Book II, Chapter 31

He raises an objection and answers.

By this tower of the city of David, which is raised up to Heaven, nay above the heavens, strengthened with ramparts, covered with a thousand shields, fortified with all the armor of the strong, and on whose summit God alone, higher than all, most worthily sits as supreme ruler,1 the Pelagians are thrown into turmoil. They rave in mind, rage in body, grow pale in face, blaze in the eyes, roar and tremble, gnash and grind their teeth, riot, bellow, shout, bark, and revel in the whole fury of malice. For nothing is more destructive of the Pelagians' pestilential doctrine, nothing more defensive of the saving doctrine, nothing more humbling to their pride, nothing more crushing2 to all their insolence, than this tower.

Hence here with open assaults, there with hidden ambushes; here by skill, there by fraud; here by boldness, there by deceit, they labor to destroy it. They count that they have achieved nothing unless they have built a rival tower, in which they themselves may preside as supreme and put God under their feet:3 a tower in which they are the first and rule as lords, and God is made subject as a servant; in which their will goes before as mistress, and God's will follows after as a handmaid; in which their will gives orders and commands as queen, and God's will obeys and serves as a slave-girl. These men, then, [first of all] attack in this way: If God acts the free act of the created will prior by nature to the will itself,‖E1 then the will undergoes prior by nature to acting,4 and so does not undergo freely. And if it undergoes unfreely, then since its so undergoing is its acting, or at least its so undergoing is necessarily followed by its acting its free act, it acts its free act unfreely; and this includes a contradiction and destroys the freedom of choice. Likewise, a cause

precedes its effect naturally; but our merits, good or bad, are the cause why God loves us or hates us, why he wills glory or punishment for us, as the whole Catholic faith holds and the whole canonical Scripture attests. These same men, to furnish evidence for their heretical falsehood, strive violently to pervert the [truthful]5 Scripture and the tongues of the Catholic Doctors. "It is written," they say:A1 "Let us anticipate his face in confession," Psalm 94 [95]. "In the morning my prayer will anticipate you," Psalm 87 [88]. "I anticipated in the early hour, and I cried out; my eyes anticipated toward you at daybreak," Psalm 118 [119].6 "Turn to me, says the Lord God of hosts, and I will turn to you,"A2 Zechariah 1. "The Lord is with you because you have been with him," 2 Paralipomenon [2 Chronicles] 15. Many similar texts offer themselves to them in many places. Again, it is written at the end of Mark: "But they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord cooperating"; so the disciples work first, and the Lord cooperates afterward.A3 Hence Damascene in his Sentences, 43,7 says: "It is necessary to know that God antecedently wills all to be saved and to be made blessed in his kingdom. For he did not fashion us in order to punish, but to receive his goodness, since he is good; but sinners he wills to be punished, since he is just. Therefore the first is called antecedent will and acceptance, existing from himself; the second, consequent will and permission, arising from our cause, and this itself twofold: the one dispensing and instructive toward salvation, the other desperative8 toward final punishment. And this concerns the things that are not in us; but of the things that are in us, he wills and accepts antecedently what is good, while what is harmful and truly evilB1 he wills neither antecedently nor consequently." Robert of Lincoln also, in a certain question on the knowledge of God, which asks how God knows what happens by chance or by free will, answers by distinguishing between antecedent and conjoined cause. He says that in the first way God is not the cause of contingent things, but in the second he is, because when they come about he makes them be: for nothing comes about that does not come about by his acting. He likewise, in a certain question on the will of God, which inquires about the will of the sign,9 says that God's good pleasure is the antecedent cause of the good of the universe and of the good of individuals; but of the evil of individuals God's good pleasure is not the antecedent cause but the conjoined cause,

because, though evil exists,‖C1 it is well ordered in the universe. Damascene agrees with him, where he spoke before: "But it is necessary to know that the choice of actions is indeed in us, while the end of good actions belongs to the action of God, who justly cooperates with those who choose the good beforehand with a just conscience, according to his foreknowledge; and the end of evil actions belongs to God's abandonment, again according to the foreknowledge of him who abandons in justice."10 C2 Augustine too, in City of God 13, 15, says that in regard to a man's evil, his own will is prior; but in regard to his good, the prior thing is the will of his Creator, whether to make it when it was nothing, or to restore it when it had fallen and perished. Some things similar to these can also be cited from Chrysostom in his various writings. Hence in the twelfth homily on the Epistle to the Hebrews he writes thus:C3 "We must show caution on every side, lest perhaps we fall asleep. For behold, he says, he who keeps Israel will not slumber nor sleep; and do not give a shaking to your feet.‖C4 He did not say, 'May you not be shaken,' but 'Do not give it, you.' It is in our choice to give, and in no one else's. For if we choose to stand firm and unmoved,

we shall not be shaken. What then, nothing of God's? All things are indeed God's, but not in such a way that free choice is harmed. If all things, then, are God's, he says, why does he blame us? I said this for that reason: so that our free choice not be harmed. It is therefore from our choice; for we must first choose what is good, and then he himself brings in what is from him. He does not go before our wills, lest our choice be harmed; but when we have chosen, he then brings in much assistance. And how then does Paul say, 'Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy'? First, because he did not introduce this according to his own opinion, but as though from what had been set before; he drew this conclusion from what he had put forward earlier. For he said, 'It is written: I will have mercy on whom‖D1 I will have mercy'11 and therefore it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. You say to me, then, what is still in question? Second, however, one must say this: that of whom the greater part is, to him he ascribed the whole. For to choose, and to will, is wholly ours, but God's is to bring about and to bring to perfection. Since therefore the greater part is his, he said that the whole is his,

according to the custom of men: for so we do, for example. We see a well-built house and we say that it is wholly the builder's, and yet the whole work is not his, but also the laborers', and of those who supply the material for the house, and of very many others; nevertheless, because he contributed more, we call the whole work his: so too here. Again, in a multitude, where there are very many, we say they are all; where, however, they are few, none:12 so too Paul said, 'Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.' He affirms here two great things: one, that we not be lifted up into pride; if you hasten, he says, your achievement cannot be yours, for unless help comes from above, all things will be in vain;‖E1 the other, that whatever you have obtained of the things for which you hasten, it is plain that you obtain it by running and willing."

"He did not say this, then, because we run in vain; but what? Because we run in vain if we suppose that the whole is ours, if we do not ascribe the greatest part to God. For God did not wish the whole to be his, lest he seem to crown us without cause; nor again ours, lest we fall into pride. For if, having the smallest part, we think great things of ourselves, what if we were lords of the whole of our work? And below, the Prophet was saying: 'Wash your heart from malice, Jerusalem'; you see that the good also is ours." But the soldier of Christ, girded by God with spiritual weapons powerful for God, will easily destroy the height of this fortification, which exalts itself most proudly against the knowledge of God,13 will reduce it to captivity and to the service of Jesus Christ, will avenge every disobedience of an insolent neck, and will remove, crush, and break all its fleshly weapons. For the first arrow of these men, driven back by the breath of God, wounds the archer; the first of their subtleties is refuted by itself. If, I say, as you try to argue, the created will acts its free act naturally prior to God's willing this, the created will prior14

naturally acts prior to God's willing this, by the corollary of the tenth of the first book. For, as you say, because the will acts, therefore God wills it to act, and not the converse; so its acting is the cause why God wills it to act, and a cause prior by nature. The created will and the divine will are therefore co-causes of that act of the divine will, and the created will is prior by nature; so by the deduction you premised, God causes his own free act unfreely. In the same way you could argue about the Son of God the Father: for according to all the Catholic Doctors the Son, whatever he has, has from the Father, and this according to a certain causality and priority, as the premises of the thirtieth of this teach. In the same way too you could argue about the Sun and its action, that the Sun undergoes prior by nature to acting; and if you grant this, I ask: which undergoing? If you say creation or conservation, so too the created will; nor does that help you. If you say preparation for acting, so too the created will. Let the Sun also be posited as created and most fully prepared for acting, and the created will for willing; nor does that help you, because a will

most fully prepared for acting can fail to act, as is evident from the first and second of this. If you say, motion toward acting: under what species of motion is that motion contained? If it is alteration, what kind of alteration, and in what kind of quality? And that motion and the exterior illumination of the sun are really distinct, and the former can by God's omnipotence exist without the latter. So the other does not necessarily follow from it, as you suppose; and so the same must be thought of the created will. Such a motion also, produced in the created will, is a certain disposition or preparation for willing; but by what has gone before, when the will has been most sufficiently prepared it does not necessarily follow that it wills, and, as the second of this shows, no created thing, nor any secondary cause, can necessitate the created will to its free act. If you say that the Sun undergoes its acting prior to acting, then it receives its acting prior by nature to acting it, and so the Sun's acting is prior by nature to the Sun's acting it. But how can that be, when every efficient cause precedes, at least by nature, its whole effect? If you say that

that first undergoing of the Sun is not its illuminating but some other acting prior to it, this seems to have been refuted above. Besides, the argument already given returns upon that acting: for that acting is the Sun's acting, as you grant; so the Sun receives that acting of its own prior by nature to acting it, and so on, as before. And if you still do not blush to feign that the Sun receives that acting through some other acting, which it undergoes in receiving prior to that one, you will be corrected as before. Besides, either you will make an infinite regress in this way, which nature abhors and the second supposition forbids; or only a finite one, and then you will grant some first acting of the Sun, against which the argument returns. But if you say that that first undergoing of the Sun is a certain conjunction of it, or joining, with its acting, that joining is either some motion or a mere relation. If a motion, it will be removed by what has been said. If a mere relation, then since it really helps toward acting it must be a real relation, and it must be founded on the extremes joined, as equality is founded on equal quantities and likeness on like qualities; but the foundation is

prior by nature to what is founded on it, as cause to effect; so both the Sun and its acting naturally precede this relation, whereas the opposite was being posited. When you argue, therefore, "God acts the act of the created will prior by nature to the will itself; therefore the will undergoes naturally prior to acting," you are mistaken and do not conclude. For the will does not undergo there except by receiving its act or acting, and it is prior by nature that its act or acting be, than that it be received; and further, it is prior by nature that the will produce its act or acting than that it exist, because it takes being through producing. So it is prior by nature that the will act its act than that it receive it and so undergo. And if you reply further that the will's acting is done,15 because it has being not eternally but newly, and if it is done, it is done through some being-done preceding it, so that the will still undergoes naturally prior to acting, you are mistaken, as before. For in this way you could argue that every agent or active thing, even God himself, is passive, and that naturally prior to being active, and always undergoes before it acts. For let there be given

A,16 an outward acting of God, in which God does not undergo, or does not undergo before he acts; then, as before, that God acts A is done, because it has being not eternally but newly; it is done, then, through some being-done preceding it; so God too there undergoes naturally prior to acting. In the same way you could also argue that there is no first outward acting of God: for let A be given as first; then (as before) A is done, because it has being not eternally but newly; it is done, then, through some preceding being-done, and every being-done comes about through some acting prior to it. So some other acting precedes, causally and naturally, that being-done and A the first acting. From these things, then, it is evident that it is not necessary, of any new acting whatever, that it be done through some being-done naturally prior to it; nay, not even through some acting prior to it, but through some agent causally, and therefore naturally, prior to it. When you argue, therefore, "the will's acting is done; therefore through some being-done prior by nature," it does not follow.

For its first acting is acted upon 17 through God and through itself, not through any acting-upon of its own, nor through an acting that precedes it in time or in nature. Yet if someone should wish to say that every created agent undergoes before it acts, naturally speaking, because in acting it is made subject and is made posterior to God who acts, he could say so with much probability, and it would agree with the sayings of many; and speaking in this way of undergoing, the argument does not proceed. What is argued about the causality of merit with respect to love and hatred in God is refuted by the thirty-ninth of the first. That line of the Psalm, "Let us anticipate his face in confession," does not move us. For the Prophet does not say, "Let us anticipate the divine cooperation with us," but "his face in confession": in confession, I say, of praise, praising God (whence is added, "and let us sing joyfully to him in Psalms"), and in confession of wrongdoing, accusing yourself. Therefore it follows: "Come, let us adore and fall down before God, let us weep ‖B1 before the Lord"; and that we may do so, he anticipates us by working: "For confession and magnificence is his work." Nor should that line of the Psalm, "In the morning my prayer shall come before you," move us: for it does not say, "my prayer shall anticipate your cooperation," but "you." It is as if he said: "In the morning I will pray before you, before the face of my God"; and that I may do so, the Holy Spirit does it; for by him the sons of God are led. That passage from Psalm 118 [119] can be understood and expounded in the same way, and the rest, from Zechariah and Chronicles, were expounded in the thirty-fifth of the first. That line of Mark, "the Lord cooperating," etc., does not even have the appearance [of supporting you]. The saying of Damascene does not stand in the way either: for he does not affirm that the choice of operations is ours and God's, and ours before God's, but that we first choose well by operating, before we obtain the final reward. The saying of Lincolniensis, too, if well understood, does not stand in the way: for an antecedent cause, as he speaks there, includes natural necessity. Whence he says: "Antecedence, of which this discourse is made, is the preordination of a future event that is necessary according to the course of nature." But as for what the same Lincolniensis, Damascene and Augustine seem to assert, that in good things the divine will is prior to the human, and in evil things posterior: how does that make for you? For a good act of will and a bad one, as to the substance of the acts, are naturally good,

as is clear through the twenty-fifth of the second and the twenty-sixth of the first; and as to the natural substance of the acts they are also of like nature. If, then, the one is made antecedently by God as to the substance of the act, so is the other. Moreover, if (as you suppose) it is not fitting for God to will or do evil antecedently, how is it fitting that he be dragged by the Devil, by any sinner whatever and any harlot, to consent to all their evil deeds, and to will and do all those things consequently? For how is it fitting that the divine will be placed beneath the very worst of men, like an adulteress, and be violently oppressed by anyone? And how does God have a novel will following a created evil will? Or how is the divine will caused by the human will and follow from it, against the twentieth and the twenty-third of the first book? Nevertheless, for the understanding of the Fathers, it must be known that, as the thirty-fourth and thirty-ninth of the first attest, God wills himself first; second, he wills in a certain way other goods outside himself; third, he wills evils, in so far as certain goods arise from evils, his providence disposing all things sweetly. And so God wills the good in a certain way before, and antecedently, but the evil afterward and consequently, because finally for the sake of the good. It must be known besides that God wills and makes the good merits of the will through grace naturally preceding, as the fortieth and forty-first of the first taught; but he does not do so with evil ones. Hence it can be said that God wills good things antecedently, but evil things by no means.

When Augustine says that to man's evil his own will is prior to God's, he understands, as I think, that to man's penal evil his sinning will is prior to God's punishing will. For he says: "If, in what was said, 'You shall die the death,' since it was not said 'by deaths,' we understand only that death which occurs when the soul is deserted by its life, which for it is God: for it was not deserted so that it might desert, but it deserted so that it might be deserted. For to its evil its own will is prior; but to its good the will of its Creator is prior, whether to make it, which was nothing, or to restore it, which had perished by its fall. ‖E1 Even if, then, we understand this to be the death that God announced, in saying 'On the day you eat of it you shall die the death,' as if he said, 'On the day you desert me by disobedience, I shall desert you by justice,' surely in that death the other two also were announced, which without doubt were to follow." 18 As for what Damascene says, that God wills evils neither antecedently nor consequently, taken according to the surface of the letter, it can be refuted by the thirty-fourth of the first; it can also be understood and expounded through what was shown there. And what wonder if Damascene should deny God's pre-efficiency in the act of free choice, when he denies his co-efficiency, as appears in the thirty-eighth of this book? 19 The saying of Chrysostom, too, if understood to the letter, seems to need correcting in many places, as the eighth of this book, the twentieth and its corollary, and the thirtieth of this book prove.

Corollary

A notable corollary: that sacred Theology requires a pious and prudent Reader.

From these and other premises it is evidently known that sacred Theology requires a Reader at once pious and prudent. He must not, perhaps, suspect something false in sacred Scripture, like the Manichaeans; nor, while he truthfully confesses all of it to be true, assent to the falsehood of the Pelagians. He must not, by defending Catholic Doctors, favor heretics, nor, by pursuing heretical authors, accuse Catholics. He must not, because he embraces what someone has rightly said, follow his error as well; nor, because he reproves someone's error, despise even what he has rightly said. For who, having read the chapters of this second book and the first that precede it (nay, having read the books of canonical Scripture and of the Doctors), would not easily see how many and how great are the passages, in these and in those, that seem superficially to agree with the Pelagian heresy? Such passages of sacred Scripture often offer themselves in abundance, and some of them are recited in the preceding chapters. Pelagius fortified himself with them, and Augustine too once agreed with him in part, as is clear from the thirty-fifth and forty-fifth of the first. At other times Augustine appeared to agree to such an extent that Pelagius and the Pelagians sometimes fought against him with his own words, as is clear from Retractations 1, 9 and 15, from On Nature and Grace 67, and from Lombard's Sentences 2, dist. 28. And we find only too regularly that many adduce sayings of Augustine and of other Doctors to strengthen the Pelagian wickedness, as is also clear from the chapters mentioned. Chrysostom, too, seems to agree with this Pelagius. C1 For in the forty-seventh homily on John, expounding that passage of John 6, "No one can come to me unless it has been given him

by my Father," he says: "But when you hear, 'Because he gave,' do not simply reckon it a destining, but believe this: that whoever presents himself as worthy to receive, he has received." The same Chrysostom, on that passage of Matthew 7, "Ask and it shall be given to you," etc., in the eighteenth homily, in the Unfinished 20, says: "'Ask,' he says, etc. 'Seek,' etc. 'Knock, and it will be opened to you,' with grace accompanying you; and we do not acquire grace unless we have striven and labored, lest the gift of God be given to the negligent. For grace is a help to human weakness; but help is not given to those who are sleeping, but to those who hasten and prevail." And below, in the twenty-third homily on that passage of Matthew 19, "Not all take this word, but those to whom it has been given," he says: "He did not say, 'Not all are able,' but 'Not all take it,' that is, all indeed are able to take it, yet not all are willing to take it, but those to whom it has been given. He does not signify by this that it is given to some and not to others, but he shows that unless we have received the help of grace, we can do nothing of ourselves. And since grace is not denied to those who are willing, the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you: for everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks it will be opened.' But the will ought to go first, and so grace follows; for neither does grace work anything without the will, nor can the will without grace." On that passage too of Matthew 13, "To you it has been given to know," etc., "but to them it has not been given," as the gloss of Thomas recites 21, he says: "He said this not to impose necessity or fate, but to show that those to whom it has not been given are themselves the cause to themselves of all their evils, wishing to show that to know the divine mysteries is a gift of God and a grace given from above, and yet that free choice is not destroyed on this account. And this is clear from what follows. For so that neither those may despair, nor these grow sluggish on hearing that it has been given to them, he shows that the beginning of these things is from us, when he adds:

'For whoever has, it will be given to him and he will abound; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.' It is as if he said: when someone has had desire and zeal, all things that are from God will be given to him; but when he is empty of these and does not bring what pertains to himself, neither are the things that are from God given to him." He seems to profess the same opinion in his complete exposition on Matthew, in various places in his exposition on the epistle to the Hebrews, and in many other short works. A1 Damascene too, in the thirty-ninth of the Sentences 22, seems to agree with Pelagius, trying to show that free choice can produce its act without God, as appears in the twenty-eighth of this book. He also says below, in the forty-fourth: "It must be known that the choice of operations is indeed in us; but the end of good ones is the operation of God justly cooperating with those who choose the good, in a just conscience, according to his foreknowledge; but of evil ones, the abandonment by God, again according to the foreknowledge of his justice abandoning." And below in the same: "It must be known that God antecedently wills all to be saved: for he did not fashion us in order to punish, but that we might perceive his goodness, as being good; but sinners he wills to be punished, as being just." Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, in On Free Choice, in his questions on the will of God, and in his other works, seems likewise to favor the Pelagians, saying that God does not make the free act of the will, or does not make it antecedently, and that the will of itself can consent or dissent to God when he offers grace or rouses to any good whatever. The great Cassian likewise, in his book B1 On the Protection of God (the thirteenth conference of the Fathers, or the third of the seven conferences of three Fathers written to Honoratus and Eucherius, which is ascribed to a certain Chaeremon 23) is evidently seen by those who read it, B2 to have raved with Pelagius, as holy Prosper also shows brilliantly in his book entitled On Behalf of the Preachers of God's Grace, against the Book of Cassian the Priest, On the Protection of God, as is also recited in the thirty-seventh of the first, and somewhat afterwards. Moreover, among scholastics the authority of this holy Prosper is well established.

Of him it is also written in the canon, dist. 15, last chapter, where the authentic writings of the Doctors are recited, in this way: C1 "Likewise the short works of blessed Prosper, a religious man." Of him Martin also says in the Chronicles, treating of the emperor Leo the First, that Prosper, an Aquitanian by nation, flourished in these times, who was made a bishop in the kingdom of Italy and became famous for his teaching and his miracles. Of him Cassiodorus also writes thus in a certain work to the brothers of his monastery: C2 "Read diligently, and hear gladly, Cassian the priest, who wrote On the Institution of the Faithful Monks, who at the very beginning ‖C3 of a sound resolve says that eight principal vices are to be fled." And a little after: "Who nevertheless was justly blamed by blessed Prosper concerning free choice. Therefore we warn you to read him with caution when he goes beyond bounds in such matters. His sayings Victor Maritanus, bishop 24, so purged, with the Lord's help, and added what was lacking, that the palm in these matters is deservedly conferred on him." C4 Gennadius of Marseilles, dissenting from these men, and, as it seems, agreeing with the Pelagians, in On Illustrious Men 84, treating of Prosper, says, "Read the book composed in his name against the works of Cassian, which the Church of God approves as salutary; he brands them as harmful" 25. For in truth the opinions of Cassian and of Prosper on the grace of God and on free choice are found in some points contrary to each other. D1 The Abbot Joachim also, though a man outstanding in the divine Scriptures, was infected with this plague of Pelagius, as is clear from the last of the first. Many other great Doctors besides seem frequently to agree with Pelagius in many things. Nay, almost the whole world, as I fear and grieve, goes after him and favors his errors, while nearly all commonly reckon that by the powers of free choice alone they can turn away from evil, do good, keep the commandments, merit grace, persevere to the end, and make themselves predestined and of the number of those to be saved; or if a few suppose that they need God's help and his special co-efficiency, they set themselves and their free choice, most arrogantly, above God and the divine free choice. Who, then, walks straight and safe between Scylla and Charybdis, between the whirlpool and the storm, between right and left, unless the pious and prudent Reader, not leaning on his own prudence, but on him who is at once guide,

way and end? For he is unbending truth, who, by the witness of the Wise Man, is the guide of wisdom and the corrector of the wise. And what Catholic does not know that sacred Scripture, which the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ought not, and cannot, be emended by man in any part of it? And what Theologian does not know that other writings, by whatever writers, are not always fortified with so great firmness, but can sometimes be emended by men? A real contradiction among those writers themselves evidently demonstrates this. For who after the canonical writers are greater than Origen, Jerome, Cyprian, and the most illustrious Augustine? Of these the later ones rightly reprehend the first. For he erred *E1 most gravely, as no Theologian is unaware, and blessed Jerome emended some of his works.

The same Jerome also sometimes reprehends himself for a fault of translation. Whence, expounding on Isaiah, book five, that passage of chapter 19, "Egypt shall have no work which may make head or tail, bending and restraining itself," he says: "In that we translated 'bending and restraining,' we can say 'crooked and wanton,' so that we may understand an old man and a boy: but as for the Hebrew word, Acmon, while we quickly turned what was written, deceived by its ambiguity, we said 'restraining.'" And below in the same book and chapter, on that passage, "And the land shall be for Egypt a festival," he says: "I think it better to reprehend my own error than, while I blush to confess ignorance, to persist in what I translated, 'And the land shall be a festival for Egypt.' For 'festival,' in the Hebrew we read Agga, which is usually ‖A1 interpreted 'festivity'; whence Haggai too is turned 'festive,' and 'fear.' Aquila translated this more significantly into a Greek word, signifying when someone fearful and timid carries his eyes about, and dreads the enemy who is approaching. Therefore I judge that it is turned into 'fear' instead of 'festival,' which also agrees better with the course of the prophecy." The same Jerome, on the matter

of bigamy, in writing to ‖B1 Oceanus, and on Paul's epistle to Timothy (as is recited in the canon, dist. 26, "one," and below, 28, the last question, Oportet), asserted that he who had one wife before baptism and another after baptism is not made a bigamist, since in one wholly renewed by baptism all old things are put away. Ambrose, Augustine, and Innocent reprehend him for this error, as is contained in the canon in the same places, and the Church follows them. Who among Theologians, moreover, is unaware of the very great contradiction and contention between Jerome and Augustine, which their letters plainly show? In one of these (namely, the twentieth of Jerome's letters) Jerome says that he judges certain things in a certain letter of Augustine directed to him to be heretical. They also contradict each other on the translations of the Bible, on the titles of the Psalms, on their authors, on Melchizedek, and in many other matters. Blessed Cyprian too, a Catholic Doctor and an outstanding B2 Martyr, teaching that baptism conferred by heretics is not valid, is corrected by blessed Augustine in On the One Baptism, as is also recited in Sentences 4 … 27

…of Peter, dist. 6, is rebuked. C1 Augustine too, the foremost Doctor, rebuked himself repeatedly, and for this reason composed a book of retractations on his own writings. After that book, in his work On the Predestination of the Saints, he also retracts certain of his sayings, as is plain from the thirty-fifth and forty-fifth of the first. C2 So too the venerable Bede wrote a book of retractations; so too blessed Hilary is said to have written a book of retractations, C3 in which he is reported, and with good reason, to have retracted what Peter, in Sentences 3, dist. 15, recites from his book on the Trinity: that Christ felt no pain of the passion, indeed that he did not even have a nature sensitive to pain. Blessed Jerome also corrects and retracts some things he had done,28 C4 as what has gone before makes evident. If, then, so many and such great Doctors and Scribes have at times raved in their writing, why is it not permitted at times to suspect the same of others, especially since at times they contradict these great Doctors, and at times, indeed, one another? Why then is it not permitted to examine their sayings also in doubtful and suspect places, and especially where they contradict one another, and, with all humility, reverence and sobriety, to emend them if need be, or rather to declare humbly that they have been emended by better Fathers?

Hence also the most holy and most learned Augustine, D1 in On Nature and Grace 61, recounts that the adversary against whom he writes had adduced on his own behalf many testimonies, not from the canonical Scriptures but from certain little works of Catholic commentators, and then adds: "As for the first things he set down: I do not find there the name of the one who said them,29 either because he did not write them, or because the codex that you sent, if by some chance corruption it did not have it, what need is there to go into the matter at length? Especially since I know that in the writings of any men whatever I am free, because only to the canonical ones do I owe consent without any refusal." D2 He also says, in the letter to Paulina on seeing God, 4: "If anything is confirmed by the clear authority of the divine Scriptures, of those, that is, which are called canonical in the Church, it is to be believed without any doubt; but as to other witnesses or testimonies by which you are urged to believe something, you may believe them or not, according as you weigh how much force they have, or lack, for producing faith. And below, 29: "Having carefully and confidently examined what you see here," he says, "attend to what you believe, and in those very things to which, unseen, you give your faith, weigh the very weight of the witnesses by discerning. For you do not believe me as you believe Ambrose, from whose books I set down those great testimonies; or if you think we are to be believed on equal scales, will you in any way compare us to the Gospel? Will you equate our writings with the Canonical Scriptures? Surely, if you judge rightly, you see that we stand far below that authority, and I by far the farthest; but whichever of the two of us you believe, as much as you like, you in no way compare either to that excellence."

He also says, in epistle 7 to Marcellinus: "Your letter contains a question E1 not from the divine ‖E2 books, but from mine. But in such questions I do not labor much; for even if my opinion cannot be defended by clear reasoning, it is mine, not that of an author whose meaning it is not permissible to disapprove; and when that meaning has not been understood, what is drawn from it is what deserves disapproval. Accordingly I confess that I try to be of the number of those who write by making progress and make progress by writing. Hence, if anything has been set down by me either rather incautiously or rather unlearnedly, it is deservedly reprehended not only by others who are able to see it, but also by myself, since I too, at least afterwards, if I am making progress, ought to see it; and this is neither to be wondered at nor grieved over, but rather pardoned and congratulated, not because an error was made, but because it was disapproved. For he loves himself most perversely who wishes others also to err so that his own error may lie hidden. How much better and more useful it is that, where he himself has erred, others should not err, through whose warning he may be rid of error! But if it is his wish to persist,30 let him at least have no companions in error. For if God grants me what I desire, that I may gather and demonstrate, in some work undertaken for this very purpose, whatever in all my books most justly displeases me, then men will see how far I am from being a respecter of my own person. But you who love me much, if you take up such a stand against those by whose malice, or inexperience, or understanding I am reprehended, as to say that I have nowhere in my writings erred, you labor in vain; you have undertaken a poor cause. You are easily overcome in it, with myself as judge, since it does not please me when I am thought by my dearest friends to be such as I am not."

And below, speaking to certain friends who were urging him to finish the books on Genesis and on the Trinity in haste, so that he himself, surviving, might defend them, already written, against all comers, he says: "You say this, of course, because you think there is nothing in them that can be rightly blamed; otherwise you would not urge me to their publication, but rather to more diligent emendation. But I look rather to true judges, severe through truth, among whom I wish first of all to place even myself, so that only those things may come before them for reprehension which could not be seen by me, however diligently I scrutinized." And below: "If a reason is offered against the authority of the divine Scriptures, however acute it may be, it deceives by a likeness to truth; for it cannot be true. Again, if the authority of the Holy Scriptures is set against a most manifest and certain reason, he who does this does not understand; he sets against the truth not the sense of those Scriptures, which he was unable to penetrate, but rather his own, and opposes to it not what he found in them but what he found in himself, as if on their behalf. That authority I follow the more safely for this very reason, venerate the more devoutly, and embrace the more firmly; for I know that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble, and understanding to the little ones."

The same, to Jerome, epistle 9 in Augustine's collection of letters: "I confess to your charity that I have learned to render this fear and honor only to those books of the Scriptures which are now called Canonical, so that I most firmly believe that no author of them erred in writing anything. If I come upon anything in them in the text that seems contrary to the truth, I do not doubt that it is nothing other than that either the codex is faulty, or the translator did not attain what was said, or I have not understood it at all. Other writers, however, I read in such a way that, however much they excel in holiness and learning, I do not think a thing true because they thought so, but because they were able to persuade me, either through those canonical authors or by probable reason, that it does not depart from the truth. Nor do I think, my brother, that you think otherwise. Indeed, I say, I do not suppose you wish your books to be read as those of the Prophets or Apostles, of whose writings it is wicked to doubt that they are free of all error; far be this from pious and truthful ‖D1 humility."

I have said this so that I may not seem to be of lofty mind, to act wrongly, and to reprehend the Fathers less than justly. For whoever he may be, Father, or brother, even an Angel from Heaven, who shall have said, written, held, or taught the Pelagian heresy, I will reprehend him fearlessly. For I am most certain, and do not hesitate in the least, that the Old Testament and the New, Christ, Paul, Augustine, Gregory, and the other Doctors, the holy Church of God in so many Synods and Councils, so many popes and saints, and so many and such powerful arguments, did not err in the destruction of this heresy, were not blind, nor led the blind into the pit. Moreover I boldly pronounce of Holy Scripture that no part of it really contradicts another or consents to the Pelagian heresy; and if any part seems superficially to do so, this surely happens from a defect of the less healthy eye. For that reason the eye must be purged, so that it may be able to see sincerely the true mind of Scripture according to the expositions of the Saints, or another to be breathed into it by God. That Augustine at times agreed with the Pelagians cannot be denied in part; and for that reason, rebuking himself, he repented. If there are other places in his books than those expressly retracted, in which he agreed with Pelagius not merely apparently but truly, those he retracted in general terms and in the like case, as can be gathered from the forty-fifth of the first. If, then, Augustine, the most learned of Doctors, a subtle penetrator, a most acute disputant, and a most vigorous assailant of the Pelagians, was at times deceived by their error, what wonder if Chrysostom was, and others lesser?

And indeed it seems to me that Chrysostom as it were contradicts Augustine, withdraws a little from him, comes too near to the Pelagians, and in his expositions does not walk rightly in all things toward the truth of the Gospel. For the Savior, commending the gratuitous grace of God, says: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him," and "unless it has been given him by my Father." But if, as Chrysostom says, he who presents himself as worthy to receive, receives, then rather he who makes himself worthy draws the Father and Christ to himself by this than the reverse; and rather such a man, by his dignification, as if by worthy merit, buys at a condign price from the Father that he may come to Christ, than the Father gives it to him. It would therefore be better said: "No one can come to me unless by his preceding merit he has drawn God the Father, and unless he first merits that this be sold or rendered to him by the Father." In this exposition he also seems to contradict Augustine, in the first part, on John, homily twenty-six, who, expounding that most true saying of the Word, speaks thus: "A great commendation of grace: no one comes unless drawn. Whom he draws and whom he does not draw, why he draws this one and does not draw that one, do not wish to judge, if you do not wish to err." Yet according to Chrysostom there would be some cause, namely a difference of merits.

B1 Also, what Chrysostom says, that a man makes himself worthy of coming to Christ, could perhaps be corrected by what was set out in the thirty-ninth of the first: for there no worthiness precedes the divine will. Augustine also, in On the Predestination of the Saints, the twelfth chapter, B2 treats what he said in his little book against Porphyry, that the salvation, that is, of the Christian religion, has never been lacking to anyone who was worthy; "if it is examined," he says, "and the question asked whence anyone is worthy, there are those who say, by human will; but we say, by grace or divine predestination." That Chrysostom ‖B3 also says the will ought to precede grace seems highly suspect and close to the Pelagian error; indeed not close, but the same, as the chapters of the first book on grace make plain. Does he not also, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews cited above, seem to affirm that not to let one's feet be shaken,31 to overcome any temptations whatever, to stand firmly and to persevere finally, lie in man's free choice alone, and in nothing else? That is against the fourth, the eighth, and the other chapters of this second book, and against Authors greater than those recorded in those chapters. What he also says, that God by no means precedes our wills, but the reverse, even in their good acts, the thirtieth of this book condemns, strengthened by greater authorities and by strong reasons. The reason, moreover, that he adduces for himself, "that our free choice may not be harmed," is plainly quite irrational. For what kind of harm is it to a created free choice to serve, to be subject to, and to follow the Creator, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Far be it that anyone, with the ‖C2 Nemphrotites,32 should think it a grievous servitude to obey God Most High! Indeed, to serve Him is without doubt to reign, the best liberty and perfect salvation; and the wish to depart from subjection to Him is proved to be the worst servitude.

O Catholic Father, either you posit that the human will alone suffices to produce its acts, or that the divine co-efficiency is necessarily required. If the first, you separate yourself and stray from the truth of Catholic doctrine, along with Nemphrot and Pelagius, the twentieth of this book bearing witness. If the second, why, sober doctor, if in the common act of the human and divine will one of the two free choices must necessarily, by your judgment, be harmed, why, I say, would not the divine free choice be harmed more than the human, when you set the human first and the divine after? When you make the human will a mistress who goes before, and the divine will an attendant following behind? When you make the human will free, and exempt it even from God's servitude, and make the divine will a maidservant and slave, and subject it even to the servitude of man? Here too, Father, you seem to agree with Pelagius, the thirtieth of this book bearing witness. How too do you say that the Apostle did not bring it in as his own opinion, "not of him who wills, nor of him who runs," etc.,33 when he concludes this truthfully and not deceptively from canonical Scripture? The whole of that discourse, and many other letters of his, clearly show this; so do many great Catholic Doctors, who expound and often cite that Apostolic saying. Your second response also, and your exposition of that previously mentioned ‖D1 Apostolic saying, seems plainly contrary to the same Apostle, to Christ, and to many other disciples of Christ, and moreover to our doctors, and to agree with Pelagius, as the twentieth of this book and its corollary, with the following chapters, clearly teach. In that reasoning likewise, which you hint at in what follows, the Prophet said: "Wash your heart from malice";34 therefore the good is ours. If you mean ours alone, that is, that the sinner alone could wash himself from sin without God specially washing him, as you seem to think, you are shamefully mistaken, just as Damascene too was shamefully mistaken in a similar subtlety, as the twenty-eighth of this book shows. Does not the Prophet also say elsewhere to God, "Wash me still more, O God, from my injustice"?35 That sentence too seems to agree with the senseless opinion of Pelagius, as the forty-third of the first discloses.

I know, however, that I could devise glosses for him; but in truth I have neither the knowledge nor the conscience to gloss him in these matters. Therefore, as I said above, theological studies require a pious and prudent reader; and whoever, more pious and prudent, shall have known how to gloss him truthfully in such matters without reconciling Pelagius, it pleases me; I rejoice with him; I acquiesce. Far be it that I should not more gladly always learn from anyone the true mind of any irreprehensible doctor than reprehend him from ignorance, by not understanding him. But let such glossators of his sayings beware, I pray, lest, when the Pelagians have been banished from the Church of Christ, they open to them a way of return, and prepare a catholic gloss for their heretical sayings. For if there should be found such a glossator, more pious and prudent than Augustine, Gregory, Bede, Prosper, than very many holy Popes and lesser Bishops, than Synods and Councils, and the whole holy Church of God, none of whom glossed the like sayings of Pelagius and the Pelagians but condemned them outright, as many chapters of the first and second books teach, and very many authentic books and histories attest, it is a thing to wonder at beyond measure who would dare to profess himself such a one, and so great. For if these holy Fathers knew how to give such sayings a catholic gloss, and refused, but condemned them as heretical, it was the worst impiety; if they wished to and did not know how, the greatest ignorance, when you alone, and easily, know it. The same seems to be said of Damascene and the other Fathers mentioned above, although some of them, in some of their sayings, could be glossed with greater plausibility.

Robert, Bishop of Lincoln,36 wrote much on divine knowledge and will, and on free choice. On free choice indeed he wrote twice. First, a little book that begins: "Because concerning the being of a thing there can be doubt"; in it he proceeds more disputatively and inquisitively than determinatively or definitively. Hence also at the end he says: "Whether the motion of free choice comes to it from itself or not, I do not determine, but leave it to be investigated by those who see clearly." And below, after the question has been raised and disputed whether the motion of free choice by which it is moved toward evil is from God, he adds: "This too I do not determine." And below: after the question has been raised and disputed whether free choice can will a gratuitous good, and consent to the addition of first grace from itself, or not, but from God first willing and acting upon it, and how then there would not be necessity there, he does not determine, as he says; which questions, together with many others touched upon there, he says he leaves to posterity to determine. Second, he wrote another little book on free choice, which begins in this way: "Since by the freedom of choice man is more worthy than the other animals"; in it he proceeds more determinatively. For this reason I never cite the first of these, but at times the second.

And if anyone objects that it seems unworthy for one so small to reprehend such great Fathers, the answer must be given firmly that it is, for certain, more unworthy, by favoring such great errors, to consent to the heretics, and to allow to be reprehended the irreprehensible Father, our Father, the author of our faith, the irreprehensible spouse of Christ, not having spot or wrinkle, our irreprehensible mother, and our greater Doctors. For what Christian does not know that the Catholic doctrine of Christ is to be preferred to every contrary doctrine? And who does not know that, if Doctors disagree, the more authentic is to be preferred in such a matter? And who in this matter, after the authors of Sacred Scripture, is more authentic than Augustine? Even if I, a mere little one, ought not to reprehend such great Fathers, great is the Truth, which does not fear to reprehend anyone reprehensible without respect of persons. Nor do I reprehend them simply; but, if they follow the error of Pelagius, I show that they have been reprehended by greater Fathers. Yet neither do I, as yet, reprehend them simply, or show them reprehended; I say that I do not as yet have the knowledge or the conscience to uphold their sayings in all points. For if I admit the surface of the letter, I seem to agree with the Pelagians; if I try to gloss the letter, I fear that, if I gloss according to the mind of the speakers, I may still favor Pelagius; but if against or apart from the mind of the speakers, I shall be a liar against my own mind. Nor do I know how to gloss such sayings truthfully before God, unless in my judgment I consent that by a similar gloss the Pelagians be reconciled, and the Fathers who had condemned them be condemned, or at least the verdict of those Fathers be annulled. This I therefore leave to the prudence of my betters, and if they should teach that such sayings are to be upheld in a catholic sense, I shall most devoutly acquiesce.

Yet it could probably be said that Chrysostom does not wish to assert that anyone can begin, continue, complete, or universally do anything good without the aid of grace; and so he seems consequently to wish to assert E1 that no one can merit first grace. Hence, on that text of Matthew 7, "Ask, and it will be given to you," etc., in the Unfinished Work,37 homily 18, where he was cited above, he speaks thus: "The Lord, knowing that whatever he had commanded was impossible for men, E2 and, as regards human nature, above nature, and that the commandments were greater than human strength, sends them to God, to whose grace nothing is impossible, saying, 'Ask, and it will be given to you,' so that what cannot be completed by men may be fulfilled by the grace of God."

"God created every sensible creature armed and protected: for some he fortified with a swift running of the feet, some he armed with claws, some with swift wings, some with teeth, some with horns; but man alone he so disposed that his strength should be Himself; and in that he made him weaker than all in himself, he wished him to be stronger in Himself.38 For God, knowing that to know and to worship God is eternal life, and to be ignorant of and despise Him is everlasting perdition, neither created man so weak that he could do no good at all, lest he whom he had set over all things and for whose sake he had made all things should be found worse than all; nor created him so powerful that even without God's help he could do of himself what he wishes, so that, compelled by the necessity of his weakness, he might always have his Lord as necessary. And it is truly a most just thing that a creature should of necessity have its maker. For if all man's strength is in God, and yet he despises the Author of all his goods, how much more would he neglect God if his power were in himself?" A1 He also, below, treating that text of Matthew 21 on the tied ass and its untying, speaks thus: "On account of certain likenesses men were likened to ‖A2 asses, not knowing the Son of God. For this animal is unclean, and, beyond almost all other beasts of burden, more irrational, and foolish, and weak, and ignoble, and burden-bearing: so were men before the coming of Christ. But the ass was tied, that is, hindered by the bond of diabolical error, so that she had not the freedom to go where she wished. For before we sin we have free choice to follow the will of the Devil or not; but if once, sinning, we have bound ourselves to his works, we can no longer escape by our own strength, but, like a ship with a broken rudder, we are led where the storm wills. So also man, having lost the aid of divine grace through sin, does not do what he wills, but what the Devil wills; and unless God with the strong hand of His mercy has loosed him, he will remain until death in the bonds of his sins."

What he seems to say, then, that a man at times merits grace, and that the human will precedes grace, can perhaps be expounded of an increase of grace, or of second grace, not first, or even of any gift of God that man earns through grace. For below, in the same homily, he says: "It is written, Desire wisdom, B1 keep justice, and God will provide it to you.39 But what do you say? 'This very thing I ask, that I may know and do; and how can I do before I receive?' Even what you can do, do, that you may be able to do more; and what you know, keep, that you may know more: for justice itself works itself out and manifests itself. How? While you work justice in yourself, justice works you in itself;40 for every art works itself. Suppose you work a vineyard, you gather its fruits, and, delighted in them, you work the better. You see that it cultivates itself, bearing fruit for you while it is cultivated. So, in the opposite case, he who carries out the work of sin: sin itself, since it is an unclean spirit, works in him a delight in sinning, so that while he delights in sin he sins the more. So too he who works justice: since justice itself is the Holy Spirit, it works in him41 a delight in doing justice, so that, delighted in justice, he does more. Such is what Wisdom says: 'Keep your thought on the precepts of God, and meditate always on his commandments, and he himself will strengthen your heart, and will give you the desire of wisdom.'42 You see that justice itself works itself, with you only beginning and laboring; but it opens itself while it is cultivated. For so he who sins, while he sins, his mind grows more and more dark, and withdraws from the light of truth, so that no saving knowledge remains in him but malice alone, of which Solomon says, 'The wisdom of the wicked is wickedness.' So too he who works justice, while he works, his mind grows more and more bright, and ascends to the knowledge of greater wisdom, and justice itself offers itself, like a mirror, before the eyes of his heart."

By "grace" he also at times understands some gift of God, pleasing and acceptable, which we merit by laboring, such as knowledge, wisdom. So too immediately before that saying, in the same homily cited above, expounding the word "Ask, and it will be given to you," he says: "God has so disposed us D1 that neither, studying and laboring over the Scriptures, shall we acquire the saving benefit of knowledge without the grace of God, lest we credit ourselves with what we know; nor yet shall we acquire grace unless we have studied and labored over the Scriptures, lest the gift of God be given to the negligent." In this too, where he hints that man's labor and will precede grace, he perhaps understands a preparation, which at times precedes the infusion of grace, as the thirty-seventh and the forty-third of the first make mention. Yet he does not say that man makes this preparation alone, without God, or antecedently to God, nor that it is in any way meritorious of grace freely given. And although in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews he seems to wish to deny that God properly acts the act of the human will, it appears nevertheless that he thinks so elsewhere. Hence, on that text of Matthew 27,43 607E·1 "If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord has need of them, and he will send them at once," he says: "Do not think what was done a small thing. For who persuaded the owners of the beasts not to wish to contradict, or, unwilling, to be silent and to consent? And in this he instructs the disciples, since he could also have restrained the Jews, but did not wish to." Or perhaps he understands that God does not so act, or pre-act,44 the act of the human will as to compel it against its will, or violently to necessitate it to act.

Hence, on that text of Matthew 16, "If anyone wishes to come after me," etc., he writes thus: "See that he does not make his discourse coercive. For he did not say, 'If you wish, and if you do not wish, you must suffer this'; but, 'If anyone wishes,' etc. By saying this he attracted more: for he who releases his hearer to freedom attracts more; but he who brings violence often hinders." A1 He also, on the same word of Christ, Luke 9, speaks thus: "Since the Savior is kind and benign, he wishes to have no servant unwilling or compelled, but willing ones, who give thanks to him for their service; and therefore, not by compelling anyone, or imposing necessity, but by persuading and doing good, he draws all who are willing, saying, 'If anyone wishes.'" From this it appears that he posits that God pre-acts the act of the human will. Why else would he say that the Savior wishes to have willing servants who give him thanks for their service? For why would they give thanks to the Savior,45 unless for the benefit of service first given and first received from him? Otherwise it would seem that the Savior were rather bound to render thanks to the servants, in that they gratuitously anticipate him by the compliance of their own service. And would not anyone who thought otherwise pervert the words of Christ, and be not a disciple of Christ but his master, as the course of the Gospels shows? For Christ says, "If anyone wishes to come after me"; he does not say, "If anyone wishes to go before me, or to precede me"; and he says, "and let him follow me," not, "and let him go ahead of me." And again: "He who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."

Though Chrysostom, then, perhaps strayed at times, he seems afterward to have corrected himself, and to have retracted what he had said erroneously. B1 Hence blessed Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, in a certain letter to John, Bishop of Antioch, which is recited in the canon, dist. 50, "Iohannes,"46 writes thus: "John Chrysostom was judged against47 by two Synods of orthodox bishops, but was restored again." It is not expressly stated there, however, that he was judged against on the ground of heresy or error in his teaching, in his writings or sayings; yet immediately before, it is premised in this way: "Peter denied Christ, and yet was afterward made prince of the Apostles; Paul stoned Stephen, and yet was chosen by the Lord as an Apostle; and many, returning from heresy to the unity of the Catholic faith, were received in their orders, others even promoted to the episcopal rank, such as Augustine and very many others." Likewise from the letter of Cyril to John of Antioch, "John Chrysostom," etc., as above. Isidore, however, Bishop of Seville, C1 in On Illustrious Men 6, after a great commendation of this John, adds: "In the thirteenth year of his episcopate he was overwhelmed by the discord of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria. For bishops favoring the Emperor Arcadius condemned him, innocent, and, deposed from the episcopate, thrust him into exile in Pontus." I do not know, however, whether that condemnation was one of the judgments of the aforesaid synods, or another, separate one; yet a strong presumption seems to be owed to the twofold synodal judgment of many orthodox bishops. Theophilus also, Bishop of the city of Alexandria, as Gennadius, Presbyter of Marseilles, attests in On Illustrious Men 33, was a Catholic Doctor, a vigorous assailant of heretics, and praiseworthy and distinguished for the sanctity of his life.

C2 John Damascene also seems to have erred not a little in his life; why then could he not have erred likewise in doctrine? For in the little book On the Philocosmi and the Philanthei48 it is related of him that in Damascus, among the Hagarenes, who are commonly called Saracens, he opportunely learned their letters; that because of it (it made for gentle and sweet conversation with everyone) he became known to the King, and was honored by him with the greatest honor, and went with him, as a favorite, to the pit or sepulchre of Mahomet himself. But he was compelled there by the King to worship, to venerate that body himself, to bow to a stone, and to preach Mahomet; and, preaching Mahomet, he said obscurely, "These say, and with a loud voice, that Mahomet is the Apostle of God." When they returned to Damascus, however, he was magnificently honored by the King and his magnates, as one preaching, and altogether defiled.49 If, however, in doing this he contracted any profane pollution, it seems abolished and purged in the false accusation of him that followed, of a most wicked crime against the King, and in the cutting off of the thumb of his right hand. This he carried with him, and before the image of the most merciful Virgin which he had with him, on bended knees, praying devoutly with tears and the deepest groaning for three days,

...he obtained that it be perfectly restored. After the aforesaid King had died, he became a monk, and in his book, which is called the Pinax, or On the Hundred Heresies, he refuted and disproved in the hundredth place the heresy of the Agarenes, who are also the Ishmaelites. Yet perhaps Damascene too can be explained in ways similar to those by which Chrysostom is explained, and also by what was set out in advance in the twenty-eighth of this; so too can similar Catholic doctors who have said similar things. For we ought reasonably to interpret the sayings of Catholics ‖E1 in the kindest sense we can; but those of heretics, in perfect detestation of them, to judge according to their heresy. For the meaning of a saying is weighed by the intention and cause of the saying. Nor can I reasonably be charged with accusing Chrysostom, Damascene and other saints of the gravest crime, namely heretical depravity, since

even if they have stated a heresy, they would not at once be held to be heretics. For whoever has stated a heresy out of simplicity and ignorance, not intending to defend it obstinately but ready to stand by the judgment of the Church and of his superiors, is not at once to be held a heretic. Heaven forbid! For then far too many great Catholic Doctors would be heretics. Heaven forbid, heaven forbid! Rather such a man belongs to the number of those who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. To any of them it can be said, "If you think anything otherwise, God will reveal this also to you." He is therefore to be reproved and gently instructed. A1 For Papias says:50 "Those are called heretics who think wrongly about the Lord or about a creature, or about Christ or the Church, and who then defend with obstinate perversity the perfidy of a new error once conceived." A2 Augustine also, in City of God 18, 52:51 "Those who in the Church of Christ hold some unhealthy and perverse opinion, if when corrected, so that they may think soundly and rightly, they resist contumaciously and refuse to amend their pestilential and deadly doctrines but persist in defending them, become heretics, and going out of doors are counted among the enemies who put the Church to the test." A3 The same is clearly proved by Innocent the Third, who, as is evident in the Extra, on the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith, the chapter Damnamus,52 condemned and rejected a certain little book of Abbot Joachim on the Trinity as heretical; yet he in no way condemned Joachim himself as a heretic, because Joachim had submitted all his writings to the judgment of the Roman Church. Hence he says: "If anyone presume to defend or approve the opinion or teaching of the aforesaid Joachim in this matter, he is acknowledged by all as a heretic;53 yet we do not wish this to detract in any way from the flourishing monastery of which Joachim himself was the founder, since the institution there is regular and the observance salutary; above all since Joachim himself ordered that all his writings be handed over to us, to be approved, or even corrected, by the judgment of the Apostolic See; and he also dictated a letter, which he signed with his own hand, in which it is firmly stated that he holds that faith which the Roman Church holds, which, by the Lord's disposition, is the mother and teacher of all the faithful." And if anyone should still object that, according to my opinion, at least the writings of Chrysostom, Damascene, Cassian, Joachim and the other Doctors, in so far as they sometimes wrote heretical things, would not have to be read, nor even cited, because of suspicion and fear of the poison they contain: on the contrary, they should be read, C1 though not as the holy Gospel is read, but with prudence and caution, as Cassiodorus advises that Cassian be read, as was recited above. Other Doctors likewise advise that Origen be read, who, as the same Doctors affirm, is agreed to have raved most wickedly on many points. Hence Cassiodorus, On the Institution of Divine Letters 1: "The opinion of many Fathers marks Origen as a heretic. Although the authority of so many Fathers opposes him, yet at the present time he is also agreed to have been condemned afresh by the most blessed Pope Vigilius.54 But how he ought to be read, holy Jerome has shown with probability in the letter which he wrote to Tranquillinus,55 so as neither to turn the studious away from the reading of him that is necessary, nor on the other hand to hurl the unwary headlong to ruin. They have said, not undeservedly, that he is to be reckoned after the manner of dill,56 which, while it seasons the dishes of the sacred letters, is itself boiled down, dried up and thrown away. Of him it was said in conclusion: 'Where he is good, none is better; where he is bad, none is worse.' And therefore he must be read cautiously and wisely, so that we may take from him the most health-giving juices without at the same time drinking down his poisons of perfidy, which are contrary to our life. To this can fittingly be applied also what Virgil said when, as he was reading Ennius, someone asked him what he was doing: 'I am seeking gold in dung.' Therefore in the works of this same Origen, so far as I was able to find in passing, I have marked those passages which were said against the rules of the Fathers with a repudiation of the heresies, so that he who by such a sign is shown to be one to guard against in his perverse meanings cannot prevail to deceive. Later writers57 say that he is to be shunned altogether, because he deceives the innocent subtly. But if caution is applied with the Lord's help, his poisonous things cannot harm." In the fourth Council of Carthage also, as Gratian recites it, dist. 37, it reads thus: "A bishop is not to read the books of the Gentiles, D1 but may read the books of heretics through, either from necessity or for the occasion." The authority of the Ecclesiastical History, book 7, and certain other authorities set down in the third of this, clearly prove this opinion also.

How such writers, or such writings, ought to be cited is known from what has been premised: E1 for they ought not, and cannot, be cited as the holy Gospel is, but as probable and well-known witnesses in passages where they are not shown to have erred. Yet the authority of such men, so far as it comes from the speaker, does not produce full belief. For if it is agreed that a man has once erred and said what is false, how shall I, on the ground of the speaker alone, believe him in other matters? I know that civil and canon law hold the same about witnesses. Hence Augustine too, in his letter to Jerome, no. 19, in Jerome's collection of letters,58 shows that there is no lie at all in the whole of sacred Scripture, because, if some officious lie were once admitted in sacred Scripture, no part of those books would remain which would not, as each person sees fit, be referred by the same rule to the office of a lying author; and so nowhere in the sacred writings would the authority of chaste truth be certain. Indeed, not only the authority of such as have erred, but even that of those who have not erred but could have erred, if there are any such, so far as concerns the authority of the speaker alone,

in no way supplies the fullest belief; only the authority of him does so who neither errs, nor could, nor can, nor ever will be able to err. Most authentic, therefore, is the citation of the Prophets when they say, "Thus says the Lord"; not "Thus says Priscian, Aristotle, Tully, Justinian, Pythagoras, Boethius, Euclid, Ptolemy," or any other of the fallible. Hence it is clear that sacred Scripture, which the Father sanctified and sent into the world, by reason of its inerrable Author, is to be preferred incomparably to all other authentic writings in firmness and certainty, and that the fullest belief is to be given to it alone, by reason of its sole Author. For although men seem to have written the canonical Scripture, and "every man is a liar," yet they did not write it themselves, but the Spirit of truth wrote it through them, as through his pen, the right finger of God, as the same Scripture testifies in many places, and the Catholic Doctors bear witness, and the Catholic faith holds. But concerning any other fallible writers whatever, through whom it is not established that the Holy Spirit has spoken, we must judge otherwise, as the most learned Augustine proves and teaches in the places mentioned above.