Augustine, Sermones 164-170 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

you are provoked against your very adversary. See, you have lost time. How much better, then, is it that you let a coin go and redeem the time? My brothers, in your lawsuits and in your business affairs, when they come before us to be judged, if I tell a Christian man that for the sake of redeeming the time he should lose something of his own, with how much greater care and confidence ought I to tell [the other] to give back what is another's? For I hear both as Christians. Now that slanderer, who wants to bring a suit against another and take from him even by way of a settlement, rejoices at these words: "The apostle said, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. So I bring a false charge against that Christian; whether he wants to or not, he gives me something to redeem the time, because he has heard the bishop." Tell me, if I am going to say to him, Lose something, so that you may be at peace, am I not going to say to you, Slanderer, lost son of the devil, why do you strive to carry off what belongs to others? You have no case, and you are full of false accusation. If, then, I say to him, Give him something, so that he may withdraw from his false charge, where will you be, you who will have money from false accusation? He who to avoid a false charge redeems the time from you endures evil days here; but you who feed on false accusations will have evil days here, and after these you are going to have worse ones on the day of judgement. But perhaps you laugh at this, because you are seizing money. Laugh, laugh, and scorn it: let me pay out; One Who will exact it is coming.

Sermon 168. On the words of the apostle, Eph. 6:23, Peace to the brothers, and charity with faith. Or, on the grace of God, according to the confession and teaching of the Vessel of election, that faith is a gift of the mercy of God.

Chapter I. — 1. He Who promised makes the sons of Abraham's faith. By the readings, the canticles and the divine sermons, and, what is chief, by His grace, may the Lord build up your heart, so that what you hear as true you may hear not unto judgement but unto reward. He will do this, because He Who promised is able also to do it. So Abraham believed, giving glory to God, and therefore also most fully believing that what He promised He is able also to do (Rom. 4:20–21). Great is our joy: He promised us to Abraham; we are sons of the promise (Gal. 4:28). For when it was said to Abraham, In your seed shall all nations be blessed (Gen. 22:18), we were promised. Therefore He Himself, Who is able to do what He promised, has made us sons of Abraham's faith. Let no one say: I did it. For God does not promise and you do it. But it can rightly be said that what you promise, God does. For you are weak; you are not almighty. When, then, you promise, unless God does it, your promise is empty. But God's promise does not depend on you, but on Him. "But I," you say, "believed." I grant it. You speak the truth: you believed, but you did not give yourself the faith. Whence, then, did you believe, if not from faith? Faith in you is the gift of God.

Chapter II. — 2. The faith of Christians is other than the faith of demons. The faith of the sons of God is with charity. Faith is the beginning of salvation. True peace. Hear the Apostle himself, the expounder of faith and the great defender of grace: hear him saying, Peace to the brethren, and charity with faith. He spoke of three great things: peace, charity, faith. He began from the end and finished at the beginning. For the beginning is in faith, the end in peace. That by which we believe is itself faith. But faith ought to be that of Christians, not that of demons. For, as James the apostle says, The demons also believe and tremble (Jas. 2:19). The demons too said to Christ, Thou art the Son of God. The demons confessed what men did not believe. The former trembled, the latter killed. What then? Because the demons said, Thou art the Son of God, we know who Thou art (Mark 3:12, and 1:24), are they therefore going to reign with the Son of God? Far from it! The faith of demons, then, must be distinguished from the faith of the saints. Clearly it must be distinguished, watchfully and diligently. For Peter too said this to the Lord when He said, Whom do you say that I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona (Matt. 16:15–17). O Lord, the demons also said this to Thee: why are they not blessed? Why? Because the demons said it out of fear, Peter out of love. Therefore the beginning is from faith. But from what kind of faith? That which the Apostle defined: Neither does circumcision avail anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith. Say, what faith? That which works through love (Gal. 5:6). This faith, which works through love, the demons do not have: but only the servants of God, only the saints of God, only the sons of Abraham by faith, only the sons of love, the sons of the promise; therefore "and charity" was said. Those three things were said by the Apostle: Peace to the brethren, and charity with faith. Peace to the brethren. Whence peace? And charity. Whence charity? With faith. For if you do not believe, you do not love. So the Apostle spoke, beginning thus from the end and coming to the beginning: Peace, charity, with faith. Let us say: Faith, charity, peace. Believe, love, reign. For if you believe and do not love, you have not yet distinguished your faith from those who trembled and said: We know who Thou art, the Son of God. Therefore do you love: for charity with faith itself leads you to peace. What peace? True peace, full peace, solid peace, secure peace; where there is no plague, no enemy. That peace is itself the end of all good desires. Charity with faith: and if you say it thus, you say well, Faith with charity.

Chapter III. — 3. All good things, and even faith itself, are from God. Full faith. Great goods, then, did the Apostle mention: Peace to the brethren, and charity with faith: great goods. But let him say whence these goods are: whence are they, from us, or from God? If you say, From us, you glory in yourself, not in God. But if you have learned what the Apostle himself also says, That he who glories, let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31), confess that peace, charity with faith, are yours only from God. But you answer me: You say this; prove what you say. I prove it: I shall call the Apostle himself as witness. See, you have it: the Apostle said, Peace to the brethren, and charity with faith. He himself said it. What did he himself say? See, it follows: Peace to the brethren, and charity with faith, from God the Father

of ours and the Lord Jesus Christ. What then do you have that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you glory as though you had not received it (1 Cor. 4:7)? For if Abraham gloried, he gloried from faith. What is full and perfect faith? That which believes that all our good things are from God, and faith itself as well. Again the Apostle says, I obtained mercy. O confession! He does not say, I obtained mercy because I was faithful; but, I obtained mercy that I might be faithful (1 Cor. 7:25).

Chapter IV.—4. Grace given to an unbeliever and cruel persecutor. Let us come to his beginnings, let us see Saul raging, let us behold him furious, let us behold him breathing out hatred and thirsting for blood. Let us behold him, brothers; a great spectacle. See, after the killing of Stephen, after the blood of God's witness had been shed by stones, when he was guarding the garments of those stoning him, so that he might stone him with their hands as well, then the brothers who had been gathered at Jerusalem were scattered; and he, raging, for whom it was too little to have seen and shed the blood of Stephen, received letters from the chief priests, that he might go to Damascus and bring back in chains whatever Christians he found there. And he was going. This was the way of Paul, whose way was not yet Christ; still of Saul, not yet of Paul. He was going. What did he have in his heart? What but evil? Give me his merits. If you seek his merits, they are merits of damnation, not of deliverance. He was going, then, to rage against the members of Christ, he was going to shed blood, he was going, a wolf who was to be a shepherd: so he was going. For he could not go otherwise to those things for which he was going. And while he walks thus, while he plots, while he breathes out slaughter; while anger guides his feet, while hatred moves his limbs, while he presses on and walks, the slave obeys cruelty: and behold a voice from heaven, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? See why he said, I obtained mercy that I might be faithful. He was an unbeliever; that is too little, in his very unbelief he was cruel: but he obtained mercy, that he might be faithful (Acts 7-9). What will you say to God when He says, I will it? So, Lord, the man who did such things, who longed to do such evils against Thy saints, him dost Thou judge worthy of such mercy? I will it. Is your eye evil because I am good (Matt. 20:15)?

Chapter V. — 5. Both faith and prayer are from the grace of God. A Pelagian objection. Have faith: but that you may have faith, pray in faith. But you could not pray in faith unless you had faith. For nothing prays but faith. For how will they call upon Him in Whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe Him Whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without someone preaching? Or how will they preach unless they are sent (Rom. 10:14–15)? Therefore we speak, because we have been sent. Hear us, hear Him through us. So, someone says, we call upon God that He may grant us to persevere in these good things which we have, and add the good things which we do not have. Faith, then, which asks, came first. Certainly God gives everything. For that He might give to me, I asked: that I might ask, I first believed. So I gave to myself that I believed, and God gave what I, believing, prayed for. Let the question be solved: for it is no small one. I see you saying this, because you first

gave something to God, so that He might give you the rest. For you gave Him your faith and your prayer. And where is what the Apostle says: 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)? See what sort of person you want to be. So you gave to God first, and you gave this, which God did not give you? Did you find something to give, O beggar man, whence did you have it? So whence would you give? Did you have anything? For what do you have that you did not receive? So you give to God from what is God's: from what He gave you, He receives from you. For your beggary, had He not first given, would remain utterly empty.

Chapter VI. — 6. That faith is the gift of God is proved by the prayer made for Saul the unbeliever. Hear whence you may prove this more evidently. See, you, because you have believed, have received: what do we say of those who have not yet believed, as Saul was, who had not yet believed? But he received in order that he might believe: after he believed in Christ, then he began to call upon Christ. From Him he received that he might believe, and by believing call upon Him, and by calling upon Him receive the rest. What do we think, brothers? Before Saul believed, did those who had believed pray for him, or did they not pray? Let it be told me: if they did not pray for him, why did Stephen say, Lord, do not lay this sin against them (Acts 7:59)? Prayer was made both for him and for other unbelievers, that they might believe. See, they did not yet have faith, and through the prayers of the faithful they received faith. They did not yet have anything to offer to God; for they had not yet obtained mercy, so as to be faithful. In short, after this Saul was converted, by one voice struck down and raised up, struck down a persecutor, raised up a preacher: after he began to preach the faith which he once laid waste, what did he say of himself? But I was unknown by face to the churches of Judaea which are in Christ: they only heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once laid waste; and they glorified God in me (Gal. 1:22–24). Did he say, and they glorified me in me? And in me, who was preaching the faith which I once laid waste, they glorified not me, but God. So He Himself brought it about that Saul, having laid aside the old garment, ragged with sins, bloody with slaughters, that having laid aside that garment, he should receive the garment of humility, and from Saul should become Paul.

Chapter VII. — 7. Paul, that is, "small", a preacher of the grace conferred on him. What is Paul? Least. For I am the least of the apostles. See what Paul is. For paulum in Latin is "small". So we speak when we say, Post paulum video te ["I see you in a little while"], paulo post facio illud ["I do that a little later"]. What is paulo post? Modico post ["a little after"]: post paulum, post modicum. Why then Paul? Because small. Small, because last. For I am, he says, the last of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. You say well: where you ought to have been condemned, you received from Him that whereby you should be crowned. From whom did you receive that whereby you should be crowned? From whom did he receive, do you want to hear? Do not listen to me, listen to him: I am not worthy, he says, to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God; but