Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

Sayings of this kind are adduced from the Greek Fathers, by which they seem to have given a foretaste of the Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian heresy: that God waits, that the sincere election is each one's own, that He confers grace on those who believe, that he who prepares himself for it receives grace — Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 1 and 17; that we are sufficient of ourselves to know the life that leads to God — Athanasius, Orat. cont. Gentes n. 30; that the divine help is placed in our will — Basil, epist. 294; that it is opened to everyone who knocks, and therefore that entering in is in our power — Nyssen, De Beat. or. 5; that we withdraw from vices when we use reason and free will — Nazianzen, orat. 31; that the election of the good is a work of the will, that we obtain the help of God by willing and running — Chrysostom, in epist. ad Rom. hom. 2; that Abraham was therefore elected by God because he himself used his faculties, so as to render himself fit to receive that calling — Chrysostom, hom. 42 in Gen.; that the beginning of every honorable action is placed in our will — Methodius, in Damascene, in the Eclogae. And other like sayings of the other Greek Fathers.

II. But now in this way we prove the Thesis in order. The Greek Church, before the sentence of Innocent and Zosimus was pronounced against the Pelagian heresy, professed the Catholic doctrine no less than the Latin Church. For in the year 415 a Synod of fourteen bishops was held by Eulogius, Bishop of Caesarea, at Lydda, which is Diospolis; in which Synod Pelagius, lest he be condemned, himself condemned his own errors and those of Caelestius, among which also that one: that the grace of God is not given for individual acts, and the other: that the grace of God is given according to our merits. Concerning the acts of this Synod Augustine wrote the book De Gestis Pelagii, in which book he showed that the whole Pelagian heresy was condemned in that Synod, although Pelagius was regarded as a Catholic; for he was absolved only to that extent, because he himself condemned all those things which were objected against him as spoken by himself contrary to the Catholic faith concerning grace.

In the same year in which the heresy was proscribed at Rome by Innocent, namely the year 417, at Constantinople, a Synod having been convened by Atticus, Bishop of that city, Caelestius was condemned, and Atticus sent synodal letters of condemnation to Asia, Thessalonica and Carthage, and Caelestius himself was cast out of the city of Constantinople. Mercator testifies to these things in his Commonitorium De Causa Caelestii, Cap. 1.

In the same year again and, as Garnerius reckons, in the month of October, Theodotus, Patriarch of Antioch, held a Synod, perhaps at Antioch, in which, the case of Pelagius, who had been absolved at Diospolis, being retried, he was himself detected and condemned. Marius Mercator makes mention of this Synod, different from the Synod of Diospolis, in the cited Commonitorium c. 3, in these words: «While Pelagius was still at Jerusalem he was accused before a Synod, and at first indeed, evading the issue, covering himself with certain ambiguous professions and pursuing doubtful replies or answers, he seems then to have deceived that audience of bishops (namely, the Synod of Diospolis); but after he was clearly caught, the accusers pressing on, and detected by a later Synod, at which Theodotus, Bishop of Antioch of holy memory, presided (at the Synod of Diospolis presided Eulogius of Caesarea, Primate of the Province of Palestine), he was also driven out from the holy and venerable places of Jerusalem, as the letters sent by the same holy Theodotus to the most reverend Bishop of the city of Rome and to Praylius of holy memory, Bishop of Jerusalem, testify, copies of which we have in our hands as evidence.»

You have here, therefore, a great part of the Eastern Church, which, gathered in Synods, condemns the universal Pelagian heresy and especially the error against the gratuitousness of grace — and condemns it before Zosimus sent his Tractoria to the whole Church (read Cap. 3 of the cited Commonitorium), which was sent in the year 418, indeed before Innocent himself gave his Apostolic letters to the African Churches. Now from these facts it clearly appears that in that age the Greek Church consented wholly with the Latin, inasmuch as, without any controversy, as soon as it heard the doctrine of Pelagius and Caelestius, it solemnly condemned it: and this too is a most certain indication that the Greek Fathers of that age and of preceding ages were of the same opinion; for Synods define both what is commonly held by all and what has been received from the Elders. Whence Augustine, Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. IV. c. 8, testifies that «the Church of Christ, both Western and Eastern, shuddered at their (i.e. the Pelagians') profane novelties of words.»Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum, lib. IV, cap. 8.

III. The doctrine of Pelagius, as soon as it showed itself, was regarded as new in the Church. Augustine so frequently called it this, and R. P. Caelestinus and Vincentius Lirinensis called it this too (cf. Th. XXVI. n. I.); moreover, Augustine had read the Greek Fathers, whom he also repeatedly cites in the Pelagian cause and whose arguments, which the Pelagians gathered from them for vindicating their heresy, he dissolves (cf. De Natura et Gratia c. 61. Contra Iulianum L. I. c. 5. seqq. et L. VI. c. 23. Operis imperf. L. VI. c. 7. et 9. De dono Perseverantiae c. 19.); and Caelestinus the Roman Pontiff certainly knew the doctrine of those Greek Fathers, and Vincentius Lirinensis knew it too, who in the condemnation of the Pelagian heresy sets an example of that consensus of the Church with antiquity which he so excellently illustrates in his Commonitorium.

And yet the Pelagian doctrine could not be said to be new, if, as regards the sum of it or one of its principal heads, i.e. the gratuitousness of grace, it had already been handed down by the Greek Fathers of preceding ages. For how would it have come about that the Church noticed and shuddered at this error in the writings of one monk secretly disseminated, but never noticed it in the works of several Fathers who taught publicly in the Church and whose writings were worn in the hands of many? And indeed, what would those words of Augustine mean, by which he answers the Massilians appealing to the preceding Fathers, de Praed. SS. c. 14: «What need, therefore, is there that we scrutinize their little works, who, before this heresy arose, had no necessity of engaging in this question so difficult to solve?» If this heresy had really arisen long before, if most Greek Fathers had handed it down? Would it not then have been supremely necessary that, just as Augustine fought against Pelagius, so others, earlier, would have fought against the preceding authors of the heresy and explained the matter at length? Therefore Augustine did not even suspect that several Greek Fathers had been in that opinion which he himself condemned in the Pelagians and Massilians; rather, he held for certain that the Catholic opinion had been altogether common to the preceding Fathers. For he points out no one about whose doctrine we could rightly be suspicious, but only warns in general that they touched the doctrine of grace in their writings not deliberately, but briefly and in passing (ibid.); which certainly is quite other than teaching a defective or false doctrine. Therefore, if this heresy arose then, when Pelagius and Caelestius began to teach, those are wholly inept who think that they have found it not merely in some one, but in almost all the preceding Greek Fathers.

IV. Furthermore, in order that we may pass judgment on the formulas of the Greek Fathers recited above, we note that the formulas which occur in the Greek Fathers and which seem to contain the Pelagian error are found, more or less, among the Latin Fathers of the first four centuries as well. Certainly, sayings of this kind — that the beginning is from us, so that God perfects; that the origin of beginning is from us; that the commencement is from us when we pray — occur in St. Hilary on Psalm 118; and these — that the Lord is with us as long as we too are with Him; that each one receives from the help of God according to the Lord's promises and the merits of his faith — are found in St. Cyprian in Exhort. ad Martyr.; and these — that we ought to present ourselves such, by good pursuits and ready faith, that God may have mercy on us and call us, and that we must not wait for Christ to rouse us, but rather Christ must be roused by us — are read in St. Ambrose, the former in lib. II. de Abraham n. 74, the latter in Psalm. 36; and these again — that the beginnings of the will are in us, that it is ours to ask, God's to bestow, ours to begin, His to perfect — can be seen in St. Jerome, the former in Ezech. c. 3, the latter in Dialogue 3. against the Pelagians; these finally — that the whole freedom of the will was conceded in both directions, that the freedom of believing or not believing is placed in the will, that God leaves His power to our will — the first is Tertullian's, cont. Marcionem L. II; the second Cyprian's, Testim. L. III., c. 52; the third Jerome's, in Isaiam c. 49. And yet no propositions can be adduced from the Greek Fathers which seem more, in appearance, to favor the Pelagians than these. What, therefore, will be the consequence? If because of these, which occur among the Greeks, the Greek Fathers are said to have really been in the Pelagian opinion, then not only the Eastern Church, but also the Western, i.e. the whole Church, was Pelagian in the first four centuries. Clearly, no longer is the doctrine of Pelagius different from the tradition of the Elders, but the doctrine of Augustine will have to be called different; and the doctrine of Pelagius old, of Augustine new; the doctrine of Pelagius Catholic, the doctrine of Augustine heretical will have to be held. This, indeed, is what the zeal of certain theologians comes to, who, out of love of Catholic truth, preach only Augustine. Therefore, just as it is repugnant that the whole Church should have fallen away from the truth, so also it must be judged false that several Greek Fathers gave a foretaste of the Pelagian doctrine.

V. Nor was there lacking a reason why the Fathers of the first centuries should inculcate those heads of doctrine which are expressly contained in those formulas. Namely, it must be recalled that in the first centuries of the Church both the Gnostics and the Manichees flourished, against whom the Fathers had to fight: these heretics, distinguishing a twofold principle, both good and evil, by which men were determined either to good or to evil, and introducing fate, left no place to free will, and held that the good God so prevented the wills toward good as to impose necessity. It was necessary, therefore, to exclude such a prevenient operation of God even with respect to good and to defend freedom, whose existence was being denied, without its being necessary to warn that grace and its necessity were not thereby denied, concerning which no special controversy had arisen.

Moreover, that every difficulty in these formulas may be removed, it must be considered that it can happen that some formulas, materially considered, are the same among Catholics and heretics, without, however, the sense of them being the same among both. And in truth, that this can happen and repeatedly does happen we can prove from Augustine himself, who determines that certain formulas of the Pelagians, considered in themselves, can be accepted, yet disapproves of them because of the sense which the Pelagians subjoined to them. Thus, Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. I. IV. c. 6, to the proposition of the Pelagians, that grace helps the good purpose of each one, he notes: «this would be accepted without scruple as spoken catholically, if they did not place merit in the good purpose, to which merit the reward would then be rendered according to debt, not according to grace.» And when the Pelagians returned this other one to the former proposition, that it nevertheless does not infuse the zeal of virtue into the reluctant, Augustine himself again warns that «it could be understood well, if it were not said by those whose» sense is known." Further, from this observation we wish to gather, with Augustine himself leading the way,1) that turns of speech can be common to Catholics and heretics, 2) and therefore that it is not lawful to argue from the mere use of some formulas the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of the one employing those formulas, 3) but that their sense must be gathered from the context and the other circumstances and from the mind itself of the speaker or writer, already known from elsewhere. These things certainly are evident, if they are transferred to the Latin Fathers of the first centuries; for they, if we believe Augustine, handed down the Catholic doctrine, and yet, as we have just seen, they sometimes used formulas most similar to those which the Pelagians and Massilians employed: but nevertheless their opinion has always been held Catholic, because from other testimonies their doctrine plainly appeared.

VI. But now, by what testimonies the orthodoxy of the Latin Fathers is demonstrated, by the same the orthodoxy of the Greek Fathers can be demonstrated. Thus Justin, in the dialogue with Trypho n. 102, says »that what (Christ) said: Thou art my God, depart not from me, is at the same time the word of one teaching that all ought to hope in God, who created all things, and to seek salvation and help from Him alone... For if the Son of God says that He can be saved neither because He is the Son of God, nor because He is strong, nor because He is wise, but declares that, since He is immune from sin, He cannot be saved without God; how do you and the rest, who expect salvation without that hope, not think that you deceive yourselves?" Clement of Alexandria, Strom. L. V. c. 1. »We are saved by grace, but not without good works: but it is indeed fitting that, since we are by nature apt for the good, we apply some study to it. It is fitting also to have a sound mind, one that is not retarded by any repentance from the pursuit of the beautiful, for which indeed we have the greatest need of divine grace and right doctrine and a chaste and pure affection of soul and the Father's attraction to it." Origen in Philocalia c. 25: »Whoever makes progress builds a house, whoever is perfect guards the city: but the work of the builder is vain and the guard of the guarder vain, unless the Lord has built and the Lord guards... Not only, therefore, for a man to become honorable and good is there need of our will and of the conspiring divine help, which as far as concerns us is not arbitrary; but also for this, that he who has come out honorable and good should persevere in virtue: since certainly even the perfect will be about to fall into ruin, if he has been elated in his honorableness and arrogates to himself the cause of it and does not render due glory to Him who contributed much more to acquiring and retaining it." And again in Epist. ad Rom. L. VII. c. 9: «But now, since the election of them (Jacob and Esau) was made not from works, but from the purpose of God and from the will of the one calling; the grace of the promise is fulfilled not in the children of the flesh, but in the children of God, who, like they themselves, are elected by purpose and adopted into sons.» Basil in Constit. monast. c. 15: «Neither will any endeavor of men in good things come to pass without heavenly help, nor will heavenly grace ever come to a man who is not studious. But for the perfect summit of virtue, both these must be joined together: human study and celestial help summoned from above through faith. And indeed, in all things that are rightly done by us, let the soul refer to the Lord, as received, the causes of its right action, thinking that it does nothing at all rightly by its own strength.» And in orat. De Humilitate n. 3: «Nothing is left to you whence you could glory, O man... What, therefore, I ask, do you exalt yourself as if over your own goods, when you ought to render thanks to the giver for the gifts received.» Nyssen in Orat. Domin. Serm. 4: «But why do we entreat that the good election, which is from God, may be ours? because human nature is powerless for the good, once weakened on account of malice.» And De differ. essent. et hypost.: «We say that the efficacy is from grace working all things.» Nazianzen, Orat. 31, interpreting the words of the Apostle: not of the willing nor of the running, but of the showing-mercy God, says: «by these words Paul teaches that right willing itself also stands in need of divine help; rather, to speak more rightly, the will itself also and the election of those things which are right and joined with duty is a certain divine benefit. Thus, since the willing itself also is from God, with the best right he assigned the whole to God.» Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 1: «It is His (God's) indeed, who brings light to all, to plant and to water, but yours to bear fruit. It is God's to confer grace, yours to accept and keep it. Do not therefore despise grace because it is given freely; but rather, with devotion, once you have received it, keep it.» The holy Bishop indeed speaks of the grace of baptism, but since he says that it is given freely and that God is He who illuminates, plants and waters so that fruits may come forth, he sufficiently signified that grace is not preceded by any merits of nature, in nearly that manner, in which the Council of Trent afterwards declared the same in session VI. chapter 8.

But now, in testimonies of this kind is contained that doctrine, which extends the necessity of grace to all salutary works, and whether ex- plicitly or at least implicitly also to the beginning of faith. In these testimonies are contained those formulas, or ones equivalent to them, on account of which the doctrine of Cyprian and Ambrose was highly approved by Augustine as a norm of Catholic tradition. This saying of Cyprian, indeed, Augustine frequently inculcates against the Pelagians and Massilians: that nothing is to be gloried in, when nothing is ours, as in De Praed. SS. c. 4. and Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. IV. c. 9. And in the same question — whether merit begins from man through free will, to which God, fol- lowing, renders the assistance of grace, or rather begins from God, which was afterwards the question of the Massilians, the Catholic doctrine he proves by these words of Ambrose, by which he says the Pelagians are refuted, namely «because human care without divine help is weak for healing, it requires God as its helper» and by these others, «You see that everywhere the power of the Lord cooperates with human efforts, so that no one can build without the Lord, no one can keep without the Lord, no one can begin anything without the Lord.» Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. IV. c. 11. But equivalent phrases among the Greek Fathers occur, as one comparing can see; therefore it must truly be affirmed that the orthodoxy of the Greek Fathers is proved by testimonies not dissimilar to those by which the orthodoxy of the Latins is proved.

VII. How, then, are those sayings of the Greek Fathers, or those similar to them, which we recited at the beginning of the thesis, to be taken? It can be answered briefly that they are to be understood in the same way as not dissimilar formulas are understood among the Latin Fathers: if these can present a Catholic sense, reason requires that we interpret the expressions of the Greek Fathers in the same way.

VIII. But it is especially St. John Chrysostom who is brought forward, and therefore one must dwell on him a little more attentively. Sayings of his are adduced which seem to savor of the Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian doctrine, and which occur in his works not once or twice, but very frequently; so that some dare to affirm that he himself held a Pelagian mind. For the sake of example, let these suffice: homily 42a in Genesim teaches that Abraham arrived at the great summit of virtue not through the faith received from his parents, but through the knowledge placed in nature (γνῶσιν ἐν τῇ φύσει κειμένην) and from himself; and therefore that Abraham, who was before grace and before the law, obtained much grace from God, because he himself first did what was his own: further, he concludes that we ought to act in the same way, if we wish to enjoy the heavenly grace; for when God has seen us striving and pressing on to the contest of virtue, He immediately also helps us with His nod: homil. 12. in epist. ad Hebr. says that we ought first to choose the things that are good, and then God introduces the things that are His own. And objecting to himself that saying of the Apostle: Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, he answers that it was said for this reason, ὅτι οὗ ἐστιν ἀπλῶς, τὸ πᾶν εἶναι δίκαιον. For ours is only to choose and to will, but God's is to effect and to lead to perfection, and God does not precede our wills, lest free will be harmed: and homil. 17. in Ioannem, on those words: But Jesus turned and, seeing them following, he gathers from this that we are admonished that God does not prevent our wills with His benefits toward us, but that the beginning must be made by us, and when we have begun and have shown our will, then God confers many occasions of salvation upon us. Who here, they say, does not see the master of Cassian, who could not have set forth his error more clearly? Chrysostom therefore was not only a Semi-Pelagian, but was also the author of Semi-Pelagianism for Cassian.

IX. But if we may first use extrinsic arguments, those are at hand which compel us at least to doubt whether that is true which is affirmed with such great confidence by the adversaries. For Celestine, who knew well the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian heresy, in the letter to Maximian, Bishop of Constantinople, in which he speaks deliberately about the Pelagian heresy, exhorting that Bishop to resist it — in that letter, I say, he praises the learning of Chrysostom and exhorts Maximian to follow his footsteps: «Follow, he says, the examples of the former pontiffs, by whom you have been instructed and nourished: the learning of the most blessed John in preaching, the vigilance of holy Atticus in repelling heresies.» But the Roman Pontiff, proposing to a Bishop, who had to resist not only the Nestorian but also the Pelagian heresy, the learning of John Chrysostom to be followed, had both to know it and to hold it as Catholic in the matter of grace.

Likewise Pope Gelasius, in the decree on the books which the Roman Church receives and which it does not receive, places among those which it receives, together with the works of Athanasius, Cyril, Augustine and others, also the works of Blessed John, Bishop of Constantinople, while nevertheless he places among the apocrypha the works of Faustus of Riez in Gaul; but if the works of Chrysostom had been sprinkled with the Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian stain, they ought to have been rejected by Gelasius no otherwise than the writings of Faustus.

Again, Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople, in the year 407 condemned the Coelestian heresy in a convoked Synod, and Marius Mercator makes no mention of any dissension or discrepancy of opinions in that Church; one may therefore think that in that age the Catholic doctrine was in tranquil possession in the Church of Constantinople; but if Chrysostom, who had won for himself such great authority, whom the same Church venerated so greatly, had taught otherwise, would not Atticus have encountered discrepant and adverse opinions, especially since as yet no universal decree of the Church or of the Roman See on this matter was known?

X. But that we may proceed from conjectures to arguments, it is certain that Chrysostom in many places and in the most eloquent words set forth and vindicated the Catholic doctrine, no otherwise than any other Father did. In Psalm. 118. he says «Let no one ascribe to his own goodness what he has, or claim for himself as his own what he has received from God.... You who are good, ascribe that to the gift of God ... lest you lose what you have and the truth say to you: what have you that you have not received!» Hom. 29. in Matth. «In the grace of God we can do all things, but without grace nothing, as the Apostle says: I can do all things in him who strengthens me.» Hom. 4. in epist. ad Ephesios, on those words: By grace you have been saved through faith, he says «He removed the swelling, saying: and this not from yourselves, as if he were saying: how could we already have believed in him? Therefore what is the merit of faith is not to be ascribed even to us; for it is the gift of God.» Hom. 12. in epist. 1. ad Corinth. on those words: who distinguishes you etc., he says: «But suppose you are to be praised and certainly hold grace, yet even so you ought not to be lifted up with pride, seeing that you have it not from yourself, but have received it from God. Therefore what you have, you have received — and not only this and that, but what you have. For these are not your merits, but the grace of God. Although you may bring forward faith, you received it from the calling... all things came to you from there.»

What, I ask, have you, then, that you have not received?" Hom. 8. in 2. Timoth. «Know this alone, that God provides for all things, that He works some things but permits others, that He wills nothing evil to be done, that not all things are done from His will alone, but from ours also: all evil things are done from our will alone, all good things from our will and His assistance.» What more can be required for the Catholic profession of the necessity of grace, which was to be proposed by way of thesis, not of polemic, when as yet no heresy existed?

How, then, are these things reconciled? The difficulty comes back to a twofold proposition which occurs in Chrysostom: the one is affirming — the will begins and first offers from itself what is its own; the other, equivalent to this, is denying — God does not prevent human wills with His grace. Now, just as there is a twofold series of acts, namely indeliberate and deliberate, so a twofold beginning corresponding to each must be distinguished. That indeed which is the beginning of the indeliberate acts is simply first; but the other also is a beginning in its own order. And it is of this that Chrysostom speaks. For since Chrysostom teaches that all our good things, all our merits, are from God, it is clear that the beginning which is said to be from us is not the first beginning placed in the indeliberate acts, but is a subsequent beginning placed in the deliberate acts, insofar as it depends on us deliberately to will that to which we are excited and aided by prevenient grace; it is not grace that determines us to that. By such a free consent, rendered indeed with the help of grace, we dispose ourselves to obtain more abundant graces; whence that prior consent, compared with these, has the character of a beginning. This answer — namely, that Chrysostom speaks of the beginning placed in the deliberate acts — holds also with regard to the testimonies of the other Fathers who seem to trace the beginning of a good work back to us, while at the same time they teach that all our good things are from grace. For only in this way can these things be reconciled.

Indeed, to persuade this the more, if that should be necessary, these observations will help: a) The first prevenient grace and some subsequent cooperating grace are so related that the former is common to all and is not in our power, and was contained in the common knowledge of the faithful in the age of those Fathers, while the latter is private, depending also on our cooperation. Now, when two things are so related, that which is common and known to all can be passed over in silence with impunity, and special mention only be made; especially since the discourse is directed to the faithful, who have already been furnished with the first wholly gratuitous graces, and whom we wish to exhort to progress in virtue. And this was almost the condition of those Fathers who in certain of their sayings seemed to judge that the grace of God is preceded by the efforts of free will. Weight will still accrue to this observation if you add that in that age there existed a special need of defending free will and its indifference to good and to evil under the governance of divine Providence. That aim of its own accord directed the minds of the Fathers to that which was impugned by the heretics, not to that which was known to all and conceded by all.

β) It must be held that the Fathers frequently understood by the name of grace not any grace whatsoever, but a certain special grace, and namely either sanctifying grace or also the grace of illumination and inspiration, but one which referred to supernatural objects and to the revelation of the Gospel. This Petavius proves by the adduced testimonies of the Fathers De Deo Lib. IX. cc. 4. 5.. And in truth sanctifying grace, which is the term and complement of the preceding actual graces, claims for itself the name of grace with a certain stronger right; while the revelation of supernatural truths and of the Gospel, in which the economy of the divinely instituted religion is contained, is a special grace not granted to all, but to those to whom the Word of God has been preached — a grace which presupposes the other preceding interior graces (cf. propos. 27. condemned, of Quesnel). Hence also the interior immediate illumination and inspiration following upon it, determined by this extrinsic supernatural revelation, are special graces, more excellent than the other actual graces; whence they too can be honored with the name of grace taken simply, with a certain stronger right: because they are properly the Christian grace. And this manner of speaking could be frequent especially among those who either addressed the nations and exhorted them to the faith which Christ brought to the world and without which they could not be saved, or addressed the faithful, whom it behooved to exhort to progress in virtue, and to whom the grace which they had received from God, by which they were distinguished from the rest, was to be preached and praised, so that, esteeming it greatly, they might persevere in it.

You will say: Chrysostom, or any other Greek Father, could have been in that opinion in which Augustine himself, with others, was before his episcopate. I answer: the question is not what he could have been, but what he really was. Besides, since the testimonies recited for the Catholic opinion of Chrysostom are so clear that those which Augustine recites from Cyprian and Ambrose against the Massilians are not clearer, it must be said both that Augustine, had he inspected those testimonies, would have held Chrysostom to be Catholic in the highest degree, and that he who loves to follow Augustine in all things ought not to judge otherwise.