De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

What grace the Semi-Pelagians admitted as necessary for salvation, and in what respect their view agreed with the Pelagian error or departed from it.

I. The common error of the Semi-Pelagians, as some more recent theologians have rightly observed, consists in this: although they acknowledged against Pelagius that God’s grace was necessary for performing works of holiness, meriting glory, and obtaining the fitting disposition for the remission of sin, they nevertheless reserved some beginning of salvation to free choice, so that a person’s own salvation would lie in his power. They therefore said that it was necessary for a person to begin by some good movement, which God would afterward advance and perfect. In this good movement they thus placed the first cause of salvation on our side, and said that it was the merit of every supernatural grace. What merit they meant will become clear below. They also asserted that faith, at least as regards its beginning, was not God’s gift but was in us from ourselves, and that on its account God granted the other gifts necessary for salvation. This is clear from the letters of Prosper and Hilary to St. Augustine and from Augustine himself, in On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance. In reply to Prosper’s and Hilary’s letters, he proves in detail, with the clearest testimonies of sacred Scripture, that not only perfect faith but even faith begun, and every beginning of it, comes from God and from the help of prevenient grace. But, to turn to particulars and explain how far the people of Marseilles went in professing grace, and what grace beyond that St. Augustine insisted must necessarily be acknowledged, it must be observed that the leader of the Semi-Pelagians was Faustus, bishop of Riez. Maxentius reports and refutes his error in his reply to Pope Hormisdas’s letter, where he declares Faustus’s books heretical and sharply reproves those who defend them as Catholic—especially a certain African bishop called Possessor.¹ In chapter Sancta Romana Ecclesia, Distinction 15, Pope Gelasius counts among the apocrypha the works of Faustus of Riez in Gaul. Hence Peter the Deacon, in Fulgentius’s On the Incarnation and Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, chapter 8 at the end, says: Having been instructed in the teaching of all these holy Fathers, we anathematize Pelagius and Celestius, and also Julian Edanensis and those who share his way of thinking; especially the books of Faustus, bishop of Gaul, who came from the monastery of Lérins, which were undoubtedly written against the doctrine of predestination. In these books, coming into conflict not only with the teaching of these holy Fathers (that is, Augustine and his disciples) but also with the Apostle’s own contrary assertion, he subordinates the help of grace to human labor.² Hence those who count Faustus among the Fathers are not to be heard, since he must be counted not among the Fathers but among the enemies of Christ’s grace. Faustus set out his view concerning the necessity of grace and the natural powers of our free choice in two books On Free Choice, which he published and which are found in the Library of the Holy Fathers; anyone who wishes can read his view explained there at greater length.³

II.

Cassian also presents in his writings, especially throughout Conference 13, the view of these same Semi-Pelagians and sets out many of their statements. St. Prosper reports and refutes his teaching in the book he composed Against the Collator. There, with very many testimonies of Scripture, very firm and very penetrating arguments, and very elegant words, he shows how Cassian and the other remnants of the Pelagian heresy, while loudly proclaiming that they were far removed from Pelagius’s error, ultimately fell into it. Cassian acquired the name “Collator” from the Conferences of the Fathers that he wrote. We must therefore draw from the books of Faustus of Riez and Cassian what they and the Semi-Pelagians themselves thought, gather from the writings of Prosper and Maxentius the true sense in which their doctrine was condemned, and finally turn to the holy Father Augustine, who by divine inspiration rather than human effort penetrated, exposed, attacked, and overcame the errors of both Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, and labored greatly to extirpate this destructive heresy. Thus, writing to Innocent: It is not, then, he says, a single Pelagius—who may already have been corrected, and would that this were so—but so many others who argue noisily, dragging along weak and unlearned souls as though they had been defeated, while wearing down by their contentiousness those who are firm and steadfast in the faith, that everything everywhere is now filled with them.⁴ To proceed clearly and distinctly, we must first collect from Faustus’s books the statements in which he disclosed his mind; then we shall collect Cassian’s statements from his writings as well, so that at last it may become clear in what the Semi-Pelagians agreed among themselves and with Pelagius, and in what one differed from another, or even from their leader Pelagius.

Faustus’s error concerning the natural capacity of free choice and the necessity of grace is explained.

As Sixtus Senensis noted⁵, Faustus wrote books On Free Choice against the teaching of St. Augustine, with Augustine’s name suppressed;⁶ Peter the Deacon also teaches this clearly in the passage cited above. First, to appear far removed from Pelagius’s error, he rebuked that man’s blasphemous opinion that human nature alone suffices for attaining salvation: I believe, he says, that the freedom of choice by itself could not suffice without the support of grace, even before its privilege was violated by transgression. How, then, can it now suffice by itself, when its presumption is addressed with the words: “Without me you can do nothing”?⁷ And when the divine word is directed against its self-confidence: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain”?⁸ What is denied to pride without grace is granted to humility with grace.⁹ Hence Maxentius, observing Faustus’s craftiness in his reply to Hormisdas’s letter, says: For while shrewdly refuting the view of that same Pelagius and reproaching him, as it were, for having wholly denied Christ’s grace, and also refuting those who acknowledge with the Apostle that God’s grace is given to people without any preceding merits, Faustus himself, as though he were a most wise and prudent new apostle of a new perversity, attempts to teach that God’s grace is given according to the merit of faith and labor, so that God’s grace is no longer grace.¹⁰

IIII. Second, he says that not everything is to be attributed to grace, but something must be left to human effort. For he maintained that the gift of grace must be subordinated to human exertion and labor, and that it is granted by God to those who ask, seek, and desire. Faustus’s words are: Here, then, two errors contend with one another: one advocates following grace alone, the other labor alone, each straying from the path and measure of truth. They differ in kind but are alike in impiety; with different aims, they hiss with the spirit of one serpent. One—the preacher of grace alone—at first conceals its poison beneath the appearance of piety; the other—the advocate of labor—immediately reveals its swelling pride by its shameless arrogance. This profession of labor alone is detestable by its very name; that other is all the more to be feared beneath its religious guise.¹¹ Near the end of the same chapter he adds: Rightly did the divine word display the force of its authority, or reproof, against this presumptuous arrogance.¹² “No one,” he says, “comes to me unless the Father draws him.”¹³ And again: “It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”¹⁴ Whoever has established his salvation in his own will and power with Pelagius will rightly judge this to have been said of himself. But it need not be directed against someone who does not presume on labor alone, but recognizes that he must implore God’s daily mercy and abiding grace for his efforts, and beseeches the Lord’s help with constant prayer. In chapters 4 and 5 he attacks those who maintain that everything, they say, belongs to grace alone; while he himself admits that grace is necessary for all, but only so that we judge that the exertion of human diligence must in every way be joined to it. He teaches the same in chapters 6 and 10. These words show that Faustus thought the efforts of nature precede prevenient grace, and that by them free choice implores, asks, and desires God’s continual grace. This is also clear from canon 6 of the Council of Orange, where this error of Faustus and other Semi-Pelagians is condemned: If anyone says that divine mercy is bestowed on us when we believe, will, desire, and so forth, and knock, without the grace of God—but does not say that mercy is bestowed so that we may believe, will, or be able to do all these things as we ought—or subordinates the help of grace to human humility or obedience, and does not confess that it is the gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he resists the Apostle who says, ‘What do you have that you did not receive?’ and, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’¹⁵

V. Third, he says that grace and free choice are joined together in matters pertaining to salvation, and that grace is a companion, not a forerunner, of human merits.¹⁶ Faustus says this in the cited Book 1, chapter 5, where, explaining Romans 4, If Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God, and 1 Corinthians 3, Each will receive his own reward according to his labor, he says: According to the Catholic rule, works of the Law that are done according to the letter are set aside, while those things are affirmed that are to be done after grace, with grace accompanying. By these words he admits grace as a companion; and in chapter 18 he admits cooperating grace. But Faustus explains this statement specifically in chapter 17 of the same book, in these words: And thus these two are joined together: the power of the one who draws and the disposition of the one who obeys. It is as when a sick man tries to rise, but his strength does not follow his mind, and so he begs another to extend a hand. The will cries out, for weakness knows not how to lift itself by itself. Thus the Lord invites the willing, draws the desiring, and raises the one who strives. In Book 2, chapter 4, explaining 2 Timothy 2¹⁷, The laboring farmer ought to receive some of the fruits; See, he says, how divine and human things are joined in a wondrous exchange: labor belongs to obedience, but the fruit of labor belongs to grace. Hence Maxentius, reporting Faustus’s error in his reply to Pope Hormisdas’s letter, says: Since no one obeys or labors unless willing, and no one is willing unless he knows what it is fitting for him to do, Faustus, after knowledge and will—or obedience—joins the help of grace to human labor, so that grace and human labor together may complete the remaining works. He asserts that the capacity for this labor is naturally present in everyone, not through that same grace; and he claims that he can defend this view.¹⁸ St. Prosper also attributes this third statement to the remnants of the Pelagian heresy when, recalling them in his letter to Augustine, he says: They do not consider that they subject the grace of God—which they wish to be the companion, not the forerunner, of human merits—to those very acts of will which, according to their fantasy, they do not deny were preceded by grace. To understand this statement, it should be observed that when Faustus says grace is the companion, not the forerunner, of human merits, he is plainly speaking of efficacious grace, not of grace that arouses and enlightens. For he admits that the latter precedes meritorious work and other works of piety, as will be clear from the next statement.¹⁹ I say “works of piety,” because, like the other Semi-Pelagians, he attributed faith to the powers of nature, as is clear from Augustine’s On the Predestination of the Saints and from what we shall add in statement 12: they acknowledged that, by the merit of this faith, free choice obtained the prior helps of grace. What merit they meant will be explained below.

VI. Fourth, he says that prevenient grace is required for meritorious works leading to eternal life and for human salvation. St. Augustine calls it “help without which the thing is not done” in On Correction and Grace, chapter 12. This is clear: in the cited Book 1, chapter 1, Faustus says: I believe that freedom of choice by itself could not suffice without the support of grace, even before its privilege was violated by transgression. How can it now suffice by itself, when its arrogance is addressed with the words, “Without me you can do nothing,”²⁰ and the divine word is directed against its presumption: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain”?²¹ What is denied to pride without grace is granted to humility with grace. And in chapter 11 he adds: Whoever presumes to claim for himself either the beginning or the end of a work is rightly told: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”²² In chapter 14, throughout, he teaches the same, saying among other things: The Prophet asserts the capacity of one’s own will when he says of himself, “I inclined my heart to do your ordinances”;²³ yet he understands that nothing is to be presumed from his own powers alone, since he cries out to God, “Incline,” he says, “my heart to your testimonies, and not to covetousness.”²⁴ That he places this grace in the enlightenment of the intellect and the stirring of the will will become clear in the fifth statement. Hence St. Augustine, speaking of the Semi-Pelagians and attributing this fourth statement to them, says: These brothers of ours, for whom your pious Charity is concerned, have come to believe with the Church of Christ that the human race is born liable to the sin of the first man, and that no one is freed from this evil except through the justice of the second man. They have also come to acknowledge that human wills are preceded by the grace of God, and to agree that no one is sufficient of himself for any good work, whether to begin it or to complete it. These positions, then, which they have reached and retained, distinguish them greatly from the error of the Pelagians.²⁵ St. Prosper also noted this in his letter to Augustine, saying: Some of them, however, depart so little from the paths of the Pelagians that, although compelled to acknowledge the grace of Christ, which precedes all human merits, lest it be called grace in vain if it is rendered for merits, etc.²⁶ These words make it quite clear that the Semi-Pelagians admitted some prevenient grace as necessary not only for completing good works but also for beginning them. It is true that they posited no grace as necessary for faith, since they thought faith was not God’s gift but was in us from ourselves, as will become clear below:

VII. Fifth, he says that the grace which precedes human wills is that by which the intellect is enlightened by God and the will is stirred; and on account of this enlightenment he admits that everything must be attributed to grace. But because, he says, everything must be referred to the author of grace, we read: He who teaches man knowledge; or, The Lord enlightens the blind; and again, Enlighten my eyes, lest I ever sleep in death; and, Blessed is the man whom you instruct, Lord, and whom you teach from your law. He also says: What is it to draw, if not to preach, to stir by the consolations of Scripture²⁷, to deter by rebukes, to set before us what is to be desired, to threaten what is to be feared, to warn of judgment, and to promise a reward? Hear the Lord drawing not with harsh bonds but with hands and inviting with the arms of love, as the Prophet says: ‘I drew them with the cords of charity’; and, ‘We run after you, drawn by the fragrance of your perfumes.’²⁸ Therefore he says, ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you,’²⁹ so that no one can excuse himself as excluded when he is proved to have been invited.³⁰ Thus in chapter 11 of that same first book he teaches that both the beginning and the end of a good work are to be attributed to God, because he himself begins it by enlightening the intellect and stirring the will. Explaining Psalm 126, Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain, he says: Yet even while the servant must labor through all this, even to enduring every evil and losing his life, the result of his labor must always be referred to the Lord. Whoever presumes to claim for himself either the beginning or the end of a work is rightly told: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.’³¹ In Book 2, chapter 6, explaining Romans 9, Not of works, but of him who calls, he says: When you hear ‘of him who calls,’ understand one who invites, not one who compels: that is, one who moves efficaciously. For he thought this could not happen without coercing the will. Since he had said above that grace and free choice, joined together, complete our salvation, lest anyone think this teaching prejudices divine grace, he adds the following statement.

VIII. The sixth statement is that we must assign the first place to grace alone in the work of our salvation. He says this in Book 1, chapter 6, where, explaining 1 Corinthians 15, By the grace of God I am what I am, etc. he says: In pious submission I have assigned the first place to grace alone; the teacher of obedience has assigned all the intermediate steps to labor. And in chapter 9 he says: In saying these things, we do not make labor equal to grace, but place grace altogether above it, beyond comparison. Hence Maxentius: But the grace, he says, to which Faustus assigns first place here is not that grace which comes through the Holy Spirit, so that we give assent and become obedient when the word of God thunders outwardly. Rather, he says it is the preaching of the divine words: that is, it belongs to grace that the divine words are preached to us, but it belongs to us to assent to that preaching.³²

IX. Seventh, he says that God waits for our will, for us to wish to be cleansed and to run. In the end of Book 1, chapter 7, Faith, he says, he expects from little ones; from those established in the faith he also requires works. And in chapter 10 If, he says, the will of the one who runs is not to be awaited, why then is it said, ‘I therefore run in such a way, not as into uncertainty’?³³ And again, ‘I have finished the race, I have kept the faith’?³⁴ In chapter 11: Just as the devotion of unwearied service is to be expected from a person, so the perfection of completed work is to be credited to the Lord. In chapter 19 he adds: Moreover, by reason of justice he does not accomplish the result by himself, because he waits for the will of the one who is to be cleansed. And in Book 2, On Free Choice, chapter 10: You impose the burden of condemnation on a person against his will, when he shows a remedy of satisfaction and expects diligent service from him.³⁵ In what sense Faustus understood God to await our will for us to wish to be cleansed will appear in Disputation 95.

X. Eighth, he admits that a companion grace is necessary for salvation, describing it under various names: sometimes he calls it cooperating grace, sometimes the help of grace. Thus in Book 1, On Free Choice, chapter 5, he says: According to the Catholic rule, works of the Law that are done according to the letter are set aside, while those things are affirmed that are to be done after grace, with grace accompanying. In chapter 11 he says: God promised the heavenly kingdom to those who keep the divine commandments through the duties of laborious service, with cooperating grace. In chapter 13: For when a person has begun through grace to be a vessel of election and honor, he must be vigilant so that the honor he has received may be preserved by divine cooperation. A little farther down: And whenever a person, with grace helping, turns toward better things after rejecting worse ones, each time he is made a vessel of honor from a vessel of dishonor. Just before that he had said: Let us show that it is possible to pass from a vessel of dishonor to a vessel of honor through God’s help and one’s own effort. At the end of Book 2, chapter 4, he concludes: But you, do not begrudge divine goodness if I have performed a work well with his help, or even if I have lost what I received.³⁶ And in chapter 10, explaining Romans 9, not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, etc. Here, he says, he plainly marks out and reproves the person who thinks he is sufficient for himself alone, without the hand of one who helps. Near the end he says: Rather, with cooperating help,³⁷ let him also be worthy through his own work, and blessed with a good conscience.

XI. Ninth, he says that it belongs to God that we are called, but to a person that he obeys, seeks, asks, and knocks. Explaining Hebrews 11, He is the rewarder of those who seek him; How well, he says, he has joined the Lord’s office and the servant’s, saying, ‘He is the rewarder of those who seek him.’ For just as the giving of reward belongs to God, so the devotion of seeking belongs to a person.³⁸ Near the end of chapter 10 he says: Those who pray and keep watch are aided by the kindness of mercy, which is bestowed on those who knock more on account of devotion than predestination. He also says: For just as it is his own fault that he avoids the eyes of a merciful Father, so it is his own devotion that, deliberating and rising through the good implanted within him, he returns to his father’s embrace.³⁹ Elsewhere he teaches that seeds of good will are implanted in a person, proving it from the words, If you are willing, the commandments will preserve you.⁴⁰⁴¹ In chapter 16 he says: At whatever time someone has sought God, he has found him; and whoever seems not to have found him did not seek him. In chapter 17 he adds: Thus the Lord invites the willing, draws the desiring, and raises the one who strives. And so, just as being drawn is shown to belong to grace, following is shown to belong to obedience. He plainly intends that our following should belong only to us, not to divine grace except insofar as grace has invited us. A little later he says: But the one whom you see drawing also requires in every way that the commandments be kept, so that through a certain handle of the will the one who is called may be grasped and be able to be drawn. If you think he draws the unwilling, you impose the burden of injustice on heavenly justice. In chapter 19: Just as it belongs to God to summon and exhort, so it has been reserved to human obedience to follow.⁴² In Book 2, chapter 28, explaining Mark 10, What do you want me to do for you? and John 5, Do you want to be made well?, he says: You see that the gift of salvation is granted only after the desire of the will is first questioned. Even when someone comes to baptism, the will of the person approaching is first examined, so that the grace of the one who regenerates may follow. And in the case of Cornelius the Centurion, because his will preceded grace, grace also came before regeneration.⁴³ A little later: It belongs to God’s goodness that a person is called; it belongs to his own will that he promptly obeys. Explaining Matthew 7, Seek, and you will find, in chapter 9, he says: When the human mind opens its eyes in order to see, the light it seeks at once presents itself to the one who desires it. Explaining Psalm 69, O God, come to my aid, in chapter 10, he says: The very word ‘aid’ requires the service of one who labors. Thus ‘aid’ indicates two things: one who works and one who cooperates; one who asks and one who promises; one who knocks and one who opens; one who seeks and one who rewards. This alone is ours: since we are not capable on account of our weakness, let us at least find favor through our persistence in seeking and knocking. A little later: Unless the devotion of obedience has come first, the offering of grace becomes worthless; and it is a source of shame to the one who rewards if an idle person is honored and an ungrateful one rewarded.

XII. Tenth, he says that a person can believe by the capacity of nature, so that faith is in us and from ourselves, while its perfection comes from God. Explaining The elder shall serve the younger; In the elder, he says, the arrogance of the Jews is rejected; in the younger, the faith of the Gentiles is chosen.⁴⁴ In chapter 7, explaining Ephesians 2, You have been saved by grace through faith, he says: The time of grace, in which we were redeemed, did not wait for human merits; it did not seek works at all. God was content with the devotion of our faith alone, according to the Apostle’s words: ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’⁴⁵ At the end of the same chapter Faith, he says, he expects from little ones; from those established in the faith he also requires works, but in such a way that he increases the disposition to believe in those who are making progress and stands by those who labor as their daily helper. He attributes this same completion of virtue to grace in Book 1, chapter 11, saying: Just as the devotion of unwearied service is to be expected from a person, so the perfection of completed work is to be credited to God. At the end of Book 2, chapter 6: You see that the good of believing is not a new privilege but an old one: from the very beginnings of the world’s formation the human mind was endowed by its supreme creator with faith as well as understanding and reason. In chapter 8 he says: Why is unbelief reproached, unless because the capacity to believe was readily available? The principle of free choice makes the believer worthy of reward and the unbeliever worthy of condemnation. In his reply to Hormisdas’s letter, Maxentius attributes this error to Faustus and adduces Faustus’s words from Book 1, chapter 15. There Faustus argues against those who say that the gift of believing is not general but particular, and speaks as follows: But you say, he says, that it is not given to everyone, that the capacity to believe is a personal gift, and that only those to whom God has specially given the gift of believing have the power to believe. That is not so. The Lord does not yet⁴⁶ require it even of unbelievers; you demonstrate that it has been implanted in everyone. Who lacks the capacity to believe even by the law of nature, since even demons believe and tremble?⁴⁷ By these words Faustus proves that faith is in us and from us, since demons believe and tremble without any help of grace whatsoever. But it is clear that this proof is empty, because, as St. Thomas teaches, the faith of demons is not praiseworthy faith but is compelled by the evidence of signs; nor does it rest on divine revelation as the formal reason for believing through a pious disposition of the will.⁴⁸ Hence it is not true faith, as Christian faith is, whose beginning, whatever it may be, must be attributed to divine grace, as will become clear in Disputation 49.

XIII. Eleventh, he posits certain seeds of good will in nature, saying: Among these matters, we must diligently ask the heretics whether a person cannot do good, or is unwilling to do so, when the seeds of good will have been implanted in a person. He clearly assigns this, saying: ‘If you are willing to keep the commandments, they will preserve you.’⁴⁹⁵⁰ A little later: We therefore see that the consent of the human mind can pass both toward the good and toward the contrary. He also says: Just as he gave every person a hand, an eye, and a step, so likewise he granted every person a will, so that he might turn it in either direction. Justice, then, is not a personal gift in a person but God’s general and public gift, the way to attain salvation.⁵¹ Nevertheless, he teaches that these seeds of good will, which he places in nature, are brought to perfection and completion through God’s grace, as is clear from the passages cited in the preceding statement.

XIIII. Twelfth, he says that God grants his grace and mercy to one who does what lies within him by the powers of nature—believing, asking, seeking, knocking, and obeying the divine commandments. This is clearly gathered from what he says in Book 1, chapter 15. Explaining Romans 9, I will have mercy on whom I will, he says: This saying is to be understood in this way: ‘I will have mercy on whom I will,’ that is, on the one whom I recognize as just, whose ready faith I see, whom I perceive obeying my commandments, and whom I have found to do my will. In chapter 16: At whatever time someone has sought God, he has found him; and whoever seems not to have found him did not seek him. In Book 2, chapter 8, he says: In the case of Cornelius the Centurion, because his will preceded grace, grace thus also preceded regeneration.⁵² In chapter 19, explaining Matthew 7, Seek, and you will find, he says: When the human mind has opened its eyes to see, the light it seeks at once presents itself to the one who desires it.

XV. He moderates this assertion, however, by saying that human labor and good works which precede the helps of grace do not merit that same grace. Thus in Book 1, chapter 17, he says: But before all else, let us flee the arrogance of labor and claim nothing for ourselves on the score of its merits, lest we seem, with deadly insistence⁵³ and presumption, to imitate the Pharisee. For although he spoke the truth without hesitation when he prayed, ‘I fast twice a week; I give tithes of everything I possess,’⁵⁴ he emptied⁵⁵ the truth of its force because he mixed vanity with truth. It is therefore not the activity but the haughtiness of heart that must be avoided.⁵⁶⁵⁷ Cassian applies the same qualification, as will become clear below, numbers 26 and 28.

XVI. Thirteenth, he says that God predestined or reprobated no one before foreknowledge of the good or evil use of created free choice; otherwise a fatal necessity would be introduced, freedom of choice removed, and God would be unjust. Faustus remains constant in this assertion. He establishes it and often repeats it as the chief foundation of his view. For in Book 1, On Grace and the Choice of the Human Mind, chapter 4 at the end, he says: Just as an enemy might suddenly appear under the displayed guise of a pretended citizen, or as the deceitful cunning of an enemy might transform itself into an angel of light, so beneath the appearance of piety the evil of paganism—and within the name of grace a hidden fatal decree—lay concealed. If, then, as they claim, one person has been assigned to life and another to destruction, then, as one of the saints said, we are born not to be judged but already judged. Nor can any fairness of judgment stand according to this view. For if God gave nothing to his servant, what does he demand from the servant? In chapter 9: Nor does predestination draw in one direction when the choice of either side is offered. In chapter 10, explaining Then he will repay each according to his works,⁵⁸ he says: Observe that when he says ‘according to his works,’ the giver of grace places human salvation not in the predestination of the maker but in the activity of the servant. In chapter 11 he adds: When the destroyer of free choice declares that everything has been established and defined by predestination in either direction, he also empties even the highest remedies of repentance through a conception of reckless impiety. At the end of chapter 10, explaining For God is able to establish him,⁵⁹⁶⁰ he says: He plainly shows that a person’s condition can change in different directions, not by God’s determination but by the freedom of choice. In chapter 13, arguing against his own view from I will have mercy on whom I will,⁶¹ from which the predestination or predetermination just mentioned is inferred, he says that this passage is to be understood as: I will have mercy on whom I will, that is, on the one whom I recognize as just. By these words he plainly presupposes foreknowledge of the good use of free choice before the decree by which God determines to save a person. In chapter 16 he adds: If, as impious blasphemy asserts in its madness, some seem to have been ordained to death and others predestined to life, Christ had no reason to come, and had no necessity to die of the kind his goodness found. The new remedy, then, could accomplish nothing if an ancient decree had fixed human affairs before the ages. In Book 2, chapter 2 at the beginning, he says: They understand God’s foreknowledge and predestination wrongly when they assert that the cause of human actions arises from them. A little later: But you turn back and say, ‘Foreknowledge and predestination have fixed and stirred the causes of human actions and merits.’ That is not so; rather, the order of foreknowledge is derived from the origin of the human will. A few lines later: But you still say that human works and wills begin at the nod and impulse of heavenly foreknowledge. That is not so. Rather, understand this: God’s foreknowledge takes its beginning from the material of human actions. What God must determine and ordain about us with respect to the future consists in a person’s progress and failure. In chapter 3, after many words in which he teaches that foreknowledge of future consent precedes predestination, he concludes: And so, unless foreknowledge has first examined the matter, predestination decides nothing. In chapter 6, explaining So that God’s purpose according to election might stand—not from works but from him who calls, etc.⁶², he calls the opinion of those who say that God elects one person and reprobates another in such a way that there is no consideration of labor or devotion between two lost people a pagan impiety. A little later, speaking of the difference between the elect and the reprobate, he says: Yet amid this diversity of classes, many are chosen from among the reprobate Jews, and many are reprobated from among the elect Gentiles, so that you may understand that the just judge observes merits, not decrees, in either people.

XVII. But you say: “Although they had done nothing good or evil, they were already assigned to predetermined positions.” What is surprising, if he marked out the end of those whose actions he foresaw? Thus, just as it was clear that they had determined the course of their life according to their own choice, so they are foreknown by God’s power and ordained by his justice. All this is foretold about them, not decreed.⁶³ At the end of chapter 7 of the same book he concludes: Therefore the general judgment excludes the special decree you assert. Hence St. Prosper attributes this opinion to the Semi-Pelagians in his letter to Augustine, saying: For this is their definition and profession: Every person sinned when Adam sinned, and no one is saved by his own works but by the grace of God in rebirth. Yet the reconciliation offered in the sacrament of the Blood of Christ is set before all people without exception, so that whoever wishes to approach faith and baptism may be saved. God knew before the foundation of the world who would believe and who would remain in that faith in which, by God’s grace, they would thereafter be helped⁶⁴; he predestined to his kingdom those whom he foresaw would, though called freely, prove worthy of election and depart this life with a good end. A little later: Accordingly, all diligence is removed and the virtues are abolished, if God’s decree precedes human wills, and under the name of predestination a kind of fatal necessity is introduced, or the Lord is called the creator of different natures, if no one can be other than he was made to be.

Cassian’s error concerning the necessity of grace and the natural powers of our free choice is brought to light.

XVIII. BEFORE we set out Cassian’s statements, we must note that in Conference 13 of Abbot Cheremon he disclosed that same Abbot’s mind concerning grace and free choice. Since Cassian does not reject Cheremon’s view, he seems to follow it; for this reason St. Prosper attacks him vigorously in the book he composed Against the Collator and proves with the clearest arguments, drawn from sacred Scripture and Augustine’s writings, that he does not depart from the paths of the Pelagians. Hence in Distinction 15, chapter Sancta Romana, Pope Gelasius counts among the apocrypha John Cassian’s book called The Shepherd. The Louvain Doctors, who are deeply learned in Augustine’s teaching, also appended certain notes and a censure of various statements of Cassian at the end of the Antwerp edition of 1578.

Cassian’s first statement, then, is that a person in fallen nature has a natural judgment for recognizing good and evil, and a natural capacity to embrace either one. His words are: One must not believe that God made a person such that he would never wish or be able to do good. Otherwise he did not grant him free choice, if he granted him the will and ability to do evil alone, but did not grant him by himself either to will or to be able to do good.⁶⁵ A little later he proves that the human race did not lose knowledge of the good after Adam’s transgression, citing Romans 2: For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, etc. He says: Therefore, after his transgression Adam conceived a knowledge of evil which he had not had, but he did not lose the knowledge of the good which he had received. Finally, the Apostle’s sentence most clearly shows that the human race did not lose knowledge of the good after the transgression: ‘For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires.’⁶⁶ A little farther down he adds: Finally, to show that the capacity exists in them, rebuking the Pharisees: Why, he says, do you not also judge for yourselves what is right?⁶⁷ He would certainly not have said this to them unless he knew that by natural judgment they could discern what is just. Hence we must be careful not to refer all the merits of the saints to God in such a way that we attribute to human nature nothing except what is evil and perverse. A few lines later he says: Free choice always remains in a person, by which he can either neglect or love the grace of God.

XIX. Second, he says that a person naturally has certain seeds of virtue, which nevertheless cannot reach perfection without grace: There can therefore, he says, be no doubt that seeds of virtue are naturally present in every soul, implanted by the Creator’s kindness; but unless these are stirred by God’s help, they cannot reach the increase that brings perfection, because, according to the Apostle, ‘Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.’⁶⁸⁶⁹⁷⁰ And in chapter 8: When God has seen in us the beginning of a good will, he immediately enlightens, strengthens, and urges it toward salvation, granting increase to that which he himself either planted or saw emerge through our effort.

XX. Third, he says that a person can have charity through the sole capacity of free choice. This assertion is gathered from what he says in Conference 13, chapter 14, explaining Deuteronomy 13, The Lord your God is testing you, so that it may be made clear whether you love him with all your heart and all your soul, or not.⁷¹ He says: But the Lord’s justice would not have permitted them to be tested unless he knew that an equal power of resistance was present in them, by which they could be judged guilty or worthy of praise with equitable judgment on either score. The same is gathered from chapter 10, where he admits that seeds of virtue are naturally present in every soul, among which he also includes charity, since he speaks absolutely of virtues. Hence St. Prosper attributes this statement to Cassian, saying: According to him, free choice has such integrity or capacity that it possesses charity—the foremost of all virtues—not as a gift from God but from the will alone.⁷² This will be treated in Disputation 51.

XXI. Fourth, he says that a person in fallen nature has sufficient strength to resist even very severe temptations and overcome every difficulty. He says this in Conference 13, chapter 14, where, speaking of Job’s temptations, which were extremely severe, he says: But since after the conflict the slanderous enemy does not dare to repeat any such complaint, he confesses that he was overcome not by God’s strength but by Job’s. Although we must believe that God’s grace was not wholly absent from him—for it granted the tempter as much power to tempt as it knew Job had strength to resist—it did not protect him from the enemy’s attack in such a way as to leave no room for human virtue.⁷³ A few lines later: Why, then, would it be necessary for those to be tempted whom the Lord knows to be so weak and fragile that they cannot resist the tempter by their own virtue? The Lord’s justice would certainly not have permitted them to be tempted unless he knew that an equal power of resistance was present in them, by which they could be judged guilty or worthy of praise with equitable judgment on either score. In Conference 7, chapter 7, when Germanus says, Resisting them, (namely, the dreadful temptations of adversaries) we would believe impossible, especially for this fragile flesh, unless we were encouraged to this belief by your statements, as by heavenly oracles: Cassian replies in chapter 8 of the same conference: Accordingly, just as there is in them that abundance of instigation, so too the power of resisting or the freedom to yield has been granted to us. Hence, in chapter 14 he explains God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able as referring to the power to resist temptations by the capacity of nature. He says: God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure it.⁷⁴ When he says, ‘Let whoever stands see that he does not fall,’⁷⁵ he makes the freedom of choice vigilant; he knew that, once grace had been received, it could either stand through willing effort or fall through negligence. A little later: God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able—he certainly does not pray that the Lord may never permit them to be tempted, but they will be tempted only up to what they are able to endure. The former shows the capacity of human choice; the latter shows the grace of the Godhead in moderating the endurance of temptations.

XXI.⁷⁶ Fifth, he says that God awaits our efforts and sometimes precedes us.⁷⁷ Cassian sets out the first part of this statement in so many words in Conference 13, chapter 13, where he says: Thus the grace of God always cooperates with our free choice toward the good and helps, protects, and defends it in all things, so that at times it even demands or awaits from it certain efforts of good will, lest he seem to bestow his gifts on one wholly asleep or dissolved in idle indolence, as though looking for occasions when, after rousing human sluggishness from its torpor, the generosity of his munificence might not appear unreasonable. And in chapter 12 he says: He waits for us, as it is said through the Prophet Isaiah: ‘Therefore the Lord waits, that he may have mercy on us.’⁷⁸

As for God sometimes preceding us, he affirms this in the same chapter 12, saying: The mercy of the Lord therefore precedes a person’s will, of which it is said, ‘My God, his mercy will precede me.’⁷⁹ And again, when the Lord withdraws and in a certain way holds back beneficially in order to test our choice, our will precedes him, as it is said, ‘My prayer will precede you in the morning.’⁸⁰ In chapter 17 he teaches that God sometimes incites the course of certain willing and thirsting people to greater fervor, but sometimes compels even the unwilling and resistant. He repeats the same in chapter 18, where he says: Some he receives when willing and running, but others, unwilling and resisting, he drags along and compels to a good will.

XXIII. Sixth, he says that not everything is to be attributed to grace in such a way that no praise or effort is left to free choice. For he says: It would be a matter of no praise or merit if Christ accomplished in someone what he himself had bestowed; otherwise he would have said, ‘I did not give so great a faith in Israel.’⁸¹ St. Prosper also attributes this assertion to Cassian, saying: He holds an impious view who thinks the person to whom God has given nothing is more blessed than the person to whom he has given everything.⁸² This will be treated in Disputation 63, no. 6; Disputation 97, no. 7; and Disputation 100.

XXIIII. Seventh, he says that a person can by natural capacity seek a physician and desire health: For, he says, a person does not enjoy health simply by willing it, nor is he freed from the disease of illness at the wish of his own choice. What does it profit him to have desired the grace of health, unless the Lord, who grants the use of life itself, also imparts the strength of well-being?⁸³ St. Prosper attacks these words, saying: You therefore teach that a person cannot obtain health by himself,⁸⁴ but that he has from himself the desire for health and comes to the physician solely of his own will; you do not say that it is also the physician’s doing that he comes. This statement will be attacked in Disputation 55.

XXV. Eighth, he says that grace is given to a person who strives by natural powers to do what lies within him, and that by this grace God directs the good efforts of nature, strengthens them, and stirs the will toward salvation. But lest he seem to agree with Pelagius, he qualifies this assertion by saying that such efforts are not meritorious of grace and are not always necessary. He affirms that grace is given to a person striving by the powers of nature in Conference 13, chapter 8, where he says: When God sees in us a certain beginning of good will, he immediately enlightens, strengthens, and urges it toward salvation, granting increase to that which he himself either planted or saw emerge through our effort. And in chapter 11: For when God sees that we are turning our will toward good, he comes to meet us, directs us, and strengthens us; at the sound of your cry, as soon as he hears it, he will answer you.⁸⁵

XXVI. He asserts that those efforts are not meritorious of grace in chapter 16 of the same Conference, immediately at the beginning, saying: Let no one suppose that we have said these things to establish that the sum of salvation lies under the control of our faith, according to the profane opinion of certain people who, assigning everything to free choice, determine that God’s grace is dispensed according to each person’s merit. And in chapter 13, after saying that God sometimes demands or awaits certain efforts of good will, he adds: Nevertheless, the grace of God always remains free, since with immeasurable generosity he bestows so great a glory of immortality and so great gifts of eternal blessedness in return for certain small and meager efforts. A little later: However strenuously human frailty may have labored, it cannot be equal to the reward to come; nor does it so diminish divine grace by its labors that grace does not always remain free.

XXVII. He affirms that those efforts are not always necessary in the cited chapter 13, saying: And thus the grace of God always cooperates with our free choice toward the good and in all things helps, protects, and defends it, so that at times it even demands or awaits from it certain efforts of good will. “At times,” he says, not always. And in chapter 17: By these examples that we have brought forward from the Gospel records, we can most clearly observe that God provides for the salvation of the human race in diverse and countless ways and by inscrutable paths: sometimes he invites the course of certain willing and thirsting people to greater fervor, but sometimes he compels even the unwilling and resistant. At one time he helps fulfill what he sees we have rightly desired; at another he also inspires the beginnings of a holy desire, or grants the beginning of a good work or perseverance. By saying, sometimes he invites the course of certain willing and thirsting people to greater fervor, but sometimes he compels the unwilling, he sufficiently indicates that prior efforts of good will are not always necessary for a person to receive the help of grace.

XXVIII Ninth, he says that prevenient grace depends on the works of nature and that this causal relation is real: because a person offers the beginning of good will, God has mercy on him. This is clear from Conference 13, chapter 1, at the beginning, where he says: These things are thus, in a certain way, mixed and confused without distinction, so that there is much debate among many people over which depends on which—that is, whether God has mercy on us because we have offered the beginning of good will, or whether, because God has mercy, we obtain the beginning of good will. For many, believing each of these points and asserting them all the more strongly, have become entangled in errors that contradict one another. Throughout that same Conference he teaches that at times God has mercy on us because we offer the beginning of good will, and at other times we obtain the beginning of good will because God has mercy. He plainly indicates that the help of prevenient grace is given on account of that good use of our will. The same may be gathered from the same Conference, chapter 9, where he understands the Apostle’s words God will repay each according to his works⁸⁶ as referring to works of nature that precede grace. Hence St. Prosper attributes this assertion to Cassian, saying: How do you fail to notice that you fall into that condemned opinion, and whether you wish it or not are proved to say that God’s grace is given according to our merits, when you assert that some good work must first come from people themselves, on account of which they obtain grace?⁸⁷ Cassian qualifies this statement, as he does the preceding one, by saying that grace is not given because those works are merits, but as though they were merely an occasion. This is clear from Book 12 of the Institutes, chapter 14, where he says: For he is ready, (that is, God) to bestow all these things, when only the occasion of good will has been offered to him by us. By these words he excludes from the works of nature every merit, both condign and congruous, since he says that those works are only an occasion upon which God grants the prior helps of prevenient grace. And in the same chapter he expressly excludes condign merit, for among other things he says: For we say, according to the Savior’s saying, that it is indeed given to those who ask, opened to those who knock, and found by those who seek; but our asking, knocking, and seeking are not condign, unless God’s mercy grants what we ask. Hilary, in his letter to Augustine, seems to have understood the error of the Semi-Pelagians in this sense, when he reports their assertion: Nor is grace denied if such a will is said to precede it, one that merely seeks the physician but is not yet itself capable of anything. The Council of Orange speaks in the same sense in canon 6: If anyone says that mercy is divinely bestowed on us when we believe, will, desire, and knock without God’s grace. “Mercy,” it says, for the people of Marseilles acknowledged that the helps of prevenient assisting grace are given from mercy, rather than from a debt of justice, to those who ask, seek, and knock through the capacity of nature, although God bestowed them on the occasion of these efforts of nature.

Some more recent theologians, among those who deny that God by actual assisting grace premoves, applies, or efficaciously predetermines the created will to consent, acknowledge that this was the same sense held by the Semi-Pelagians. They confirm it by the authority of the holy Fathers, especially Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 2, who says: See whether anything is being done now except that grace is given in some way according to our merits, and so grace is no longer grace. They emphasize the phrase “in some way,” since it extends merit to every possible kind of merit.

XXIX. Finally, he says that God’s predestination is general with respect to everyone and not gratuitous with respect to some. This is clear from Conference 13, chapter 7, where he says: When its kindness has seen even the smallest spark of good will shine out—or one that it itself has struck from the hard flint of our heart—it cherishes and rekindles it; strengthening it with its inspiration, it wills all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.⁸⁸ A little later: For if he does not will that one of the little ones should perish, how can he, without grave sacrilege, be thought to will not that all universally, but only some, be saved for the sake of all? Other matters relating to Cassian’s errors will be discussed below in the particular controversies. For now, this general account of the error of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians is enough. From it anyone can easily gather how the Semi-Pelagians differ from the Pelagians or agree with them. This one point must be noted at the close of this disputation: Faustus and Cassian, like Pelagius as was said above, admitted prevenient grace of whatever sort or kind, yet in practice denied it, since they asserted that it is given to us according to the merit of faith. Hence Maxentius, speaking against Faustus, who had promised in his book to prove against Pelagius that grace is not given according to our merits, says: But afterward, forgetting his promise, he is shown to empty grace altogether and more fully.