De causa Dei: Book II, Chapter 11
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618, 505B–507B; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/2/11/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[505B–505C]
CHAPTER XI. That perseverance is not some created gift of God really differing and distinct from charity and grace.

[505C–505E]
But so that this divine help, necessary for free choice in order to persevere in the good, which was mentioned above in general and confusedly, may be known more distinctly, it now remains to be shown that perseverance is not some created gift of God really differing or distinct from charity and grace. For if it were, it would not be contradictory for the two to be separated from each other, and for someone to have charity and grace who did not have perseverance. And if this were possible for one moment, it would be possible for another, and so on to the end; and thus someone without final perseverance would persevere finally, which involves a contradiction.

Again, if it were so, someone who had charity for a moment without perseverance could, at the end of that moment, pass away by natural death or some other, without final perseverance divinely given to him, and so could be saved without final perseverance. This is against Matthew 10: "He who perseveres to the end, this one will be saved": this one, that is, singled out, because this one and no other. It is against the Lord's words in Ezekiel 18: "If the wicked man does penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all my commandments, he will surely live, and not die; I will not remember any of the iniquities he has committed; in his justice which he has done, he will live. But if the just man turns away from his justice and does iniquity, will he live? All his justices will not be remembered; in his transgression by which he has transgressed, and in his sin which he has sinned, in these he will die." And Ecclesiastes 11: "If the tree falls to the south or to the north, in whatever place it falls, there it will be." Nor is there any doubt for anyone that whoever has had the gift of charity and grace, and does not persevere in it finally, falls from it by mortal sin, in which he remains until death, and is a son of eternal death.

Such a man, therefore, dying in charity and grace but without final perseverance, will at once inherit eternally both life and death. He inherits life, because he dies in charity, which according to Augustine, On the Trinity [of God] 15, 18, is the only thing that divides the sons of the eternal kingdom from the sons of eternal perdition.[n1] He inherits death, because he departs without final perseverance.

Again, proceeding the other way: if these were really distinguished, someone could have final perseverance and be saved without charity and grace, since "he who perseveres to the end, this one will be saved" (Matthew 10). This is against the authority of Augustine just set down. Indeed, no one could be perfectly blessed without charity and the love of God, active and passive;[n2] for the greatest good would be most lacking to him. It also seems that if perseverance could exist without charity and grace, it could exist without any other such good,

[506A–506D]
but this seems to imply a contradiction, namely that someone should persevere, and not in any such good; for perseverance necessarily presupposes some such good on which it is founded and in which it remains.

Again, if they differed in this way, perseverance would be a greater good and better than charity. For it would be the form perfecting and consummating charity itself and leading it to the crown, without which charity would be worth nothing for life, and by whose power charity would do all good merits, and not the reverse. This is not to be granted, because no virtue's proper act or end is better than the proper act or end of charity, which is to love God supremely: for the commandment of the love of God is the greatest and first commandment, as Truth bears witness in Matthew 22.

The Apostle also, when about to preach on charity in 1 Corinthians 13, set before it immediately beforehand, namely in chapter 12, in order to make his hearers well-disposed and attentive, a prophetic saying[n3] of this kind in commendation of charity: "Strive for the better gifts, and I show you a still more excellent way." And at once in chapter 13 he goes on about charity itself in this manner: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,

charity, however, I do not have, I have become like sounding brass," etc. He also concludes thus at the end of the chapter: "Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Blessed Augustine too followed him, On the Trinity 15, 18, when speaking of charity he says: "There is no gift of God more excellent than this."

Again, if it were so, perseverance would have some proper act, distinct from the proper acts of the other virtues. For habits are distinguished by their proper acts, as forms are by their proper operations, as natural and moral philosophers and likewise theologians attest. But no such proper act of perseverance can be assigned: an act of memory cannot be posited, nor of intellect, nor even of will, as induction through the individual cases shows, nor can any other be named at all.

Again, if perseverance differed really from charity, since it is itself necessary for salvation, the Lord would have given some special commandment about it. Yet this is found nowhere, in the Old Testament or the New; otherwise observance of the Lord's commandments would not be sufficient for salvation. And yet when someone asked what he should do to obtain eternal life, the Lord answered thus: "You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not kill," etc. (Mark 10), as if to say plainly: "If you do these things, you will obtain eternal life." And in Luke 10, when the expert in the law asked the Lord what he should do to possess eternal life, the Lord asked him: "What is written in the law?" He answered: "You will love the Lord your God with your whole heart," etc., "and your neighbor as yourself"; and the Lord said to him: "Do this, and you will live." Nor is this surprising, since "on these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets" (Matthew 22).

Or let it be argued in this way: observance of the commandments suffices for salvation, and perseverance differs really from charity; therefore it is not contained under the commandment of charity, or love, nor under any other, since that seems still less so; therefore someone can be saved without perseverance. Or still further, if you like, thus: observance of the commandments suffices for salvation, but not without final perseverance; therefore perseverance is contained under one of the precepts, and this will be only under the commandment of love and charity; therefore perseverance and charity are by no means really distinguished.

Hence it seems to me that habitual perseverance is habitual, or enduring, charity; actual perseverance, however, is a loving-through,[n4] and to persevere finally is to love through to the end. Hence Anselm too, On the Fall of the Devil 3: "To persevere in doing something, to put it in a single word, is to carry it through. For to persevere in writing something we call writing it out; in leading, leading through. Let us say, then, even if it is not in use, that to persevere in will is to will through." So also to persevere in the love of charity, of which it is said in Matthew 10, "He who perseveres to the end, this one will be saved," is to love through to the end.

Or it can be said otherwise, more in harmony with the word itself and perhaps closer to the thing itself, that to persevere is to preserve the commandments throughout, and perseverance is the preserving-throughout of the commandments.[n5] Or, still more generally, in this way: habitual perseverance is justice habitually preserved; actual perseverance is the actual preserving of justice; and to persevere itself is to preserve justice.

[506D–507B]
COROLLARY.

A corollary: that the name "perseverance" signifies no absolute thing essentially, but accidentally and relatively, namely charity or justice with respect to future continuous remaining to the end; and that it could not improbably be said that perseverance is the very relation of this.

Hence it is clear that the name "perseverance" signifies no thing essentially or even absolutely, but only accidentally and relatively: namely charity itself or justice, with respect to the end, that is, with respect to a future continuous remaining to the end. For this reason it could also not improbably be said that perseverance is the very relation of this kind. The definition of Aristotle seems to hint at this, and above all that of Tullius, recited in chapter 7;[n6] I do not wish to discuss it further in this place, for enough, I think, had been argued elsewhere about relations.

This corollary is sufficiently clear from what has been set down in this chapter. Yet it can also be shown in another way, over and above that. If perseverance signified essentially and absolutely some thing in the wayfarer, then, since that thing is not of the essence of the wayfarer, nor following from it essentially, as is clear in the many who lack it, a wayfarer who had final perseverance could lose it. So it would be true that he had lost final perseverance, as is the case with other habits and other absolute actions; yet this involves a contradiction. For if he lost final perseverance, he once had it; therefore he was then going to persevere finally, and so was not going to fall; and likewise he was then going to fall, as the subsequent event showed. Or otherwise: if this man fell into

mortal sin, he was always previously going to fall; therefore he was never not going to fall; therefore he never had perseverance; therefore he never lost it, contrary to the hypothesis given earlier.

Hence Augustine, On the Good of Perseverance,[n7] 7, says thus: "We call a man chaste whom we know to be chaste, whether or not he will remain in the same chastity; and if there is anything else of divine gift that he has, which can be held and lost, we say that he has it as long as he has it, and if he has lost it, we say that he had it. But perseverance to the end no one has, unless he has persevered to the end: many can have it, none can lose it." And above, in the first chapter of the same, he proves the same.[n8]

NOTES

1. Savile prints "de Trinitate [Dei] 18", with the bracketed Dei as an insertion, perhaps a suggestion of De civitate Dei. The saying is from De Trinitate 15.18.32, and is quoted again just below (506B) with "On the Trin. 15, 18". The bracket is kept in the English.
2. actiua et passiua: charity as loving and as being loved. The "love of God" is taken in both senses, objective (our love for God) and subjective (God's love for us), which is why it is both active and passive.
3. talem propheticum: kept as printed ("a prophetic saying"). The context (making hearers benevolos and attentos) is that of a rhetorical prooemium, and propheticum may stand for it, but the print is construable as it stands.
4. Anselm's per- compounds are rendered by their sense. Perficere is "carry through" and perscribere is "write out" to the end. Perducere is "lead through", and peruelle, which Anselm himself says is not in use, is "to will through". Peramare is "to love through to the end", and peramatio is "a loving-through" (apparently Bradwardine's own noun). The thread of the argument is that per- adds completion through to the end to the root act.
5. Bradwardine plays on the near-identity in sound of perseuerare and perseruare ("to keep or preserve throughout"). English "persevere / preserve" imitates it only roughly.
6. "Tullius" is Cicero; the definition is De inventione 2.54.164 ("perseverantia est in ratione bene considerata stabilis et perpetua permansio"). "Chapter 7" is presumably of this same book. I have not verified the Aristotelian definition he alludes to.
7. De bono perseverantiae is the older title of Augustine's De dono perseverantiae. I have not verified Savile's chapter number "7" against the work.
8. eiusdem leaves open whether "the same" is Augustine's work or Bradwardine's own Book II. The Latin does not say which, and I have kept it open.