "Who maketh thee to differ from another ?" and this he does on the ground that out of the mass of perdition 7 |