Augustine, Sermones 158-163 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

Sermon 158. On the words of the Apostle, Rom. 8:30-31, But those whom He predestined, them He also called; and those whom He called, them He also justified, etc. If God is for us, who is against us? Against the Pelagians.

Chapter One. — 1. No one can harm the predestined. We have heard the blessed Apostle exhorting and strengthening us, when he said to us: If God is for us, who is against us? But for whom God is, he showed above, where he says: But those whom He predestined, them He also called; and those whom He called, them He also justified; and those whom He justified, them He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? God is for us, to predestine us; God is for us, to call us; God is for us, to justify us; God is for us, to glorify us. If God is for us, who is against us? He predestined, before we existed; He called, when we were turned away; He justified, when we were sinners; He glorified, when we were mortal. If God is for us, who is against us? To those predestined by

God, called, justified, glorified: whoever wishes to oppose them, let him prepare himself, if he can wage war against God. For when we have heard, If God is for us, who is against us? unless someone conquers God, he does not harm us. And who is there that conquers the Almighty? Whoever wishes to struggle against Him harms himself. This is what Christ also cried out from heaven to Paul while he was still Saul: It is not expedient for you to kick against the goad (Acts 9:5). Let him rage, let him rage as much as he can; does not he who sends his heels against the goad rage against himself?

Chapter II. — 2. God made our debtor by His promises. Now in these four outstanding things which the Apostle commended, which pertain to those for whom God is, that is, predestination, calling, justification, glorification; in these four things, then, we ought to consider what we already have and what we still await. For in those things which we already have, let us praise God as the giver; in those which we do not yet have, let us hold Him as debtor. For He has become a debtor, not by receiving anything from us, but by promising what pleased Him. For we say to a man in one way, You owe me, because I gave to you; and in another way we say, You owe me, because you promised me. When you say, You owe me, because I gave to you, the benefit proceeded from you, but lent, not given. But when you say, You owe me, because you promised me, you gave nothing, and yet you demand. For the goodness of him who promised will give, lest good faith be turned into malice. For he who deceives is wicked; but do we say to God, Repay me, because I gave to Thee? What have we given to God, when all that we are, and whatever good we have, we have from Him? We have therefore given Him nothing. There is no way for us to demand payment of God as debtor with that word, especially as the Apostle says to us, For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? or who first gave to Him, and it will be repaid to him (Rom. 11:34–35)? In this way, therefore, we can demand payment of our Lord, so as to say: Render what Thou hast promised, because we have done what Thou didst command; and this Thou hast done, because Thou didst help us as we laboured.

Chapter III. — 3. We have been called and predestined freely. Let no one therefore say: God called me for this reason, because I worshipped God. How would you have worshipped, if you had not been called? If God called you for this reason, because you worshipped God, then you gave first, and He repaid you. Does not the Apostle take this word away from you when he says, Or who first gave to Him, and it will be repaid to him? But look: when you were called, granted that you already existed. How were you predestined, except when you did not exist? What did you give to God, when you who might give anything did not exist? What then did God do, when He predestined one who did not exist? What the Apostle says: Who calls the things that are not as the things that are (Rom. 4:17). If you already existed, you would not be predestined; unless you were turned away, you would not be called; unless you were ungodly, you would not be justified, unless you were earthly and abject, you would not be glorified. Who then first gave to Him, and it will be repaid to him? For from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things. What then do we render?

To Him be glory (Rom. 11:36). Because we did not exist when we were predestined; because we were turned away when we were called; because we were sinners when we were justified: let us give thanks to God, lest we remain ungrateful.

Chapter IV. — 4. Whether we are already justified. A struggle remaining here in the justified. Now we had proposed to consider, concerning these four things, what we have already attained and what we still await to obtain. For we are already predestined, even before we existed. We were called when we were made Christians. So we already have this too. Justified — what of that? What is it, justified? Do we dare to say that we already have this third thing? And will there be anyone of us who dares to say, I am just? For I think that this, I am just, means, I am not a sinner. If you dare to say this, John meets you: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). What then? Have we nothing of justice? Or do we have it, but not have all of it? Let us therefore inquire into this. For if we have something and do not have something, let what we have grow, and what we do not have will be filled up. For see, people have been baptized, all their sins have been forgiven them, they have been justified from sins; we cannot deny it: yet there remains a struggle with the flesh, there remains a struggle with the world, there remains a struggle with the devil. Now he who wrestles sometimes strikes, sometimes is struck; sometimes he conquers, sometimes he is slain: what is looked to is how he leaves the arena. For if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Likewise, if we say that we have nothing of justice, we lie against the gifts of God. For if we have nothing of justice, neither do we have faith: if we do not have faith, we are not Christians. But if we have faith, we already have something of justice. Do you want to know how much that something is? The just man lives by faith (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17): the just man, I say, lives by faith; because he believes what he does not see.

Chapter V. — 5. Some justification truly through faith. The fathers, the holy rams, the leaders, the apostles, when they proclaimed, not only saw with their eyes but also handled with their hands: and yet the Lord, keeping for us the gift of faith, to one of His disciples who was handling, feeling, searching out the truth with his fingers and finding it, and exclaiming, My Lord and my God — the Lord and God Himself said, Because you have seen, you have believed. And looking upon us who were to come: Blessed, He said, are those who have not seen and have believed (John 20:28–29). We have not seen, we have heard, and we have believed. We have been foretold as blessed, and do we have nothing of justice? The Lord came in the flesh to the Jews, and was slain: He did not come to us, and was received. A people whom I did not know has served Me; at the hearing of the ear it has obeyed Me (Ps. 17:45). We are [that people], and do we have nothing of justice? We certainly have. Let us be grateful for what we have, that what we do not have may be added, and that we may not lose what we have. Therefore this third thing too is already being carried out in us. We have been justified: but justice itself grows as we make progress. And how it grows I shall tell, and in a certain manner confer with you, so that each one

of you, already established in justification itself, having received, that is, the remission of sins through the washing of regeneration, having received the Holy Spirit, advancing from day to day, should see where he stands, should draw near, should advance and grow, until he is consummated: not so as to be finished, but so as to be perfected.

Chapter VI. — 6. Justifying faith is distinguished from the faith of demons by hope and charity. Hope. Charity. A man begins from faith: what belongs to faith? To believe. But this faith must still be distinguished from the unclean spirits. What belongs to faith? To believe. But the apostle James says: The demons too believe, and tremble (Jas. 2:19). If you only believe, and live without hope, or do not have love: The demons too believe, and tremble. What great thing is it, if you say that Christ is the Son of God? Peter said this, and heard, Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jona: the demons said this, and heard, Be silent. That one is blessed, it is said to him, Because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but My Father Who is in heaven (Matt. 16:17). Those others, however, hear, Be silent (Mark 1:25): and they say this very thing, and are driven back. The utterance is one: but the Lord questions the root, not the flower. Hence it is said to the Hebrews: Lest any root of bitterness springing up should cause trouble, and through it many be defiled (Heb. 12:15). First, then, distinguish your faith from the faith of the demon. Whence do you distinguish it? The demons said this in fearing, Peter in loving. Add, therefore, hope to faith. And what hope is there, if not from some goodness of conscience? And to hope itself add charity. We have a way surpassing from above, as the Apostle says, I show you a more surpassing way: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have charity, I have become like sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal: and he recounts the other good things, and affirms that without charity they profit nothing. So let these remain, faith, hope, charity: but the greatest of these is charity (1 Cor. 12:31 and 13). Pursue charity. Distinguish, therefore, your faith. You are already among the predestined, the called, the justified. Paul the Apostle says: Neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith. Say more, Apostle, add, distinguish; because, The demons too believe and tremble: therefore add and distinguish, for the demons believe, and tremble at what they hate. Distinguish, Apostle, and circumcise my faith, and distinguish my cause from a nation that is not holy (Ps. 42:1). Plainly he distinguishes, discerns, circumcises. And faith, he says, which works through love (Gal. 5:6).

Chapter VII. — 7. The freely given worship of God. Who alone satisfies the soul. Let each one, therefore, my brothers, look within himself, weigh himself, test himself in all his deeds, in his good works, which he should do with charity, not expecting a temporal reward, but the promise of God, the face of God. For whatever God promises you is worth nothing apart from God Himself. God would not satisfy me at all, unless He promised me

God Himself. What is the whole earth? What is the whole sea? What is the whole heaven? What are all the stars? What is the sun? What is the moon? What is the army of the Angels? It is the Creator of all these that I thirst for: Him I hunger for, Him I thirst for, to Him I say, For with Thee is the fountain of life (Ps. 35:10). He it is Who says to me: I am the bread which came down from heaven (John 6:41). Let my pilgrimage hunger and thirst, that my presence may be satisfied. The world smiles [on us] with many things, beautiful, strong, varied: more beautiful is He Who made them, stronger and more glorious He Who made them, sweeter is He Who made them. I shall be satisfied when Thy glory is made manifest (Ps. 16:15). If, then, the faith which works through love is in you, you already belong to the predestined, the called, the justified: so let it grow in you. For the faith which works through love cannot be without hope. But when we have arrived, will there still be faith there? Will it be said to us, Believe? Certainly not. We shall see Him, we shall contemplate Him. Dearly beloved, we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. Because it has not yet appeared, therefore there is faith. We are sons of God, predestined, called, justified: we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. Now, therefore, there is faith, before what we shall be appears. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him. Is it because we believe? No. Why then? Because we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).

Chapter VIII. — 8. Hope, the solace in this pilgrimage. What of hope? Will it be there? Hope will no longer be, when the reality is. For hope itself is necessary to the pilgrimage; it is hope that consoles us on the way. For the traveller, when he toils in walking, bears the toil because he hopes to arrive. Take from him the hope of arriving, and at once his strength for walking is broken. Therefore the hope too which is here belongs to the righteousness of our pilgrimage. Hear the Apostle himself: Awaiting the adoption, he says, we groan within ourselves still. Where there is groaning, that cannot yet be called the happiness of which Scripture says, Toil and groaning have passed away (Isa. 35:10). Therefore still, he says, we groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body. Still we groan. Why? For in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For if one sees a thing, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience. In this patience, then, the martyrs were crowned; they longed for what they did not see, they despised what they endured. In this hope they said: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or the sword? Because for Thy sake. And where is He for Whose sake? Because for Thy sake, he says, we are put to death all the day (Rom. 8:23–25, 35–36). For Thy sake. And where is, Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed (John 20:29)? Behold where it is: it is in you, because faith itself is in you yourself. Or does the Apostle deceive us, who says that Christ dwells through faith in our hearts (Eph. 3:17)? Now through faith, then through