Is Faith God's Gift? (Ephesians 2:8-9): Augustine

Introduction

According to Jerome, a Latin who knew Greek, and the Eastern exegetes we’ve seen in previous papers—Chrysostom, Theodoret, John of Damascus, Œcumenius, Theophylact—according to all these Christian Bible scholars, predestination is according to foreseen virtue. In this they follow Origen[1], as evidenced in his On First Principles. If ‘catholic’ means ‘what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all’,[2] then the catholic view of predestination during this period is predestination according to prescience of foreseen human merit, whether it is faith, or good will, or holiness. Even in his anti-Pelagian writings, Jerome still holds a place for free will and does not believe absolute predestination in the way that the later Augustine does.

Ambrose of Milan (c. AD 340-397)—popular governor and then Bishop from AD 374—made a great impression on Augustine. Ambrose had an excellent grasp of Greek, which enabled him to understand the theologians of the East. Like the Eastern theologians, Ambrose was a synergist, yet he accented the place of grace.[3] Nevertheless, Ambrose too stood in the great stream of thinking that saw divine predestination as contingent on divine foreknowledge of human merit:

The Apostle says, ‘Whom he foreknew, them he also predestinated’: for he did not predestinate before he foreknew, but to those whose merit he foreknew, he predestinated the rewards of merit.’ (Ambrose, De fide, lib. V n 83).[4]

However it seems that the same cannot be said for Marius Victorinus (c. AD 300-370), of whom Cooper observes:

[N]owhere in his commentaries does Victorinus suggest that some qualities in those to whom the offer is made, and for whom Christ came, elicited God’s mercy. Rather, God’s salvific activity follows from the divine awareness of the creature’s weakness and need. Victorinus never says that the predestining of souls involves divine consultation of their future righteousness; rather, whatever holiness souls come to possess is clearly stated to be the result of God’s predestination.[5]

The irony, however, is that though Victorinus does not teach predestination according to divine prescience of merit, he most probably takes the view of Ephesians 2:8-9 that ‘faith’ is not the gift of God, but ‘salvation by grace’ is. Victorinus almost certainly holds to a conceptual antecedent of the neuter demonstrative—as is quite acceptable in Greek grammar.

And the ironies continue. For all six of the other ancient exegetes mentioned above—five native Greek speakers plus Jerome, the greatest linguist of his generation—all teach that the neuter demonstrative τοῦτο (‘this’) in Ephesians 2:8 referred to a feminine noun. Not one of them has a grammatical objection to the antecedent of the neuter demonstrative being the antecedent being ‘faith’ on account of its feminine gender.

Moreover, despite their universal holding to predestination according to foreknowledge of foreseen merits, four say that the referent of the neuter demonstrative τοῦτο (‘this’) in Ephesians 2:8 is the preceding feminine noun in the genitive πίστις (‘faith’), located two words before, in spite of the fact that these two words do not agree in gender, and without giving another exegetical option (Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Œcumenius). One of the six implies that the antecedent is the feminine noun, ‘χάρις’ or ‘grace’, (John of Damascus), because grace is from God but faith is from us. Two say that since faith is a gift, then so is salvation by faith (Chrysostom, Œcumenius). And one, the historically latest one, Theophylact, gives two interpretations: one being the first mentioned above, that of the majority of Eastern exegetes, that faith is the gift and is not of ourselves, and then he offers a second alternative consistent with his free will theology, that faith is not the antecedent but the antecedent is the conceptual one ‘salvation by grace’. But even then, Theophylact doesn't say which one he believes to be correct, and he gives both, and he doesn't criticise the first as being grammatically impossible. So all of the six believe in free will and are synergists theologically, five of the six hold that ‘faith’ is explicitly said to be the gift of God (though one, Theophylact, gives an alternative), and none of them say ‘faith’ cannot be the gift because it disagrees in gender with the demonstrative. Again, here is Ephesians 2:8-10:

8For [it is] by grace[6] you[7] have been saved[8] through faith[9], and this [thing][10], [is] not from you[11], [it is] the gift[12] of God, 9not from works, so that no-one may boast. 10For we are his handiwork, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk. (my translation)

8Τῇ γὰρ χάριτί[13] ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι[14] διὰ πίστεως[15]· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον· 9οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων, ἵνα μή τις καυχήσηται[16]. 10αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς οἷς προητοίμασεν ὁ θεός, ἵνα ἐν αὐτοῖς περιπατήσωμεν.

Augustine (AD 354-430) and the Development of His Doctrine of Grace

In previous papers, I have thought that the best approach would be to give the ancient exegete’s view of Ephesians 2:8-9, and then place it in the context of his wider theology. However, with Augustine, it seems that we should invert that method, and that we first look to Augustine’s theological development, and then turn to his exegetical opinions. For Augustine’s exegesis of Ephesians 2:8-10 developed not in the light of observations from the Greek text and grammar, but as a fruit of his mature theological synthesis of the doctrine of grace.

In terms of his wider theology, Augustine gives his clearest and most developed explanation of predestination and perseverance toward the end of his life, in AD 426-429. Indeed, the works Augustine wrote at this time were some years after his ecclesiastical victory over Pelagius, and were provoked by his controversy with the French Semi-Pelagians. These works were written evem after he had written his Retractions. In these works, Augustine articulates a doctrine of absolute predestination, whereby God foresees not our merits, but his own kindness to us apart from our merits. We will come to see this below. It is also in these works that Augustine gives his fullest exposition of Ephesians 2:8-10.

And in terms of the purpose of these papers—the question of what Paul meant by saying ‘and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God’ (Eph 2:8-9), explaining the view of the mature Augustine is easy. It has become well known. His view, theologically expressed as the necessity of prevenient grace to bring about faith, is common to both Augustinian and Reformed soteriologies, despite their many differences. In the end, Augustine’s doctrinal formulation supports and affirms the understanding that τὸ δῶρον in Ephesians 2:8-9 to refer to πίστις, ‘faith’, and the understanding that ‘faith’ is not ‘from ourselves’.

However, as far as I can see, Augustine never advances any grammatical argument for this position. At one level, this is what we might expect. Augustine was a native Latin speaker, and unlike Victorinus or Jerome—both of whom extensively translated Greek works into Latin—he did not become known as either a Greek scholar or linguist. Moreover, Augustine’s reputation on Greek exegetical questions has not fared well in the history of exegesis, at least in Protestant circles. Two exegetical mis-steps are often pointed out: his advocacy of the translation of ἐφ’ ᾧ (most probably meaning ‘because’) as in quo (‘in whom’, which it probably does not mean according to most commentators) in Augustine’s Latin exposition of Romans 5:12—and his consequential building of the doctrine of original sin upon it—and his reliance on the Latin verb iustificare meaning ‘make righteous’ as a correct rendering of the Greek verb δικαιόω (which almost certainly Paul intended to mean ‘declare righteous’, and about which I have written elsewhere)[17]—and the consequences this had for his doctrine of justification.

But we should not be too hasty—even if you agree with me that these were mistakes—to be sharply critical of Augustine’s abilities and discount his value as an exegete or commentator. Augustine knew the value of Greek and wrote at length on hermeneutical issues. He eagerly learnt from the commentators and exegetes he had available to him. He thought long and deeply about what is now called ‘biblical theology’ and exegesis for many years. As a systematic theologian he cut new theological swathes advancing far beyond any catholic author before him, and went in a theological sense where no one had gone before. Humanly speaking, only someone of his commanding intellect and gravitas could have carried so many with him as he challenged the overwhelming consensus concerning the centrality of human free will and merit in soteriology.

But it is instructive to appreciate something of the development in Augustine’s thought regarding predestination and prevenient grace, for Augustine was not so much a humanist exegete as a philosopher theologian.

Some of the earliest works of Augustine were those against the Manichæans, written in AD 388-92.[18] In this early phase of anti-Manichæan writings, we see Augustine’s emphasis on human free will. Like Ambrose before him, the early Augustine is a synergist.

Thus in Of Two Souls, Against the Manichæans[19] (AD 391), Augustine reasons that ‘justice holds guilty those sinning by evil will alone’,[20] that ‘[s]inning therefore takes place only by exercise of will’,[21] and that by definition ‘sin cannot exist apart from will’. [22] Thus:

Sin therefore is the will to retain and follow after what justice forbids, and from which it is free to abstain. Although if it be not free, it is not will. [23]

Again, Augustine’s debate with the Manichæan Fortunatus had prompted him to turn to the exegetical tradition of Marius Victorinus, Hilarius (also later called ‘Ambrosiaster’), and the commentaries of Jerome, as well as the writings of the North African Donatist Tyconius.[24] In his writing against the Manichæans, Augustine ‘neither condemns the Law nor takes away man’s free will’.[25]

In their debate recorded in The Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus (AD 392), Fortunatus had quoted Ephesians 2:1-18 against Augustine, saying that:

The free faculty of living is not given except where there is a fall according to the argument of the apostle who says: ‘And you did he quicken, when ye were dead in your trespasses and sins […].[26]

Augustine responded by asserting that the passage, expresses free will, because of necessity the whole concept of ‘sinning’ depends upon free will.[27] Augustine argues that ‘by holding to the precepts of Christ we are reconciled to God; so that we who were dead in sins may be made alive by keeping His precepts’. (my emphasis)

The early Augustine cannot see how we would have sins if ‘contrary nature compels us to do what we do? For he who is compelled by nature to do anything, does not sin. But he who sins, sins by free will.’ Again, Augustine holds that:

[E]vils have their being by the voluntary sin of the soul, to which God gave free will. Which free will if God had not given, there could be no just penal judgment, nor merit of righteous conduct, nor divine instruction to repent of sins, nor the forgiveness of sins itself which God has bestowed upon us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he who sins not voluntarily, sins not at all. This I suppose to be open and perspicuous to all.[28]

Indeed, the early Augustine struggled with the concept of fallen humanity being ‘children of wrath’: ‘If therefore they were by nature children of wrath, how do you say that the soul is by nature a daughter and portion of God?’ Augustine at this point continues to assert the underlying foundation of free will for his theodicy: ‘remember that the apostle said that we are alienated from God by our manner of life’.[29] (my emphasis)

To Fortunatus’ citation of a formidable group of texts expressing the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit for the Christian (Galatians 5:17; Romans 7:23-25), Augustine responds by denying that there is any conflict in the regenerate[30]: ‘when the soul has been illuminated it ceases to be the mind of the flesh’. There is certainly no space for Luther’s simul iustus et peccator in any form:

For so long as it is snow, it can in no way be warm. But as the snow is melted by heat, so that it may become warm, so the mind of the flesh, that is, habit formed with the flesh, when our mind has become illuminated, that is, when God has subjected for Himself the whole man to the choice of the divine law, instead of the evil habit of the soul, makes a good habit.[31]

Augustine, regards the break with sin as absolute, and that there is no simultaneous conflict within the regenerate:

[Jesus] Himself says in the gospel: "Either make the tree good, or make the tree evil.” (Matthew 12:35) Who is it that can make nature? If therefore we are commanded to make a tree either good or evil, it is ours to choose what we will. Therefore concerning that sin of man and concerning that habit of soul formed with the flesh the apostle says: "Let no one seduce you; Every creature that has been made by God is good.” (1 Timothy 4:4). […] [A]fterwards this same flesh tortures us with its punishment so long as we remain in sins, is subjected to us in resurrection, and shakes us by no adversity from keeping the law of God and His precepts.[32]

That last line is important. The flesh no longer holds us from keeping the law. Implicitly, then, Augustine at this stage must regard Romans 7:14-25 as not describing the regenerate.

In this phase, Augustine stands in the interpretative tradition stemming from Origen, consistent with the universal or catholic approach to predestination and free will, and he met the Manichæan challenge by reasserting the free will reading of Paul.[33] Free will was the central tenet upon which the early Augustine based human responsibility. The soul even after the sin of Adam can freely choose the good or the evil. Election is according to foreseen merits, as both Origen and Pelagius taught. Romans 7:14-25 is not Paul the Christian. In reaction to Manichæan ‘determinism’, he like the great stream of catholics before him promoted absolute free will.[34]

The work of Tyconius the Donatist (active c. AD 370-390) from North Africa, to which Augustine had recourse—particularly his handbook on exegesis, The Book of Rules—is remarkable because the work of a schismatic though moderate Donatist became an accepted textbook for the Catholics.[35] Tyconius argued that though the Old Testament law only showed sin and did not provide a solution to the problem of sin, there were before the coming of Christ always heirs to the promises of salvation in Abraham based on faith and the promises, and not the law. The law and its provocation of sin, for Tyconius, drives the sinner to faith, which is the realization of their own inability brings them to God to appeal for help.[36] All who flee to God for help receive the Spirit. The Spirit then mortifies the flesh, and the spiritual man is able to do the law—the Spirit does the law in him. The Spirit is received as a reward for faith. Thus, for Tyconius, God’s grace is the enabling help that God gives in response to the individual’s faith. God responds and reacts to the initiative of the human.

Both Tyconius and Augustine in this period saw that God had given this ability to turn to God in faith to humans by virtue of their creation, rather than faith requiring a special infusion of enabling power at the point of individual conversion. Tyconius taught that God knows who will use their free will to believe, and thus God does not determine the individual’s destiny, but he infallibly knows what the human would do by their own free will.[37] For the early Augustine also, ‘Faith is thus a free decision on man’s part, brought about with the help of the Law, to believe in Christ’.[38] He would later say that regarding grace and election, ‘the want of clear views originated, or at least aggravated, the Pelagian heresy’.[39]

Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine, the first part of which up to Book III.25.36, was published in AD 397, but the section from Book III.25.36—a treatment of hermeneutics—was written at the end of his life,[40] and reflects back on Tyconius’ seminal work, but in the light of the now previous concluded Pelagian controversy. Augustine supplies a gentle critique—undoubtedly because he too needed the same gentleness that he offered Tyconius. In his comment on ‘The Third Rule of Tyconius’, Augustine says:

The third rule relates to the promises and the law, and may be designated in other terms as relating to the spirit and the letter, which is the name I made use of when writing a book on this subject. It may be also named, of grace and the law. This, however, seems to me to be a great question in itself, rather than a rule to be applied to the solution of other questions. It was the want of clear views on this question that originated, or at least greatly aggravated, the Pelagian heresy. And the efforts of Tichonius to clear up this point were good, but not complete. For, in discussing the question about faith and works, he said that works were given us by God as the reward of faith, but that faith itself was so far our own that it did not come to us from God; not keeping in mind the saying of the apostle: “Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 6:23) But he had not come into contact with this heresy, which has arisen in our time, and has given us much labor and trouble in defending against it the grace of God which is through our Lord Jesus Christ, and which (according to the saying of the apostle, “There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” 1 Corinthians 11:19) has made us much more watchful and diligent to discover in Scripture what escaped Tichonius, who, having no enemy to guard against, was less attentive and anxious on this point, namely, that even faith itself is the gift of Him who “has dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3). (Book III.33.46)[41]

Augustine rightly sees here that the distinction between ‘promise-grace-Spirit’ and ‘law-letter’ is more than ‘a rule to be applied to the solution of other questions’—only a hermeneutical rule, although it is at least that—but ‘a question in itself’, worthy of Augustine’s treatment, as he had done over the 30 years since AD 397. More importantly, Augustine recognized that ‘it was the want of clear views on this question that originated, or at least greatly aggravated, the Pelagian heresy’.[42] This, of course, is euphemistic. In fact, the catholic position, certainly in the East, and also in the West, involves a strong defence of free will as a not negotiable of the theodicy and the foundation of human responsibility for sin. Even more to the point, Augustine himself held to the centrality of predestination according to prescience and merit. His gentle remonstration of Tyconius applies as much to himself. For it is clear that Augustine himself prior to AD 397 did not believe that ‘faith itself was so far our own that it did not come to us from God’ and ‘that even faith itself is the gift of [God]’. And while it is true that Pelagianism no doubt is the anvil against which Augustine beat out his doctrine of grace, Augustine’s formulation had a different origin, over a decade previous, not in the heated polemics of public controversy, but in the amiable discussion of theology and exegesis with his beloved mentor.

A case study of the early Augustine is provided in his Propositions on Romans (AD 394-5), written before being consecrated Bishop in AD 396. Augustine was careful to deny that Romans 7:14-25 applied to the Christian—the passage describes the man under the law and prior to grace, because a man’s free will gives him the ability to believe and thus receive grace, and cease from sin.[43] In this period, Augustine sees faith as a free act of the human will and a necessary condition of redemption—Augustine believes that Paul in his writings did not take away the freedom of the will.[44] God mercifully calls to all, and enables the possibility of faith for all, which must be exercised by each one’s will. The act of faith is a merit that distinguishes the elect from the reprobate. Augustine says:

If he [God] does not choose according to merit, it is not election, for all are equal prior to merit […] God chooses faith. For unless each one believes in him and perseveres in his willingness to receive, he does not receive the gift of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, whose pouring forth of love enables him to do good. (Propositions on Romans, 60:8-10)[45]

This statement means that Augustine’s later criticism of Tyconius, that ‘works were given us by God as the reward of faith,’ applies just as much to his own previous view. Augustine speaks of a ‘most hidden merit’ of souls when he comments on Romans 9:20.[46] A person is not saved by works but by faith, which God foreknows.[47]

God has not predestinated any one except whom he foreknew would believe and answer his call’ (Propositions on Romans, 55, in Buis, op cit.)

Election for Augustine at this point must be based on some merit in the elected, and that is the merit of faith.[48] Augustine also held that ‘belief is our work’.

It belongs to us to believe and to will, but to him to give to those that believe and will the power to do well, through the Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our hearts.’ (Propositions on Romans, 61, in Buis, op cit, 9)

There is a scholarly difference of opinion in locating the point where Augustine came to think differently about the importance of free will and move towards his mature position. One view is that as Augustine’s polemical work against the Manichaeans proceeded, he began to agree with them that the will is not free.[49] William Babcock argues that in AD 394-6 ‘now, almost suddenly, Augustine seems to have discovered that the human will is not entirely at its own disposal, that the dispositions of the self are not fully under the self’s control’.[50]

Another view—on stronger foundations, but perhaps not exclusive of the previous view—is that Augustine’s change of mind came about as he sought to write an answer to various questions posed by his former mentor Simplicianus, immediately after his consecration as bishop. The clear point of redirection is seen in Ad Simplicianum (To Simplicianus) (AD 396). Indeed, over 30 years later when he wrote On the Predestination of the Saints (AD 428-9), Augustine himself marked the letter to Simplicianus as the turning point for his view of God’s grace. For he had discovered in Cyprian that 1 Corinthians 4:7 also applied to the divine gift of faith:

And it was chiefly by this testimony [of Cyprian] that I myself also was convinced when I was in a similar error, thinking that faith whereby we believe in God is not God's gift, but that it is in us from ourselves, and that by it we obtain the gifts of God, whereby we may live temperately and righteously and piously in this world. For I did not think that faith was preceded by God's grace, so that by its means would be given to us what we might profitably ask, except that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not precede; but that we should consent when the gospel was preached to us I thought was our own doing, and came to us from ourselves. And this my error is sufficiently indicated in some small works of mine written before my episcopate [Augustine mentions his own Propositions on Romans. Regarding the election of Jacob and Esau, Augustine continues] I carried out my reasoning to the point of saying:

God did not therefore choose the works of any one in foreknowledge of what He Himself would give them, but he chose the faith, in the foreknowledge that He would choose that very person whom He foreknew would believe in Him—to whom He would give the Holy Spirit, so that by doing good works he might obtain eternal life also.

I had not yet very carefully sought, nor had I as yet found, what is the nature of the election of grace, of which the apostle says, 'A remnant are saved according to the election of grace.’ (Romans 11:5) Which assuredly is not grace if any merits precede it; lest what is now given, not according to grace, but according to debt, be rather paid to merits than freely given. And what I next subjoined: […] 'Therefore what we believe is our own, but what good thing we do is of Him who gives the Holy Spirit to them that believe:' I certainly could not have said, had I already known that faith itself also is found among those gifts of God which are given by the same Spirit. […] But that even the merit itself of faith was God's gift, I neither thought of inquiring into, nor did I say. […] but it should further have been asked, whether even the merit of faith does not come from God's mercy—that is, whether that mercy is manifested in man only because he is a believer, or whether it is also manifested that he may be a believer?[51]

They [the so-called Semi-Pelagians] would have found that question [concerning grace] solved in accordance with the truth of the divine Scriptures in the first book of the two which I wrote in the very beginning of my episcopate to Simplicianus, of blessed memory, Bishop of the Church of Milan, and successor to St. Ambrose […] concerning various questions, [expounding Romans 7:7-24] And therein I have expounded those words of the apostle: 'The law is spiritual; but I am carnal,' (Romans 7:14) and others in which the flesh is declared to be in conflict against the Spirit in such a way as if a man were there described as still under law [i.e. not regenerate, or a Christian], and not yet established under grace. For, long afterwards, I perceived that those words might even be (and probably were) the utterance of a spiritual man.

In the solution of this question [expounding Romans 9:10-29] I laboured indeed on behalf of the free choice of the human will, but God's grace overcame, and I could only reach that point where the apostle is perceived to have said with the most evident truth, 'For who makes you to differ? And what have you that you have not received? [citing 1 Corinthians 4:7 again].[52]

Here we must observe from the foregoing extracts three insights that Augustine himself recounts he had by AD 396.

First, Augustine has rejected the view that faith was the product of human free will, but instead has affirmed faith is a gift from God and is not our own.

Second, at some point long after AD 386, but before AD 428-9 and The Predestination of the Saints, Augustine had rejected the dominant patristic view stemming from Origen that Romans 7:14-25 only applied to the man under the law prior to regeneration. The mature Augustine had accepted that Paul’s words might have been uttered in his own person as a Christian apostle and a man who has the Spirit.

Third, Augustine accepts absolute predestination which is not in accordance with divine prescience of anything in the elect.

About the salient section in Ad Simplicianum on Romans 9:10-29, James Wetzel comments:

In striking contrast to the rest of the work, the second part of Book 1, on Romans 9:10-29, sets off a veritable revolution in his theology. In retrospect Augustine considered his reply there to have inaugurated the view of grace that he ended up defending against Pelagian critics.[53]

This is astounding, because even in the first part of this letter to Simplicianus, Augustine maintains that a person by their own free will must seek God’s aid. Augustine is still seeking to use God’s foreknowledge of Jacob’s faith as the ground of election. But by the end of the second part of the letter to Simplicianus, Augustine has changed his mind. He now understands that for Paul, to see any merit inherent in faith would be a cause for human boasting. Human merit is not the cause of God’s grace, but its effect. Election is gratuitious, and grace must be irresistible.[54] Wetzel argues that by the completion of his answers to Simplicianus, Augustine has resolved that if divine grace could be resisted, humans could refuse God’s influence regardless of how that influence was presented.[55]

The rejection of God’s foreknowledge of faith as a basis for election leaves Augustine with a doctrine of the gratuity of election. When the gratuity of election is tested against juridical and especially volitional constraints, he is left with a doctrine of grace’s irresistibility. The irresistibility of grace, properly understood, is equivalent to the doctrine of the sufficiency of grace—the idea that God’s redemptive work can succeed on any human will, whatever the severity of its pathology. Human beings do not have to begin to cure themselves in order for God to get involved. [56]

Or as Pamela Bright summarizes:

Even “under grace,” the will is insufficient to will the good. Grace alone is all-sufficient. Neither merit nor faith itself can move us toward God—all is gift, all is grace. In the double citation of Romans 7:22-25 and 1 Corinthians 4:7 […] “What have you that you have not received?” […] all becomes the effect of divine favor, not its cause, not of “most hidden merits” suggested two years before (Eighty-three Questions, 68), not of the merit of our faith response […], but within the mystery of the sovereign mercy and justice, “the most hidden equity,” of God (Ad Simpl I q.2.16).[57]

It is important to see that Augustine is breaking new theological ground—perhaps anticipated by Victorinus, but few others.[58] Recent scholarship is increasingly arguing that ‘Augustine’s thought on original sin ultimately introduced an hitherto unknown element into Christian theology’[59] and Pelagius’ ‘ideas on grace and his theology thereof exhibit clear links with the theology of the East at the time’.[60] Moreover, the fact is that the seismic shift has occurred prior to the outbreak of the Pelagian controversy, and not as a result of it. Undoubtedly, though, Augustine’s major shift fortified him for the Pelagian controversy and gave him the impetus to prosecute both his ecclesiastical adversaries and his own new insights.

In On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants (Book I) (AD 411-2), Augustine argues that our turning away from God is our own act, and evil, but our turning to God is not possible, except God rouses and enables us, and in this way our good will comes from God’s mercy, not our merit, that God wills to impart this to some, but from his truth that He wills not to impart it to others. For to sinners punishment is justly due (Chapter 31).

Augustine has also worked through to the consequence of his doctrine of grace, that it is an inscrutable mystery why some are saved, and others are not. The reason why grace comes upon one man and not on another may be hidden, but it cannot be unjust. (Chapter 29.21). Rather, grace is given to some as a function of God’s mercy, but is withheld from others in accordance with God’s justice and truth. (Chapter 31)

In On Nature and Grace (AD 415)[61], Augustine is countering Pelagius severely reduced view of hereditary sin. Sin does not belong to human nature, hereditary sin does not weaken humanity’s ability to live a moral life. For Pelagius, the capacity not to sin is a feature of human free will.[62]

It is very difficult to distinguish this from the early Augustinian assertion that the very concept of sin requires freedom of the will to abstain from sin. However, Augustine’s objection is that Pelagius does not maintain that it is by the grace of God that a man is able to be without sin (Chapter 52). Pelagius’ principle that all humans by their created nature actually possess a capacity to not sin at all (Chapter 58) raises Augustine’s ire—it is sub-Christian, because ‘if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.’

The grace of Christ is necessary for the salvation of infants or adults and is given gratis, not for any merits of the recipients. The means of grace is the bath of regeneration, that is, baptism (Chapter 4). All others who do not receive grace are justly condemned because of either their birth sin or actual sin, which the entire mass of sinful humanity deserves, but some are vessels of mercy. Any child who dies unbaptized cannot be admitted into the kingdom of heaven because of this hereditary sin (chapter 9).

By this stage, Augustine is unsure about the identity of the ego in Romans 7:14-25, for he says ‘For whomsoever the apostle represents by himself, if he does not speak these things of his own self, he certainly represents a man by himself.’ (Chapter 58). Nevertheless, he still holds that the flesh is contrary to the Spirit in the baptized, per Galatians 5:17 (Chapter 61).

Augustine’s On the Predestination of the Saints (AD 429-30) shows the clarity of Augustine’s thought about absolute predestination at the end of his life. God’s mercy is free to its objects, but this in no way compromises his justice in not extending mercy to the whole wretched mass of humanity. Augustine asserts that the man who does not obtain mercy finds not iniquity, but justice from God. God’s mercy is a function of his great goodness, yet he ‘hardens’ without any injustice. It is grace alone that separates the redeemed from the lost, all having become embroiled in the common perdition from Adam. Humans have no ground for accusing God of injustice, because the whole human race was justly condemned in its sinning head, Adam. If no-one had been redeemed, no-one can question God’s justice—because they are only getting justice. The redeemed are redeemed in such a way to show them what the whole race deserved, and on this account no-one can boast of heir own merits, that they deserve salvation. (Chapter 99)

In Chapter 100, Augustine argues that God used the sinful will of his creatures against his (revealed) will to fulfill his (secret) will, bringing what is good out of evil to the condemnation of those who in justice are predestined to punishment, and to the salvation of those who in mercy God has predestined to grace. In this paragraph, the adjective in parentheses are mine, for the sake of clarity, for Augustine trades on the two different meanings of God’s will—the one a function of God’s moral government of his rationale creatures by his word, the other a function of his omnipotence in sovereignly upholding everything in his world. The objects of his anger knowingly did what God wished not to be done: but in view of God's omnipotence, they could only fulfill his (secret) will. In this way, even what is done in opposition to God’s (revealed) will cannot defeat Gods’ secret (permissive) will. They could not have done anything unless God permitted it, and God’s permission is not unwilling, and because God is good, he only permits such evil to be done as can by his omnipotence he turns evil into good.

In Chapter 103, Augustine considers the interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:4, that God is he ‘who will have all men to be saved’, and understands it to mean either (1) that no one is saved apart from His will; and that, therefore, we should pray that God should will our salvation, because if He will it, it must necessarily be accomplished, or (2) alternatively that we are to understand by ‘all men’ the human race in all its varieties of rank and circumstances; every sort of men, or (3) in any other way we please, so long as we are not compelled to believe that the omnipotent God has willed anything to be done which was not done.

Augustine on Ephesians 2:8-10

Augustine’s exegetical consideration of Ephesians 2:8-10 develops it would seem as a result of his developing theology of predestination and prevenient grace. This would suggest that Augustine’s concern is not driven by textual observation but by his desire for theological coherence and his polemical interests in the light of the ongoing issues raised by those who objected to the injustice of absolute predestination and sought a determinative place for human free will in their soteriology. As time goes on, it would seem that Augustine begins to depend more on his understanding of Ephesians 2:8-10 for his position, and his care and detail in exegeting it grows. If in the earlier phases of the Pelagian controversy his treatments are merely quotes or even proof texting, the elderly Augustine evinces more detailed and sophisticated theological (though not grammatical-historical) exposition.

In Sermon 97 (AD 417), Augustine is clear about faith as a gift from God, and uses Ephesians 2:8-9 to prove it:

But that He might teach us that even to believe in Him is of gift, not of merit, He said, No one comes to Me, except the Father who sent Me draw him.' Draw him, not lead him. […] No doubt, if you come not, it is your work; but if you come, it is God's work. And even after you have come, and are walking in the right way, become not proud, lest you perish from it: happy are those that confide in Him, not in themselves, but in Him. We are saved by grace, not of ourselves: it is the gift of God. Why do I continually say this to you? It is because there are men who are ungrateful to grace, and attribute much to unaided and wounded nature. (my emphasis)

It is true that man received great powers of free will at his creation; but he lost them by sinning. He has fallen into death; he has been made weak; he has been left half dead in the way, by robbers; the good Samaritan has lifted him up upon his ass, and borne him to the inn. […]

While in this sermon, Augustine’s use of Ephesians 2:8-9 is undeveloped, he clearly is citing the passage on the point that faith is a gift. But Augustine does not rest upon the details of the passage.

Again, in The Enchiridion (Handbook) On Faith, Hope and Love[63] (AD 420), Chapters 30-32, Augustine argues that people are not saved by their good works, nor by the free determination of their own wills, but by the grace of God through faith. The elect to whom God has promised pardon and his kingdom cannot be restored through the merit of their own works. Fallen man has lost the freedom of his will, and is not free to do what is right[64] Indeed, faith itself is the gift of God. Humans therefore cannot take pride in the merit of their own faith because Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9, ‘and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.’[65] Moreover, Ephesians 2:10 teaches that God fashions, forms and creates us anew as good men by his grace. And the freedom of the will after regeneration is also the gift of God. No one therefore can boast of the freedom of his own will, as if the first merit belonged to him, nor that the liberty of him doing good works is given to him as a reward which he had earned. Rather, a person’s good will to do the good works is both the will of man and the mercy of God, but the correct ordering or priority is that the whole work belongs to God, who both makes the will of man righteous, and thus prepares it for assistance, and assists it when it is prepared. God's mercy precedes and goes before the unwilling to make him willing and follows the willing to make his will effectual.[66]

More detailed exposition is found in On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin[67] (AD 426), where Augustine again argues that grace by its very nature must be unmerited, and no preceding works or human effort earn or deserve the bestowal of grace.

How can it be grace, if it is given in payment of a debt? How can that be true which the apostle says, “It is not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast;” (Ephesians 2:8-9) and again, “If it is of grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace:” (Romans 11:6) how, I repeat, can this be true, if such meritorious works precede as to procure for us the bestowal of grace? (Book 1 Chapter 24)

A little later in the same work, Augustine says:

For when he speaks of those persons as deserving reward who make a good use of their free will, and as therefore meriting the Lord's grace, he asserts in fact that a debt is paid to them. What, then, becomes of the apostle's saying, “Being justified freely by His grace”? (Romans 3:24) And what of his other statement too, “By grace are you saved”? (Ephesians 2:8) — where, that he might prevent men's supposing that it is by works, he expressly added, “ by faith.” (Ephesians 2:8) And yet further, lest it should be imagined that faith itself is to be attributed to men independently of the grace of God, the apostle says: “And that not of yourselves; for it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:9) It follows, therefore, that we receive, without any merit of our own, that from which everything which, according to them, we obtain because of our merit, has its beginning— that is, faith itself. (Book 1 Chapter 34)

More detailed again is Augustine’s treatment of Ephesians 2:8-9 in On Grace and Free Will (AD 426-427). He writes this treatise against some of the monks of Adrumetum, who so held to the freedom of the will such that deny the grace of God, in that they asserted that God’s grace is bestowed according to human merit. Augustine argues that without grace, the human will only opts for sin. Moreover, grace for Augustine is received gratis, it being given without preceding merits—rather, human merits are the gift of grace, and eternal life is ‘grace for grace’s sake’. While the fact that God commands and gives precepts shows that we have a will, that will cannot obey without divine initiative and assistance.[68] In that context, Augustine argues in Chapter 17 that faith is the free gift of God:

[E]ven faith itself cannot be had without God's mercy, and that it is the gift of God. This he very expressly teaches us when he says, “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8). They might possibly say, “We received grace because we believed;” as if they would attribute the faith to themselves, and the grace to God. Therefore, the apostle having said, “You are saved through faith,” added, “And that not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God.” And again, lest they should say they deserved so great a gift by their works, he immediately added, “Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:9). Not that he denied good works, or emptied them of their value, when he says that God renders to every man according to his works (Romans 2:6); but because works proceed from faith, and not faith from works. Therefore it is from Him that we have works of righteousness, from whom comes also faith itself, concerning which it is written, “The just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).[69]

Here Augustine makes it clear that faith itself is specifically denominated as ‘the gift of God’. There are two steps in Augustine’s exposition of Ephesians 2:8-9.

The first step relates to verse 8. Augustine clearly regards faith as the gift from God and not from the Christian himself. Augustine considers that “even faith itself cannot be had without God's mercy, and that it is the gift of God” and that “this [Paul] very expressly teaches us when he says, ‘For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.’” Compare Chapter 28 of the same work, where Augustine says ‘The spirit of grace, therefore, causes us to have faith, in order that through faith we may, on praying for it, obtain the ability to do what we are commanded’.

While Augustine does not address the grammatical and syntactical issues of the agreement of the demonstrative with the preceding nouns, he clearly goes beyond Marius Victorinus in attributing faith itself as the gift of God. For Augustine, Paul is specifically countering by verse 8 someone who “might possibly say, ‘We received grace because we believed’ as if they would attribute the faith to themselves, and the grace to God.’” This view, erroneous in the eyes of Augustine, is in fact the view of the Eastern church. Consider John of Damascus (676-754/787) when he says:

Grace is the thing which lies with God; faith is the thing which lies with us. For this reason, then, for those for whom the fitness to receive [grace] may not be present, then neither does the grace come alongside to assist. It [grace] is not from us, therefore, but it is the gift of God.[70]

The second step in Augustine’s exposition relates to verse 9. While verse 8 establishes that faith is a gift and not from ourselves, but originates from God, verse 9 for Augustine establishes that the gift of faith is not merited nor deserved: ‘The reason for the qualification in v. 9 (“not by works…”), he claimed, was to preclude any notion that faith is merited.’[71] So on Paul’s words, ‘not from works, so that no-one may boast’, Augustine says, ‘And again, lest they should say they deserved so great a gift by their works, he immediately added, “Not of works, lest any man should boast”.’

So here, according to Augustine, verse 8 teaches that faith is a gift and from God and not ourselves—expressly teaching that God enables faith—and verse 9, by saying it is not of works, teaches that the gift of faith enabled by God is not merited, earned, or deserved by faith or anything else God has foreseen in the person to be saved. I think this is a helpful and cogent exposition.

In Chapter 20, Augustine extends his treatment to Ephesians 2:10 as he shows how eternal life is both reward for God empowered merits and grace because the merits were given by God.

This question, then, seems to me to be by no means capable of solution, unless we understand that even those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life, belong to the grace of God, because of what is said by the Lord Jesus: “Without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) And the apostle himself, after saying, “By grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast;” (Ephesians 2:8-9) saw, of course, the possibility that men would think from this statement that good works are not necessary to those who believe, but that faith alone suffices for them; and again, the possibility of men's boasting of their good works, as if they were of themselves capable of performing them. To meet, therefore, these opinions on both sides, he immediately added, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) What is the purport of his saying, “Not of works, lest any man should boast,” while commending the grace of God? And then why does he afterwards, when giving a reason for using such words, say, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works”? Why, therefore, does it run, “Not of works, lest any man should boast”? Now, hear and understand. “Not of works” is spoken of the works which you suppose have their origin in yourself alone; but you have to think of works for which God has moulded (that is, has formed and created) you. For of these he says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” Now he does not here speak of that creation which made us human beings, but of that in reference to which one said who was already in full manhood, “Create in me a clean heart, O God;” concerning which also the apostle says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) We are framed, therefore, that is, formed and created, “in the good works which” we have not ourselves prepared, but “God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” It follows, then, dearly beloved, beyond all doubt, that as your good life is nothing else than God's grace, so also the eternal life which is the recompense of a good life is the grace of God; moreover it is given gratuitously, even as that is given gratuitously to which it is given. But that to which it is given is solely and simply grace; this therefore is also that which is given to it, because it is its reward—grace is for grace, as if remuneration for righteousness; in order that it may be true, because it is true, that God “shall reward every man according to his works.”

Here, there are two important points in understanding Augustine’s exposition. The first point is that for Augustine, Paul’s rejection of ‘works’ is only a rejection of ‘works’ that we think come from ourselves.

“Not of works” is spoken of the works which you suppose have their origin in yourself alone; but you have to think of works for which God has moulded (that is, has formed and created) you.

But since according to Augustine, any good works any regenerate person did would be from grace, the fact is that ‘not of works’ must be merely a statement about wrong thinking and not apply to any particular actual good work done by a Christian. This is because there is no such work that comes from ourselves, except our sin. Thus, on Augustine’s interpretation, the ‘works’ that are excluded from our obtaining faith or salvation are in fact works that are not found in the regenerate anyway. Such is tantamount to saying that ‘the saved are not saved by something that does not exist’. Well of course! That is self-evident. So the works we are not saved by, according to Augustine, are actually non-existent. But the regenerate do have good works which save them, but they are the result of grace, being God’s enabling.

Or to put the same point another way, Augustine holds that the ‘works’ that we are explicitly said not to be saved by in verse 9 are different from the ‘good works’ we are explicitly said to be prepared for.

And this then leads us to the second point: that Augustine defines ‘grace’ as the ‘good works’ of the regenerate. For Augustine says, ‘It follows, then, dearly beloved, beyond all doubt, that as your good life is nothing else than God's grace, so also the eternal life which is the recompense of a good life is the grace of God’. A good life and good works are effectively synonymous. Living a good life and doing good works empowered by God is God’s grace. Therefore, we are in fact saved by our good works, because we are saved by grace, and our good works or good lives ‘are’ God’s grace, and the result of and consequence of God’s prevenient and enabling grace. Good works in this way are included in our salvation—because they are in fact ‘God’s grace’. So the ironic situation is that though Paul says faith is not from ourselves, a gift, and not by work, the fact is that Augustine says that our salvation is indeed by works because works are ‘grace’. There is a problem with this approach, however, because Romans 11:6 says grace is not of works, lest grace not be grace.

On the Predestination of the Saints (AD 429-30) is Augustine’s further response to some of the monks of Gaul who objected to Augustine’s doctrine of absolute predestination. While the Pelagians argued that it was possible (though unrealized) that human beings could achieve holiness and salvation purely by virtue of their creation and exercising their free will without God’s special grace, the Gauls argued that humans could have a single unaided act of faith independent of God which contributed to their salvation—they were ‘semi-Pelagian. Matthew Levering sums up Augustine’s thought in this way:

If we are to be transformed and to gain an intimate participation in the divine life, it is only God who can give it to us. God gives it not because of our goodness but because of his. We become good because his grace makes us so.[72]

In On the Predestination of the Saints, Augustine returns to his exegesis of Ephesians 2:8-10, and confirms that faith indeed is that which is described as a gift and not from ourselves:

And he says that a man is justified by faith and not by works, because faith itself is first given, from which may be obtained other things which are specially characterized as works, in which a man may live righteously. For he himself also says, “By grace you are saved through faith; and this not of yourselves; but it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8-9)—that is to say, “And in saying 'through faith,' even faith itself is not of yourselves, but is God's gift.” “Not of works,” he says, “lest any man should be lifted up.”(Book 1 Chapter 12) [73]

Notice two things from the above passage. Firstly, we see a reiteration of the proposition that ‘even faith itself is not of yourselves, but is God’s gift’. In the same chapter, Augustine argues that Cornelius in Acts 10 could not have given alms and prayed, and so even there, God’s grace has preceded good works, even if the good works preceded specific New Covenant faith in Christ: ‘Whatever, therefore, of good works Cornelius performed, as well before he believed in Christ as when he believed and after he had believed, are all to be ascribed to God, lest, perchance any man be lifted up.’ It is clear this is a theological harmonization of the situation in Acts 10, and one with which I have theological sympathy. However, the text of Acts 10-11 suggests we can go further than Augustine did. Not only was Cornelius exhibiting faith by his many good works showing himself a believer (Acts 10:1-4, 22, 34-35), akin to the 120 in Jerusalem before the coming of the Spirit (Acts 2), or the Samaritans before the coming of Peter and John (Acts 8:4-17), but he knows the prophets of the Old Testament (Acts 10:43), showing himself a god-fearer and not a pagan (contrast Paul’s preaching to pagans in Acts 14, 17). Even more to the point, Peter actually says as the first part of his address in Acts 10:36-38, that Cornelius already knows the good news of Jesus Christ—he is a gentile God-fearer who knows the gospel of Jesus Christ:

You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who w/ere under the power of the devil, because God was with him. (Acts 10:36-38 NIV)

Cornelius is in a similar situation to the Apostles prior to Pentecost—he knows Christ, is full of good works, and is waiting for the baptism of the Spirit, which God brings about through Peter.

Secondly, the giving of faith by God to humans is for Augustine ‘justification’: it is the making just of humans, at least initially. Faith justifies because faith is the first thing given, the beginning of salvation. This faith produces works, and in this consists of human righteousness (‘works, in which a man may live righteously’). While Augustine’s position develops into the Tridentine position, my judgement is that the incorporation of works into justification by faith truncates the meaning of ‘not by works’ to only those things that precede faith. But there are no such works—or at least, they cannot be called ‘good’ under Augustinian soteriology—for no one can do the good without prevenient grace going before to make the will good, and then faith is the first gift. So the works excluded from Augustinian justification are not ‘good works’, because they simply cannot be produced by a good will.

Conclusion

The elderly Bishop of Hippo united the majority view of the exegesis of Ephesians 2:8-9 that we have seen in the Eastern church with a soteriology and theological underpinning that gives this exegesis its natural home. If Marius Victorinus—his fellow Latin churchman and countryman—held to absolute predestination, then Augustine eventually came to agree with him and move beyond him to a thoroughly monergistic doctrine of salvation—which included not Victorinus’ construction of Ephesians 2:8-9, but one more consonant with the majority syntactical and grammatical reading of the East. While Augustine shows no evidence of influence from the Eastern exegetes, for theological reasons he comes to an analogous grammatical conclusion to them on Ephesians 2:8-9.

Augustine’s mature view of Ephesians 2:8-9 has ample support to merit the label ‘catholic’, but not his doctrine of predestination. Vincent of Lérins (d. between 434-450) made this very point, albeit in a guarded and round about way. As the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Vincent says:

[Vincent of Lérins] was a Semipelagian and so opposed to the doctrine of St Augustine. It is believed now that he uses against Augustine his great principle: ‘what all men have at all times and everywhere believed must be regarded as true’. [In his Commonitorium, Vincent] uses technical expressions similar to those employed by the Semipelagians against Augustine.[74]

Vincent, in his Commonitory: For the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies, Chapter 26, obliquely criticizes both Augustine and the Augustinians as ‘heretics’ with the words:

Then, with the accompanying promises, the heretics are wont marvellously to beguile the incautious. For they dare to teach and promise, that in their church, that is, in the conventicle of their communion, there is a certain great and special and altogether personal grace of God, so that whosoever pertain to their number, without any labour, without any effort, without any industry, even though they neither ask, nor seek, nor knock, have such a dispensation from God, that, borne up by angel hands, that is, preserved by the protection of angels, it is impossible they should ever dash their feet against a stone, that is, that they should ever be offended.[75]

It is generally held that the passage above is a veiled criticism of Augustine and the later Augustinians. Vincent asserts that the grace of God is not confined to the elect, but upon all who strive for it. Indeed, he calls those who hold that grace is given without any effort on our part ‘heretics’. Vincent alludes to Epistle 225 among Augustine’s letters, being Prosper to his friend Augustine, in which the Semipelagian French monks critique of absolute predestination is quoted as ‘if the decree of God anticipate[s] human will, all effort is removed and virtue taken away’, and they instead teach that they can attain grace by natural powers of ‘asking, seeking and knocking’. Augustine replies to Prosper saying, ‘They are wrong who think that the impulse by which we ask and seek and knock originates with us and is not given to us’ (Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, 64)[76].

[1] Origen expresses his view thus: ‘But in fact foreknowledge precedes foreordination. … God observed beforehand the sequence of future events, and noticed the inclination of some men towards piety, on their own responsibility, and their stirrings towards piety which followed on this inclination; he sees how they devote themselves to living a virtuous life, and he foreknew them, knowing the present, and foreknowing the future. … And if anyone in reply asks whether it is possible for the events which God foreknew not to happen, we shall answer, Yes, and there is no necessity determining this happening or not happening’: Origen, Comm In Ep ad Romanos, I, cited by Harry Buis, Historic Protestantism and Predestination, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock: P&R, 1958), 7.

[2] The threefold test of catholicity by ecumenicity, antiquity, and consent laid down by St Vincent of Lérins (died c. AD 434-450) in the Commonitorium/Commonitory as the so-called Vincentian Canon. Vincent conceived of this test to enable the Church to differentiate between true and false tradition. It would seem that one of his purposes was to show that Augustinian predestination was heretical and failed his test. See later in this paper.

[3] Consider the following statements of Ambrose:

(1) ‘Thus I do not have the wherewithal to enable me to glory in my own works, I do not have the wherewithal to boast of myself, and so I will glory in Christ. I will not glory because I have been redeemed. I will not glory because I am free of sins, but because sins have been forgiven me. I will not glory because I am profitable or because anyone is profitable to me, but because Christ is an advocate in my behalf with the Father, because the blood of Christ has been poured out in my behalf’ (FC, Vol. 65, Saint Ambrose, Seven Exegetical Works, Jacob and the Happy Life, Book 1, 6.21 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1972), 133; also George Finch, A Sketch of the Romish Controversy (London: G. Norman, 1831), 220).

(2) ‘Therefore let no one boast of his works, because no one can be justified by his works; but he who is just receives it as a gift, because he is justified by the washing of regeneration. It is faith, therefore, which delivers us by the blood of Christ, because blessed is he whose sins are forgiven, and to whom pardon is granted.’ (Finch, op cit, 220).

(3) God calls those whom he deigns to call, he makes him pious whom he wills to make pious, for if he had willed he could have changed the impious into pious.’ (Ambrose, In Luc, 7.27, cited in Harry Buis, Historic Protestantism and Predestination, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock: P&R, 1958), 8-9).

(4) ‘He who follows Christ, if asked why he was willing to be in Christ, must confirm because it so pleased himself, but in saying that, he does not deny that it so pleased God.’ (Ambrose, In Luc 1.10, cited in Buis, op cit, 9).

[4] Buis, op cit, 9

[5] Stephen Andrew Cooper, Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians (Oxford: OUP, 2005), 168. Cooper cites Victorinus’ comments on Ephesians 1:4, where he says ‘So God predestined these souls before the foundation of the world; God chose them so that they might become holy—that is, that having received the Spirit they would be strengthened’: fn 160.

[6] Feminine singular noun.

[7] Plural pronoun.

[8] Masculine plural participle in periphrastic construction.

[9] Feminine singular noun.

[10] Demonstrative, Neuter.

[11] Plural pronoun.

[12] Neuter noun.

[13] Instrumental Dative with post-positive γὰρ.

[14] PAI2P εἰμί, I am + PfPPtcpNMP σῴζω, I save; constituting perfect periphrastic construction.

[15] διὰ + genitive, instrumental.

[16] ἵνα + Aorist subjunctive purpose clause.

[17] See https://sites.google.com/site/mattolliffe/articles/the-language-of-justification-in-romans. For an instance where Augustine came to the point of considering a forensic meaning but left it undeveloped, see https://sites.google.com/site/mattolliffe/augustines-unusual-testimony-to-forensic-justification.

What must be understood is that it is overly simplistic to assert that iustificare is the reason why Augustine was mislead into thinking ‘justification’ was a factitive ‘making righteous’. While the meaning of the Latin word is part of the story, it does not explain why the best Greek exegetes, working from the Greek text and with much better Greek than us, at times expound δικαιόω in an effective or factitive way.

Compare Chrysostom on Romans Homily 8 on Romans 4:5 ‘To him that believes in Him that justifies the ungodly’: ‘For reflect how great a thing it is to be persuaded and have full confidence that God is able on a sudden not to free a man who has lived in impiety from punishment only, but even to make him just (ὅτι δύναται ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἐν πληροφορηθήναι ἀσεβείᾳ βεβιωκότα τοῦτον ἐξαίφνης οὐχὶ κολάσεως ἐλευθερῶσαι μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ δίκαιον ποιῆσαι: Migne, PG 60.456), and to count him worthy of those immortal honors (καὶ τῶν ἀθανάτων ἐκείνων ἀξιῶσαι τιμῶν: Migne, PG 60.456). […] For he also, he says, pronounces him blessed who is so made righteous’ (τὸν οὕτω δικαιωθέντα: Migne, PG 60.456) […] ‘For if he be blessed that by grace received forgiveness (Εἰ γὰρ μακάριος οὕτος ὁ λαβὼν ἄφεσιν ἀπὸ χάριτος), much more is he that is made just, and that exhibits faith, (πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὁ δικαιωθεὶς καὶ ὁ πίστιν ἐπιδειξάμενος: Migne, PG 60.456).

Furthermore, in Chrysostom’s Homily 9 on on Romans 4:25, he says: ‘For for this cause He both died and rose again, that He might make us righteous’ (ἵνα δικαίους ἐργάσηται: Migne, PG 60.467): J Walker, J Sheppard and H Browne (trs), George B Stevens (rev), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 11 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1889), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210208.htm>.

Chrysostom clearly considers ‘forgiveness’ and ‘remission of punishment’ distinct from justification. The fact that Chrysostom uses ποιέω (‘make’) and ἐργάζομαι (‘work’, ‘labour’) in his paraphrases of δικαιόω strongly suggests he understands justification as a factitive process. Occassionally made can mean ‘represent’ or ‘impute’ on parallel with 2 Corinthians 5:21 (τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν)—no-one reading this verse could doubt that Paul has some sort of representation or imputation in mind—but the evidence of Chrysostom wholly points to a factitive understanding. As to why Chrysostom took this transformative or effective meaning and not what is clearly the forensic meaning of the term according to the classical secular literature, it seems to me that the answer lies in the importance of virtue (ἀρετή), free will (τό αὐτεξούσιον), and worthiness (ἀξιόω) or merit in the Eastern Patristic soteriological system.

Of course, from the traditional Roman Catholic or Orthodox perspective, Augustine and Chrysostom truly and correctly understood Paul, and it is the forensic understanding that is mistaken. However, as Fitzmyer indicates, the term δικαιόω in classical Greek predominantly meant ‘to pass sentence against, condemn, punish’ and only rarely ‘to set right an injustice suffered’, the underlying Hebrew hitzdiq ‘always meant to ‘acquit, vindicate, declare innocent, justify’, and ‘Normally in the Septuagint, however, dikaioō has a declarative, forensic meaning: “declare righteous.” At times, the declarative sense seems to be, indeed, the meaning in Paul’s letters (Rom 2:13; 3:4, 20; 8:33).’: J A Fitzmyer, ‘Justification by Faith in Pauline Thought’, in D E Aune (ed), Rereading Paul Together: Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on Justification (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 83-84.

Theodoret however does gloss justification in declarative terms. Justification for Theodoret is twice (on Romans 3:20, cf. 8:4) explicated as a ‘proclaiming or declaring just’ (δίκαιον ἀποφῆναι: Migne, PG 82: 81-82, cf. 129. According to Liddle Scott Jones, ἀποφαίνω most usually means ‘proclaim’ or ‘declare’. Lampe gives the standard meaning first, being ‘show forth, declare to be’: G W H Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961), 218.

Compare also Theophylact on Romans 3:25: Ἱλαστηρίου καὶ αἷματος μέμνηται πρὸς τὸ πεῖσαι τὸν Ἰουδαῖον ὅτι ἐν Χριστῷ ἡἄφεσις καὶ ἡ δικαίωσις γίνεται (for in Christ forgiveness and justification comes; here they are probably not in apposition, but distinguished): Migne, PG 124 Theophylact Vol 2 Col 388B. Also Migne, PG 124.392C: Τό γὰρ πληροφορηθῆναι ὅτι δύναται ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἐν ἀσεβεία βεβιωκότα οὐ μόνον κολάσεως ἐλευθερῶσαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ δίκαιον ποιῆσαι (‘for God is able those living in ungodliness not only to free from punishment, but also to make righteous’, and note the dependence here on Chrysostom). And Migne PG 124.392D: Ὁ γὰρ μακαρισμὸς μέγα τί ἐστι, καὶ μεῖζον τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτῆς, κορυφὴ ὢν πάντων τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῖν γινομένων ἀγαθῶν. Migne, PG 124.393C: Τών πιστευόντων ὁ μοίως αὐτῷ, ὣστε καὶ αὐτοῖς τὴν πίστιν λογίζεσθαι εἰς δίκαιοσύνην, τουτέστιν, εἰς τὸ γίνεσθαι δικαίους (that is to say, to become righteous).

[18] Pamela Bright, ‘Augustine’, in J P Greenman and T Larsen, Reading Romans through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), 61.

[19] Albert H Newman (trs), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 4 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1887), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight at <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1403.htm>.

[20] Chapter 10[12].

[21] Chapter 10[14].

[22] Chapter 11[14].

[23] Ibid.

[24] Jason David BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma, Volume 2: Marking a Catholic Self, 388-401 CE (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 194.

[25] Paula Fredriksen, ‘Augustine and Israel: Interpretatio ad litteram, Jews, and Judaism in Augustine’s Theology of History’, M F Wiles and E J Yarnold (eds), St Augustine and his Opponents: Other Latin Writers: Studia Patristica Vol 38 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 119-135 at 121.

[26] ‘Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus’, Chapter 16 in Albert H Newman (trs), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 4 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1887), 234; revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1404.htm.

[27] ‘Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus’, Chapter 17 in NPNF1, Vol 4.

[28] Ibid, Chapter 20, in NPNF1, Vol 4, 235.

[29] Ibid, Chapter 18.

[30] Ibid, Chapter 17-18.

[31] Ibid, Chapter 22.

[32] Ibid.

[33] BeDuhn, op cit, 196.

[34] BeDuhn cites Titus of Bostra and Ambrosiaster as those who, in response to the Manichæan denigration of the Old Testament, saw the Mosaic law as revealing human sinfulness without providing the method of liberation—only the gift of the Holy Spirit given in accordance with divine foresight of a person’s faith could restore the effectiveness of the will: op cit, 198.

[35] Francis Crawford Burkitt, The Book of Rules of Tyconius, (Cambridge: CUP, 1894), xiii.

[36] BeDuhn, op cit, 198.

[37] Ibid, 200.

[38] Ibid, 203.

[39] De Doctrine Christiana III.33.46 cited by Pamela Bright, ‘Augustine’, 67.

[40] Pamela Bright, ‘Augustine’, 74.

[41] James Shaw (trs), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1, Vol 2 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1887), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm>.

[42] Ibid.

[43] BeDuhn, op cit, 205.

[44] Ibid, 213.

[45] Ibid, 215.

[46] Question 68 of the ‘Eighty-Three Different Questions’ in D L Mosher (trs), Eighty-three Different Questions: The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002).

[47] Fredricksen, ‘Augustine and Israel’, 121.

[48] Ibid, 122.

[49] BeDuhn, op cit, 224

[50] William Babcock, ‘Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans (AD 394-396)’ Augustinian Studies 5 1974, 58, cited in Pamela Bright, ‘Augustine’, 64 fn 14.

[51] On the Predestination of the Saints, Chapter 7 [III], in Peter Holmes and Robert Ernest Wallis (trs), and Benjamin B Warfield (rev), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 5 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1887), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15121.htm>.

[52] Ibid, Chapter 8 [IV].

[53] James Wetzel, ‘Ad Simplicianum’ in A D Fitzgerald (ed), Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopaedia (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1999), 798; Pamela Bright, ‘Augustine’, 70.

[54] Wetzel, ‘Ad Simplicianum’, 798.

[55] James Wetzel, ‘Pelagius Anticipated: Grace and Election in Augustine’s Ad Simplicianum’, 126 in Joanne McWilliam (ed), Augustine: From Rhetor to Theologian (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992).

[56] Wetzel, ‘Pelagius Anticipated, 126.

[57] Pamela Bright, ‘Augustine’, 70-1.

[58] Augustine himself cites Cyprian. See above for Ambrose and Marius Victorinus.

[59] Dupont, Gratia, 48.

[60] Ibid, 49.

[61] NPNF1 Vol 5 at <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1503.htm>.

[62] Dupont, Gratia, 40.

[63] J F Shaw (trs), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 3 accessed at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm.

[64] Chapter 30.

[65] Chapter 31.

[66] Chapter 32.

[67] NPNF1 Vol 5 at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15061.htm.

[68] Dupont, op cit, 60.

[69] NPNF1 Vol 5 at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm, accessed on 10 June 2017.

[70] My translation of the Greek text of J –P Migne, Patrologia Graeca (Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Graeca) Volume 95, ‘John Damascene’ volume 2: (various), Sacra Parallela, retrieved from https://archive.org/details/patrologicursus50migngoog on 21 September 2016, Col 829A-832A;

[71] Alan P Stanley, Did Jesus Teach Salvation By Works?: The Role of Works in Salvation in the Synoptic Gospels: Evangelical Theological Society Monograph Series 4 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 24.

[72] Review of Matthew Levering, The Theology of Augustine: An Introductory Guide to His Most Important Works (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 84-85 cited in review article at http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2300/a_sure_guide_to_st_augustines_thought_and_theology.aspx.

[73] Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, Book 1, Chapter 12, in P Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 5, 504.

[74] J Ghellinck, ‘St Vincent of Lérins’ in The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 15 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912), retrieved 25 June 2017 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15439b.htm.

[75] C A Heurtley (trs), Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds), NPNF2 Vol 11 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1894), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm.

[76] Reginald Stewart Moxon (ed), The Commonitorium of Vincentius of Lerins (Cambridge: CUP, 1915), xxviii-xxix. The passage in context is: ‘Let them, therefore, observe how they are mistaken who think that our seeking, asking, knocking is of ourselves, and is not given to us; and say that this is the case because grace is preceded by our merits; that it follows them when we ask and receive, and seek and find, and it is opened to us when we knock. And they will not understand that this is also of the divine gift, that we pray; that is, that we ask, seek, and knock. For we have received the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry, Abba, Father. And this the blessed Ambrose also said. For he says, “To pray to God also is the work of spiritual grace, as it is written, No one says, Jesus is the Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.”’: Peter Holmes and Robert Ernest Wallis (trs), Benjamin B Warfield (rev), Philip Schaff (ed), NPNF1 Vol 5, (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1887), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15122.htm>.