De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

The nobility of the Germans.— But when we enter upon the sermon concerning the justification of adults, first we must suppose what we established in book 2 On Free Will, or rather have shown to have been established beyond doubt by the holy Fathers, namely that we are drawn to our justification not by force, or as inanimate things which are moved by natural instinct, but so freely that we can both reject and embrace the inspiration of God. Which is not only the opinion of the Synod of Trent¹ against the Lutherans, but the most ancient opinion against the Pelagians: as I reported there from Augustine in the letter to Paulinus. For there was a ninth condemnation of Pelagius,² because he said that there is no free will if it needs the help of God. And the discourse was concerning justification. And the other part of free will must also be supposed, which we treated there also in chapter 18: namely that God never so forsakes anyone that he is not at hand to help him continually, knocking at the door.

Then the first conclusion³ must be set forth concerning every kind of justification. The first work which is required of us for our justification is faith. This axiom is most celebrated and most repeated in Paul. For without faith, he says, it is impossible⁴ to please God. And: He who approaches God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder. Nay, in the very description of faith, when he said that it is the substance of things to be hoped for, he designated this very thing (as we said in the preceding chapter). For substance is nothing else than the foundation by which the structure of things to be hoped for is supported and founded. Wherefore that long repetition of the faith of Noah, Abraham and the other Fathers is nothing else than an explanation of what he had said: He who approaches God must believe. For he does not ascribe the whole cause of justice to faith, but the beginning. Namely, that all the just, led by faith, wrought just works.⁵ And to the same point pertains what he says: We reckon that a man is justified by faith, and not by works, and other things beyond number similar to these, for the interpretation of which a chapter by no means small must afterwards be subjoined by us. There are also very many testimonies of this truth in the Gospel: especially in John, who discoursed most divinely of the mystery of faith beyond the others. For from that very sermon on the incarnate Word he immediately says: He gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name.⁶ And again: God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. And when they asked what they should do to work the works of God, CHRIST answered: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.⁷ For by these and such things he admonished mortals that the door of the heavenly kingdom lies open from no other source than from having faith in him. Nor only in the evangelical law, but in every age from the fall of the first man to the end of the world. So much so that (as we said a little before) the apostolic Church sanctioned concerning infants that they are not baptized solemnly except when professing the faith.⁸

But it is worth weighing the causes of this truth, which are derived from a threefold source. The first and greatest is that since God through CHRIST is the author of our justification, our first obedience must be to have faith in him who reveals himself to us and promises his grace, as the true God and (as Paul says) our rewarder. Through which faith we are received into the family of the same redeemer JESUS CHRIST. The second cause is that since (as we showed in chapter 3 of the previous book) the end to which we men are destined so surpasses our faculty that we cannot naturally know it, and man, unless the goal is shown beforehand, cannot rightly direct his actions: faith was necessary for us, to be the pointer to that end. The third cause finally, which contributes most to the understanding of what is to be said, is this. Since the hope of reward is what most of all applies minds to patience in labours, and that reward of eternal happiness was so far absent not only from our senses but from thought (for who would believe that such excellent wages awaited our works?), it was altogether necessary both that this be revealed to us, and that we also give faith to CHRIST and his apostles concerning it, so that we might be encouraged to the observance of the law by which we were to be led there. For it was not fitting that those eternal goods should be represented to us first in manifest light or knowledge, both because vision (as Gregory says) would take away merit, and especially because since vision itself is the reward of merits, it ought not indeed to precede, but to follow at the end of the completed course. Faith therefore had to be sent before, which would be both the first foundation of our receiving justice from God, and then the guide to acting rightly. And so CHRIST taught us supernatural things after the manner of nature. For as is [said] in the Analytics, the learner must first believe. And thus God the teacher says: Everyone⁹ who hears from the Father and has learned comes to me. And therefore Paul called faith the substance of things to be hoped for.¹⁰ Therefore, circumspect reader, understand from this that a way is paved for interpreting that saying, The just man lives by faith: and similar ones. For the sense is (as will be more fully clear in the last chapter) that faith is the foundation of life: but not the whole life, as the Lutherans believe. For since the German nobility was always most devoted to liberty and a cultivator of faith, Satan's envy cast them down in both respects, so that they both denied free will and, in the matter of faith, from which they could not otherwise be driven, overleapt the just line: surely while they extolled faith too much to the injury of the other divine virtues likewise.

Yet it is worthwhile to send before a little note concerning faith and its remedy in the state of nature.¹¹ For in every age from Adam onward, fallen man needed faith in God which would have some signification, even shadowy, of CHRIST, and therefore some [knowledge] of the Trinity. For concerning the faith of Adam before sin, nothing at present. For that word of Peter, There is no other name under heaven¹² given to men, by which we must be saved, is not referred only to this evangelical age, but to every age after the fall. Since no one ever received the grace of reconciliation except through CHRIST. Whence Paul says:¹³ God has freed us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and the grace which was given to us in CHRIST JESUS before the ages of time. Wherefore since before the passion actually shown forth there could be no power of CHRIST in reality besides faith in him, it is most consequent that it was always necessary. And to this emphasis belongs that word: Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in CHRIST JESUS, whom God has set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, to show his justice, for the remission of preceding sins.¹⁴ And therefore the Fathers were held in limbo awaiting the payment of the price, by faith in which they had been saved. To the same point pertains, as Augustine is the author in the Hypognosticon, book 3, that most rich offspring of faith in Hebrews 11,¹⁵ which flourished through all the ages of the world. For by that reason the Apostle demonstrates that faith is the substance and strength of things to be hoped for: without which it is impossible to please God, because he who approaches God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder to those who seek him: not only at this time, but by faith, he says, we understand that the ages were fitted together by the word of God. He subjoins a most copious example, beginning from Abel and Enoch, running through Noah, Abraham and the other Fathers down to all the prophets: who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises.¹⁶ And to the Hebrews 13: JESUS CHRIST yesterday and today, and the same for ever. But this faith (as St. Thomas is the author, 2-2, q. 1)¹⁷ although as to substance it was always the same, yet as to its expression it was not the same in all ages, nor at any time is the same [faith] necessary in individual lesser persons as in certain leading ones. The same, I say, is always the substance of faith: because where there is one God (as Paul says) there can be only one faith.¹⁸ But the act of this faith, which was necessary in every age, is to believe that God is, and the same is a rewarder:¹⁹ in whose first member all the mysteries of the divinity are contained, and in the second all those of the incarnate Word. But these things were unfolded with the progress of time: and the more clearly the closer one came to the rising of that sun itself, JESUS CHRIST our Lord, where they are more openly unlocked. Whence to the Hebrews:²⁰ According to faith all these died, not having received the promises: but beholding them from afar. Conversely, the more we are now distant from that splendour of CHRIST, the more faith grows faint in us.²¹

Therefore anyone might perhaps hold the opinion which we have sometimes defended in the schools, and in the first Venetian impression of this work judged more approved: namely that in the state of nature there was no other ray of light necessary for individual common people than the natural one: because for those nations where nature was not depraved, nor covered by the mist of vices, this ray seems efficacious for knowing concerning God that he is, and that he is a rewarder: in which knowledge CHRIST is implicitly unfolded.²² And, what is besides a great argument, there was then no more particular revelation of the things necessary for salvation made publicly than that which was made through the light of nature: therefore God required no other knowledge, nor does any other seem to have been necessary. For in the written law, and now more explicitly in the evangelical, there is revealed to us through the law the faith of the Trinity, which we cannot have naturally: and for that reason we are commanded so to believe as God is prepared to help us to believe. Anyone therefore might perhaps think that since at that time there was neither such a commandment nor such a revelation through the law, no other knowledge of faith was necessary than the natural. Although a singular supernatural help of God moving the affection would always have been necessary: because justification was always a work above nature. This opinion St. Thomas seems to have held on Paul, chapter 2, on that word, They do naturally the things that are of the law.²³ But indeed, with the matter more thoughtfully weighed, I think this opinion must be rejected, and the other embraced: namely that neither in the law of nature was natural light sufficient for that knowledge of faith which is necessary for salvation: which opinion was [held] after St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 113, art. 4. For besides that it would be dangerous to arrogate so much to natural knowledge, the Fathers established this supernatural mystery of justification not so much by reasons as by sacred utterances, bringing the intellect into captivity to the obedience of faith. And against Pelagius it is not only holy [to say] that a man is justified without works, but also that not even the beginning of faith is from us: the Apostle confessing that we are by no means sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as from ourselves.²⁴ And to the Ephesians: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not from yourselves:²⁵ where faith is asserted to be a gift of grace. And Augustine, Hypognosticon, book 3: By faith, he says, no other than that which now is, all the saints have been saved and are to be saved, who from the beginning to the end of the world have been and are to be saved: since therefore this faith is supernatural, it is [fitting] that it was always such: which although it was not divinely promulgated publicly through the law, was nevertheless infused secretly into those who kept the law of nature.²⁶ But was there anyone in that state with any trace of original sin, for which some remedy might be applied to infants? For this matter was supernatural. It cannot be denied that from Adam, by the succession of generations, some knowledge of the original stain endured until Noah, who was also taught many things above nature by God. From him to Abraham the same knowledge, although under a shadow, was derived. For he received the peculiar sacrament of circumcision against original sin. But afterwards, when the human race had already been more widely propagated and dispersed into the world, except in the people of Israel it is not so likely that there was an express knowledge of it: especially where vices began to grow thick and to darken the light of reason. Although it persisted among some: as we showed in the previous book concerning Job, who cursed the day on which he was born, and asserted that there is no one on earth, not even an infant of one day, without sin. Nor was this knowledge so obliterated in other nations that some trace of it did not remain for a time, and perhaps some kind of offering, and in a certain way of sacrament, by which well-ordered commonwealths dedicated their little children to God. Nay, the law of nature, even if there were no such knowledge of vitiated origin, admonished that it should be done. For as it is read concerning the priesthood of Melchisedech offering bread and wine, so it is to be conjectured concerning sacrifice for original guilt. Whence Gregory, as is reported in On Consecration, distinction 4: What the water of baptism does among us, this the ancients did, either for little children faith alone (namely applied through some kind of religion), or for adults the power of sacrifice: or for those who came from the stock of Abraham, the mystery of circumcision.²⁷ I would not, however, agree with those who think that in the state of nature there was one sacrament instituted by God for washing away original sin. Since there is no such history. Nor is it likely that all the different nations used such a common sacrifice. Unless perhaps near the time of Adam or Noah, before the human race was dispersed. But each nation, taught by natural law, instituted its own rite. Since it did not confer grace, but was a sign of that shadowed faith in CHRIST, by whose power the cleansing of sin was made, nothing prevented it from being instituted not immediately by God, but by a human commonwealth. It is enough to have thought these things concerning that state of nature. Since no history of them exists, we judge as it were in passing. But in the written law the light of faith shone more explicitly, but most explicitly in the Gospel, beyond the knowledge it could have through an enigma. But just as we said of the state of nature, so also in the written law and in ours, the greater [persons] are held to believe more things explicitly than individual common people. So that in every age that analogy of Job may be true: The oxen were ploughing, and the asses were feeding beside them:²⁸ that is, from the meditation of the wise the rude crowd takes its fodder.