Grace for Grace: The Debates after Augustine and Pelagius 0813226015, 9780813226019

Citation preview

Grace for Grace

Grace for Grace The Debates after Augustine and Pelagius Edited by Alexander Y. Hwang, Brian J. Matz, and Augustine Casiday

The Catholic University of America Press  Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2014 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grace for grace : the debates after Augustine and Pelagius / edited by Alexander Y. Hwang, Brian J. Matz, and Augustine Casiday. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8132-2601-9 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Grace (Theology)—History of doctrines—Early church, ca. 30–600.  2. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo.  3. Pelagianism.  4. Church history­­­—Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600.  I. Hwang, Alexander Y., editor of compilation. BT761.3.G725 2014 234—dc23 2014004721

This book is dedicated to Roland J. Teske, SJ, whose elegant translations and interpretations of Augustine’s works are invaluable sources for studying the Bishop of Hippo

CONT E NTS

Preface  ix Introduction by Rebecca Harden Weaver  xi Abbreviations  xxvii Chronology of Key Events  xxix

1. The Background: Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy  1 Eugene Teselle 2. 1 Timothy 2:4 and the Beginnings of the Massalian Controversy  14 Roland Teske, SJ 3. Pauci perfectae gratiae intrepidi amatores: The Augustinians in Marseilles  35 Alexander Y. Hwang 4. Prosper’s “Crypto-Pelagians”: De ingratis and the Carmen de prouidentia Dei 51 Raúl Villegas Marín (translated by Gerardo Rodríguez-Galarza) 5. “Les vers servent aux saints”: Didactic Poetry and Anti-Heretical Polemic in the Carmen de Ingratis 72 Jérémy Delmulle 6. Prosper’s Pneumatology: The Development of an Augustinian  97 Thomas L. Humphries Jr.

7. John Cassian and Augustine  114 Boniface Ramsey 8. Vincent of Lérins’s Commonitorium, Objectiones, and Excerpta: Responding to Augustine’s Legacy in Fifth-Century Gaul  131 Augustine Casiday 9. Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God  155 Francis X. Gumerlock 10. Augustine, Pelagius, and the Southern Gallic Tradition: Faustus of Riez’s De gratia Dei 180 Matthew J. Pereira 11. Caesarius of Arles, Prevenient Grace, and the Second Council of Orange  208 Ralph W. Mathisen 12. Augustine, the Carolingians, and Double Predestination 235 Brian J. Matz 13. A n Eastern View: Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Against the Defenders of Original Sin 271 Nestor Kavvadas Contributors  295 Index  297

PR EFACE

The term “semi-Pelagian” is an ironic misnomer. This controversy over grace and free will has long remained in the shadows cast by the much better known Pelagian controversy. This book of essays is the first published volume solely dedicated to this understudied controversy. The publication of this volume represents the recent renewal of scholarly interest in this controversy. The Pelagian controversy was over the question of orthodoxy, cast in terms of a struggle between good and evil, sin and grace, and salvation and damnation. The controversy that followed had much less at stake than the eternal fate of souls. Still, the controversy is the Western Church’s initial struggle to interpret certain elements of Augustine’s teachings on grace and set the terms and arguments, if not the tone, for future debates over the interpretation of Augustine’s doctrine of grace. The idea for this project originated from an informal conversation at the 2007 International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford University. The editors wish to thank the contributors not only for their contributions but also for their patience with all the unexpected delays in the editing process. Special thanks to Taylor Stewart for assistance with the index. We also wish to express our gratitude to the staff of the Catholic University of America Press for their support and encouragement for this project from the beginning.

ix

I NTRODUCTION

  Rebecca Harden Weaver

The disputes over grace that arose in the fifth and early sixth centuries in the West reveal not only the absence of any normative doctrine of grace but also the lack of a consensus on the subject. By the end of 418, Augustine of Hippo and the North African Church had effectively condemned the views of Pelagius and those who agreed with him. They accomplished this feat with the help of the emperor Honorius and two bishops of Rome, Innocent I and his successor Zosimus. However, Augustine’s own teaching on grace had raised questions and misgivings even among those who shared his rejection of Pelagianism. In the century following the resolution of the Pelagian controversy, some of the extreme implications of Augustine’s teaching on grace, such as predestination, a limited divine will for salvation, and the unfailing character of perseverance, evoked sporadic debate in North Africa, southern Gaul, Rome, and even Constantinople. The Second Council of Orange in 529, which provided a modified Augustinianism, did serve as an ostensible resolution to these debates, but it was only a regional council with limited authority and influence. It never received normative status.

xi

xii  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

Summary of Events North Africa, Southern Gaul, and Rome (420s–50s) In 427 a community of monks in Hadrumetum, a city southeast of Carthage, found itself divided on the merits of Augustine’s letter to Sixtus (Ep. 194), written in 418 at the conclusion of the Pelagian controversy. Augustine’s views on the sovereignty of grace, which he expressed in the letter, sparked contentious debates within the community. Eventually, the monks turned to Augustine himself for guidance. The bishop composed two treatises for this community: On Grace and Free Will and On Rebuke and Grace. Along with Augustine’s personal instruction of several of the monks, these treatises seem to have resolved the situation in Hadrumetum. In Gaul, however, where Augustine’s views on grace were already the subject of criticism, On Rebuke and Grace only intensified the problem. As a result two of Augustine’s Gallic supporters—Prosper of Aquitaine, a layman in Marseilles, and another layman named Hilary—wrote to the bishop asking for help in replying to his critics. Augustine responded with On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, in 428 or 429. These are among the last of his works on grace. Not surprisingly, these two treatises were not well received by his Gallic critics. After Augustine’s death in 430, Prosper and Hilary quickly sought papal support for their defense of Augustine. Pope Celestine responded with an endorsement of Augustine’s reputation that was so vague that each side could use it to support its own position. For the next ten years, Augustine’s doctrine was the subject of a heated debate between the supporters of Augustine, led by Prosper, and their much more numerous and distinguished opponents. Among the writings viewed as critical of Augustine’s teachings were Conference 13 of John Cassian and the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lérins. Cassian’s Conference 13, however, had been written earlier,

INTRODUCTION  xiii

perhaps even prior to Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace. Vincent’s Commonitorium, although written in the context of this controversy, is, at most, an indirect challenge to Augustine’s views. With Prosper’s move to Rome to serve Leo, the newly elected pope, the center of the controversy shifted there as well. Prosper was to spend the remainder of his life attempting to reconcile Augustine’s teaching on grace with the authority and tradition of the Roman Church. After the death of Prosper, around 455, the debate on Augustine’s teaching returned to southern Gaul. Riez, Rome, Constantinople (450s–520s) Faustus, the next major figure we encounter, was trained at Lérins and became its abbot in 433. He was elected bishop of Riez in 457 and was involved with the condemnation of the presbyter Lucidus, who, drawing on Augustine, had taught an extreme version of predestination. Faustus wrote On Grace on behalf of the Council of Arles (473) and the Council of Lyons (474), which had dealt with Lucidus and his claims. The affair over Lucidus remained a local Gallic matter and was quickly resolved, but On Grace inspired the next stage in the controversy. In the 520s, as a curious by-product of the Christological controversy in the East, Faustus’s work became the subject of debate between a group of Scythian monks and some North Africans. The Monophysite Scythian monks were suspicious of any hint of human contribution to salvation and challenged the position of Faustus. The monks sought clarification, both by letter and in person, from Pope Hormisdas on the official Roman teaching on grace. They also appealed to Fulgentius of Ruspe. Fulgentius, a monk and a bishop, became the spokesman for the catholic African clergy exiled by the Vandals. He responded to the Scythians with On the Incarnation and the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, with further encouragement from the Scythians, Against Faustus the Gaul (now lost), and, in 523, after his return to Africa, The Truth of Predestination and the Grace of God.

xiv  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

Orange and Its Legacy (529–1500s) The last chapter in the sporadic debate over Augustine’s teaching on grace centered on the figure of Caesarius of Arles, a highly controversial Gallic bishop. Although Caesarius had received his monastic training at Lérins, he had also been deeply influenced by his teacher, Julianus Pomerius, a North African Augustinian. In response to opposition from other Gallic bishops about his teachings on grace, Caesarius called and presided over a hastily arranged council, the Second Council of Orange, in 529. The signatories accepted what Caesarius put before them, which might be characterized as a modified form of Augustinianism. The more difficult points of Augustine’s teaching were either abandoned or simply left unstated. The resolution at Orange did little to prevent future controversies over Augustine’s teaching on grace. This debate next resurfaced during the Carolingian period, when the questions concerning Augustine’s doctrine of grace were pursued along different lines, reflecting a different context. Through the course of the Middle Ages, Augustine’s name became nearly synonymous with orthodoxy, even if some of his teachings on grace remained controversial. The discrepancy went unnoticed except for a few brief episodes when the church was forced to reexamine Augustine’s doctrine of grace and its interpretations. And, of course, the issues debated in the Gallic controversy later became essential themes in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation discussions on grace.

Misnomers The term “semi-Pelagian” and its cognates is a well-known and resilient misnomer. It first appeared in the late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century conflict, known as the de auxiliis controversy, between the Dominicans and Jesuits over the issue of grace. The writings of Augustine and his followers were widely cited by both sides, and Prosper of Aquitaine’s designation for the Gallic oppo-

INTRODUCTION  xv

nents of Augustine’s doctrine of grace in Marseilles—Pelagianorum reliquiae—was translated as semi-Pelagian.1 Shortly thereafter, it became the common designation for the Gallic critics of Augustine’s doctrine of grace as well as the name of the controversy. The semi-Pelagians were viewed as holding a position halfway between the teachings of the orthodox Augustine and the heretical Pelagius. Moreover, the conflict was framed as a struggle between the competing views of Augustine and the semi-Pelagians, which was assumed to have been settled at the Second Council of Orange in 529. Although scholars have long recognized and sought to correct the pejorative misnomer, the term is still widely used. Alternative terms for the opponents of Augustine in Gaul have been proposed, including Massilians, semi-Augustinians, anti-Augustinians, antipredestinarians, masters of Provence, and monks of Provence. Most recently, the term doctores Gallicani was reintroduced to designate Augustine’s Gallic critics, and the “Augustinian” controversy was proposed as an alternative name for the conflict.2 The term semi-Pelagian is so well established and widely used that it has reached a level of acceptance, if not begrudging acquiescence, among scholars of the controversy.

Reassessments When I first encountered the “semi-Pelagian controversy” about three decades ago, I considered it to be a controversy that had a beginning, several intermediate stages, and a conclusion.3 The more I 1. Prosper [among the letters of Augustine], Ep. 225.7 (CSEL 57: 465). See M. Jacquin, “A quelle date appraît le terme ‘semipélagien’?” Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques 1 (1907): 506–8. 2. Gennadius of Marseilles, De viris inlustribus 60 (ed. E. C. Richardson, TU 14/1 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896], 81). Mark Vessey, “Peregrinus against the Heretics: Classicism, Provinciality, and the Place of the Alien Writer in Late Roman Gaul,” Studia Ephemerides Augustinianum 46 (1994): 530–65. Alexander Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press), 2–6. 3. Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the

xvi  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

have worked with it, however, the more questions I have encountered about both the beginning and the end of the controversy, as well as the identification of its various stages and the relationships among them. The one consistent strand is Augustine’s teaching on grace, or, more accurately, the response of others to that teaching. The complexity of the reception of Augustine’s teaching on grace has become ever more fascinating as it has become increasingly apparent that what is referred to, for convenience sake, as a single phenomenon was actually a series of literary episodes somewhat tenuously related to each other through ideas, people, and geography. Two examples may illustrate this assessment. First, one might say that the dispute began in Hadrumetum and then spread to southern Gaul; however, it is unclear that there was much, if any, connection between the two episodes. The treatises that Augustine wrote in response to the questions raised at Hadrumetum, particularly On Rebuke and Grace, did strengthen the reservations of Augustine’s questioners in southern Gaul, but their reservations predated the reception of the documents. Second, although Prosper of Aquitaine is a dominant figure in several of these episodes, Prosper can be seen through his writings as a lay Christian struggling over several decades to identify and express the faith of the church regarding the operation of divine grace. In other words, he was moving along his own trajectory, which intersected at various points with disputes over Augustine’s teaching on grace. He was challenged by and contributed significantly to those disputes, but he was also pursuing his own questions and developing his own convictions. In the last few decades, this late antique struggle over Augustine’s doctrine of grace has become a focus of scholarly interest not so much for its effects, which were minimal, as for what it reveals about the times and places in which it was played out. For examSemi-Pelagian Controversy, Patristic Monograph Series 15 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1996).

INTRODUCTION  xvii

ple, Donato Ogliari’s Gratia et Certamen explores the episode at Hadrumentum.4 Alexander Hwang’s Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace tracks the quest of Prosper of Aquitaine for the church’s authoritative teaching on grace.5 Augustine Casiday’s Tradition and Theology in St. John Cassian seeks to correct conventional misreadings of Cassian, including those related to his teaching on grace.6 In other words, the foci of scholars have become narrower with the result that the complexity of events and positions has been illuminated. Of course, these new perspectives are to be celebrated as evidence of the maturing of scholarship in this area. One result, however, is the loss of any simple way to name or characterize the “controversy.”

Contents of the Volume The authors of this collection, in their explorations of facets of one or more episodes, underscore these scholarly shifts. As they examine particular individuals and moments in the “semi-Pelagian controversy,” they point us to previously unnoticed fissures and unexpected connections in the reception of Augustine’s teaching on grace. Taking a fresh look at familiar territory has led them to surprising insights. Eugene TeSelle sets the doctrinal stage by reintroducing us to Augustine and Pelagius and the controversy that stood behind much of the subsequent disquiet over the doctrine of grace. He locates the origin of that prior controversy in two questions: What has been the effect of the sin of Adam and Eve on their descendants? What are the respective roles of free will and grace in the return of sinners to God? In tracking the progress of these questions in the Pelagian con4. Donato Ogliari, Gratia et Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003). 5. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace. 6. Augustine Casiday, Tradition and Theology in the Writings of St. John Cassian, Oxford Early Christian Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

xviii  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

troversy, TeSelle calls attention to several features of that dispute. First, neither the questions posed nor the responses to them were entirely new. Not only could the participants draw upon the work of Cyprian, Origen, and a Syrian tradition found in Theophilus and Irenaeus, but they also had access to modifications of these positions by a range of interpreters. Second, the “Pelagian movement” consisted of two strands, one associated with Caelestius and another with Pelagius himself. It was for the views of Caelestius, however, that Pelagius was regularly condemned. Third, what most distinguished Pelagius was his conviction of an unrestricted freedom of choice, given by God and immune to alteration by sin or circumstance. It is precisely that conviction of human freedom as enduring and unrestricted that Augustine’s highly nuanced views on grace came to undermine. Ironically, it was the very complexity of Augustine’s views on grace, as these views evolved, that provided occasion for subsequent controversies on grace, including the controversy that this volume is exploring. Roland Teske moves us to Gaul. His examination of the beginnings of controversy there raises the startling possibility that had Augustine exercised more patience, the dispute might have ended shortly after it began. Focusing on the divergent interpretations of 1 Tim. 2:4 that were at the heart of the dispute, Teske notes that in the last decade of his life Augustine’s references to the verse consistently restricted the divine will for salvation. The bishop’s argument, as well as that of Prosper of Aquitaine who defended him against his Gallic critics, makes two assumptions: that God’s will is always efficacious and that not all are saved. Teske points out that when Prosper and an otherwise unknown Hilary wrote to Augustine for help so that they might better defend him against his well-respected Gallic critics, they neither quoted nor referred to any document written by these critics. What they reported amounted to hearsay and was possibly inaccurate. The only relevant Gallic documents that might have been available were the Conferences of John Cassian, in which the author inter-

INTRODUCTION  xix

prets the divine will for salvation as applying to all human persons but without indicating that the divine will cannot be frustrated. In effect, there was no textual evidence that the monks of Provence taught anything that undermined the grace of God. Teske raises the tantalizing possibility that if Augustine had waited to respond until he received certain documents, such as Cassian’s Conference 13, he might have responded in a way that would have eased tensions instead of exacerbating them, as his On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance most unfortunately did. Alexander Hwang, Raúl Villegas Marín, Jeremy Delmulle, and Tommy Humphries invite us to reconsider Prosper, his context, and his early struggles to defend Augustine’s teachings on grace. Hwang locates Prosper among a “few intrepid lovers of perfect grace” who, in the 420s and 430s in southern Gaul, looked to Augustine as the authoritative interpreter of catholic teaching. These “few” stood in contrast to the influential doctores Gallicani, who respected Augustine but maintained a critical distance from elements of his teaching that they considered novel, especially his doctrine of predestination. The arrival in southern Gaul of Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace transformed the situation for both groups. With the implications of predestination now made explicit, the doctores Gallicani became alarmed. Predestination was not simply a novel teaching; it was dangerous. Augustine’s supporters, of which there were at least two small groups, appealed to him for aid in responding to his critics. The letter from Prosper paints the bishops’ detractors as latter-day Pelagians. A second letter, from an otherwise unidentified Hilary, expresses concern that Augustine himself was now contradicting his own earlier views on grace, as the doctores Gallicani charged. In these two letters, we see the tensions within the Augustinian camp. Although both groups supported Augustine, one group had no doubts about the truth of Augustine’s views on grace; the other was uneasy that there might be some validity to criticisms lodged against him. This unease is predictive.

xx  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

What Hwang charts is the gradual evolution of the views of Augustine’s Gallic supporters, especially Prosper. In the early 430s he was still confidently defending Augustine; yet by mid-decade he and others were reevaluating and even modifying their positions, especially on the doctrine of predestination. Over time, Augustine’s Gallic defenders had come to share elements of the views of their Gallic opponents. Raúl Villegas Marín sets the On the Providence of God and the Poem on the Ungrateful in their historical context and thereby helps us to reconsider both fifth-century “Provençal theology of grace” and Prosper’s struggle with it. Since the ninth century, the former poem has been attributed, not without question, to Prosper. Marín demonstrates not only that Prosper was not the author of On the Providence of God but that he was actually arguing against it in the latter poem. Marín argues that the Providence of God was a highly sophisticated attempt to address the crisis of faith among the GalloRoman Christian aristocracy whose lives had been fundamentally disrupted by the Germanic invasions and settlements. The poet’s pastoral response, which contained elements that were critical of Augustine’s theology of grace and that evidenced the influence of Pelagius, conformed to and illuminated what Marín contends was the “Provençal theology of grace.” Prosper, who at that time was single-mindedly devoted to Augustine, used the Poem on the Ungrateful to discredit the other work as a new expression of Pelagian teachings already rejected by the church. Jérémy Delmulle uses Prosper’s Poem on the Ungrateful to help us get a better sense of Prosper in the early stages of his struggle to defend Augustine. The poem has two goals: to expose and refute the arguments of Augustine’s objectors in Marseilles and to inform these objectors as well as others of the truth of Augustine’s views on grace. Yet why did Prosper take such an indirect and laborious route as didactic poetry to achieve his twin purposes? What Delmulle finds is the peculiar aptness of the genre to create a dia-

INTRODUCTION  xxi

logue between what Prosper sees as the errors of his opponents and the truth of what he believes to be the views of the church. Despite Prosper’s harsh criticisms of the anti-Augustinians the poetic form allows him opportunity for a remarkable expression of warmth: an invitation to his adversaries for conversion and communion. In other words, Prosper found in didactic poetry a means to pursue both his polemical and his protreptic purposes. While protecting the orthodox, he could at the same time seek to convert the erring. Thomas Humphries’s “Prosper’s Pneumatology: The Development of an Augustinian” tracks the development of Prosper’s pneumatology as an indicator of Prosper’s deepening understanding of Augustine. Humphries grounds his argument for the relationship of Prosper’s pneumatology and his Augustinianism in two texts that everyone agrees Prosper wrote: Letter to Rufinus and On Grace and Free Will: Against the Conferencer. He also demonstrates that, if Prosper is viewed as the author of The Call of All Nations, evidence for the relationship is even stronger. Humphries’s argument, however, does not depend on, although it is enhanced by, the supposition of Prosper’s authorship of this last document. Humphries argues that in the 420s, specifically in On Rebuke and Grace, Augustine claimed that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the love that transforms the human will. In this account, there is no tension between the work of grace and the work of the human will; there are not two agencies at work. Instead, it is the graced will—the will reformed by the Holy Spirit—that enacts the good. What Humphries demonstrates is Prosper’s gradual appropriation of Augustine’s pneumatology in his own development of a coherent understanding of the relationship of grace and the free will. Humphries’s contribution to our understanding of the widely acknowledged evolution of Prosper’s thinking is that it ties that evolution to a deeper comprehension of Augustine rather than to a growing wariness of Augustine. Significantly, both positions can be held simultaneously: Prosper can be said to have become increasingly wary of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination while,

xxii  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

at the same time, becoming increasingly dependent on Augustine’s pneumatological explanation for the relationship of grace and the freedom of the will. With Boniface Ramsey we move into the camp of the doctores Gallicani. Ramsey would have us consider Cassian’s Conference 13 in terms of the influence that Augustine had, positively and negatively, on all of Cassian’s writing. He points to several instances in Cassian’s works that bear the imprint, admittedly limited, of Augustine’s influence. The monk was acquainted with the views of the bishop and at points clearly agreed with him; however, he was also familiar with a theological tradition, primarily Greek, that included writers, such as Athanasius, Basil, and Chrysostom, who emphasized the freedom of the will, sometimes with little attention to grace. It was that tradition to which Cassian referred in Conference 13 when he spoke of “the Church’s faith,” and with that tradition Augustine’s theology of grace could not be squared. Ramsey argues that despite Cassian’s own clear predilection for balance regarding grace and free will, as seen in the first part of the conference, Augustine’s extreme emphasis on grace may well have led Cassian, in the last part of the conference, to tilt toward free will, presumably to right the balance. On this matter at least, Cassian’s familiarity with Augustine may well have controlled—in a negative way—his treatment of the subject and skewed his own much more balanced view. The complexity of the connections between the doctores Gallicani and Augustine is exposed further by Augustine Casiday. Challenging the common practice of placing Augustine and Pelagius on opposite poles and locating all interested parties in fifth-century Gaul in relation to one or the other, Casiday argues for a reconsideration of the notion that there was a normative Augustinianism in that century or perhaps in any other. Focusing on Vincent of Lérins, who is traditionally thought to have been part of an anti-Augustinian group of monks, Casiday examines the relationship of Vincent to Augustine’s theological legacy in terms of the Christology of each man and its implications for his teaching on grace. Specifically, in

INTRODUCTION  xxiii

the Excerpts what he finds is Vincent’s appropriation of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian Christology. That discovery enables him to reconsider traditional interpretations of the Commonitorium and the Objections of Vincent and to reopen the issue of whether the Objections might, in fact, have been written by Vincent. What Casiday seeks is not simply a reexamination of Vincent but a recognition that accepted categories of interpretation may have blinded us to the richness of early Augustinianism. By reference to Faustus of Riez and his On Grace, Matthew J. Pereira provides a sustained consideration of the doctores Gallicani. Faustus was representative of these leaders of the church in southern Gaul in significant ways: his ascetic formation at St. Honoratus on Lérins, where for over two decades he served as abbot; his service as bishop of Riez; and his education in scripture and in the developing canon of church fathers. Pereira examines how this complex combination of factors played out as Faustus was delegated by the Council of Arles in 473 to respond to the Gallic priest Lucidus, whose determined allegiance to the doctrine of predestination was surfacing long-standing tensions in the ecclesiastical world of southern Gaul. It was precisely those tensions related to grace and free will that Faustus’s On Grace sought to address. Pereira’s contextualization of On Grace enables us to apprehend not only Faustus’s argument but also his skilled integration of scripture and the teaching of the church fathers as these were interpreted through the ascetic lens of late fifth-century southern Gaul. Pereira is responding to the almost consistently negative reception of On Grace in the Middle Ages and even into the twentieth century. That negative reception was founded on a misunderstanding and misrepresentation by John Maxentius, who in the early and mid-fifth century sought to contrast the teaching of Faustus on grace and free will with that of Augustine. The result was that Faustus, inaccurately but indelibly, came to be thought of as a kindred spirit with Pelagius. Francis X. Gumerlock provides a look at the appropriation of

xxiv  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

Augustine in a context far from Gaul and its theological tensions. In the early sixth century, questions regarding grace and free will, including Augustine’s teaching on predestination, surfaced in Constantinople, Rome, Sardinia, and North Africa through the efforts of a group of Scythian monks, including John Maxentius, for whom Christological questions were inseparable from questions regarding grace. It is within this tangled mix that Gumerlock locates Fulgentius of Ruspe, who with other North African bishops had been exiled to Sardinia. The monks sought clarification on 1 Tim. 2:4. Although Fulgentius, like Augustine, argued, in contradiction to the obvious meaning of the text, that God does not will the salvation of all, Gumerlock contends that the approach to the verse taken by Fulgentius derived from classical literary theory, in which he and other North Africans, including Tyconius, Augustine, and Quodvultdeus, had been trained. Fulgentius was making his own argument in his own terms. He employed classical rhetorical devices elsewhere and did so here. He was a theologian in his own right, influenced by his fellow North African Augustine but hardly a clone. Gumerlock’s study, similar to others in this collection, exposes the manifold ways in which Augustine’s teaching on grace was interpreted, even by those who embraced it. The Second Council of Orange, presided over by Caesarius of Arles, is frequently presented as the last flare-up of tensions between proponents of Augustine’s teaching on grace and their Gallic opponents. Ralph Mathisen’s reconsideration of the evidence reveals an ambitious and generally shrewd bishop, now with his back to the wall, calling a highly irregular council to validate his teaching on prevenient grace, which had been deeply influenced by Augustine. Mathisen argues that it was likely Caesarius’s On Grace, which flew in the face of a century of Gallic teaching, that had caused his enemies to condemn the bishop’s views at the Council of Valence in 528. That Caesarius was known to be ecclesiastically predatory did not help his cause. In 529 at the dedication of a basilica for which bishops were already gathered, Caesarius called

INTRODUCTION  xxv

an impromptu council to defend his views, which were a modified version of Augustine’s own. Mathisen makes a strong case that the council was considerably less of a success than some of its present-day interpreters suggest and that Caesarius’s influence in southern Gaul and in Rome suffered. Nevertheless, it was to be three centuries before questions of grace, free will, and predestination were again to be the subject of controversy in Gaul. It is, in fact, precisely that ninth-century Gallic dispute over grace that Brian J. Matz discusses. He provides an analysis of the arguments of two groups. The double predestinarians insisted that God has predestined both eternal glory for the elect and eternal damnation for those to whom God has not given grace. The predestinarians claimed that God has predestined only the eternal damnation of those who reject God. The former group read scripture through the lens of Rom. 3:10–12; the latter, through the lens of 1 Tim. 2:4. Matz demonstrates that these arguments over predestination had gone on for two decades before anyone looked seriously at the decisions made at the Council of Orange in 529. In fact, there seems to have been considerable confusion over participants, positions, and historical contexts of the fifth- and sixth-century debates. One result was that each side felt it could invoke Augustine, Prosper, Fulgentius, and Orange as support for its position. Yet in 859 and 860, as Orange gained in authority, its own ambiguity regarding predestination became apparent. A significant portion of the debate between the two parties was devoted to the development of a ninth-century agreement on the meaning of the sixth-century document. Nestor Kavvadas provides the concluding chapter of this volume. He examines Against the Defenders of Original Sin by Theodore of Mopsuestia. Written in response to Jerome’s anti-Pelagianism, the document is “the only Greek work we know of which directly addresses the issues of the Pelagian controversy.” What may be considered characteristically western preoccupations, such as sin, grace,

xxvi  REBECCA HARDEN WEAVER

free will, and predestination, Kavvadas finds fundamental to Theodore’s soteriology. Among the issues that Kavvadas explores is Theodore’s complex, seemingly self-contradictory, view on the relationship of sin to mortality, both in the case of Adam and Eve and in that of those who follow. In the process we see something of the distinctiveness of Theodore’s soteriology in relation not only to views being battled out in the West but also to those held in the East. Kavvados, in other words, takes us back to the argument of TeSelle. The literary response to Augustine’s teaching on grace in the fifth and early sixth centuries, primarily but not exclusively in Gaul, appears ever more complex. Even among persons who would seem to be on one side or another, whether they might be labeled Augustinians or doctores Gallicani, nothing can be assumed. Positions, even those of a single individual, were anything but monolithic. In the scholarship of the last two decades, perhaps the happiest discovery has been the complexity of ideas, people, and events: the sheer messiness of the late antique reception of Augustine’s teaching on grace. Our work has just begun.

ABBR EVIATIONS

ACO  Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz and J. Straub (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1914–) ACW  Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, ed. J. Quasten et al. (New York: Newman Press, 1946–) AS

Augustinian Studies

ATA Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999)

Aug

Augustinianum

BA  Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, Bibliothèque augustinienne (Paris: Desclée, De Brower, 1936–) CCCM  Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–) CCG  Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca (Turnhout: Brepols, 1977–) CCL  Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–) CH

Church History

CSEL  Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna: Tempsky, 1865–) CSQ

Cistercian Studies Quarterly

DS  Enchirdion Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et morum, ed. H. J. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer (Barcinone: Herder, 1965) DTC  Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, ed. A. Vacant and E. Mangenot (Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1903–70) EEChurch  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. di Berardino (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) FC  Fathers of the Church, ed. R. J. Deferrari (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947–)

JECS

Journal of Early Christian Studies

xxvii

xxviii  ABBREVIATIONS JEH

Journal of Ecclesiastical History

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

MGH, AA

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi

MGH, EP

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistulae

MGH, SRM Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum NPNF  A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994) PG  Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1857–66) PL  Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1844–64) PLS  Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Supplementum, ed. J. P. Migne and A. Hamman (Paris, 1958–63) PS  Patristic Studies, ed. R. J. Deferrari (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1922–) RB

Revue Bénédictine



RE

Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche



RechAug

RechSR

Recherches Augustiennes Recherches de Sciences Religieuses



RHE

Revue d’ Histoire Ecclésiastique



RHL

Revue d’ Historie et de Littérature Religieuses



RTAM

Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale

SC Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1942–) SJT

Scottish Journal of Theology

SP Studia Patristica (Louvain: Peeters Press, 1955–) TS

VC

Theological Studies

TU  Text und Untersuchen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: Hinrichs) Vigiliae Christianae

WSA  Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1990–)

CHRONOLOGY OF K EY EVENTS

415  Synod of Diospolis (Pelagius declared orthodox by Palestinian bishops) 418

Council of Carthage (Pelagian teachings condemned)

Augustine, Letter 194 (to Sixtus) 418–22

Theodore of Mopsuestia, Against the Defenders of Original Sin

426–27 Augustine, Letters 214, 215; On Grace and Free Will; On Admonition and Grace (to Hadrumentum monks) 427/28

Prosper and Hilary, Letters 225, 226 (to Augustine)

428/29 Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints; On the Gift of Perseverance (reply to Prosper and Hilary) 430

Death of Augustine

430s

John Cassian, Conferences and Institutes

Prosper, On Grace and Free Will: Against the Lecturer (response to Conference 13)

Vincent of Lérins, Commonitories (possibly a response to On Grace)

431 Pope Celestine, Letter 21, “Apostolici verba” (response to Prosper’s and Hilary’s appeal for assistance against the critics of Augustine in Gaul) 440s–50s Prosper, Book of Sentences of Aug.; Chronicles; Official Pronouncements of the Apostolic See on Divine Grace and Free Will

Pope Leo the Great, Tome to Flavian

455 ca.

Death of Prosper

475 Faustus of Riez, On the Grace of God (treatise directed against Lucidus’s teachings on predestination)

  xxix

xxx  CHRONOLOGY OF KEY EVENTS 520s Pope Hormisdas, Letter to Possessor (Possessor, papal legate in Constantinople, debates John Maxentius, leader of the Scythian monks, over grace and free will) Maxentius, Chapters against the Nestorians and Pelagians; Booklet on the Faith (response to the official Roman position on Faustus’s and Augustine’s orthodoxy) Fulgentius of Ruspe, On the Truth of Predestination; Against Faustus 529

Caesarius of Arles (469/70–542; monk, abbot, and bishop)



Second Council of Orange



Monte Cassino established by Benedict

531

Pope Boniface II confirms canons of Orange II

850s

Gottshalk of Orbais, On Predestination



Hincmar of Rhiems, On the Predestination of God and Free Will



John Scotus Eriugena, On Divine Predestination



Councils of Quercy (853), Valence (855), Savonnières (859)

Grace for Grace

1

THE BACKGROUND  Augustine and the

Pelagian Controversy

Eugene Teselle

The Pelagian controversy had its origin in two doctrinal questions.1 One concerned the effect of the sin of Adam and Eve upon their descendants. Did it cause moral weakness, mortality, or perhaps even guilt? Or were they created in the same condition as later humanity? The other concerned the ability of sinners to return to God. Was this within the power of their free will? Or were they able to do it only with divine assistance, and perhaps even because the process was initiated by divine grace?

The Initial Controversy In the West there were many who followed the doctrine of Cyprian that infants are baptized not for their own sins but for the aliena peccata of Adam.2 This seemed to imply that Adam’s sin caused not only death but also a predisposition to sin in all his 1. Portions of this chapter have previously appeared in Eugene TeSelle, “Pelagius, Pelagianism,” in ATA, 633–40, by permission; and “Grace,” in The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, vol. 2, ed. Karla Pollmann and Willen Otten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), by permission of Oxford University Press. 2. Cyprian, Ep. 64 to Fidus.

1

2  EUGENE TESELLE

descendants. In North Africa, the incipient doctrine of original sin, which they claimed was from Cyprian, became part of the authentic tradition of the Church. A different perspective, likewise controversial, was the Origenist view that souls are born in mortal bodies because of their sins in a previous existence. An alternative to both of these perspectives was set forth in Rome by Rufinus “the Syrian”—a presbyter, a member of Jerome’s monastery in Bethlehem, and the probable translator of the Pauline epistles in the Vulgate—who came to Rome in 399 as Jerome’s delegate in the Origenist controversy. His chief follower there was Caelestius, who would soon become the focus of controversy. In the background was the Syrian doctrinal tradition, stated as early as the second century by Theophilus and Irenaeus, that Adam and Eve were created neither mortal nor immortal, but with the possibility for either destiny, depending on their free choice. To put it another way, they were created mortal but could have eaten from the tree of life had they remained obedient, and thus their actual death is the consequence of sin. Among the later representatives of this tradition (Diodore, Chrysostom, Theodore) there is some uncertainty whether physical death is natural or is the result of sin, and whether various passages of scripture refer to physical or spiritual death. Rufinus the Syrian asserted unambiguously that death is natural (although Adam and Eve could have eaten from the tree of life); punishment is only for individual sins, and not because of Adam’s sin.3 Augustine in his earlier writings entertained the hypothesis that death and moral weakness are not punishment for sin but a pedagogical challenge to improvement, or that human beings were created in a state of indeterminacy between immortality and mortality.4 Later he would deny this, on the grounds that it is inappro3. See Eugene TeSelle, “Rufinus the Syrian, Caelestius, Pelagius: Explorations in the Prehistory of the Pelagian Controversy,” AS 3 (1972): 66–73, 79–86; J.-M. Girard, La mort chez saint Augustin. Grandes lignes de l’ évolution de sa pensée telle qu’elle apparaît dans ses traités (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1992), 133–38. 4. Augustine, lib. arb. 3.20.56; 3.22.64; 3.2471–73; Gn. litt. 6.19.30–39.40; cf. pecc. mer. 1.2.2–6, 6.

BACKGROUND  3

priate for human beings to make themselves better than God made them (civ. Dei 12.9). The activities of Rufinus and Caelestius may be part of a cosmopolitan enlightenment correcting a provincial West. At the height of the Origenist controversy (404–5), many Westerners— including the father-in-law of Julian of Eclanum—had links with John Chrysostom in the East, and Pelagius was to make use of Chrysostom in his writings.5

A Double Movement The so-called Pelagian movement actually had two foci. One was Caelestius’s insistence on the similarity of Adam’s situation to that of contemporary humanity. If Adam’s sin affected only himself, the baptism of infants is not for the remission of sins but for entry into the realm of God and sanctification in Christ. Caelestius was condemned and denied ordination at a council in Carthage in 411.6 The other strand was associated with Pelagius himself, who asserted that human beings were endowed at their creation with an intelligent will, capable of choosing between good and evil, and thus they are able to avoid sin and maintain natural righteousness. Wrong decisions could not alter human nature.7 Pelagius consistently refused to answer Caelestius’s question whether mortality was natural or the result of sin. To Augustine, this was proof of his deviousness. But in fact all of the condemnations of Pelagianism outside North Africa had to do with positions characteristic of Caelestius and only secondarily with Pelagius.8 5. Elizabeth Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 23–25. 6. Augustine was not present, although he soon stated his perspective in a work with the long title De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptism parvulorum (411–42), then by De spiritu et littera (412), one of his most gentle and reflective works. 7. Reported in Augustine, nat. et gr. 52; cf. Rom. 5:12; Gal. 5:17. 8. Otto Wermelinger, Rom und Pelagius. Die theologische Position der römischen

4  EUGENE TESELLE

Pelagius and His Theology The controversy around Pelagius built slowly, over more than a decade. In the Confessions (397–401), Augustine had uttered the famous prayer, “Give what you command, then command what you will” (Conf. 10.29.40; 31.45; 37.62). When Pelagius heard these words read in the presence of an unnamed bishop in Italy a few years later, he burst out in protest, and this led him to write his book De natura.9 During the next decade, he wrote another with the assertive title On Free Choice. Pelagius considered free choice an inherent characteristic of human nature, given inseparably with creation.10 He took sin seriously. But wrong choice cannot alter human nature. The “good of nature,” freedom of choice, persists. If it is rusted over, it can be burnished by the file of the law, the hammer of Christ’s example and teachings, and the fire of the Holy Spirit.11 While much that Pelagius said was drawn from other Christian thinkers of the time, including the early Augustine, whom Pelagius cited against Augustine in his work On Nature, he did develop a distinctive anthropology, a non-relational view of human life that does not take into account the many ways experience and emotion shape the self in lasting ways.12 In almost gnostic fashion, he insisted that free choice, because it is a natural necessity and divine gift, endures. He emphasized the continuities between creation and its restoration in Christ, just as Julian would later raise the banner of free choice and God the creator.13 God’s command can always be obeyed, though Pelagius concedes that this can be done more readily ( facilius) with divine aid. Because of these God-given gifts, Bischöfen im pelagianischen Streit in den Jahren 411–432 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1975), 82–87; 357; 366–68. 9. Augustine, persev. 20.53. 10. Augustine, nat. et gr. 50.58–51.59, 55.65. 11. Letter to Demetrias 8.3. For a thorough analysis of the rival positions, see Marianne Djuth, “Possibility,” in ATA, 663–67. 12. See Augustine, nat. et gr. 67.80. 13. Quoted in Augustine, nupt. et conc. 2.3.7 = c. Jul. imp. 1.73.

BACKGROUND  5

Pelagius can affirm that willing and doing the good are to be ascribed ultimately to God. For the same reason, human beings have grave responsibilities. Pelagius made no place for the middle group of sinners who need repentance and justification but grouped them with the ungodly who must become righteous or be damned.14

Formal Controversy For several years, Augustine was reluctant to attack Pelagius; partly because of his influential friends, partly because it was difficult to get copies of his writings. There was only a “theologians’ quarrel” between them, without accusations of heresy or declarations by councils. Pelagius first came under formal attack in 415 in Palestine, where Orosius of Braga brought charges against him at a local synod, and Jerome coined the term “Pelagianism” in order to prosecute him at the regional council of Diospolis. They failed, avoiding defeat only by asking that the matter be referred to Rome as a Western issue. Augustine and his allies now risked confrontation not only with the East but with Rome as well. They seized the initiative and condemned the “new heresy” at two African councils in 416, whose actions were affirmed by Pope Innocent, but only partially, using his own language. Pelagius and Caelestius appealed, in 418, to a new pope, Zosimus, who was a Greek with no loyalties to the African tradition. After separate hearings, he declared their statements of faith unobjectionable and rebuked the accusers. Were the Africans to go against the pope? After Innocent’s response to the two African councils in 416, Augustine had said, in effect, “Rome has spoken; the matter is finished.”15 Now Augustine’s attitude toward Rome was less enthusiastic. He had rejected the Donatists’s claim that only Africa possessed the truth. The 14. Texts in Clark, Origenist Controversy, 211–12. 15. Augustine, Ser. 131.10. That was not how Innocent understood it and he was only making an interim judgment, probably hoping to reconcile the two camps.

6  EUGENE TESELLE

same principle might apply to Rome as well.16 Rome had only an appellate role, and the Africans kept the initiative, condemning the key doctrines of Pelagius and Caelestius in 418. Direct confrontation with Rome was avoided by not mentioning their names. The situation was changed by a decree of the imperial court in Ravenna, directed against both Pelagius and Caelestius. Zosimus then conformed with the empire’s action, condemning them in an Epistula Tractoria that was sent throughout the East.

A Premature Decision? Eighteen bishops in Italy and Illyria, led by Julian of Eclanum, asked that the issues be examined in a general council. They had a credible argument. The controversy had been decided after only a few years of formal debate (415–18); the condemnation had come from the imperial court and only then, under duress, from the pope; and many regions were unacquainted with the doctrine of original sin and had scarcely heard of Augustine’s approach to grace and free will.17 The literary debate between Augustine and Julian (418–30), which involved the citing of authorities and accusations of heresy and deception, must be seen in the light of the situation: Augustine was attempting to force Julian to reconsider a judgment that had already been made, first by the emperor, then by the pope. Julian became the spokesperson for “the confessors of our time,” citing the precedent of the bishops who resisted the emperor Con16. Jane E. Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), 190, 206. 17. Concerning Julian, see François Refoulé, “Julien d’Éclane, théologien et philosophe,” RechScRel 52 (1964): 42–84, 233–47; Mathijs Lamberigts, “Recent Research into Pelagianism with Particular Emphasis on the Role of Julian of Aeclanum,” Augustiniana 52 (2002): 175–98; Lamberigts, “Niemand gelooft tegen zijn zin: de late Augustinus over genade en vrije wil,” in Paul van Geest and Johannes van Oort, eds., Augustiniana Neerlandica: Aspecten van Augustinus’ spiritualiteit en haar doorwerking (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 381–95; Josef Lössl, Julian von Aeclanum. Studien zu seinem Leben, seinem Werk, seiner Lehre und ihrer Überlieferung (Leiden: Brill, 2001).

BACKGROUND  7

stantius during the Arian controversy in the previous century. (c. Iul. imp. 1.51; 1.75). He and several other bishops, condemned because of their refusal to subscribe to the Tractoria, took refuge with Theodore of Mopsuestia, then with Nestorius—compromising these bishops in the eyes of the West during the controversy with Cyril after 418 over the person of Christ. Augustine had already written to Cyril to ensure that Pelagius’s errors not lie hidden among the Greeks.18 The doctrines of Caelestius were condemned along with those of Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and a letter was sent to the West confirming the condemnation of Pelagius, Caelestius, Julian, and others. Julian was expelled from Cilicia, Constantinople, and Rome. A request for rehabilitation in 439 was denied by pope Sixtus, whom Augustine praised for turning away from Pelagianism (ep. 194), and who in his early years may have been the author of the radical Sicilian tracts. He died in Sicily between 443 and 445. There were also other inquiries, more puzzled than hostile. The monks of Hadrumetum asked whether their efforts to lead a holy life were pointless. In reply, Augustine argued that the will is ineffectual until it is liberated by grace, after which spiritual effort and mutual correction can play a subordinate but indispensable role. Other monks in Marseilles suggested, like the early Augustine, that free choice has a role at “the beginning of faith”—a position later termed “semi-Pelagianism”—and Augustine argued that grace is what initiates faith.

Augustine’s Changing Formulations The general scholarly consensus is that Augustine’s own thinking about grace and its relation to human capacities, and specifically to free choice, went through several phases. Some emphasize the differences, while others downplay the import of the changes.19 18. Ep. 4 in the recently discovered Divjak collection, dated between 417 and 421. 19. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Eugene TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian (New York:

8  EUGENE TESELLE

Augustine himself, because of his changing formulations, gave rise to most of the controversies on the topic in later centuries. What are the crucial stages in his development? The term gratia does not appear in Augustine’s early writings, but in the Cassiciacum dialogues he often speaks of the divine admonitio that calls human beings to turn toward God and the divine caritas that is its source.20 From the first he acknowledges that his reading of the “books of the Platonists” enabled him to glimpse the divine realm with his mind; but he found himself unable to attain its presence, and he attacked the pride of the philosophers in thinking they can reach God without grace, revelation, incarnation, and the sacraments of the church.21 He began to develop a doctrine of grace in early works such as De magistro (389), De Genesi adversus Manicheos (388–90), De vera religione (389–91), and De libero arbitrio (388–95). In Ad Simplicianum (396), his ideas become more distinctive, especially regarding the relationship between grace and human willing, as he himself insists later on in his career.22 When Augustine began to interpret Paul’s epistles, he had to deal with Paul’s assertions that all humans sin and are under divine condemnation (Rom. 5:12, 18–19); that the function of the Law is to show them that they are unable to avoid sin, despite their good intentions (Rom. 3:20; 7:7–11); and that justification comes not through works but through faith (Rom. 3:28), which is not a “work” but a seeking of divine aid through which one might begin Herder & Herder, 1970); J. Patout Burns, The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1980); Volker Henning Drecoll, Die Entstehung der Gnadenlehre Augustinus, Beiträge zur Historischen Theologie 109 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1999), 243–50; Pierre-Marie Hombert, Gloria Gratiae. Se glorifier en Dieu, principe et fin de la théologie augustinienne de la grace (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1996), 188–97, 593–94; Carol Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 59–63, 132–42. 20. Augustine, sol. 1.1.3; Drecoll, Gnadenlehre Augustinus, 31; Harrison, Rethinking Augustine, 242–44. 21. This is later emphasized in a classic way in the Conf. 7.10.16; 17.23; 20.26. 22. Persev. 20; praed. sanct. 4; cf. Hombert, 104–8.

BACKGROUND  9

to fulfill God’s commands. At this stage, he affirmed free choice but limited its role to freely acknowledging one’s inability and seeking divine assistance. Predestination to salvation (Rom. 8:29–30) is based on God’s foreknowledge of this freely elicited faith, and thus Augustine speaks of the “merit of faith.” Passages from this period were later quoted by the Pelagians to demonstrate that he had once agreed with them but subsequently denied free choice and asserted an arbitrary predestination. The emphasis on free choice was crucial because Paul’s statements about the bondage of the will had been used by the Manichaeans to prove that there are conflicting natures within the human being, each acting in its own mode. Thus Augustine needed to find a role for free choice, and he found it in this calling upon divine assistance after the gospel is offered to sinners. When he speaks of the “grace of faith” at this stage, he means the new dispensation that replaces the law, an opportunity to call freely upon God’s assistance, which is then given because of faith.23 The response, he said, can be made only because of the divine offer; but whether to respond or not is a human decision. If grace is received, it then ensures the freedom to obey God’s law. A major turning point in Augustine’s thought occurred in 396 (Simpl. 1.2). Augustine still affirmed a human response to the divine offer of grace. But his earlier position (still expressed in Simpl. 1.1) had been that this is a human decision. Now there are three controversial changes that will echo through the centuries. First, we find explicit mention of original sin (Simpl. 1.2.20), the belief that in Adam all his progeny also sinned and were punished with physical death, evil inclinations, and (most controversially) guilt. The doctrine had been authoritative in North Africa from the time of Cyprian, who stated (as noted previously) that infants are baptized not for their own sins but for the “sins of another.”24 23. Ex. Gal. 1, 15, 18, 32, 44, 46; ep. Rm. inch. 16; ex. prop. Rm. 62; en. Ps. 32.1.3. 24. Aliena peccata, i.e., the sins of Adam.

10  EUGENE TESELLE

Second, faith itself is now called a gift of grace (Simpl. 1.2.7), which enables humans to do what they are unable and unwilling to do by themselves because of sin—original sin and bondage of the will, both of which result from free choice. Third, grace is linked with predestination, the view that, while sinful humanity deserves to be condemned by a just God, this same God, out of mercy, chooses some who will be saved through grace. If others are called but not chosen (Mt. 22:14), it is because they have not been called “congruously,” in a way suited to their condition.25 Augustine had become convinced about predestination through Paul’s statement (Rom. 9:11) that Jacob was chosen and Esau was passed by “before they had done anything either good or evil.”26 Later he recalled that he had “labored for free choice, but the grace of God triumphed,” and he considered it a revelation from God (praed. 4.8). Soon after this, he wrote his Confessions and described conversion (his own, and several others’) in the same language of being called in a congruous way (conf. 8.12.29–30). After stating these views, however, Augustine was silent about them for fourteen years. During that time, he was concerned primarily with the Donatists and the nature of the true church, and he limited the scope of salvation in other ways than predestination. Infants who die unbaptized, even before committing personal sins of their own, are excluded from salvation because of original sin. Salvation is limited to those who, at death, are within the Catholic Church. Outside this church, there is no salvation. And even this church includes many who are not among the elect. It is impossible to separate the wheat from the tares prior to the last judgment (cf. Mt. 13:24–30); only then will the church be without spot or blemish (Eph. 5:27). The Donatists, who proudly claimed to have a purer church, lack the love that is conferred by grace, the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”27 25. Simpl. 1.2.10–14; cf. spir. et litt. 29.50–34.60. 26. Cf. Simpl. 1.2.2–8; div. qu. 68.8–14. 27. Eph. 4:3; c. ep. Parm. 3.5; Cresc. 4.10.

BACKGROUND  11

And yet Augustine also broadened the range of divine grace during these years, especially in the work Against Faustus, interpreting the Old Testament in a Christian way. Unlike many in his own day and since, he concluded that the rituals of ancient Israel, while externally different from those of the church, are signs of the same grace, the same faith; what is veiled in the one is revealed in the other.28 It has been argued that in 418 Augustine began to attribute conversion and faith not only to congruous calling but also to the immediate action of the Spirit. He appealed to the biblical statement (Prov. 8:35) that “the will is prepared by the Lord.”29 He asserted that God’s inward action changes the heart (gr. et pecc. or. 1.24.25), and in the story of Esther he found a secret influence in the heart of the king even before Esther spoke (c. ep. Pel. 1.20.38). And yet, Augustine said, no one believes unwillingly; rather those who are unwilling are made willing (c. ep. Pel. 1.19.37). When Julian of Eclanum denied that God infuses love for virtue into a reluctant person, since God does not “favor persons,” Augustine responded that grace turns a reluctant into a willing person.30 Those who come to Christ are “drawn by the Father.”31 Augustine still distinguished between faith as consent to a divine call, inward or outward, which comes “congruously” and “persuasively,” and the gift of love as infused by the Spirit (cf. Rom. 5:5), which is grace acting in a different mode. In an early work, he had said that faith seeks or “impetrates” the further grace of the Spirit (Gal. 4:4). He continued to use this language: “what the law requires (imperat), faith obtains (impetrat).”32 The first aspect, faith, is not superseded; if anything its impor28. Gr. et pecc. or. 2.25.29–30.35; nupt. et conc. 2.11.24; c. ep. Pel. 3.3.6–4.13; spir. et litt. 11.18 and 15.27. 29. Cf. pecc. mer. 2.18.30; c. ep. Pel. 1.18.36–19.37; 4.6.12; gr. et lib. arb. 16.32; nat. et gr. 16.17. 30. Augustine, c. ep. Pel. 2.6.11 and 10.22; 3.4.13. 31. Jn. 6:44, cited in gr. et pecc. or. 1.10.11; c. ep. Pel. 1.3.6, 19.37–20.38; praed. 8.15. 32. Ep. 157; cf. spir. et litt. 13.22; gr. et lib. arb. 14.28.

12  EUGENE TESELLE

tance is reinforced. Augustine often quoted the assertion that the righteous person “lives by faith” (Gal. 3:11; Rom. 1:17; Heb. 2:4); faith even constitutes that person’s “life.”33 Increasingly, he cited Paul’s statement (Rom. 14:23) that “whatever is not from faith is sin.”34 And yet justification is not by faith alone. The only saving faith is “faith acting through love” (Gal. 5:6). Both faith and works are required by God; both are rewarded; but both are also gifts.35 The result is that “God crowns not your merits but God’s own gift,” and eternal life is “grace for grace.”36

Evaluation Augustine has often been the source, especially in the West, of questions about human ability and freedom, the quest for happiness, failure and guilt, pride and self-assertion, humility, obedience, and receptivity. Sometimes isolated assertions were quoted; at other times, the debates have led to a fresh encounter with Augustine’s own writings. He was intensely aware of the transience of all finite things, and he focused attention on the way they are experienced by the human subject: receptivity to impressions from outside and within itself, reactions of desire, fear, or anger, inner conflict of inclinations, and, finally, the unavoidable responsibility to act, consenting to some inclinations and resisting others. For Augustine, free choice and the responsibility that comes with it are not equivalent with unrestricted freedom, as Pelagius supposed. Human freedom is always a situated freedom. Not only that, but Augustine also takes a relational view of the human self. We are shaped by our experiences, our culture, and our own decisions, so that freedom is 33. Perf. iust. 11.28. 34. Gest. Pel. 14.34; gr. et pecc. or. 1.26.27; nupt. et conc. 1.2.4–5; c. ep. Pel. 1.3.7, 2.7.14; praed. 11.20. 35. Praed. 11.22. 36. Gr. et lib. arb. 6.15; Jn. 1:16; cf. gr. et lib. arb. 8.20; Io. ev. tr. 3.9–10.

BACKGROUND  13

always within a limited horizon. That is why he welcomed the call of grace, denying at the same time that it is fate, for it invites or draws the affections, not overcoming free choice but enabling it to be free for the first time. What has made Augustine especially influential, then, is his phenomenology of the human subject, which makes us aware of the complexity of our experiences and decisions, leads us to examine our inward conflicts courageously, and, above all, reminds us that there is nothing we have that we do not receive (1 Cor. 4:7)—a proposition that seems well worth affirming, even on non-theological grounds, in our day of intensified social and ecological awareness.

2

1 TIMOTHY 2:4 AND THE

BEGINNINGS OF THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY

Roland Teske, SJ

In De vocatione omnium gentium, which it is now agreed that Prosper of Aquitaine wrote ca. 450, he says of 1 Tim. 2:4, “When those who love slanderous struggles read these things, they will say that by such arguments we contradict the apostle who states that God wills that all human beings be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”1 The things that Prosper has been saying and that, he suspects, will lead those people to claim that he is contradicting Saint Paul are that scripture at times seems to speak of all human beings when it means only some of them and that it at times seems to speak of peoples of all times when it means only the people of a certain time, that is, the sort of scriptural usage to which Augustine had appealed when he wanted to give a restricted interpreta1. De vocatione 1. 12. 1; PL 51: 663–64: “Sed cum haec legerint vel audierint qui amant calumniosa certamina, dicent nos per hujusmodi disputationes Apostolo contradicere definienti, quod Deus omnes homines velit salvos fieri, et in agnitionem veritatis venire.” On the authorship of De vocatione omnium gentium, see the introduction in CSEL 97 and my Oxford paper, “The Augustinianism of Prosper of Aquitaine Revisited,” SP 39: 491–504. At present, given the external and internal evidence, there does not seem to be any room for a reasonable doubt about Prosper’s authorship of the work.

14

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  15

tion to the apparently universal claim in 1 Tim. 2:4. The people who love such calumniosa certamina are the monks of Provence with whom Prosper had been quarreling for the past quarter century, chief among whom was the saintly abbot of the monastery of Saint Victor in Marseilles, John Cassian, who had died in the mid430s.2 By the time of De vocatione, the heat of the first phase of the controversy in Gaul had cooled, and there is good reason to believe that Prosper, who does not mention either Augustine or predestination in the work, was deliberately writing in a more conciliatory tone than he had earlier. In fact, the milder tone of De vocatione was, I believe, the principal reason for supposing that Prosper was not the author of that work.3 In his recent book on Prosper, A. Elberti suggests that by the time of De vocatione Prosper wanted “evitare ogni pretesto che potesse riaccendere la lotta e tentre cosi di convincere più facilmente gli avversari.”4 Furthermore, Cappuyns suggests that, once the heat of the controversy had died down after the death of Cassian, Prosper found in Cassian’s thirteenth conference reasons to modify his position on the restricted interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4. “La tragique objection de Cassian, si éloquement formulé, a-t-elle fini par lui faire l’impression et par mettre, une fois encore, sa science théologique en défaut? C’est possible. Ce qui est certain c’est que la prédestination n’était plus qu’avant, le souci dominant de Prosper.”5 2. See Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 24. Stewart’s book is an excellent study of Cassian’s life and works. 3. See my introduction to the work in the CSEL edition as well as the study of Prosper by A. Elberti, Prospero d’Aquitania: theologo e dicepolo (Rome: Dehoniane, 1999). Elberti provides strong arguments for the Prosperian authorship. A. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), does not discuss the question of authorship and simply assumes that the question is settled. A. Casiday, on the other hand, in “Rehabilitating John Cassian: An Evaluation of Prosper of Aquitaine’s Polemic against the ‘Semipelagians,’” SJT 58 (2005): 270–84, does not consider De vocatione among the works of Prosper. 4. Elberti, Prospero, 147. 5. D. M. Cappuyns, “L’augustinisme de Prosper d’Aquintaine,” RTAM 1 (1929): 309–37, here 322.

16  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

In De vocatione 1.12. 1, however, Prosper indicates that 1 Tim. 2:4 was a bone of contention in the Massalian controversy, that is, one of the principal reasons that the monks of Provence had for objecting to Augustine’s teaching in his late works. Hence, it would seem to be worthwhile to examine the role that 1 Tim. 2:4 played in the beginning of the Massalian controversy. Hence, this study will have three more parts and a conclusion: one, on Augustine’s restrictive interpretation of the text; two, on how Augustine learned of the Massalian rejection of his interpretation; and, three, on the interpretation of the verse by the monks of Gaul. It will conclude with some reflections on what we have seen. Before we take up this topic, it seems reasonable to say something about the stigma attached to the Massalians and to acknowledge my own background, which cannot but influence my perspective on the issue (the question of terminology is addressed in the introduction). The monks of Provence were not heretics, even if some points of their doctrine were eventually condemned by the Council of Orange in 529.6 The teachings of Origen, the great Eastern theologian, were also condemned after his death, although scholars still debate whether what he taught is what was condemned, but in either case he did not become a heretic retroactively, even if he had been in error.7 So, too, Cyprian, the bishop and martyr of Carthage, held that those baptized in heresy were to be baptized again when they came to the Catholic Church. But even Augustine defended him because, although he was wrong, the church had not at that point adopted a 6. On the Council of Orange, see M. Flick, SJ, De gratia Christi (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1962), 149–51. The Council was held in Orange in 529. The profession of faith from the Council was unknown for a long time and edited only in 1538. Its approbation by Boniface II was unknown until 1629. The need for internal grace for the beginning of faith is clearly taught by the Council. See DS 370–97 for the Council and DS 398–400 for the approbation by Boniface II. 7. Origen was condemned, but see the works of Henri Crousel who has argued very persuasively that Origen did not hold many of the positions that were condemned. See, for example, his articles “Origen” and “Origenism” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 2nd ed. (Detroit, Mich.: Gale, 2003), 653–61.

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  17

definitive position on the question that was to be held by all.8 Similarly, Thomas Aquinas did not hold the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary, and Bonaventure even opposed it, but no one judges them heretical since the issue was not definitively settled until the nineteenth century.9 Hence, even if the Massalians did hold points of doctrine condemned at Orange, they cannot be judged heretics on such grounds. Furthermore, the papal approval of the council was not known until much later than the sixth century.10 Augustine Casiday, furthermore, has shown that Prosper of Aquitaine’s work against Cassian, who is most commonly alleged to have been the leader of the Massalians, is flawed in many respects.11 If Prosper’s Contra collatorem, which contains his principal attack on Cassian, is flawed by distortions and misrepresentations, the question arises as to whether the reports sent to Augustine by him and by his friend, Rufinus, about the state of affairs in Provence, are not equally distorted and flawed in their presentations of the Massalian teachings. Finally, a word about where I am coming from. I came to Augustine as a philosopher, albeit one trained in Catholic theology, and I gradually absorbed what Augustine taught over the course of thirty years of teaching graduate courses on Augustine’s philosophy and through translating many of Augustine’s works for the new English translation in the Works of St. Augustine series.12 It was only late in my career that I translated the anti-Pelagian works, which I found entirely in accord with my faith and beautifully expressed until I came to the last four works on grace where the teaching on grace, predestination, and the restricted salvific will were, in my opinion, far too harshly expressed. Somewhat coincidentally, my interest then turned to Prosper and his De vocatione, 8. See Augustine, De baptismo 1.18.28 (CSEL 51: 171). 9. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was first clearly taught by Duns Scotus in the fourteenth century and was first defined in the 1854 by Pius IX. 10. See Flick, De gratia Christi, 150, for the date of recognition and of approval. 11. See A. Casiday, “Rehabilitating John Cassian.” 12. WSA (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press).

18  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

which, I believe, represents a step away from the hard-line doctrine of the late Augustine.

Augustine’s Restrictive Interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4 Augustine’s interpretation of the Pauline text was one of the reasons for the Massalian rejection of aspects of the late Augustine’s thought. His interpretation is also reasonably well known; hence, this section of the chapter will merely summarize his principal ways of interpreting the text, suggest his reasons for it, and point out some of its consequences, which, I think, provided good reasons for the Massalian protest. In all his works, Augustine quoted 1 Tim. 2:4 ten times.13 In six instances, all prior to 418, which marked the end of the first stage of the Pelagian controversy with the condemnation of Pelagius and Caelestius, Augustine cited the text without any further comment.14 In the remaining instances, he interpreted “omnes homines” to mean not all human beings but only some of them. These passages are found in Enchiridion 103.27 and Contra Iulianum 4.8.42–43, both from 421–22, and in Epistula 217.6. 19 to Vitalis of Carthage and De correptione et gratia 14.44, both from 426–27. In the last decade of his life, then, Augustine felt compelled to comment on the words of the Letter to Timothy and to explain them in a restricted sense. During this period, which coincided with the last phase of the Pelagian controversy, that is, the controversy with the renegade bishop Julian of Eclanum, Augustine gave two interpretations of the verse that took “all” to mean “not all, but many.” In one interpretation, he held that God wills all human beings to 13. I omit the citation of the text from De gestis Pelagii, which occurs in Epistula 168 from Timasius and James, which Augustine incorporated into his own work. 14. These passages are found in Expositio epistulae ad Galatas (394–95), Contra Faustum 12.36 (397–99), De spiritu et littera (412), Sermo 254 (412), Epistula 149 to Paulinus (416), and Sermo 304 (417).

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  19

be saved in the sense that there is no human being saved whom God does not will to be saved. In the second, he took “all human beings” to mean some human beings from every nation, class, occupation, age, social condition, and so on.15 Enchiridion 103.27 exemplifies both of these interpretations and is worth a closer examination. Speaking of 1 Tim. 2:4, Augustine first says: When we hear that he wills that all human beings be saved, although it is certain for us that not all human beings are saved, we ought not, nonetheless, for this reason take something away from the omnipotent will of God, but understand the words, “Who wills that all human beings be saved,” as if it were said that no human being is saved whom he does not will to be saved—not that there is no human being whom he does not will to be saved, but that no one is saved but one whom he wills to be saved. And for this reason we must beg that he will it, because it is necessary that one be saved, if he wills it.16

Augustine provided an example of scripture’s speaking of “everyone” when it did not mean everyone. “For we understand in this sense the words in the Gospel, “Who enlightens every human being,” not because there is no human being whom he does not enlighten, but because no one is enlightened save by him.”17 That is, he enlightens every human being whom he enlightens, and no one is enlightened save by him. It is noteworthy that Augustine claims it as certain that not all human beings are saved. We should, nonetheless, not suppose that 15. Ibid. 16. Enchiridion 27.103 (CCL 46: 104): “Ac per hoc cum audimus et in sacris litteris legimus, quod uelit omnes homines salvos fieri, quamuis certum sit nobis non omnes homines salvos fieri, non tamen ideo debemus omnipotentissimae dei voluntati aliquid derogare, sed ita intellegere quod scriptum est: Qui omnes homines uult salvos fieri, tanquam diceretur nullum hominem fieri salvum, nisi quem fieri ipse uoluerit; non quod nullus sit hominum nisi quem salvum fieri uelit, sed quod nullus fiat nisi quem uelit, et ideo sit rogandus ut uelit, quia necesse est fieri si uoluerit.” 17. Ibid., CCL 46: 104–5: “Sic enim intellegimus et quod in euangelio scriptum est: Qui illuminat omnem hominem (Jn. 1:9), non quia nullus est hominum qui non illuminetur, sed quia nisi ab ipso nullus illuminatur.”

20  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

the fact that all human beings are not saved is due to a weakness of God’s omnipotent will. Rather, we should understand 1 Tim. 2:4 as saying that no one is saved except those whom God wills to be saved and that he wills that all who are saved be saved. It is also, I think, noteworthy for the beginning of the Massalian controversy that Augustine says that if God wills that someone be saved, it is necessary that he be saved. Augustine’s second way of reading 1 Tim. 2:4 also limits the universality of God’s salvific will. He continues in the Enchiridion: Or surely, “Who wills that all human beings be saved,” was said, not because there is no human being whom he does not will to be saved. For he did not will to work miracles among those who, he says, would have done penance if he had worked them. Rather, we understand all human beings as the whole human race distributed among any differences whatsoever. . . .18

At this point, Augustine lists all sorts of human beings from every age, social group, and bodily and mental condition, which need not be spelled out here. He also uses another example from scripture to show the legitimacy of this second interpretation. For, although Jesus said that the “Pharisees tithe mint, rue, and every herb” (Lk. 11:42), “the Pharisees did not tithe any herbs of other peoples nor all the herbs of all foreign peoples throughout all the lands.”19 In this case, we take “every herb” to mean every kind of herb, not every single herb in the whole world. And in the same way, we take all human beings to mean every kind of human being, not every single human being. We may, Augustine continues, interpret the verse in this way or in some other, “provided we are not, nonetheless, forced to believe that almighty God willed that some18. Ibid., CCL 46: 104: “Aut certe sic dictum est: Qui omnes homines uult salvos fieri, non quod nullus hominum esset quem saluum fieri nollet, qui uirtutes miraculorum facere noluit apud eos quos dicit acturos fuisse poenitentiam si fecisset, sed ut omnes homines omne genus humanum intellegamus per quascumque differentias distributos. . . .” 19. Ibid., “Neque enim pharisaei et quaecumque aliena et omnium per omnes terras aliengenarum omnia olera decimabant.”

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  21

thing be done and it was not done. . . .”20 Again, Augustine appeals to Ps 103:11, which he apparently regarded as clear, absolute, and to be taken in its most literal sense. It is noteworthy that he implicitly alludes to Jesus’ words that, if he had worked in Tyre and Sidon, the miracles he worked in Corazin and Bethsaida, they would have repented in sack cloth and ashes,21 in order to show that God does not will that every human being be saved. For, if he willed that the people of Tyre and Sidon repent, he would have worked his miracles there. Moreover, if God wills that someone be saved, it is necessary that he be saved. It seems, therefore, to follow that someone whom God does not will to be saved will necessarily not be saved. And that is clearly one of the points that rightly, I think, bothered the monks of Hadrumetum and Provence. For it would seem to imply that God made two kinds of human beings or, in Pauline language, vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.22 But why did Augustine give such a restricted interpretation of the verse when the obvious reading is that all human beings means all human beings? He, of course, acknowledged that what the apostle said was true but argued that we need to discover the meaning of what he had said. After all, the psalmist spoke with just as much truth when he said of God: “He does whatever he wills” (Ps. 113:11). Augustine not only held that God “is called omnipotent for no other reason than that he can do whatever he wills,”23 but he inferred that if God does whatever he wills and if he wills that all human beings be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, then all human beings are saved. He was, however, certain that not all human beings are saved; hence, by modus tollens either God does not do all that he wills—which is directly opposed to Ps. 113:11—or 20. Ibid., “dum tamen credere non cogamur aliquid omnipotentem uoluisse fieri, factumque non esse. . . .” 21. See Mt. 11:21 and Lk. 10:13. 22. See Rom. 9:21–23. 23. De civitate Dei 21. 7. 1 (CCL 48: 769): “Certe non ob aliud uocatur omnipotens, nisi quoniam quidquid vult potest. . . .”

22  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

does not will that all human beings be saved. Hence, he concluded that God does not will that absolutely all human beings be saved.

1 Tim. 2:4 in the Letters of Hilary and Prosper Augustine learned of the dissent of the monks of Provence from the letters of Hilary and of Prosper. A similar controversy had, however, arisen in Africa just prior to this, and it is worth examining it briefly, since the works that Augustine wrote in that controversy triggered the one in Gaul. The African controversy began in the last years of Augustine’s long life with problems that some of the monks from the monastery at Hadrumetum found with Augustine’s writings against the Pelagians. Probably in 425, a monk from Hadrumetum by the name of Florus visited the monastery at Uzalis of Bishop Evodius, a close friend of Augustine from his youth, and found in the monastery library Augustine’s letter to Sixtus, a deacon in Rome and the future pope.24 Impressed by the letter, Florus had it copied and sent the copy back with Felix, another monk, to Hadrumetum, where unbeknownst to their abbot, Valentinus, the letter circulated among the monks, who found that Augustine’s teaching on grace was in their opinion destructive of free choice and did away with the merit of good or bad works. When Florus returned to his monastery, he discovered the unrest caused by Augustine’s letter to Sixtus and reported it to Valentinus, who appealed to Bishop Evodius for help. Evodius replied with a letter, which did not resolve the problem and basically told the monks to believe and to pray in order that they might understand.25 After another ineffective appeal to a priest by the name of 24. The Letter to Sixtus is Epistula 194 among the Letters of Augustine and was written toward the end of 418. For the Latin text, see CSEL 57: 176–214. For an English translation, see Letters 156–210, WSA II/3 (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2004), 289–308. 25. For the Latin of Evodius’s letter, see BA 24: 46–52; for an English translation, see Answer to the Pelagians IV, WSA I/26 (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1999), 42–44.

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  23

Sabinus, Valentinus sent two monks, Cresconius and another Felix, to Augustine with Augustine’s letter to Sixtus, since some suspicions had arisen about its authenticity. During their stay at Hippo, the monks explained to Augustine the problems that the letter to Sixtus had caused, and Augustine explained to them the content of his letter to Sixtus and sent back with them to Hadrumetum his work, De gratia et libero arbitrio.26 At their departure, Augustine also gave the monks a letter to Valentinus as well as copies of the principal documents of the Pelagian controversy, including two letters to Pope Innocent, one from the Council of Carthage, the other from the Council of Milevis,27 a more detailed account of these councils for Pope Innocent from five African bishops,28 Innocent’s replies to these letters,29 a letter from an African council to Pope Zosimus, Zosimus’s letter to all the bishops of the world,30 and the decrees of the plenary Council of Carthage in 418.31 Soon afterward, Valentinus sent a letter to Augustine with Florus in which he explained the origin of the dispute and mentioned the favorable reception that the De gratia et libero arbitrio met with at Hadrumetum.32 Florus also explained to Augustine the further objection posed by the monks that if God produces in us the will and the action, no one should rebuke another for failing to keep the commandments but should merely pray for that person. This objec26. De gratia et libero arbitrio and De correptione et gratia were the last of Augustine’s works included in Retractationes and are dated as written in 425–426. 27. Epp. 175 and 176, among the letters of Augustine (CSEL 44: 652–62 and 663–68). 28. Ep. 177, among the letters of Augustine (CSEL 44: 669–89). 29. Epp. 181 to 183, among the letters of Augustine (CSEL 44: 701–15, 715–23, and 724–31). 30. The letter from the African council is not extant, and Zosimus’s letter, the “Tractoria,” is extent only in a few fragments. 31. See Augustine’s Ep. 215.2 (CSEL 57: 389–90). The council was the plenary council of Africa held in Carthage in May of 418. For an English translation of the decrees, see Answer to the Pelagians I, WSA I/23 (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1997), 389–91. 32. Valentinus’s letter is Epistula 216, among the Letters of Augustine (CSEL 57: 396–402).

24  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

tion occasioned the writing of De correptione et gratia, late in 426 or more probably in 427. The African part of the controversy seems to have faded away at this point, either because the monks had no further problems with Augustine’s teaching or because the dispute in Gaul overshadowed any remnants of it. The monks of Hadrumetum were, it seems, comparatively uneducated and without the tradition of monastic spirituality that the monks of Provence enjoyed.33 Hence, they may have been satisfied with the reply from Augustine. However, De gratia et libero arbitio and De correptione et gratia were being read by the monks of Provence, who, it seems, were quite disturbed by these works of Augustine and found them at odds with their monastic discipline and asceticism. These monks were in all probability the monks in Marseilles and Lérins, whose monastic formation was strongly influenced by John Cassian, who in turn was richly schooled in the spirituality of Eastern monasticism. The monks of Hadrumetum, on the other hand, were men whose rusticity Valentinus, their abbot, readily admitted.34 What we know of the beginnings of the dispute in Gaul stems from the letter of Prosper to his friend, Rufinus, and from the letters of Prosper and Hilary to Augustine. Hence, I turn to these letters.

The Letter to Rufinus In his letter to his friend, Rufinus, possibly as early as 426, Prosper tries to ease the worries of his otherwise unknown friend arising from certain “nasty rumors (maligni rumores)” by which certain unnamed persons were attacking Augustine’s writings against the Pelagians in which they claimed 33. D. Ogliari says, “The monks of Southern Gaul, undoubtedly more learned than their African confreres in Hadrumetum, whose disturbance hardly ranks as a controversy, found that some of Augustine’s assertions were intransigent and unacceptable,” Gratia et Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians (Leuven: University of Leuven Press, 2003), 91. 34. See Ep. 216.1 (CSEL 57: 396).

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  25 that he was utterly undermining free choice and preaching a fatal necessity under the name of grace, and also adding that he wants it to be believed that there are two masses of the human race and two natures, that is, so that the impiety of the pagans and the Manichees is attributed to a man of such great piety.35

Prosper challenges them to refute Augustine publicly if what they say is true: If those charges are true, why are they so negligent, not to say impious, that they do not repel such a precipitous destruction from the Church and do not oppose such insane preachings, and do not confront at least by writings that man from whom such teaching stems?36

Clearly Prosper does not have anything in writing that attacks Augustine’s teaching on grace and seems to be relying on the “nasty rumors” circulating about his teaching. Moreover, he complains that he and the other followers of Augustine’s teaching are reprimanded and subjected to disparagement behind their backs. He asks, “If we are correctly reprimanded, why are we not constantly refuted? If we deserve to be refuted, why are we attacked by disparagement behind our backs?”37 Hence, it seems to have been not merely Prosper, but other followers of Augustine, such as Rufinus, who are not on the attack, but defending themselves from attacks and not from open attacks, but from sniping behind their backs for their siding with Augustine’s teaching. Prosper has an explanation for why these critics complain privately and not openly about the teachings of Augustine, namely, that “wanting to glory in their own righteousness rather than in 35. Prosper, Epistula ad Rufinum 3.4 (PL 51: 79): “dicentes eum liberum arbitrium penitus submovere, et sub gratiae nomine necessitatem praedicare fatalem. Adjicientes etiam, duas illum humani generis massas, et duas credi velle naturas: ut scilicet tantae pietatis viro paganorum et Manichaeorum ascribatur impietas.” 36. Ibid.: “Quae si vera sunt, cur ipsi tam negligentes, ne dicam tam impii, sunt, ut tam abruptam perniciem ab Ecclesia non repellant, tam insanis praedicationibus non resistant, nec saltem aliquibus scriptis eum, a quo talis emanat doctrina, conveniant?” 37. Ibid.: “Si recte reprehendimur, cur non constanter arguimur? Si arguendi non sumus, cur occulta obtrectatione mordemur?”

26  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

the grace of God, they take it ill that we oppose those things that they assert amid many conferences against a man of the most excellent authority.”38 Prosper spends most of the letter stating the Augustinian teaching against the Pelagians and tells us little of what his opponents are saying. He does, however, mention that they are constantly appealing to the text of 1 Tim. 2:4 that “God wills that all human beings be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” Prosper here defends the restricted interpretation found in the later writings of Augustine. We can admit our ignorance of God’s plan, Prosper says, provided we confess that no one is undeservedly lost and no one is deservedly set free and that the almighty goodness of God saves all and brings all to the knowledge of the truth—all those whom he wills to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.39

In order to show that 1 Tim. 2:4 does not mean that God wills that absolutely all human beings be saved, Prosper points out that, when the apostles began to preach to the Gentiles, scripture says of those who believed their words that “as many believed as were foreordained to eternal life” (Acts 13:48). He goes on to mention the account of the conversion of Lydia who believed because “the Lord opened her heart to attend to those things that Paul was saying” (Acts 16:14). He mentions that, “at the very time when the preaching of the Gospel was sent to all the nations, the apostles were prevented from visiting certain places by him who wills that all human beings be saved.”40 For example, “the Spirit of Jesus did not permit 38. Ibid., 3.5 (PL 51: 79–80): “Volentes enim in sua justitia magis quam in Dei gratia gloriari, moleste ferunt quod his quae adversum excellentissimae auctoritatis virum, inter multas collationes asseruere, resistimus.” Prosper’s use of “collationes” suggests the works of John Cassian since that sense of the word seems somewhat an innovation on Cassian’s part. 39. Ibid., 13.14 (PL 51: 85): “confiteamur neminem immerito perdi, neminem merito liberari, et omnipotentissimam Domini bonitatem omnes salvare, et omnes ad agnitionem veritatis imbuere, quos vult omnes fieri salvos, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire.” 40. Ibid., 14.15 (PL 51: 85): “quaedam loca Apostoli adire prohibentur ab eo qui vult omnes homines salvos fieri. . . .”

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  27

them to go to Bithynia” (Acts 16:7), and even at the present, he says, some nations have not had the Gospel preached to them.41 He assumes, I believe, as Augustine did, that whatever God wills, God does and that since he does not save all human beings, he does not will that all be saved. Augustine’s assumption that the will of God is always efficacious forces him and Prosper at this point to limit the seemingly universal will for the salvation of all human beings and to maintain that the will of God cannot be resisted. He goes on to ask, “Or should we say that human wills resist the will of God and the morals of these human beings are so wild and intractable that they do not hear the Gospel because their wicked hearts are not open to the preaching?”42 Prosper clearly expects a negative answer to this question. But if one cannot be saved unless God wills it and if one cannot fail to be saved if God wills it, it certainly seems reasonable for the opponents of Augustine to have seen in his thought the two natures or kinds of human beings to which they strongly objected.

The Letters of Hilary and Prosper to Augustine Augustine learned of the controversy in Gaul from the two letters to him from Hilary and Prosper. D. Oligari has provided an extensive discussion of the letters,43 and the present study simply focuses on the use of 1 Tim. 2:4 and not on the whole content of the letters. In the letter of Hilary to Augustine, the verse appears only once when Hilary warns Augustine of what the monks of Gaul are saying about his writings. He tells Augustine of their dislike for his distinction in De correptione et gratia between the grace given to Adam and the grace given now to the predestined, which they believe leads some to despair and eliminates the value of ex41. See the previously cited reference for Prosper’s appeal to these passages of scripture. 42. Ibid., 15.16 (PL 51: 86): “An dicendum est, voluntati Dei humanas obsistere voluntates, et tam feros tamque intractabiles horum hominum esse mores, ut Evangelium ideo non audiant, quia praedicationi impia corda non pateant?” 43. See Ogliari, Gratia et certamen, 93–106.

28  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

hortation or rebuke for all, since one will either be saved or not. This leads them, Hilary says, to reject the Augustinian idea that the number of the predestined is fixed and to reject Augustine’s interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4. He tells Augustine that they do not accept as an explanation of this view what you set forth; rather, they hold that God wills that all human beings be saved, and not just those who pertain to the number of the saints, but absolutely all human beings without any exception. Nor should one worry that some are said to perish against his will.44

Rather, they say, just as he does not will that anyone sin or abandon righteousness, and yet people continually abandon it against his will and commit sins, “so he wills that all human beings be saved, and yet not all human beings are saved.”45 Hilary pleads for Augustine’s help, especially since, as he reports, some of the critics of Augustine’s teaching are men of rank and holiness in the church whom he, a layman, does not venture to criticize.46 That 1 Tim. 2:4 is a central element in the critique of Augustine’s late theology is also seen in Prosper’s Letter to Augustine. In his letter to Augustine, Prosper warns Augustine of the controversy brewing in Gaul and asks for his help. He reports that the monks objected to aspects of Augustine’s teaching in De correptione et gratia. At the root of their objection lies their claim that, although human beings certainly sinned in Adam and no one can be saved by his own works, “all human beings without exception 44. Hilary, Ep. 226.7 (CSEL 57: 476): “Illius sententiae expositionem non eam, quae a te est deprompta, suscipiant, id est ut non nisi omnes homines saluos fieri uelit, et non eos tantum qui ad sanctorum numerum pertinebunt sed omnes omnino, ut nullus habeatur exceptus. Nec hoc timendum est, quod quidam eo inuito perire dicantur. . . .” 45. Ibid. (CSEL 57: 476–77): “ita eum uelle saluare omnes homines nec tamen omnes homines saluari.” 46. See Ogliari, Gratia et Certamen, 95–97, for the argument that the reference in Prosper’s Epistula 225.9 is not to Hilary of Arles but to Elladius, who was elected to the see of Arles late in 426 or early 427. This dating allows more time for Augustine’s last two works in the dispute, namely, De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae.

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  29

have, nonetheless, been offered the reconciliation that is present in the mystery of baptism of the blood of Christ so that whoever chooses to come to the faith and to baptism can be saved.”47 They object to the idea that God’s plan of salvation separated from the beginning those who would be chosen and those who would be rejected so that some were created as vessels of honor and others as vessels of dishonor. “For in both cases toil is useless if one who has been rejected cannot enter the kingdom by any effort and if one who has been chosen cannot fall away by any negligence.”48 Prosper distinguishes two groups among those opposed to Augustine’s teaching. The second group, he claims, is not far from the path of the Pelagians and wants “the grace of Christ that anticipates all human merits . . . to pertain to the creation of every human being.”49 These people, according to Prosper, hold “that all human beings are universally called to this gift of salvation, either by the natural law or by the written law or by the preaching of the gospel.”50 Thus through the justice of God those who do not believe perish, “but his goodness is evident in the fact that he excludes no one from life, but wills that all human beings without distinction among them be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).51 These opponents of Augustine claim that God gives to people the grace to believe whom he has foreseen would believe and at a time when they would believe. In that way, they claim “that the statement that God wills all human beings be saved and come to the 47. Ep. 225.3 (CSEL 57: 457): “universis tamen hominibus propitiationem, quae est in sacramento sanguinis Christi, sine exceptione esse propositam, ut quicumque ad fidem et ad baptismum accedere uoluerint, salui esse possint.” 48. Ibid. (CSEL 57: 458): “in utramque partem superfluus labor sit, si neque reiectus ulla industria possit intrare neque electus ulla negligentia possit excidere.” 49. Ibid., 225.4 (CSEL 57: 460): “eam Christi gratiam, quae omnia praeueniat merita humana . . . ad condicionem hanc uelint uniuscuiusque homins pertinere. . . .” 50. Ibid.: “omnes homines universaliter siue per naturalem siue per scriptam legem siue per euangelicam praedicationem uocari, ut et, qui uolerint, fiant filii dei. . . .” 51. Ibid. (CSEL 57: 460–61): “bonitas in eo appareat, si neminem repellat a uita, sed indifferenter uniuersos uelit saluos fieri et in agnitionem ueritatis uenire” (1 Tim. 2:4).

30  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4) remains unshaken.”52 Prosper reports that the principal reason that led these people to this view of grace is that it allows them to avoid the idea that God creates some vessels for an honorable purpose and others for a dishonorable purpose. Hence, they also rejected the idea that the number of the predestined is fixed.53 The monks of Provence were in that way able to hold the absolute universality of 1 Tim. 2:4 and to avoid what they found objectionable in Augustine’s doctrine of predestination and the fixed number of the predestined. Whether they did so at the cost of other truths is not thereby settled and is not at issue in this study. What is significant for our purposes is that Augustine’s information about the controversy in Gaul was not based on documents produced by the monks of Provence but upon the letters of Hilary and Prosper, which make no pretense of quoting any documents on the teachings of the Gallic monks. And in writing to Hilary, Prosper apparently had only “nasty rumors” about what the monks were saying. In reply to the letters of Hilary and Prosper, Augustine wrote his last works on the problems in Gaul, De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae, which certainly did not soften his position.

Cassian’s Interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4 If one looks for written documents from Gaul pertinent to the controversy, one finds at this point only the writings of John Cassian, who dealt with 1 Tim. 2:4 in several passages. In the ninth conference, the first of Abbot Isaac, a conference on prayer in which he explains the petitions of the Our Father, Cassian refers to 1 Tim. 2:4 for the first time in his Collationes in explaining, Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo et in terra. He gives two interpretations, 52. Ibid., 225.5 (CSEL 57: 462–63): “nec uacillare illud, quod deus omnes homines uelit saluos fieri et in agnitionem ueritatis uenire.” 53. See Ep. 225.6 (CSEL 57: 463–64).

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  31

first, that we may do God’s will on earth as the angels do it in heaven and, second, that God’s will that all human beings be saved be carried out. Cassian says, The will of God is the salvation of all, according to that statement of blessed Paul: Who wills that all human beings be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Concerning that will, Isaiah the prophet said in the person of the Father: And my every will shall be done (Is. 46:10). When, therefore, we say, May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Mt. 5:10), we ask of him in other words that, as these are in heaven, so may all who are found on earth, Father, be saved by knowledge of you.54

The first appearance of 1 Tim. 2:4 in the Collationes seems uncontroversial. In the thirteenth conference, the third of Abbot Chaeremon, however, Cassian appeals to the text several times. In chapter 7, “On the Principal Plan of God,” Cassian is dealing with the issues that his monks found troubling in the late teaching of Augustine. Here he gives a universal interpretation of the text and supports his interpretation with other scriptural passages. He says, For God’s plan, by which he did not make man to perish, but to live forever, remains unchanged. When his goodness sees that however small a spark of good will shines forth in us, even that which he himself has struck from, as it were, the hard flint of our heart, he fosters and revives it, willing that all human beings be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). For, he says, it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones perish (Mt. 18:14).55 54. Cassian, Collatio Nona (PL 49: 793–94): “Voluntas Dei salus omnium est, secundum illam beati Pauli sententiam, Qui omnes homines vult salvos fieri, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire. De qua etiam voluntate Isaias propheta ex persona Dei Patris, Et omnis, inquit, voluntas mea fiet (Is. 46:10). Dicentes ergo ei: Fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra (Mt. 5:10), hoc eum aliis oramus verbis, ut sicut hi qui in coelo sunt, ita omnes qui in terra consistunt, tua, Pater, agnitione salventur.” 55. Ibid., 13.7 (PL 49: 908): “Propositum namque Dei, quo non ob hoc hominem fecerat ut periret, sed ut in perpetuum viveret, manet immobile. Cujus benignitas cum bonae voluntatis in nobis quantulamcumque scintillam emicuisse perspexerit, vel quam ipse tamquam de dura silice nostri cordis excusserit, confovet eam et

32  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

After a series of texts that confirm the universality of God’s salvific will, Cassian adds: Therefore, the grace of Christ is daily at hand, which, since he wills that all human beings be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4), summons all without any exception, saying: Come to me, who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Mt. 11:28). But if he does not call all universally, but certain ones, it follows that not all are burdened by either original or actual sin, nor is the statement true: For all have sinned and lack the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), nor would it be believed that death has been passed on to all human beings.56

Cassian clearly interpreted the will of God for the salvation of all human beings to be universal and without exception. He quotes the verse once more, but does so in a passage on fraternal charity and adds nothing to our understanding of his use of the verse. Although Cassian interpreted 1 Tim. 2:4 in a universal sense, he did not go on to conclude that God’s will cannot be frustrated or remain ineffective. As far as I can see, his use of 1 Tim. 2:4 provides no reason to explain Prosper’s attack on the Massalians. It seems that we have no solid textual evidence that the monks of Provence were siding with the Pelagians or teaching anything that undermined the grace of God.

Concluding Reflections We have seen that 1 Tim. 2:4 was a key text in the minds of the monks of Provence, as reported to Rufinus and to Augustine in the exsuscitat, suaque inspiratione confortat, volens omnes homines salvos fieri, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire (1 Tim. 2:4). Quia non est, inquit, voluntas ante Patrem vestrum qui in coelis est, ut pereat unus ex pusillis istis” (Mt. 18:14). 56. Ibid. (PL 49: 909): “Praesto est ergo quotidie Christi gratia, quae dum vult omnes homines salvos fieri, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire, cunctos absque ulla exceptione convocat, dicens: Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis, et ego reficiam vos (Mt. 11:23). Si autem non omnes universaliter, sed quosdam advocat, sequitur ut nec omnes sint onerati, vel originali vel actuali peccato, nec vera sit illa sententia: Omnes enim peccaverunt et egent gloria Dei (Rom. 3:23), nec per omnes homines mors pertransisse credatur.” See Rom. 5:12.

THE MASSALIAN CONTROVERSY  33

letters of Hilary and Prosper. We have also seen that Prosper was not able to quote any written documents of the monks of Provence in their disagreement with Augustine and spoke of “nasty rumors” and of criticism of Augustine’s teaching that was not open, but behind his back. Hilary and Prosper admitted that the critics of Augustine were men respected for their sanctity and in some cases for their positions of authority in the church. Augustine, too, never regarded these catholic monks as heretics, although, if they really taught that our believing is up to us and not a gift of grace, they would be considered heretical by much later standards. In the Pelagian controversy, Augustine did not name either Pelagius or Caelestius until he had what they taught in a written document, namely, Pelagius’s De natura, to which he replied in De natura et gratia in 415. In the controversy with Julian, on the other hand, he wrote the first book of De nuptiis et concupiscentia, relying on verbal reports he received from Count Valerius in Italy, to whom Julian had written, claiming that Augustine condemned marriage as the work of the devil. Julian responded with four books, Ad Turbantium; Augustine wrote the second book of De nuptiis et concupiscentia on the basis of excerpts made from Julian’s writing by an unidentified author. Julian, of course, complained about the accuracy of the excerpts, and when Augustine finally obtained a copy of Ad Turbantium, he wrote the six books of Contra Iulianum. By the time of the Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum, having, it seems, learned a lesson, Augustine quoted virtually the whole of Julian’s Ad Florum in order to avoid further misunderstandings. Why, one wonders, did Augustine not wait until he had in hand some written document of the Gallic protesters? Perhaps his own age and the looming barbarian presence militated against delay. Augustine was, moreover, answering the appeals for help from Prosper and Hilary, and he never accused the monks of heresy. But one wonders whether he might not have averted further turmoil in Gaul if he had had in hand some of Cassian’s writings? If Prosper had later softened his opposition to the monks of Provence, might not Au-

34  ROLAND TESKE, SJ

gustine, too, have perhaps come to a more moderate view if he had been able to read Cassian’s eloquent appeal in the thirteenth conference? Perhaps Augustine thought that De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae would calm the controversy in Gaul as his earlier works calmed that at Hadrumetum. In any case, communications at the time were not such that they could provide the sort of back-and-forth exchanges that might have lead to a calm and peaceful resolution of the dispute.

3

PAUCI PER FECTAE GRATIAE

INTR EPIDI AMATOR ES  The Augustinians in Marseilles

Alexander Y. Hwang

In 426 Augustine received letters from two admirers in Marseilles, Prosper of Aquitaine and Hilary of Marseille.1 Both letters informed Augustine about the growing controversy over his latest teachings on grace—predestination in particular—among the doctores Gallicani in and around Marseilles.2 Prosper referred to the devotees of Augustine in Marseilles as a “few intrepid lovers of perfect grace.”3 This chapter will detail the origin and development 1. Prosper, Ep. 225 [among Augustine’s letters] (CSEL 57: 454–68) and Hilary, Ep. 226 [among Augustine’s letters] (CSEL 57: 468–81). Hilary is otherwise unknown and not to be confused with Hilary of Arles. For a study of Prosper, see Alexander Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009) and L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine: Étude sur la littérature latine ecclésiastique au cinquième siècle en Gaule (Paris: Picard, 1900). 2. The doctores Gallicani held Augustine in high regard and were, like Augustine, opposed to the Pelagians. For the Gallic attitude toward Augustine, see Ralph Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 123–24. See the introduction to this volume for the discussion of the terms used to describe the controversy and its participants, including doctores Gallicani. 3. Prosper, Ep. 225.7 (CSEL 57: 464): “nec facile quisquam praeter paucos perfec-

  35

36  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

of these “intrepid lovers” who were confident that Augustine’s doctrine of grace was the expression of “perfect grace.” Marseilles and its immediate surroundings was one of the reception centers for the displaced Gallo-Roman aristocrats in the wake of the political and social turmoil caused by the barbarian invasions and settlement of Gaul. During the first three decades of the fifth century, a number of these aristocrats became associated with the newly established monastic community on the island of Lérins and the slightly older community in Marseilles.4 Among the “foreigners” to arrive in Marseilles during this period were Prosper of Aquitaine and John Cassian. Cassian arrived in the city after the exile and death of his patron, John Chrysostom, and founded a monastic community. While Cassian became identified with the Lérins faction, little is known about Prosper’s initial situation in Marseilles.5 Although Prosper was an outsider, his earliest work, De providentia Dei (c. 416), reflects a theology of grace very much in keeping with the prevailing theological views of the doctores Gallicani.6 However, by the mid-420s, Prosper became an ardent follower of Augustine and his doctrine of grace, which was being developed in the context of the North African bishop’s campaign against the Pelagians. The doctores Gallicani were in agreement with Augustine in his opposition to the Pelagians, and, in fact, held the bishop of Hippo in generally high regard. It was Augustine’s innovative alternative to the Pelagian view of grace that the doctores Gallicani found disturbing, namely predestination. Meanwhile, Prosper came to tae gratiae intrepidos amatores tanto superiorum disputationibus ausus est contra ire.” 4. The monastic community in Marseilles was established by the city’s bishop, Proculus, and predated the island monastery on Lérins, which was founded by Honoratus (d. 429). See Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 122. 5. For a discussion on the close ties between Cassian and the Lérins faction, see Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, esp. 122–23. 6. A critical edition and English translation in Miroslav Marcovich, De providentia Dei: Text, Translation and Commentary, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 10 (New York: Brill, 1989).

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  37

embrace Augustine in toto. The two contrasting opinions of Augustine soon turned into highly contentious debates between the Augustinians and the doctores Gallicani in and around Marseilles. The reason for the two different interpretations of Augustine’s authority and teachings had to do with their respective traditions. For the doctores Gallicani, Augustine was read in the context of an already well-established theological and ecclesiological tradition. This tradition allowed them to critically and judiciously evaluate Augustine’s teachings on grace. Augustine was certainly respected but held no special authority among the fiercely independent doctors of Gaul, who could appeal to a tradition that included the desert Fathers. From their perspective, Augustine was a provincial figure compared to their own illustrious bishops, and especially when compared to the desert Fathers. The Augustinians were outsiders to this tradition and the network of relationships that comprised the most powerful and influential circles in southern Gaul. For these Augustinians, it was the bishop of Hippo whom they considered authoritative. There were at least two groups of Augustinians in Marseilles, represented by Prosper and Hilary of Marseilles, which initially existed independently of each other. Prosper’s theology, as expressed in De providentia Dei, was based on his own individual interpretation of scripture and reflected almost no engagement or awareness of any other Christian sources or ecclesiastical authority. When Prosper encountered the writings of Augustine, he was unable to critically evaluate Augustine’s authority and doctrine within the traditions of the wider church. Augustine was to Prosper, much in the way that the desert Fathers were to the doctores Gallicani, the embodiment of an unassailable tradition and authority. Prosper’s newfound devotion to Augustine was at first uncontroversial. Any criticisms of Augustine in Marseilles were unknown to Prosper. Among his acquaintances was a deacon named Leontius, who delivered Prosper’s first letter to Augustine and re-

38  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

turned with Augustine’s response. Both letters are lost, but Prosper’s second letter to Augustine suggests that the initial exchange had nothing to do with any negative reactions to Augustine’s writings in Gaul.7 While the doctors of Gaul were critical of the innovative views contained in the steady stream of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian works reaching southern Gaul, Prosper and his group embraced the teachings of the bishop of Hippo as catholic doctrine. Eventually, sometime after Prosper’s first letter to Augustine, Prosper and his group were engaged in discussions and debates concerning the orthodoxy of Augustine’s doctrine. In this early period of the conflict, the doctores Gallicani were not overly concerned with debating the admirers of Augustine, at least not in the public way that the followers of Augustine desired. Simply put, the doctors of Gaul did not perceive these Augustinians as a threat that had to be formally challenged. News of Prosper’s growing involvement in the defense of Augustine was a cause of concern for an otherwise unknown Rufinus, a friend who had known Prosper before he became devoted to Augustine. Through an unnamed mutual friend, Prosper responded to Rufinus’s concerns with a letter explaining the catholicity of Augustine’s teaching on predestination and defending it against its detractors, the doctores Gallicani.8 There is no extant response from Rufinus, nor is there any further mention of Rufinus or their mutual friend. All that can be stated about them is that they knew of Prosper’s new involvement in the defense of Augustine. Although Prosper’s two friends cannot be positively identified as belonging to his group, there were, if Prosper is to be believed, “many” people who have come to agree 7. Prosper, Ep. 225.1 (CSEL 57: 454–55): “Ignotus quidem tibi facie sed iam aliquatenus, si reminiscaris, animo ac sermone compertus—nam per sanctum fratrem meum Leontium diaconum misi epistulas et recepi.” 8. Prosper, Ep. ad Rufinum (PL 51: 77): “Accepi per communem amicum fraternae erga me sollicitudinis tuae signa, et curam sincerissimae charitatis gratulanter agnovi.”

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  39

with Augustine’s doctrine of predestination in the very places where Augustine’s doctrine was being criticized.9 Up to this point, before Prosper and Hilary became acquainted, no other member of Prosper’s group can be positively identified, except for the deacon Leontius. Assuming there were more, there were at least two people in Prosper’s Augustinian circle. Hilary was unaware of Prosper’s and Leontius’s admiration and defense of Augustine. It is unknown if he, like Prosper, was living in exile in Marseilles, or if he was a native of the city. Augustine was a family friend, and Hilary had, at least once, visited him at Hippo.10 His only extant writing is his letter to Augustine. Like Prosper, Hilary had previously written a letter (now lost) to Augustine. Unlike Prosper, Hilary was involved in the defense of Augustine, perhaps from the beginning when the criticism of Augustine’s teachings on grace first surfaced in southern Gaul.11 The members of Hilary’s Augustinian circle included Hilary’s family: his parents, brother, and brother’s wife.12 Despite the efforts of Prosper to provoke a formal public response, the doctores Gallicani were content to merely voice some 9. Prosper, Ep. ad Rufinum (PL 51: 79): “atque ignoverint, immo noverint, non solum Romanam Africanamque Ecclesiam, et per omnes mundi partes universos promissionis filios cum doctrina hujus viri, sicut in tota fide, ita in gratiae confessione congruere: sed etiam in his ipsis locis, in quibus adversus eum querimonia concitatur, esse, proprio Deo, plurimos, qui ad perceptionem evangelicae apostolicaeque doctrinae saluberrimis ejus disputationibus imbuuntur, et quotidie in membris corporis Christi, in quantum ea ipse multiplicat, dilatantur.” 10. Hilary, Ep. 226.10 (CSEL 57: 480–81): “meis parentibus multum te salutat. . . . Sciat sanctitas tua fratrem meum, cuius maxime causa hinc [Hippo] discessimus. . . .” It is uncertain if “discessimus” also included Hilary’s parents. 11. Hilary, Ep. 226.9 (CSEL 57: 479): “nec mireris, quod aliter vel aliqua in hac epistula addidi, quantum puto, quae in superior non dixeram; talis est enim nunc eorum definition praeter illa, quae per festinationem aut oblivionem fortasse praeterii.” Augustine had not responded to his first letter. 12. Hilary, Ep. 226.10 (CSEL 57: 480–81): “meis parentibus multum te salutat. . . . Sciat sanctitas tua fratrem meum, cuius maxime causa hinc discessimus, cum matron sua ex consensus perfectam deo continentiam devouisse unde rogamus sanctitatem tuam, ut orare digneris.” Hilary’s marital status is unknown. That he extended greetings from his parents to Augustine but not from a wife may suggest he was not married.

40  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

opposition to the preoccupation of a few misguided and uncritical laymen. Around 426, the appearance of Augustine’s De correptione et gratia in southern Gaul provoked the doctores Gallicani to change their attitude toward Augustine’s teachings and its potential impact in southern Gaul.13 Augustine’s work explained his doctrine of predestination in a clear and succinct manner, which provided further validation and support to the Augustinians but, at the same time, provoked even more opposition among the already-critical doctores Gallicani. Perhaps due to the intense reaction caused by Augustine’s recent work, the two Augustinian groups came to know of each other’s existence at this time, and Hilary saw an opportunity to bolster his claim of the serious nature of the criticism of Augustine by supplementing his account with an “independent” perspective. However, the timing was less than ideal. Their meeting took place just before the winter months when maritime travel between Gaul and North Africa would be suspended for the season.14 This pressure to send the appeal before the closing of the sailing season helps explain the haphazard nature of the appeal. The events surrounding the appeal to Augustine may have looked like this: Prosper’s reputation as an outspoken defender of Augustine, which had already caught the notice of his friend Rufinus, become known to Hilary.15 Hilary then contacted Prosper by letter and asked him to write about the criticisms of Augustine from his perspective.16 Prosper wrote the letter to Augustine (Ep. 225) and 13. Augustine, De correptione et gratia (CSEL 92: 219–80); Prosper (Ep. 225.2 [CSEL 57: 455]) specifically mentions this work, while Hilary (Ep. 226.6–7 [CSEL 57: 474–77]) referred to parts of the work that were under criticism. This was one of two treatises that Augustine wrote for the monks of Hadrumetum; see the introduction to this volume for the context and details of the works. 14. For the discussion on the mare clausum, the restriction of travel by sea during the winter months, see Othmar Perler, Les voyages de saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1969), 68–74. 15. Prosper, Ep. ad Rufinum (PL 51: 77). 16. Hilary, Ep. 226.10 (CSEL 57: 480): “egi cum viro tum moribus tum eloquio et studio claro, ut, quanta posset, collecta suis litteris intimaret.”

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  41

sent it to Hilary. Hilary, though, was frantically finishing his own letter to Augustine, literally with the courier pressing him so as to be able to deliver the letter before the close of the sailing season.17 Prosper and Leontius did not meet Hilary in person up to this point and there must have been minimal communication between them. Had they been better acquainted, Hilary would not have made the mistake of introducing Prosper to Augustine in his letter when Prosper had previously corresponded with Augustine, information that Leontius also knew; nor would he have introduced Leontius as an admirer of Augustine.18 The two letters present two slightly different views of the situation in southern Gaul and the exact remedy sought from Augustine. In Prosper’s estimation, the opponents of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination were a dangerous threat to the Church, as they were Pelagianae reliquiae pravitatis.19 What Prosper sought from Augustine were answers to the difficult questions that these opponents have raised concerning the finer points of Augustine’s doctrine.20 At the end of his letter, he makes one last impassioned appeal for Augustine to respond to this dangerous threat. Prosper’s purpose was to provoke a response from Augustine by describing the situation as a possible new Pelagian movement within the church, led by the leaders within the Gallic church. The Augustinians needed a clear and direct explanation of the difficult questions raised by their opponents. The disagreements that Hilary reported were primarily concerned with the novelty and uselessness of preaching predestination and perseverance.21 Of particular concern for Hilary was the 17. There are three places Hilary admits to writing in haste. Ep. 226.9, 10 (CSEL 57: 478–479, 479, 480): “sed nunc summatim, quantum festinatio perlatoris admisit, . . .” “talis est enim nunc eorum definitione praeter illa, quae per festinationem aut oblivionem fortasse praeterii.” “sane, quia urgent perlatore timui, . . .” 18. Hilary, Ep. 226.10 (CSEL 57: 480): “[Prosper] est enim talis, qui etiam praeter hanc necessitate dignus tuae sanctitatis notitia iudicetur.” 19. Prosper, Ep. 225.7 (CSEL 57: 464). 20. Prosper, Ep. 225.7–8 (CSEL 57: 465–67). 21. Hilary, Ep. 226.2 (CSEL 57: 469).

42  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

opponents’ use of Augustine’s earlier works to refute the bishop of Hippo’s most recent works on grace.22 According to Hilary, their arguments eventually come down to the usefulness of such a doctrine for the life of faith.23 Hilary and his circle had done what they could to oppose these well-placed opponents, but in a way befitting their lay status.24 In light of their lay status, Hilary admonishes Augustine to respond to these men. Although Hilary leaves it up to Augustine’s judgment on how to respond to them, Hilary suggests that an explanation of Augustine’s views may do little in persuading their infatigabiliter contentiosa corda, unless addatur auctoritas.25 Unlike Prosper, Hilary did not believe the opponents of Augustine had any connection with the Pelagians and did not refer to them in a disparaging manner. What seemed to have resonated with Hilary was the criticism that Augustine’s most recent views on grace contradicted his earlier statements. Hilary brought this point up three times in the letter and requested a copy of his Retractationes so as to distinguish the works that Augustine approved of from those he did not.26 Moreover, Hilary’s suggestion for conciliar action rather than an individual response from Augustine may indicate some anxiety over Augustine’s doctrine.27 Such anx22. Hilary cites three examples of this method of argumentation employed by the opponents of Augustine; Ep. 226.3, 8 (CSEL 57: 471, 472, 477): “et hoc non solum aliorum catholicorum testimoniis sed etial sanctitatis tuae disputatione antiquiore se probare testantur, . . .”; “quae se acceptare et probare testantur tamquam convenientia evangelicae veritati”; “quod in libro tertio de libero arbitrio ita positum meministi, ut hanc eis occasionem potuerit exhibere.” 23. Hilary, Ep. 226.8 (CSEL 57: 478). 24. Hilary, Ep. 226.9 (CSEL 57: 478). 25. Hilary, Ep. 226.9 (CSEL 57: 479): “tuae sanctae prudentiae est dispicere, quid facto opus sit, ut talium et tantorum superetur vel temperetur intentio. Cui ego iam parum prodesse existimo te reddere rationem, nisi et addatur auctoritas, quam transgredi infatigabiliter contentiosa corda non possint.” 26. Hilary, Ep. 226.10 (CSEL 57: 479): “[Retractationes] Libros, cum editi fuerint, quos de universe opera moliris, quaeso habere mereamur, maxime ut per eorum auctoritatem, si qua tibi in tuis displicent, a dignitate tui nominis iam non trepidi sequestremus.” Cf. Augustine, Retractationes (CCL 57). 27. Hilary, Ep. 226.9 (CSEL 57: 479).

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  43

iety seems behind Hilary’s apologetic insistence that he does not want Augustine to think that he is in doubt concerning the bishop’s teachings.28 In contrast to Hilary’s letter, Prosper’s letter exudes confidence in the truth of Augustine’s teaching on grace and in the dangers presented by the doctores Gallicani. Prosper’s strategy was for Augustine to realize this threat and respond with further clarification on the controversial issues. So convinced of the rightness of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination was Prosper that he believed Augustine’s reply would not only strengthen their arguments against the opponents but also convince their opponents by the “purest light of grace.”29 For Prosper, it was a great wonder how anyone could fail to recognize the truth of Augustine’s doctrine. Hilary does not seem wholly convinced in either the unequivocal truth of Augustine’s doctrine or in the dangers presented by the doctores Gallicani. Augustine responded to the letters from Prosper and Hilary with De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae—originally one treatise.30 However, although Augustine chose to respond to Prosper’s request, Augustine had a different view of the situation than that presented by Prosper. Augustine did not consider their opponents Pelagian-like at all, but rather sincere “brothers” of the same faith—against Prosper’s estimation.31 Augustine points out these brothers’ error stemmed from them not progressing to the advanced truths, including predestination. Thus they were not heretical as much as deficient in their understanding of grace. Nor would Augustine orchestrate an official pronounce28. Hilary, Ep. 226.10 (CSEL 57: 479–80): “nolo autem sanctitas tua sic me arbitretur haec scriber, quasi de his, quae nunc edidisti, ego dubitem.” My interpretation of Hilary has changed since writing my book on Prosper; cf. Hwang, Intrepid Lover, esp. 121. 29. Prosper, Ep. 225.9 (CSEL 57: 467). 30. De praedestinatione sanctorum (PL 44: 959–92); De dono perseverantiae (PL 45: 993–1034). 31. Praed. sanct. 1.2 (PL 44: 961).

44  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

ment or decree against their opponents—against Hilary’s recommendation. Augustine’s intent was to clarify his teaching in hopes that these “brothers” would come to a fuller understanding, and admonished Prosper and Hilary to pray that these brothers would progress to the truth of predestination.32 Understandably, Augustine’s rather condescending treatise was not well received by the doctores Gallicani and only added to their opposition to the bishop of Hippo. Augustine, however, was spared from having to get involved in yet another controversy, dying in 430. For the Augustinians, the treatise confirmed what they believed was correct about grace and provided them with the answers they needed to combat the opposition. For the doctores Gallicani, the treatise confirmed in no uncertain terms the errors of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination. The controversy over Augustine’s treatise spread beyond southern Gaul. After the death of Augustine, two priests, Camille and Theodore, wrote to Prosper seeking clarification on some passages from Augustine’s De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae.33 It is unclear why the two priests appealed to Prosper for a response to Augustine’s treatise when Augustine addressed both Prosper and Hilary in the treatise.34 Why these priests appealed to Prosper and not Hilary or Leontius is not clear; Leontius and especially Hilary were much better acquainted with Augustine than Prosper. Apparently, by this time Prosper had come to be regarded as the leader of the Augustinians in Marseilles. Prosper responded to their request with Pro Augustino responsiones ad exerpta Genuensium.35 In his response, Prosper was quick to point out that he would reflect the collective views of the Augustinians in Marseilles.36 Prosper’s response to the Genoese priests reflected his absolute 32. Persev. 24.68 (PL 45: 1034). 33. Camille and Theodore are otherwise unknown, and their letter is now lost. 34. See Augustine, praed. sanct. 1.1 (PL 44: 959). 35. Prosper, Pro Augustino responsiones ad exerpta Genuensium (PL 51: 187–202). 36. Prosper, Resp. ad Gen. praef. (PL 51: 187): “de capitulis istis, quid cum sanctis et eruditis fratribus sentiam, breviter indicabo.”

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  45

endorsement of and fidelity to Augustine’s doctrine of predestination. However, Prosper went beyond the views of Augustine’s De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseverantiae. Although Augustine did not think the doctores Gallicani were at all related to the Pelagians, Prosper continued to hold to this opinion.37 According to the Augustinians, on the issue of predestination one either agreed with Augustine or they agreed with the Pelagians.38 There is no known response from the Genoese priests. Under intensified criticisms from such highly placed and influential opponents, the Augustinians were compelled to elicit the support of Rome.39 In response to Prosper’s and Hilary’s appeal, in May 431, Celestine wrote a letter to the bishops of Gaul, commonly known as the Apostolici verba.40 Since Prosper and Hilary presented the issue as one between the Pelagians and Augustine, Celestine naturally sided with Augustine. However, Celestine cautiously qualified his admonition, desinat . . . incessare novitas vestustem, with si ita res est.41 It was not an admonition to all the doctores Gallicani but only those, if it is true, who allow profane novelties, that is, Pelagianism, to spread. It was not the doctores Gallicani who were accused of being pro-Pelagian but some of those under their authority. The real issue, the conflict between Augustine’s doctrine of predestination and the doctores Gallicani, was not addressed by Celestine. The pope would only go as far as rebuking the pro-Pelagians who were attacking Augustine, but not to the point of affirming his doctrine of predestination or of rebuking the doctores Gallicani for opposing Augustine’s doctrine. Celestine’s letter provided Prosper and Hilary with a general 37. Prosper suggests the detractors of Augustine follow the teachings of the Pelagians; Resp. ad Gen. resp. 5, 8 (PL 51: 193, 196–97). 38. Prosper, Resp. ad Gen. resp. 9 (PL 51: 200): “Cujus praedicationis quisquis est impugnator, apertissimus est Pelagianae elationis adjutor.” 39. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factonalism, 48, 131. 40. Celestine, Epistola 21, ad episcopos Galliarum [Apostolici verba] (PL 50: 528). 41. Celestine, Ep. 21.3 (PL 50: 529).

46  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

endorsement of Augustine and a rebuke against the pro-Pelagians, if there were any. They had gone to Rome with the belief that Augustine’s doctrine of predestination would be affirmed catholic and the doctores Gallicani as Pelagian, at least this was Prosper’s hope, yet the pontiff confirmed neither claim. Prosper and Hilary returned to Marseilles armed with a letter from the pope that would do little to bolster their claims against their opponents. The situation for the Augustinian looked rather bleak and may have caused some of the Augustinians to reevaluate their cause. Hilary, as noted previously, may not have wholeheartedly believed in Augustine’s doctrine. The general, if not generic, endorsement of Augustine’s life and memory and, most important of all, the pope’s silence on the controversial issue of predestination may have led to Hilary’s absence in the conflict thereafter. Leontius, too, is never heard from nor referred to again. Perhaps they were satisfied with the pope’s judgment or saw no further point in defending such an unpopular and controversial doctrine. Prosper, however, remained convinced in the rightness of their cause and took the letter as a blanket endorsement of Augustine and his doctrine of predestination. With the death of Celestine (432) and the election of Sixtus, Prosper took the occasion to attack Cassian directly in De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio liber contra collatorem.42 The strategy was to continue to link their opponents with the Pelagian heresy and gain the support of public opinion and, especially, Sixtus. Despite Celestine’s refrained appraisal of Augustine, Prosper was determined to put a positive spin on the letter. According to Prosper’s argument, the opponents of Augustine in Gaul were Pelagian, and since all the popes representing the church had condemned the Pelagians, and since Celestine had sided with Augustine against his opponents, the new pope and the general public were to support the side of Augustine against these offshoots of the Pelagian heresy. 42. Prosper, De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio liber contra collatorem (PL 51: 213–76).

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  47

The strategy failed. Neither the general public nor the pope was persuaded by Prosper’s treatise. Sixtus did not respond to Prosper’s appeal much less condemn the opponents of Augustine through papal decree.43 Cassian did not respond to Prosper’s treatise; this may be due to his advanced age—he likely died in 435. The response to Prosper’s De gratia Dei came from Vincent of Lérins.44 Vincent, a priestmonk of the monastic community of Lérins, wrote the Commonitorium, in 434, and was most likely the author of a list of objections against Augustine’s doctrine of predestination.45 Vincent refuted Prosper’s De gratia Dei by using the same method of argumentation employed by Prosper in his attack against Cassian. For Vincent, too, the issue was catholicity. Vincent had his own list of authentic sources that supported the tradition of opposing novelty, which included statements drawn from Celestine, Sixtus, Cyril, and the Council of Ephesus.46 In contradiction to Prosper’s interpretation, Vincent interpreted Celestine’s letter, Apostolici verba, as a condemnation of the novelty of Augustine’s teachings, thereby continuing the church’s tradition of opposing novelty, and was an endorsement not of Augustine and his supporters but of the Gauls.47 It is around this time, the mid 430s, that the Augustinians reevaluated their once-staunch defense of Augustine. They were still convinced that their opponents were in error, but they conceded that one aspect of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination could no longer be defended—the reason for God’s withholding of predestination to salvation. Previously, the Augustinians, in fidelity to Au43. For Sixtus’s favorable disposition toward Pelagianism, see Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 138n99. 44. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 136. On Vincent, see Mark Vessey, “Vincent of Lérins,” ATA, 870; Gennadius, De viris inlustribus 65 (TU 14/1: 83). 45. The objections are preserved in Prosper’s response, Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentiarum (PL 51: 177–86). 46. Commonitorium 33.1–2 (CCL 64: 194). 47. Commonitorium 32.4–7 (CCL 64: 193).

48  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

gustine’s later teaching, had held that the reason for this withholding was due to God’s mysterious will and certainly not to God’s foreknowledge.48 The Augustinians now concluded that the bishop was in error on this point, although they never retracted their earlier statements, not admitting Augustine had erred. Like their opponents, they now believed that the withholding of predestination to salvation was due to God’s foreknowledge of the evil life the person would lead. In other words, God foresaw that a person would lead an evil life and therefore did not predestine the person to eternal life. Two of Prosper’s works represent this modification of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum calumniantium and Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentiarum.49 Both works are faithful to Augustine’s teachings on predestination to salvation: faith, works, and final perseverance are predestined gifts from God; but then explain that the reason why not all are granted this predestination was because God foreknew the evil lives they would lead.50 This same view is reflected in the Hypomnesticon and the Capitula sancti Augustini, anonymous works written by other Augustinians.51 These four works reflect a change in the appreciation of Augustine that was shared among the Augustinians. Behind these writings, one can surmise that there were discussions and perhaps even 48. Cf. Prosper, Resp. ad Gen. 8 (PL 51: 196–98). 49. Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum calumniantium (PL 51: 155–74); Resp. ad Vinc. (PL 51: 177–86). 50. Resp. ad Gall. 1.2–1.3 (PL 51: 158–59): “Quod quia Dei praescientiam nec latuit, nec fefellit, sine dubio talem numquam elegit, numquam praedestinavit, et periturum numquam ab aeterna perditione discrevit”; “Sed ideo praedestinati non sunt, quia tales futuri ex voluntaria praevaricatione praesciti sunt”; “Atque ab hoc licet fuerint renati, fuerint justificati, ab eo tamen qui illos tales praescivit non sunt praedestinati.” Resp. ad Vinc. 12 (PL 51: 184): “Et quia praesciti sunt casuri, non sunt praedestinati.” 51. The Pseudo-Augustinian Hypomnesticon against the Pelagians and Celestians, vol. 2, ed. Edward Chisholm (Fribourg, Switzerland: Fribourg University Press, 1980); Capitula sancti Augustini in urbem Romam transmissa (CCL 85A: 243–73).

THE AUGUSTINIANS IN MARSEILLES  49

debates within the group on Augustine’s doctrine of predestination and how best to defend him in light of the growing opposition and their newfound understanding of grace. The Augustinians never admitted as much, but they now agreed with the doctores Gallicani on a fundamental issue of contention in the conflict and an essential element in Augustine’s doctrine of predestination.52 Although the Augustinians modified Augustine’s doctrine of predestination on this point, there are differences in how they defended Augustine’s view of grace. In his response to the Gauls, Prosper defended Augustine’s doctrine of grace by linking it to the teachings of the church. In his response to the Vincentian articles, Prosper avoids the mention of Augustine’s name altogether. Although it is Augustine’s modified doctrine of predestination that is presented, it is defended as consistent with the teachings of the Apostolic See. For Prosper, there was now a different and higher measure of orthodoxy. In the Hypomnesticon, the author defends the modified version of Augustine’s doctrine, but without any appeal to authority, either pronouncements or councils. And the Capitula defends Augustine’s doctrine in a different manner. It is not polemical, but rather didactic. The Capitula is a series of statements, selectively drawn from Augustine’s works, which provide its readers with what the author views as the essence of Augustine’s thoughts. According to this author, one of the essential teachings of Augustine was that God’s foreknowledge was the basis for the withholding of predestination. Taken together, these writings reflect the struggle to defend Augustine’s doctrine of grace while at the same time modifying their defense according to their own newfound understandings of grace. The various approaches may also indicate the once-unified group was in the process of fragmentation, as various members each sought their own ways to defend their views of grace in light of 52. Augustine, praed. sanct. 3.7 (PL 44: 965); persev. 14.35 (PL 45: 1014).

50  ALEXANDER Y. HWANG

their lessened view of the authority and catholicity of Augustine’s teaching on predestination. After these works, there is a period of silence from both sides of the debate. Of the original Augustinians, only Prosper is heard from again—he would eventually join the staff of the newly elected Pope Leo in Rome, from where he continued to oppose the doctores Gallicani, but ceased defending Augustine’s doctrine of predestination. Prosper spent his remaining years in the service of the papacy and helped advance its authority and its teaching on grace.53 What happened to the remaining Augustinians remains a mystery. Assuming the two anonymous pro-Augustine writings were composed by separate people and not by Leontius, Hilary, or one of Hilary’s family members, there were four persons who wrote treatises in defense of Augustine. In all, there were at least nine Augustinians that can be identified with a reasonable degree of certainty: Prosper, Hilary, Hilary’s parents and his brother and his brother’s wife, the deacon Leontius, and the unknown authors of the Hypomnesticon and the Capitula sancti Augustini.54 Of course, there were undoubtedly more, but they cannot be positively identified. The Augustinians in Gaul were the first defenders and interpreters of Augustine’s doctrine of grace within the church. What they realized over time was that Augustine’s doctrine of predestination was not completely catholic as they attempted to reconcile Augustine’s doctrine with the traditions of the church, each in their own way. They all came to conclude that the perfect grace they sought to defend was not reflected in Augustine’s doctrine of grace. 53. See Prosper’s Chronicon (MGH, AA 9: 385–485) in which the papacy plays a central role in his account of salvation history and his Praeteritorum episcoporum sedis apostolicae auctoritates de gratia Dei et libero voluntatis arbitrio (PL 51: 205–12), an “official” Roman position on the teaching of grace and free will. 54. The estimation of nine members is based on the assumption that the author of the Hypomnesticon was not the same author of the Capitula sancti Augustini, and that none of the other identified Augustinians wrote these two works.

4

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”

De ingratis and the Carmen de prouidentia Dei

Raúl Villegas Marín (translated by Gerardo Rodríguez-Galarza)

In 1539 S. Gryphe published at Lyons the most complete edition of Prosper of Aquitaine’s works available at the time. Among them was an extensive carmen which Gryphe edited under the epigraph De prouidentia diuina D. Prosperi Opusculum based on a manuscript that is now lost.1 The Carmen de prouidentia Dei—henceforth abbreviated Cdp—is a poetic composition by which the auThis study was made possible thanks to a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral scholarship (2009 BP-A 00225) awarded by the Universities and Research Commission of the Government of Catalonia’s Ministry of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise. The study was conducted as part of research project HAR2010-15183, whose principal investigator is Dr. Josep Vilella Masana. The author is a member of the Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes [Monotheisms Studies Laboratory, UMR 8584] and the Grup de Recerques en Antiguitat Tardana [Late Antiquity Research Group, University of Barcelona]. 1. The only extant manuscript of the Carmen de prouidentia Dei is Mazarinensis 3896, which contains only a portion of the poem edited by Gryphe (vv. 105–520, with some lacunae, in ff. 162r-167v). It is a very late codex (after August 27, 1535). On the history of the textual transmission of the poem and its first editions, see M. P. McHugh, The Carmen de Prouidentia Dei Attributed to Prosper of Aquitaine: A Revised Text with an Introduction, Translation, and Notes (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 2–10; McHugh, “Observations on the Text of the Carmen de Prouidentia Dei,” Manuscripta 12 (1968): 3–9.

  51

52  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

thor, moved by a deep sense of pastoral responsibility, attempted to address the crisis of faith which many of his fellow countrymen were undergoing due to the economic, social, and political instability as a result of the arrival and establishment of Germanic peoples in Gallic territory during the first quarter of the fifth century.2 The poet, a master of the Virgilian hexameter, addresses issues of theodicy, God’s management of the natural order as well as of the historical development of humanity, and the role that God has reserved for temporal political structures within his redemptive plan for humankind.3 He was a remarkable author of great intellectual 2. At the beginning of the poem, the author refers to “the wounds of a broken world” ( fracti uulnera mundi) and rhetorically asks why the crisis of that which is nonpermanent (the world) has led some Christians to question the truthfulness of the promise of eternal beatitude given by God to all humans (cur mansura pauent, si ruitura cadunt?), Cdp, vv. 7–10, ed. R. Villegas Marín, Pseudo-Próspero de Aquitania. Sobre la providencia de Dios. Introducción, texto latino revisado, traducción y comentario (Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2010), 78. In the following verses, vv. 25–82 (ed. Villegas, 78–82), the poet describes the material and moral crisis which pervaded the Gaul of his time, on account of the bloody battles resulting from Germanic invasions in Gallic territory: “si toleranda mali labes, heu!, caede decenni / Vandalicis gladiis sternimur et Geticis,” and the manifest injustice that permeated all spheres of Roman society: “si cunctos annos ueterum recolamus auorum / et quicquid potuit nostra uidere dies, / maximus iniustis locus inuenietur in orbe, / oppressis autem pars prope nulla bonis.” After this description on the state of affairs, the author echoes the doubts of many of his fellow Christians about the grounds of their faith: a god that truly cared about human affairs would not tolerate the presence of so much injustice in the world: “quae si cura Dei celsa spectaret ab arce / resque ageret nostras sub ditione sua, / aut non effugerent ultrices crimina poenas, / aut uirtus terris sola reperta foret,” Cdp, vv. 83–86 (ed. Villegas, 82). 3. On the metrics of the Cdp, see G. E. Duckworth, “Five Centuries of Latin Hexameter Poetry: Silver Age and Late Empire,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 98 (1967): 126–39; A. Longpré, “Le De prouidentia divina de Prosper d’Aquitaine et la question de son authenticité,” Revue des études anciennes 80 (1978): 108–13. I disagree with both scholars, however, when they assert that the similarities between the metrical features of the Cdp and De ingratis are positive evidence for attributing both works to the same author (Prosper). Later I will try to show that Prosper composed De ingratis, in part, as a refutation of the Cdp. Prosper could have deliberately imitated the metric pattern used by his theological adversary—whose name is never explicitly mentioned by Prosper, a common trait in the controversial works of the Aquitaine—in order to evoke the work against which he was writing the De ingratis.

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  53

abilities,4 and perhaps one of the first readers of Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei. The author of the Cdp attempted to counter, from a universalistic Christian standpoint with Stoic roots,5 Eusebius of Caesarea’s political theology at a time when the crisis of imperial order in the West demanded the dissolution of the link between empire and church.6 The poet insists on the universal scope of Christian revelation, which surpasses any antagonism between Romans and barbarians.7 4. As already assessed by M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts, v. 2 (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1891), 179–80. 5. M. Marcovich (De providentia Dei: Text, Translation and Commentary, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 10 [New York: E. J. Brill, 1989], xii) considers the poem “a gem of the Christianized Stoicism.” 6. This is a central topic in the discourse of the poet, one on which, however, few modern scholars have focused. There can be little doubt that the author of the Cdp is referring to the difficult situation of Roman imperial rule in the West when he signals that God shows his justice to the world by destroying with wars the most powerful kingdoms or by destroying the most affluent cities with pestilence, fire, and floods: “multa tamen mundum per saecula cuncta regentis / iustitiae documenta dedit, dum maxima bellis / regna quatit, dum saepe urbes populosque potentes / exhaurit morbis, cremat ignibus, obruit undis; / dumque inopes ditat, deiectos eleuat, auctos / imminuit, soluit uinctos subigitque superbos” (Cdp, vv. 807–12 [ed. Villegas, 126]). In this passage, there are echoes of the famous Virgilian verses that proclaimed the providential role that the gods would have reserved for Rome: “tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento / (haec tibi erunt artes) pacique inponere morem, / parcere subiectis et debellare superbos,” Virgil, Aen. 6, vv. 851–53 (ed. O. Ribbeck, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos. Libri I–VI [Leipzig: Teubner, 1860], 365). Evoking—and countering—Virgil, our poet wants to point out that only God, not Rome, establishes justice in this world. According to the Cdp author, in those critical years, the Empire only had one role within the divine salvific plan: to show Christians, with the decline of its power, that on the Judgment Day God would crush the proud and raise the humble, as God was doing with the arrogant Rome at the time, which illegitimately claimed the power to administer justice on Earth. I do not find any trace in the Cdp of that “Gallo-Roman patriotism” or of that compromise with the continuity of the imperial structure in Gallic territory that authors like Lagarrigue or Roberts claim the author holds. Cf. G. Lagarrigue, “Le Carmen de Prouidentia Dei: optimisme religieux et espoir patriotique,” in Hommages a Robert Schilling, ed. H. Zehnacker and G. Hentz (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1983), 137–45; M. Roberts, “Barbarians in Gaul: The Response of the Poets,” in Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? ed. J. F. Drinkwater and H. Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 105. 7. In the bosom of a humanity redeemed by Christ, there is no distinction whatsoever on account of sex, social status, or ethnicity: “dicite: quem populum, qua

54  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

Unfortunately, the many valuable contributions made by the Cdp author to Christian reflection have not received from contemporary historiography the attention they deserve. As already pointed out by A. di Berardino,8 the controversy with regard to the Cdp author’s position in the debate on grace and free will that took place in southern Gaul between the first quarter of the fifth century and the first part of the sixth century has shaped the contemporary approaches to this work.9 Far from the anthropological optimism inspired by the theology of Pelagius or Caelestius, the author holds that the fault acquired on account of Adam’s original transgression of the divine precept is transmitted to all of his posterity,10 that the physical mortality of humans is a punishment for this hereditary sin,11 and that the post-lapsarian human nature is incapable of attaining through its own powers the salvation offered by God, thus needing at every moment the assistance of divine grace.12 This notwithstanding, the mundi in parte remotum, / quosue homines, cuius generis uel conditionis / neglexit saluare Deus? Vir, femina, seruus, / liber, Iudaeus, Graecus, Scytha barbarus: omnes / in Christo sumus unum” (Cdp, vv. 453–57 [ed. Villegas, 104]). The author echoes Gal. 3:28/Col. 3:11, which acquired a new meaning when addressed to a Gallo-Roman community that suffered during the traumatic infiltration of Germanic groups. 8. A. di Berardino, “La poesía cristiana,” in Patrología, v. III. La edad de oro de la literatura patrística latina, dir. A. di Berardino (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1993 [third edition of the Spanish translation from the original Italian of 1978]), 401. 9. Such a state of affairs led me to dedicate a monograph to the study of the Cdp. My objective was to situate the composition of the poem in its precise historical context and to expand upon the traditional perspective from which it had been studied. Questions such as those cited previously on the author’s reflection on the providential role of temporal political structures, the poem’s criticisms of astrological practices, and the author’s Christological claims form the core of my work. Nevertheless, I dedicated a great number of pages of the aforementioned work to the study of the poet’s doctrine on divine grace and human freedom as defended in his carmen. I argued that it corresponds exactly with what we could label as—with all due reservations—a “Provençal theology of grace.” R. Villegas Marín, El Carmen de prouidentia Dei. Estudio histórico y doctrinal (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2008), 98–106 (online at http://www.tdx.cat/TDX-0113109-091135). 10. Cdp, vv. 290–94, 489–91 (ed. Villegas, 94, 106). 11. Cdp, vv. 289–90 (ed. Villegas, 94). 12. Human dependence on the help of divine grace to reach justification and

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  55

poet grants humans the capacity to voluntarily integrate into the divine salvific plan—which embraces the whole human race without exceptions13—and to cooperate with grace in the process of his salvation, which is the result of a synergy between God’s merciful assistance and personal effort.14 It is not possible for me to pause here to confront the Cdp’s theories on grace and free will with the Augustinian or “Pelagian” ones.15 I only wish to point out that some parts of the Cdp may be read as a critique of the Augustinian theology of grace;16 that it is not possible to simply ignore the salvation is asserted by the poet in several passages of his work; see, for example, Cdp, vv. 960–64 (ed. Villegas, 136): “cuncta licet uariis terroribus impleat hostis / et uigili clausas obsidat milite portas, / cum uicto tamen est bellum, si carne uetusta / exuti, in Christi renouemur corpus et omnem / uincendi nobis uim de Victore petamus”; vv. 966–68 (ed. Villegas, 136): “ut non humanis fidens homo, totus in Illum / se referat, sine Quo non stant qui stare uidentur / et per Quem sparsi coëunt stratique resurgunt.” 13. The divine will to save humanity does not exclude any individual (Cdp, v. 551 [ed. Villegas, 110]): “cunctis astare salute.” Cdp, v. 640 (ed. Villegas, 116): “cunctos eadem ad promissa uocare.” 14. After Adam’s transgression, the ability of man to live according to the revealed moral law—a potential granted by God as gratia creationis—has been severely hindered (Cdp, v. 271 [ed. Villegas, 92]): “corrupti exiguum semen superesse uigoris”; but what remains of this capacity is enough so that man can freely abandon the path of sin (Cdp, vv. 941–43 [ed. Villegas, 134]): “sed si quis superest animi uigor, excutiamus / peccati seruile iugum, ruptisque catenis / in libertatem et patriae redeamus honorem!” Even though the poet, as we have seen, recognizes the total human dependence with regard to divine grace, man must still cooperate, making a personal effort (labor), with the aid that God grants him. See, for example, Cdp, vv. 624–25 (ed. Villegas, 116): “uis bonus esse / absque labore tuo?” 15. A term—“Pelagian”—which I will use though being cognizant that there is no such doctrinal corpus established nor homogeneity under the name of “Pelagianism.” See, in this sense, the clarifications of B. R. Rees, Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1988), 89. 16. Representative of this critical orientation against Augustinianism is the exegesis of Ex. 4:21; Rom. 9:18 suggested in the poem. The interpretation of the scriptural passages concerning the “induratio cordis” of Pharaoh was central to the Pelagian controversy: see R. Dietzfelbinger, “Ego indurabo cor Pharaonis. Anmerkungen zu einer crux interpretum,” in Philologia sacra. Biblische und patristische Studien für Herrmann J. Frede und W. Thiele zu ihrem siebzigsten Geburtstag, v. 1, Vetus Latina 24/1, ed. R. Gryson (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 16–35. Augustine used the case of Pharaoh as an example of an individual not predestined to salvation, someone to whom God did not grant the inspiring grace of the bona uoluntas, see Augustine, Simpl. 1.2.15 (CCL 44: 40): “obduratio dei sit nolle misereri, ut non ab illo inrogetur aliquid

56  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

influence of Pelagian thought on the author of the Cdp;17 that, as already mentioned, the thought of the poet shares affinities with that of Provençal masters like John Cassian and Faustus of Riez;18 and that, in any case, such line of thought is that which Prosper labeled as “crypto-Pelagian,” as I will try to show. The historiographical controversy regarding the identity of the author of the Cdp is intimately linked with the topic of divine grace and free will as defended by him in his poem. Although the history of the Cdp’s textual transmission—as limited as it is—appears to confirm the ascription of the poem to Prosper, already in 1565 J. Souteux—who, together with J. Hassels, issued a reprinting in Louvain of the Cdp’s editio princeps—rejected such attribution on account of the supposed philo-Pelagian tendencies found in the poem.19 Nevertheless, authors like L. Valentin and M. Marcovich believed it was still possible to defend Prosper’s authorship of the Cdp based on the argument of the textual parallels that link this quo sit homo deterior, sed tantum quo sit melior non erogetur.” Against this Augustinian exegesis, our poet asserts that God did make Pharaoh a beneficiary of his grace, when he postponed the definitive punishment waiting for a repentance that never took place. Cdp, vv. 389–92 (ed. Villegas, 100): “ille quidem quoties patitur caelestia tela, / cedit et obsequium simulat: sed clade remota / duratur parcente Deo, causas pereundi / impius inde trahens, quo posset habere salutem.” 17. I have argued that the long anti-astrological excursus of the Cdp, vv. 624–723 (ed. Villegas, 116–22) accepts an anti-Augustinian “second reading,” see Villegas, El Carmen, 377–80; idem, Pseudo-Próspero, 262–64. The opponents of Augustinianism in Provence asserted, in the context of doctrinal polemics, that Augustinian predestinationism was a “reworking” of pagan fatalism. See Prosper, Ep. 225.3 (CSEL 57: 458): “et sub hoc praedestinationis nomine fatalem quandam induci necessitate.” But this is a polemical argument borrowed from Julian of Aeclanum; see Julian of Aeclanum, Ad Turbantium, apud Augustine, c. Iul. 4.8.40 (PL 44: 758): “appellatione gratiae, bonos fieri homines fatali necessitate dicamus.” In fact, Prosper points out in his letter to Augustine that the Provençal theologians shared many of the critiques on the Augustinian theology of grace formulated by Julian of Aeclanum in his Ad Turbantium, which they learned of through Augustine’s own review of the work in his Contra Iulianum. See Prosper, Ep. 225.3 (CSEL 57: 458–59). 18. C. Tibiletti already arrived at such a conclusion in his study on the Cdp’s theology of grace. See Tibiletti, “Note sulla teologia del Carmen de prouidentia Dei,” Aug 30 (1990): 453–76; cf. Villegas, El Carmen, 217–75. 19. On the controversy regarding the authorship of the Cdp from the first edition until 1964, see McHugh, The Carmen de Prouidentia Dei, 10–18.

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  57

poem with works that are unquestionably attributed to Prosper, most specifically the Carmen de ingratis.20 In my aforementioned work, I attempted to demonstrate the impossibility of such attribution. On the one hand, an analysis of the poem’s textual tradition certainly leads to the conclusion that, at least since the ninth century, the poem was transmitted as a work of Prosper; but it must be kept in mind that, after the dogmatic decrees approved at the Council of Orange (529), a poem that explicitly defended ideas that were anathematized at the said council could only circulate and be transmitted as a pseudo-epigraphical work.21 Thus it is likely that certain local monastic and ecclesiastic circles which, after the conclusion of the Council of Orange, continued to support the theses on grace and free will found in our carmen tried to free the Cdp from any suspicion of heterodoxy by attributing it to an individual like Prosper of Aquitaine, who rose up in the past as a renown defender of Augustine in Provence and whose Liber sententiarum ex operibus sancti Augustini delibatarum had served as a source for the declarations of Orange.22 On the other hand, it is true that there are diverse textual parallels between the Cdp and the De ingratis. Yet from those parallels it is not possible to assert that both poems are the work of the same author. On the contrary, these parallels should be interpreted rather differently: in De ingratis, Prosper cites or paraphrases several passages from the Cdp in which certain principles of the “Provençal 20. L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine. Étude sur la littérature latine ecclésiastique au cinquième siècle en Gaule (Toulouse: Édouard Privat, 1900), 802–24; Marcovich, Prosper of Aquitaine, x, and comments ad locum. 21. Cf. Conc. Araus. (529), c. 8 (CCL 148A: 58): “si quis alios misericordia, alios uero per liberum arbitrium, quod in omnibus, qui de praeuaricationem primi hominis nati sunt, constat esse uisiatum, ad gratiam baptismi posse uenire contendit, a recta fide probatur alienus,” with Cdp, vv. 653–54 (ed. Villegas, 116): “coram adsunt aqua seruatrix, populatur et ignis: / ad quod uis extende manum, patet aequa facultas.” And Conc. Araus. (529), c. 14 (CCL 148A: 59): “nullus miser de quantacumque miseria liberatur, nisi qui Dei misericordia praeuenitur,” with Cdp, vv. 949–50 (ed. Villegas, 134): “si tamen Assertoris opem festina uoluntas / praeueniat, fletu Dominum motura fideli.” 22. Villegas, El Carmen, 459–62. See also idem, Pseudo-Próspero, 59–62.

58  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

theology of grace” are defended, and which the Aquitaine attacks as stemming from “Pelagian roots.” Thus De ingratis is, at least in part, a critical response to the Cdp. It is likely that Prosper had with him, while composing De ingratis, a copy of the Cdp, a poem he studied carefully and considered as a representative document of his theological opponents.23 In De ingratis, Prosper cites several passages from the Cdp, sections which, to the mind of the Aquitaine, contained “philo-Pelagian” arguments. The careful analysis applied by Prosper on the Cdp could also explain why, when writing the De ingratis, the Aquitaine borrowed a large amount of vocabulary and poetic imagery from the Cdp—perhaps even unwittingly!24 Working from this premise, a side-by-side reading of De ingratis and the Cdp will allow us to know better how Prosper used his sources to summarize the theological position of his opponents in the so-called semi-Pelagian controversy. We will also be able 23. I propose that Prosper composed De ingratis in the year 427, from the following argument: in this poem, Prosper tells his adversaries about his intention to promote the convocation of a synod in which the Provençal theological positions would be examined and tested for their orthodoxy. From this perspective, when Prosper asks Augustine—Ep. 225 of Augustine’s epistolary—to consider the possibility of excommunicating his Gallic critics, he was trying to deliver on his threat issued in De ingratis with the help of the bishop of Hippo—the Aquitaine, in effect, truly believed Augustine would share in his assessment regarding the “cryptoPelagianism” of the Provençal theologians. On this, see infra, n. 39. Thus Prosper would have written De ingratis short before sending Ep. 225 to Augustine, which the poem announces in a way. In agreement with D. Ogliari, I place the composition and delivery of Prosper’s Ep. 225 during the pontificate of Helladius of Arles around the year 427, see D. Ogliari, Gratia et certamen. The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the so-called Semipelagians (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 93–97. De ingratis would have been composed during the episcopate of Helladius as well. Cf., nevertheless, the proposed chronology by L. Valentin (Saint Prosper, 167) accepted by, among others, M. Marcovich (“Prosper, De ingratis: Textual Criticism,” Illinois Classical Studies 14 [1989]: 25). On the other hand, I have proposed the end of 426 as the date for the composition of the Cdp; see Villegas, El Carmen, 467–73; Villegas, Pseudo-Próspero, 49–55. 24. See Villegas, El Carmen, 455–59; Villegas, Pseudo-Próspero, 55–59. Prosper’s authorship of Cdp has been argued along theological lines by Roland Teske (“The Augustinianism of Prosper of Aquitaine Revisited,” SP 43 [2003]: 491–504) and Alexander Hwang (Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009]). Both view the work as reflecting an earlier stage in Prosper’s theological development.

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  59

to achieve a better understanding of the strategy employed by the Aquitaine in his efforts to combat the theological principles of his adversaries. According to Prosper, his defense of the Augustinian theology of grace from the criticism raised against it by the Provençal masters should be understood as a contribution to the church’s efforts to combat Pelagianism. In his mind, the Provençal protests against certain elements of the Augustinian theology of grace were considered nothing more than the death rattles of the Pelagianism condemned by the church; such protests, however, still needed to be addressed because if they went unanswered, the Pelagian heresy could resurface and thrive again.25 If we were to believe Prosper, the Provençal theologians attempted to breathe life into the extinct ashes of the Pelagian error.26 According to Prosper, although the Provençal masters did not publicly admit it, the Pelagians were their true teachers: uestri illi . . . magistri,27 the ones whose intellectual abilities they admired and whose arguments they freely adopted,28 although these disciples had surpassed their teachers in cleverness because they eliminated from their doctrinal corpus the most controversial elements of “Pelagianism,” thus gaining, in such a way, a greater number of followers.29 In any case, pride was the sin that resided in the protests of the prestigious Provençal ascetics against the Augustinian theology of grace; and this superbia was cognata of the Pelagian one.30 25. Prosper, De ing., vv. xiv–xviii (T. Huegelmeyer, Carmen de ingratis S. Prosperi Aquitani: A Translation with an Introduction and a Commentary [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1962], 42): “ne post confectum celebris uictoria bellum / securos animos incauta pace resoluat, / ceu metus eliso iam nullus ab hoste supersit, / nec caput attriti uirosum palpitet anguis, / unde igitur commenta mali sopita resurgant.” 26. De ing., vv. 126–27 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 50): “atque perrempti / dogmatis exstinctas tentant animare fauillas.” 27. De ing., vv. 571–72 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 76). 28. De ing., vv. 539–40 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 74): “quorum ingenio et fallacibus armis / luditis.” 29. De ing., vv. 805–811 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 90–92). 30. De ing., v. 573 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 76).

60  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

The harshness and bitterness of Prosper’s response to the Provençal critiques of the Augustinian theology of grace have prompted modern scholars to react with astonishment and much criticism. I take the liberty to suggest here a few key observations that can help us better understand the attitude of the Aquitaine at the beginning of this controversy. Prosper was a lay Christian, learned and committed, who attempted to actively participate in the theological debates of his time. But if his secular education was rich, the same cannot be said about his patristic background: he himself had to admit, in a letter sent to Augustine , his lack of knowledge of the patristic tradition, a fact that left him at a disadvantage in debates with his theological Provençal rivals.31 It can be stated with certainty that Prosper’s theological training was, almost exclusively, based on his reading of Augustine’s works, whom he read and admired from an early date.32 Prosper believed Augustine, his teacher, to be an elect among the elect by God’s grace and a beacon of light for the Catholics of his time.33 According to Prosper, God made rivers of books full of salvific doctrine flow from Augustine’s mouth.34 The ideas of the bishop of Hippo—the only interpretation of Christianity he had studied carefully—were for Prosper, purely and simply, the orthodox doctrine of faith from the truth revealed 31. Prosper, Ep. 225.8 (CSEL 57: 466–67): “illud etiam qualiter diluatur, quaesumus, patienter insipientiam nostram ferendo demonstres, quod retractatis priorum de hac re opinionibus paene omnium par inuenitur et una sententia, qua propositum et praedestinationem Dei secundum praescientiam receperunt.” 32. Before the eruption of the anti-Augustinian controversy in Marseilles, Prosper had written a letter to Augustine—now lost—with the intention of greeting him (salutationis studio) and very likely to express his admiration of Augustine’s life and works. References to this letter in Ep. 225.1 (CSEL 57: 454–55). See R. Villegas Marín, “Las cartas no conservadas de la correspondencia entre Próspero de Aquitania, Hilario de Marsella y Agustín de Hipona. Los orígenes de la llamada ‘controversia semipelagiana,’” Sacris erudiri 47 (2008): 168–71. 33. De ing., vv. 92–94 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 48): “Augustinus erat, quem Christi gratia cornu / uberiore rigans nostro lumen dedit aeuuo / accensum uero de lumine.” 34. De ing., vv. 110–13 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 50): “istius ore uiri fecit Deus, istius ore / flumina librorum mundum effluxere per omnem, / quae mites humilesque bibunt, campisque animorum / certant uitalis doctrinae immitere riuos.”

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  61

by God. Any criticism of Augustine’s thought was understood by Prosper to be an attack on his faith, the true faith, an attack carried on by Satan through the heretics.35 It is very likely, I propose, that Vincent of Lérins—one of the Provençal theologians critical of the Augustinian theology of grace—was thinking of Prosper when he wrote of certain Christians who were more attached to the intellectual speculations of an admired and loved teacher, whose authority they never questioned, than to the simple faith preserved and transmitted within the ancient universal church.36 This image of the first Prosper responds to the well-known typology of the disciple whose passionate adherence to the teachings of his master leads him to a dogmatism far from the spirit of intellectual inquiry that had guided the master. Such a scenario emerges in the first lines of the De praedestinatione sanctorum/ De dono perseuerantiae where Augustine refuses to accept the dichotomy between the “we” (orthodox Catholics: faithful followers of Augustine’s positions) and “you” (heretical Pelagians or “crypto-Pelagian” critics of Augustine’s theology of grace), a dialectic often found in the early polemical works of Prosper, those written prior to his reading of De praedestinatione/De dono pereuerantiae. In this treatise, Augustine refers to his Provençal critics as fratres nostri, whose thought is far from that of the Pelagians (retenta ergo ista in quae peruenerunt, plurimum eos a Pelagianorum errore discernunt),37 and, thus, should be far from any suspicion of 35. The Provençal protests against Augustinianism are, as already seen, like the agonizing palpitations of a serpent’s head (De ing., v. 17 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 42]): “nec caput attriti uirosum palpitet anguis.” The serpent is Pelagius, called “coluber Britannus” (v. 2; ed. Huegelmeyer, 42). And, more generically, Satan, who while adopting the form of a serpent led the first parents of humankind to sin, and is now always the source of impiety in the heretics. 36. See, for example, Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, 20.1–2 (CCL 64: 174). I have argued that the Commonitorium should be read in light of the critique of Provençal defenders of the Augustinian theology of grace in R. Villegas Marín, “Auersi texerunt eum. La crítica a Agustín y a los agustinianos sudgálicos en el Commonitorium de Vincente de Lérins,” Aug 46 (2006): 481–528. 37. Augustine, praed. sanct. 1.2 (PL 44: 961).

62  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

heresy. Nothing could be farther from the thought of this “first Prosper,” who believed the Pelagian tendency of his theological adversaries was undeniable. On the other hand, I argue that when Prosper wrote De ingratis he did not simply intend to defend Augustinian thought but also, in a certain way, emulate the “heroic deeds” of his favorite teacher. The Aquitaine justifiably recognized Augustine as a leader in the church’s battle against the Pelagian heresy.38 Was it divine intention that he, a disciple of Augustine, would continue this battle in order to definitively crush the Pelagian heresy that attempted to resurface in Provence? In fact, in De ingratis Prosper threatens his theological rivals with promoting the convocation of a synod he believes would conclude with the condemnation of the Provençal theology and the excommunication of its advocates.39 Perhaps this 38. De ing., vv. 99–113 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 48–50). 39. Prosper delivers this threat at the end of a long passage where he develops a recurring theme in his De ingratis: the fictitious pact ( foedus) that the condemned Pelagians would be willing to strike with the Provençal theologians to obtain from them ecclesiastical communion. The Pelagians would be willing to accept, in agreement with the Provençal theologians, that man was created immortal and that the physical death of humans is a punishment for Adam’s sin; similarly, they would confess the transmission of Adam’s sin to all his posterity and that all humans need the sacrament of baptism, even children, in whom baptism cancels the sin they have inherited from their parents (De ing., vv. 147–58 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 52]). After abandoning their previous errors on these points, nothing could stand in the way for the Provençal theologians to grant communion to the Pelagians, given their agreement between each other in their way of thinking, although this granting of communion would certainly violate the synod decrees and imperial laws that supported the condemnations of Pelagianism (De ing., vv. 173–83 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 52–54]). In the following verses, Prosper continues this line of argument: if the Pelagians appeared before the Roman church or an African synod to ask for communion with the church, they would be refused again; they would then argue that the same ideas they are censored for and excluded from communion are being openly defended by many others (Provençal thinkers) without receiving any ecclesiastical discipline whatsoever (De ing., vv. 203–5 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 54]): “quod pace manente / libera multorum uox astruit hoc sine bello / cedatur nobis.” It is at this moment that Prosper warns the Provençal thinkers that they should keep in mind what sort of response the Catholic bishops would give to the Pelagians (De ing., vv. 216–18 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 56]): “haec in pontificum sancto deprompta senatu / quam curam exigerent et quae decreta mouerent / perspicis.” It would be nothing else, Prosper claims, than the excommunication of those Provençal thinkers who believed in the

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  63

fervent desire of Prosper to emulate his master’s achievements led him to create an enemy as great as the “epic deeds” he intended to accomplish. Despite being critics of the Augustinian theology of grace, the Provençal masters were by no means supporters of the “Pelagianism” condemned by the church. Nevertheless, Prosper only wished to see disciples of Pelagius who were even more clever than their teacher (discipuli callidiores),40 whom Augustine had confronted earlier. It was a great challenge indeed. I have mentioned Prosper’s need to “create” an enemy as great as his envisioned feats; it might be better to speak of “inflating” same ideas as the Pelagians. These individuals, nevertheless, are ungrateful and laugh at the scenario Prosper puts before them because they have not yet been condemned by any synod (De ing., vv. 218–21 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 56]): “an quoniam culpa securus operta / non premeris synodo, nec te poenae metus urget, / spernis propositi speciem terroris et istaec / plena uelut uanis simulacris somnia rides?” It is possible that in verbal debates with the Provençal theologians Prosper, sure of himself, threatened them with excommunication at a synod and received a hateful smile as a response to his threat—there is a sense of a wounded pride in these verses of De ingratis. Prosper signals, suddenly, that he will leave aside his prediction about the path and results of the actions he intends to adopt (gerendorum euentu et fine remoto) and will limit himself to what others have already done—the church’s battle against Pelagius and his followers—so that events that have already taken place can inform readers about the future results of his initiatives (De ing., vv. 222–24 [ed. Huegelmeyer, 56]): “ergo gerendorum euentu et fine remoto / haec tantum in medium quae iam sunt gesta uocemus, / ut facile ex illis quale hoc sit discutiatur.” A conclusion, according to the Aquitaine, that would include nothing other than ecclesiastical condemnation of the Provençal theses and excommunication of their proponents. At this point, the reader might have already asked himself, on what basis did the layman Prosper have such confidence that he could convoke a synod that would finally condemn the Provençal position? The simple answer: in his conviction that Augustine, his teacher, would completely share his interpretation of the Provençal argument as outlined by his faithful disciple, Prosper. In effect, toward the end of his preserved letter to Augustine, the Aquitaine, although with the modesty required of speaking to his great teacher, suggests the necessity of convoking a synod that would officially excommunicate the Provençal theologians who persevere in their positions: “sanum enim putant esse quod non dolet, nec uulnus superductum cute sentiunt; sed intellegant peruenturum ad sectionem quod habuerit perseuerantem tumorem” (Ep. 225.9 [CSEL 57: 468]). We can imagine only the disappointment Prosper experienced upon reading De praedestinatione/De dono perseuverantiae, where Augustine adopts the method of persuasion and rejects the option of resolving the Provençal controversy through authoritative channels. 40. De ing., v. 810 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 92).

64  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

the enemy. Prosper artificially extended the chasm that separated the Provençal theologians from the Augustinian position and, simultaneously, reduced the chasm that separated them from Pelagian principles. Prosper was well aware that his adversaries could not be labeled Pelagians tout court. They did not question at all the ecclesiastical condemnations of some statements made by Pelagius and his followers, or the legitimacy of their excommunication.41 What the Provençal theologians refused to accept was that, after the ecclesiastical condemnation of the Pelagians, absolutely everything found in their writings with regard to free will and divine grace would have been condemned by the church as heterodox.42 In the same manner, they believed that the resolutions of the church had not endorsed the totality of Augustinian speculation on the grace of God and human free will.43 The Provençal theologians considered that some of the theological principles defended by Pelagius and his followers could and should be preached. To assert that a human can freely choose to participate in God’s redemptive mission for humanity, or defend the universal dimension of this project, did not mean for them a “rehabilitation of Pelagianism.” They believed these ideas were simply part of the common stock of Christian faith. Prosper’s line of argument, as developed in De ingratis, is shaped by the Provençal theologians’ interpretation of the ecclesiastical resolutions against Pelagius and Caelestius. Prosper would try to 41. As Prosper himself admits in De ingratis; see, for instance, De ing., vv. 142– 43 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 50): “quos non dubitas excludere templo / pelle animo.” 42. De ing., vv. 136–39 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 50): “an uero excerptis quaedam quae parte recisa / suscipias, cordisque sinu purgata recondas? / dic igitur quidnam inde probes, quid uero refutes, / et de damnatis quid sit quod crimine soluas.” 43. This is something that not even the Prosper of Contra Collatorem, much more appeasing, could understand. In this work, Prosper ironically classifies the Provençal theologians as “noui censores,” who certainly do not profess the Pelagian dogmas condemned by the church, but who also reject some of the arguments that, in the battle against Pelagianism, were defended by Catholic authors, namely Augustine: “an uero ita se nouorum censorum norma exactior temperauit, ut et nulla eorum quae excisa sunt, asserat, et quaedam ex his quae defensa sunt, respuat?” (Contra Coll. 1.2 [PL 51: 217]).

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  65

prove that, against what the Provençal masters argued, the theological position of the latter had indeed been condemned by the church in the authoritative resolutions issued against the Pelagians. In so doing, he used the well-known rhetorical tool of reductio ad haeresim,44 whose basic structure could be construed in the following manner: if you assert “A,” then by logic, you should assert “B,” where “B” represents a commonly known error or, more specifically, a proposition condemned by the church as heterodox. In the hands of Prosper, the fallacy in logic of this rhetorical argument becomes evident because the logic that leads from “A” to “B,” generally, “ne va pas de soi”: his theological adversaries might assert “A” while explicitly rejecting “B,” even though Prosper, on more than a few occasions, disregards the latter fact. This will be evident in the following section: an analysis of the method in which Prosper discovers the “crypto-Pelagian” identity of the Cdp author . . . despite the fact that this identity is nothing less than Prosper’s own creation. One particular example is representative of the “inquisitorial technique” employed by Prosper to reveal the “crypto-Pelagianism” of his adversaries. In a passage of De ingratis, the Aquitaine summarizes the positions of the Provençal masters: according to them, God offered the initial help to humans with the universal message for salvation (an uero auxilium uerbo Deus inchoat et se / uoce ministrorum mundo declarat in omni);45 the human will is attracted toward conversion through the Christian message delivered by the ministers of faith,46 but from this moment on, the will precedes the new help that divine grace will offer, by converting and responding positively to the divine uocatio. In the exposition of these positions as the foundation of Provençal theology, in this passage of De ingratis and in a later one, Prosper clearly depends on the Cdp, which 44. G. Christopher Stead, “Rhetorical Method in Athanasius,” VC 30 (1976): 131–32. 45. De ing., vv. 468–69 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 70). 46. De ing., v. 470 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 70).

66  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

serves as the source of knowledge about the ideas of his theological opponents: si tamen Assertoris opem festina uoluntas / praeueniat.47

illecta uoluntas / iudicio praecurrat opem.48



non attrahit illos / uis Patris ad Verbum, sed sponte et praepete cursu / praeueniunt cessantis opem.49

These parallel passages reveal the intertextual relation that links De ingratis with the Cdp: Prosper summarizes the ideas presented by the Cdp and attributes them to the Provençal theologians he argues against. Now I return to Prosper’s argument in the passage of De ingratis. According to the Aquitaine, the idea found in the Cdp has been borrowed from the “enemy’s dogma” (that is, Pelagianism), and the author does nothing except give hope to the condemned (talibus assumptis inimico ex dogmate, nonne / perspicuum est quantum damnatos confoueatis).50 According to Prosper, if one asserts that God calls everyone to salvation through the preaching of the ministers, and that it depends on the initiative of human free will to join the divine salvific plan, one must assert that the grace of Christ has the same salvific effect as the Mosaic Law (aliud non est uobiscum gratia quam lex).51 Such a position was attributed to Pelagius and condemned in the synod of Diospolis.52 What is more, 47. Cdp, vv. 949–50 (ed. Villegas, 134). 48. De ing., vv. 470–71 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 70). 49. De ing., vv. 797–99 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 90). 50. De ing., vv. 479–80 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 72). 51. De ing., v. 483 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 72). 52. It involves proposition 12 on the accusatory libel against Pelagius at the Synod of Diospolis: “quoniam lex sic mittit ad regnum quemadmodum Euangelium.” See O. Wermelinger, Rom und Pelagius. Die theologische Position der römischen Bischöfe im pelagianischen Streit in den Jahren 411–432 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1975), 296. Prosper already referred to this proposition in a previous passage of De ingratis, in which he had summarized a series of propositions attributed to Pelagius and condemned by the church (De ing., vv. 235–38; ed. Huegelmeyer, 56): “connectit et illud / idem auctor quod lex ita sanctos miserit olim / coelorum in regnum, sicut nunc gratia mittit. / hoc quoque iudicio sancto scis esse peremptum.”

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  67

Cdp’s theory ultimately leads to the conclusions that a contemporary human has the same free will as Adam before sin (ut tale arbitrium generaliter insit / semine damnato genitis in corpore mortis, / quale habuit nondum peccati lege subactus / primus homo)53 and that the sin of Adam only harmed the first man and is not transmitted to his descendants (et nullum in prolem de uulnere uulnus / transierit),54 which is another thesis attributed to Pelagius and condemned at Diospolis.55 This passage of De ingratis is a paradigmatic example of the strategy that Prosper employs throughout the controversy. The strategy revolves around the rhetorical technique of reductio ad (Pelagianam) haeresim: if the author of the Cdp asserts “A” (human free will, illuminated by the revelation of God’s redeeming project, precedes the assistance of grace by accepting to freely participate in this divine plan), he must concede “B” (Christian grace is nothing more than a revelation of the divine mandate and its salvific “efficacy” is comparable to the Mosaic Law; the sin of Adam has not affected the human will in any way to impede on the ability to freely choose the good), where “B” represents the Pelagian beliefs condemned by the church. Such an argument is fallacious because the author of the Cdp did not accept the logic that linked “A” with “B”: in truth, the author of the Cdp held that it was possible to assert that conversion to faith was a free choice of the human will, while also asserting the beliefs (against “B”) that the sin of Adam is transmitted to all of his descendants—the human genus56—that the 53. De ing., vv. 485–88 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 72). 54. De ing., vv. 488–89 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 72). 55. Proposition 11 (quoniam peccatum Adae ipsum solum laeserit et non genus humanum) on the accusatory libel of the Council of Diospolis, see Wermelinger, Rom und Pelagius, 296. This proposition was also cited by Prosper in the series of verses in which he summarized the teaching of the haeresiarches Pelagius (De ing., vv. 229; ed. Huegelmeyer, 56): “nec cuiquam primi culpam nocuisse parentis.” 56. Cdp, vv. 289–94 (ed. Villegas, 94): “his illata dolis, hoc crimine nata subegit / mors hominem, culpa in cunctos manante minores. / Quae semel antiqua pulsos uirtutis ab arce / non uno tantum transfuso errore parentum / implicuit, sed cum populis nascentibus aucta / multiplicem lata porrexit strage ruinam.”

68  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

aforementioned sin negatively affected the free will of humans,57 and that the nature of the grace from Christ can be in no way compared to the Mosaic Law. For the Cdp author, the just individuals who lived ante Legem and sub Lege needed just as much of the redemption offered to humans through the Cross.58 But Prosper, in De ingratis, tends to overlook this nuance: in his carmen, the Aquitaine admits that his theological adversaries, the author of the Cdp among them, accepted the belief that the sin of Adam is transmitted to all of his posterity.59 Yet when they asserted that repentance and conversion can be construed as responses through the free initiative of the human will, the Provençal theologians proved that they secretly believed that after the sin of Adam the free will remained illaesum.60 Even though the Cdp author explicitly assert57. According to the author of the Cdp, when God created man he gave him the power of reason and free will so that he could discern between the just and unjust and freely choose one or the other: “sed quia liber homo et sapiens discernere rectis / praua potest, in se intus habens discrimina rerum / iusque uoluntatis, quo temperat arbitrium mens” (Cdp, vv. 238–40 [ed. Villegas, 90]). After the sin of Adam, which all humans inherit and to which personal faults are added, the original splendor of human nature is diminished, corrupted: “quod si quis non totus homo haec extendere uerbis / me putat et nondum sese cognouit in istis, / audiat a primis distare parentibus auctum / per delicta genus, multa et rubigine morum / corrupti exiguum semen superesse uigoris” (Cdp, vv. 267–71 [ed. Villegas, 92]). The human soul, weakened, can participate in the redeeming project of God escaping from the slavery of sin and converting to the true and liberating faith (Cdp, vv. 941–43 [ed. Villegas, 134]): “sed si quis superest animi uigor, excutiamus / peccati seruile iugum, ruptisque catenis, / in libertatem et patriae redeamus honorem,” but, aware of his frailty, he should always ask for the help of Christ’s grace to conquer sin and attain virtue (Cdp, vv. 963–64 [ed. Villegas, 136]): “et omnem / uincendi nobis uim de Victore petamus.” 58. Cdp, vv. 295–302 (ed. Villegas, 94): “at quamquam immissa regnaret morte peremptor, / nulla tamen placitos Domino non edidit aetas / cunctaque diuersos habuerunt saecula iustos. / Quos licet ob meritum uitae bona multa manerent, / in mortem uitiata tamen natura trahebat, / non prius a primi uinclo absoluenda parentis, / quam maiestate incolumi generatus in ipsa / destrueret leti causas et semina Christus.” 59. De ing., vv. 817–19 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 92): “non igitur cum damnatis sentire uidentur, / cum dicunt mortem in cunctos transisse per unum / primum hominem, cuius crimen reperserit omnes;” vv. 155–56 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 52): “suamque / progeniem culpa et letho deuinxerit omnem.” 60. De ing., vv. 159–61 (ed. Huegelmeyer, 52): “dum nostri decus arbitrii lumenque creatum / principio, quod sponte potest insistere rectis, / manserit illaesum.”

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  69

ed the opposite, Prosper purposefully silenced him. Only in such a way could a “crypto-Pelagian” be exposed. Before concluding this brief work on Prosper the polemicist and his use—and abuse—of his sources, it is necessary to place a reminder against the temptation, which even this study may have encouraged, to attribute to Prosper all of the responsibility for the outbreak of that “dialogue of the deaf ” known as the semi-Pelagian controversy. It is perhaps unfair to suggest that this controversy arose by chance from Prosper’s quixotic delirium: the objections in some monastic and ecclesiastic circles in Provence against Augustine’s theology of grace led Prosper to take the defensive on behalf of his beloved teacher. In the debates between “Augustinians” and “Provençal theologians,” both sides distorted the opinions of their adversaries. The banal rhetorical argument of reductio ad haeresim, which is used often and arbitrarily by Prosper, was commonly used in theological debates by Christians: did not the Provençal theologians make use of it when they remarked that Augustinian predestination included a “rehabilitation” of pagan fatalism or Gnostic-Manichean dualism? 61 There were no fewer distortions in their interpretations of Augustinian beliefs. The so-called semi-Pelagian controversy cannot be well understood without keeping in mind the passion that the men of antiquity had for public debates. In them, the desire to defeat the opponent and, by so doing, to show one’s dialectic skills was usually stronger than the spirit of conciliation. In such debates, the rhetorical distortion of the opponent’s position was common. Of course, in an age and place—the Roman Empire after the reign of Theodosius—where religious freedom did not exist anymore, to accuse the opponent of holding unorthodox opinions was not simply a rhetorical tool for winning a debate of ideas: ecclesiastical excommunication and civic punishment awaited the accused. The Provençal 61. See, for example, Ep. 225.3 (CSEL 57: 458): “et sub hoc praedestinationis nomine fatalem quandam induci necessitatem; aut diuersarum naturarum dici Dominum conditorem, si nemo aliud possit esse quam factus sit.”

70  RAÚL VI LLEGAS MARÍN

masters, however, criticized Augustine’s theory of predestination without threatening the excommunication of its Gallic supporters—at least, in this first stage of the controversy.62 According to them, there was still some place for open debate within the church. Prosper did not share this opinion. If there is another thing that the Aquitaine can be accused of, it is the lack of empathy to understand the origin of the concerns developed in Provençal ascetic circles; an empathy that Augustine would later show in his De praedestinatione/De dono perseuerantiae. It is also important to remember that Prosper was a passionate layperson immersed in the intellectual debate and not a pastor of souls like his teacher Augustine. When the Aquitaine read the Cdp, he was unable to detect the genuine pastoral concern, profoundly Christian, which guided the author of this poem. The poet that composed the Cdp intended to respond to the crisis that many Christian consciences experienced on account of the barbarian invasions into the Gallo-Roman territory, along with the socioeconomic disturbances that followed. The author of the Cdp addresses in his verses, primarily, the Gallo-Roman Christian aristocracy, whose faith had shattered in light of all the disasters taking place around them. To these aristocrats, he proposes an existential alternative through the ascetic way, the adoption of the Gospel as a rule of life and the total renunciation of the world’s vanity, a world that appeared to be crumbling.63 But the poet felt that this response could not be properly defended without insisting at the same time that the human will was able to break the chains of sin in order 62. Certainly, the same cannot be said of Faustus of Riez and his opposition to Lucidus’s Augustinian views on grace, see R. Villegas Marín, “Lucidus on Predestination: The Damnation of Augustine’s Predestinationism in the Synods of Arles (473) and Lyons (474),” SP 45 (2010): 163–67. 63. See, for example, Cdp, vv. 901–09 (ed. Villegas, 132): “denique si quicquid mundanis rebus acerbum / accidit excutias, totum iam sponte uidebis / anticipasse Dei famulos. Gemit ille talentis / argenti atque auri amissis, hunc rapta supellex / perque nurus Geticas diuisa monilia torquent. / Hunc pecus abductum, domus usta epotaque uina / afficiunt, tristes nati obscoenique ministri. / Sed sapiens Christi seruus nil perdidit horum, / quae spreuit caeloque prius translata locauit.”

PROSPER’S “CRYPTO-PELAGIANS”  71

to reach the freedom of the soul found through the life of faith.64 Prosper never understood this line of thought: he was more worried about theological rigor than encouraging a full experience of the Gospel; he could not or did not want to see in the author of the Cdp a faithful Christian, but rather a crafty “crypto-Pelagian.” 64. Cdp, vv. 941–43 (ed. Villegas, 134): “excutiamus / peccati seruile iugum, ruptisque catenis, / in libertatem et patriae redeamus honorem!”

5

“LES VERS SERVENT AUX

SAI NTS”  Didactic Poetry and Anti-Heretical Polemic in the Carmen de Ingratis

Jérémy Delmulle

In his Poëme de la Grace (1720), a long anti-Molinist piece based on Prosper’s writings, Louis Racine—“petit fils d’un grand père,” as Voltaire puts it—pays tribute to his model as follows: Disciple d’Augustin, et marchant sur sa trace, Prosper s’unit à lui pour défendre la grace. Il poursuivit l’erreur dans ses derniers détours, et contr’elle des vers emprunta le secours. Les vers servent aux saints: la vive poësie fait triompher la foi, fait trembler l’hérésie.1 As Augustine’s disciple, and walking in his footsteps, Prosper joined forces with him to fight for grace. He pursued heresy in all its hidden corners, using verse to help him in his task. Verse is useful to saints— heated poetry makes faith triumph, and heresy tremble.

1. L. Racine, Poëme de la Grace, II, 31–36 (Paris 1720: 18). On the connections between Prosperian model and Racinian imitation, see L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine. Étude sur la littérature latine ecclésiastique au cinquième siècle en Gaule (Paris: A. Picard, 1900), 633–46.

72

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  73

Such a statement of faith in the power of the “vive poësie” is far from common at the time, and it stresses the importance of an underlying utilitarian conception of literature. Indeed, acknowledging that poetry is useful, and, in the texts under scrutiny in this chapter, that it can act as an authoritative source in the defense of a doctrine (“ fai[re] triompher la foi”) against its detractors (“ fai[re] trembler l’ hérésie”) boils down to denying the old suspicions against the poets’ figmenta,2 and eventually to linking poetry with the truth. Verse can indeed “be useful” to the definition of a doctrine, all the more in a polemical context. Such an idea is not without precedent. The Carmen aduersus Marcionitas3 and St. Augustine’s Psalmus contra partem Donati,4 some pieces by Prudentius, such as the Apotheosis or the Hamartigenia—whose anti-heretical dimension has already been studied— and polemical poetry against paganism5 (of which all the previous examples cited, as well as prose works, are but the logical extension): all those examples have connected poetry and polemics. When Prosper of Aquitaine wrote his Carmen de ingratis in 429 or 430,6 2. The importance of this locus communis has been studied by P.-A. Deproost, “Ficta et facta. La condamnation du ‘mensonge des poètes’ dans la poésie latine chrétienne,” RechAug 44, no. 1 (1998): 101–21. 3. On this poem, which was long wrongly attributed to Tertullian, see K. Pollmann, Das Carmen adversus Marcionitas: Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar, Hypomnemata, 96 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck-Ruprecht, 1991). 4. See the G. Finaert and Y. Congar edition in the Bibliothèque augustinienne (BA 28) and, more recently, W. Geerlings, Augustini Psalmus contra partem Donati: ein Versuch zur Überwindung der Kirchenspaltung (Freiburg, 1994). 5. Here, I am talking about Carmen contra paganos, Carmen ad quendam senatorem ex christiana religione ad idolorum seruitutem conuersum (CSEL 23) and the Poema ultimum (CSEL 30). See on this point the latest studies by M. Cutino, “Sui rapporti fra il cosidetto Poema ultimum e il Carmen ad senatorem,” Emerita 67, no. 1 (1999): 49–64, and E. Di Santo, “La poesia a servizio dell’apologetica in tre carmi anonimi antipagani,” in Motivi e forme della poesia cristiana antica tra scrittura e tradizione classica. XXXVI Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana. Roma, 3–5 maggio 2007, vol. 2, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 108 (Roma: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2008): 99–113. 6. This is a view shared by scholars of Prosper, as summarized by L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine, 160–67 and, most recently, A.Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 14.

74  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

he contributed to a new controversy. And if we rule out Augustine’s last writings to Prosper and Hilary of Provence, the De ingratis has to be considered the first polemical piece of the post-Pelagian controversy. The poem has long been considered the versification of Prosper’s first-known work, the Epistula ad Rufinum, which is only two or three years older.7 Yet, Prosper’s method and designs strongly differ from those of the many authors of opera geminata at the time.8 Even though the content and its phrasing are quite similar, the De ingratis is far from being a formal and academic rewriting of an epistolary text into verse. It deeply transforms its source text, and the change in genre brings about a complete reorientation of the author’s design. In the letter, Prosper was a mere informant who described the ideas—wrong, in his eyes—of the monks of Marseilles to an acquaintance of his, just as he would do a few years later with the bishop of Hippo. In the poem, he turns into a controversialist, refuting no less than informing. The writing of the De ingratis, which took place at the latest in 430, raises the following fundamental question: in the context of a fierce, passion-rousing ideological debate where opponents directly attack each other, in the heart of the storm, as the poet puts it, why does Prosper take the time to compose a thousand hexameters, opting for the circumlocutions of a poetry that frees itself from the rigor of rhetorical argumentation and hence conceals its meaning?9 7. See principally A.-M. Jacquin, “La question de la prédestination aux V e et VIe siècles. S. Prosper d’Aquitaine. Vincent de Lérins. Cassien,” RHE 7 (1906): 273–74; “Le Carmen de ingratis exprime sous une forme métrique les mêmes idées.” A similar view of L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine, 375: “Ce poème n’est, à proprement parler, que la traduction en vers des traités De dono perseuerantiae, De correptione et gratia, De gratia et libero arbitrio.” 8. Among others, we can here think of Sedulius and his Carmen paschale and Opus paschale (CSEL 10). On the different functions of prose and verse, see Th. Lesieur, “Vieux savoir, nouveau savoir. Contribution des auteurs d’Outre-Manche à l’élaboration d’un modèle textuel chrétien,” in Jeunesse et vieillesse. Images médiévales de l’ âge en littérature anglaise, ed. L. Carruthers and A. Papahagi (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005), 44–45. 9. This is the issue raised by Claudius Marius Victorius in his Alethia, in which he wants to prioritize the accuracy of the doctrine over a strict application of the

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  75

Can Prosper’s choice be explained by the same motives as those which made his Italian contemporary Sedulius turn to poetry? In a dedicatory epistle to Macedonius, Sedulius justifies this change by the appeal poetry has to the learned people of his time, who discard the rhetoric of discourses.10 But then, is poetry only an ornament to embellish a discourse? Is it only here to cover the rim of a cup full of a bitter drink with honey, as Lucretius’s simile suggests?11 L. Valentin, in his magisterial thesis on Prosper’s works, states that by composing poetry Prosper “acts as an apostle.” According to Valentin, “in Prosper’s mind, just as in all his contemporary Christian authors’ minds, poetry was what philosophy would become to medieval theologians, that is, a servant, ancilla theologiae. He wanted to preach faith and educate with Christian poems instead of pagan poems. He wanted the scriptures to enjoy the same popularity that poetry enjoyed at the time.”12 Even if such an interpretation is not without basis, it nevertheless needs to be qualified. The best way for us to try and answer our original question—or at least to think of a few hypotheses to answer it—is to study the consequences of Prosper’s choice of poetical rules of versification (prec. 119-122) (CSEL 10): “Quod si lege metri quicquam peccauerit ordo, / peccarit sermo improprius sensusque uacillans, / inculto passim liceat decurrere uersu, / ne fidei hinc ullum subeat mensura periclum.” See, on this work, M. Cutino, “L’Alethia di Claudio Mario Vittorio. La parafrasi biblica come forma di espressione teologica,” Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum, 113 (Roma: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2009), esp. 35. 10. Ep. ad Macedonium (CSEL 10: 5): “Multi sunt quos studiorum saecularium disciplina per poeticas magis delicias et carminum uoluptates oblectat. Hi quicquid rhetoricae facundiae perlegunt, neglegentius adsequuntur, quoniam illud haud diligunt: quod autem uersuum uiderint blandimento mellitum, tanta cordis auiditate suscipiunt, ut in alta memoria saepius haec iterando constituant et reponant.” 11. This is the famous comparison by Lucretius (4, 12) in which he presents his poetry as honey. Doctors, he writes, often coat the rim of cups they want children to drink with honey so they won’t be reluctant to drink the absinthe that is supposed to cure them. 12. L. Valentin (Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine, 445): “Pour lui comme pour les poètes chrétiens de son temps, la poésie était ce que deviendra la philosophie pour les théologiens du Moyen-âge, une servante, ancilla theologiae. Il voulait prêcher la foi, substituer des poèmes chrétiens aux poèmes païens dans l’éducation: il voulait faire bénéficier l’Évangile de la popularité dont jouissait alors la poésie.”

76  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

genre, since he clearly follows in the wake of classical and Christian didactic poetry. Such an investigation must start with a close study of the poem’s peritexts, which are par excellence the place where such information is given. They are the locus where the poet’s sincere voice can usually be heard, in connection with the real world and the poet’s readership. This chapter does not claim to provide a definite answer to the original question but wishes to offer a few leads to thinking through the issues arising from the texts under analysis. The De ingratis is a poem consisting of 1,001 dactylic hexameters,13 introduced by a praefatio composed of five elegiac distiches, a practice commonly adopted by Claudian’s heirs—at least that is the version of the poem we have because of the disappearance of any mediaeval manuscript.14 Another introductory text follows the aforementioned preface. This text was sometimes published separately by the older editions, as a second preface, and sometimes integrated to the poem as its first lines. For convenience, let’s consider those two passages in their entirety. The preface in elegiac distiches runs from line I to X: Vnde uoluntatis sanctae subsistat origo,   Vnde animis pietas insit, et unde fides, Aduersum ingratos falsa et uirtute superbos,   Centenis decies uersibus excolui.

13. My edition (unpublished dissertation: Jérémy Delmulle, “Prélude à une édition critique, traduite et commentée du Peri akharistôn, hoc est Carmen de ingratis de Prosper d’Aquitaine. Introduction, édition critique et traduction provisoires, annotations, éléments de commentaire, bibliographies et indices,” Lyon, 2009) kept the lessons of former philologists, erasing the line that usually follows line 910, obviously an interpolation. For the time being, we follow the reference edition by C. Huegelmeyer, Carmen de ingratis S. Prosperi Aquitani: A Translation with an Introduction and a Commentary (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1962). 14. There are no extent manuscripts of De ingratis before the Roman edition of P. F. Foggini in 1758 (praef.: “Carmen de ingratis in nullo MS. cod. reperire potui”), and since the editio princeps by S. Gryphius, the preface of which (ff. *2r–v) is the only testimony that “very old” copies of the poem have existed. The only manuscripts that can still be found today are posterior to those and are based on them.

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  77 Quos si tranquilla studeas cognoscere cura,   Tutus ab aduerso turbine, lector, eris, Nec libertate arbitrii rapiere rebellis,   Vlla nec audebis dona negare Dei. Sed bona quae tibi sunt, operante fatebere Christo   Non esse ex merito sumpta, sed ad meritum. Where does holy will come from? Where do souls find piety within themselves? Where do they get their faith from? That is what I have developed in one thousand lines against those without grace, who pride themselves with false virtue. Reader, if you calmly and painstakingly care to know them, you’ll be sheltered from the hostile whirlwind, you will not give way to rebellion because of the nature of your free will, and you will not dare to deny God’s gifts. Thanks to Christ, you will realize that you got what is yours not thanks to merit, but with a view to merit.

Here are the poem’s first hexameters, numbered from XI to XXI: Congenitae in Christo gentis mihi castus ab alto Insinuatus amor proprias excedere uires Me iubet atque pias accendere carmine mentes, Ne post confectum celebris uictoria bellum, Securos animos incauta pace resoluat, Ceu metus eliso iam nullus ab hoste supersit Nec caput attriti uirosum palpitet anguis. Vnde igitur commenta mali sopita resurgant Quemue ipso de fine dolum noua promat origo, Da fari, Pater omnipotens, artemque malignam Pandere prostratus qua rursum nititur error. A chaste love—which Heaven has put in me—towards the nation that shares a same nature in Christ since its birth drives me to surpass myself and to set ablaze pious minds with my poem, so that after the war is over the celebration of victory will not soften the minds that have been reassured by a blithe peace, as if nothing was to be feared from a destroyed enemy, when the poisonous head of a skinned snake lies breathless. So when the lulling fictions of evil resurge and a fresh start revives the deception that had ended, allow me, Father Almighty, to reveal the cunning and malice on which the overthrown error relies.

78  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

Cecilia Braidotti has shown well the difference in status between the two prefaces that justifies the use of two meters.15 The first ten lines stand for the propositio, the next eleven for the inductio, bringing Prosper to the traditional inuocatio. After insistently and distinctively stating the object of his poem (l. I–IV), the author directly addresses the reader to advise him or her to closely read the carmen and to announce all the advantages he or she will draw from such an attentive reading. Such benefits can be summed up in one single state: being a good Christian (l. V–X). In the second preface, Prosper explains where the idea for this poem came from (l. XI–XIII) and what his aim is (l. XIV–XVII), under the form of an excusatio.16 He eventually comes to the inuocatio itself, in which he asks God to enable him to fulfill his duty properly (l. XVIII–XXI). However, a few questions can be raised from a close reading of those two texts. No one has ever questioned the origin of the praefatio, but it is true that its insertion into the poem is problematic. All the signs point to the fact that it was written after the composition of the poem—a very common practice—and it introduces some data that are hardly compatible with the poem as a whole. A preface’s main purpose is to inform the reader about the piece he or she is going to read. From it, one can infer the author’s intentions, the readership he wishes to reach, and the manner in which we are supposed to understand the unraveling of the text. It is always difficult to connect a text with a pre-established genre, especially in this period of late Constantino-Theodosian Renaissance (characterized by Jacques Fontaine as “an aesthetics mingling genres and tones,”17 in the context of neo-Alexandrinism, as 15. C. Braidotti, “Prefazioni in distici elegiaci,” in La poesia cristiana latina in distici elegiaci. Atti del convegno internazionale, Assisi, 20–22 Marzo 1992, ed. G. Catanzaro and F. Santucci (Assisi: Accademia properziana del Subasio, 1993), 57–83. 16. For convenience’s sake, I’ll speak of a “first” and a “second” preface, as the editors’ distinction between a praefatio and a prooemium is quite hard to work with. 17. See J. Fontaine, “Le mélange des genres dans la poésie de Prudence,” in Forma futuri: studi in onore del cardinale Michele Pellegrino (Turin: Bottega D’Erasmo

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  79

Jean-Louis Charlet recently showed),18 but the indications given in the preface connect the De ingratis to the genre—or subgenre—of didactic poetry in the Lucretian and Virgilian tradition. Indeed both short texts contain the four elements that Katharina Volk defined as a didactic poem’s criteria.19 Although she studied the didactic poems of classical Rome, it does not seem out of place or uninteresting to try and see to what extent such a method can be found altered, in a poem of late antiquity. Further, Prosper was formed and trained in the province of Aquitaine, and he composed this work in Provence: both areas can be considered as the last strongholds of classical Romanity in the first third of the fifth century; their inhabitants shared their lives with barbarian invaders without being conquered by them. Those four criteria are, by order of importance: 1. “Explicit didactic intent”: This is what the beginning of the poem is about. The anaphora of the interrogative adverb unde— also found at the end of the second preface—and the use of the substantive origo that informs that adverb (I. I),20 clearly show that the poem wishes to teach some knowledge to the reader and answer some questions and ultimately that its content is mainly etiological. Prosper becomes an “archaeologist” twice over, seeking out not only the origins of the heresy but also the origins of the faith, and meets the intentions of the De natura rerum’s author.21 2. “Teacher-student constellation”: A new relationship arises be­tween the poet who declares he has developed (excolui)—or is 1975): 755–77; reprinted in Études sur la poésie latine tardive d’Ausone à Prudence (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980), 1–23. 18. J.-L. Charlet, “Tendances esthétiques de la poésie latine tardive (325–470),” Antiquité Tardive 16 (2008): 159–67. 19. K. Volk, The Poetics of Latin Didactic. Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), esp. 36–41. 20. “Origo” is used again in the same second preface (l. XIX) but with a different meaning, that of birth. 21. See Lucretius 1, 54–57: “Nam tibi de summa caeli ratione deumque / disserere incipiam et rerum primordia pandam, unde omnis natura creet res auctet alatque, / quoue eadem rursum natura perempta resoluat.”

80  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

about to (da . . . pandere)22—ex professo an argumentation and the reader, who then becomes his student until the lesson is over. This is set off by the use of the second person and the direct address to a lector. The reader will have to work hard and learn those lines (Quos si tranquilla studeas cognoscere cura) well enough to benefit from them. We could even go as far as reading in the Lucretian reminiscence of the phrase studeas cognoscere, which underlines the didactic aim of the poem, the affirmation that the poem has greater stakes and wishes to indicate the way to wisdom.23 But something comes in the way to alter this relationship, even though it is a common feature in this type of poetry. It has to do with the changes brought about by the “Christianization” of culture. Indeed, although Prosper is a didactic poet and adopts the ethos of a teacher, he remains first and foremost a Christian writer. The topos of the humilitas found in traditional Christian poetry is here repeated by the fact that humility as a positive force is what is opposed to his opponents’ pride, as with mens humilis to superbia in Prudentius’s Psychomachia.24 The humilitas borrows rhetorical clichés from Paulinus of Nola, such as the excusatio25 (the first person singular is not the subject of any verb, e.g., in the phrase proprias excedere uires).26 In this line, those “without grace” are not only characterized by their pride but also by their “false virtue,” as Prosper puts 22. “Pandere” is the verb used by Lucretius to present his topic (1, 55), Epicure’s glorious deeds (5, 54): “Atque omnem rerum naturam pandere dictis.” Perhaps the verb has here almost a religious connotation, signifying initiation or the revealing of mysteries: see Thesaurus linguae Latinae, 10, 1.1, s.u. 2. pando (I. B. 2. a. α. II.), 199. 23. Cf. Lucretius 3, 1072: “Naturam primum studeat cognoscere rerum.” Lucretius stresses here the importance of his topic, De natura rerum, for human life, for his study will allow his readers not to fear death anymore, nor to see life with disgust but, on the contrary, to attain wisdom. 24. Cf. Prudentius, Psych. 178–309. 25. On the Christianization of classical “topoi,” see H. Junod-Ammerbauer, “Le poète chrétien selon Paulin de Nole. L’adaptation des thèmes classiques dans les Natalicia,” RechAug 21 nos. 1–2 (1975): 13–54. 26. The phrase proprias uires has a specific meaning in a text on free will, which echoes the trust that Pelagians have in the power of human nature, and which we can find many times in Manil., 2, 712; 3, 509; 4, 319; 504; 5, 27; 30.

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  81

it.27 Such a phrase points to the excessive confidence that those defending free will put in the sapientia mundi—a topic frequently encountered in the poem, as in other contemporary works28—which replaces the sapientia Christi. The main issue comes from the fact that the poet, when claiming the paternity of his work (excolui), cannot do so out of merit—particularly when he deals with the absolute necessity and power of grace. When making claims for his authorship, he pulls away in the second preface, refusing to assume the inuentio and staging his uocatio to give way to the topos of the causa scribendi. Far from boasting he wrote a poem directed against those without grace, he depicts himself as the faithful servant of grace, writing at its disposal. This paradoxical situation—an author refusing his authority—could be explained if we keep in mind the following passage of the De ingratis, in which the teacher-student relationship is dealt with. This relationship needs a third instance to work properly: Non doctor, neque discipulus, sed gratia sola Efficit inque graues adolet plantaria fructus.29 It is not the teacher, nor the disciple, but grace alone that produces such effects [i.e., that the hearer is enriched by the experience] and makes the cuttings grow so they will bear heavy fruits.

Here the Augustinian doctrine is perfectly reproduced, yet the relationship at work in the poem seems to lose some of its power? The ethos of the Christian poet is not the only hindrance to it. 3. “Poetic self-consciousness”: In very topical terms, Prosper de27. See another occurrence in line 405, “falsa uirtute” and Epigr. 69, 9, “Nec falsarum habitu uirtutum ornata iuuatur.” 28. See Ingr. 401–6 and 864–75, as well as Carmen de prouidentia Dei, 854–73 and 902–31. On this issue of “sapientia mundi / sapientia Christi,” see M.G. Bianco, La vita alla luce della Sapienza. Il carme anonimo Sancte Deus, lucis lumen, concordia rerum, Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, 54; Testi e documenti, 3 (Roma: Viella, 1990), and M. Cutino, “Continuità e innovazione nella poesia latina cristiana del V sec. in Gallia: il protrettico alla conversion,” Auctores nostri 4 (2006): 311–50. 29. Ingr., 345–46.

82  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

fines his piece as a poem (uersibus, carmine)—a definition not echoed anywhere else in the De ingratis—and sets it off thanks to an etymological pun that takes us back to the deeper meaning of poetical creation. The uersus (the “lines,” but also originally the “furrows”) are associated with the verb excolere (“to cultivate”) and thus introduce a metaphor most valuable for Prosper’s doctrinal demonstration: the metaphor of the soil that the cultivator plants and sows before ploughing it, but whose fructification depends entirely on the intervention of God’s grace.30 However, the author presents us with a work that he sees as complete (he gives the number of the poem’s lines and uses the perfect indicative—excolui—to speak about his work), which is at odds with the final criterion. 4. “Poetic simultaneity”: This criterion raises the main issue of the simultaneous presence of those two liminary texts. The first one was written after the poem was composed (l. IV) and describes the whole piece as a written, fixed text (lector). By contrast, the second text acts as a real inductio by announcing what is about to be said and starting to create the illusion that is specific to that kind of writing, making the reader believe the text is composed at the same time as it is read. Such is the role of the inuocatio, a prayer to beg God to help the author write his text. It is also the role of other brief passages in the text that underline the logical evolution of the argumentation of the poem.31 Both liminary texts introduce the main topic of the poem, but those topics are not entirely compatible. In the first lines, the repetition of the question unde, concerning the sancta uoluntas, the pietas, and the fides, suggests that the De ingratis might, in fact, be a De gratia: as those circumlocutions seem to indicate, the poem entreats “of grace.” Pietas and fides are two words that are frequently found together, for instance in Prudentius’s work, especially when he raises the issue of grace, before it was transformed as a result of 30. See the references to 1 Cor. 3:7 in Ingr. 342 and 473–74. 31. See lines 222–25, 249–50, 271–72, 573–74.

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  83

Augustinian reflection.32 Hence, when one wishes to show where faith comes from, one has to deal with the main problem posed by the Marseilles monks’ doctrine, that of the initium fidei, which appears in John Cassian’s Collationes in 426.33 Yet, in the second text, unde introduces clauses with different meanings altogether: first, unde commenta mali . . . resurgant, then the noua origo, which does not deal with the notion of grace at all, but with the negation of grace, whether the evil perpetrated by the devil and, through him, Pelagius, or the evil that “the remains of Pelagian perversity” “resuscitated” at Cassian’s monastery.34 The three complements of the verb da fari or pandere have indeed something to do with Satan, although they have different constructions: Satan embodies the evil whose cunningness (dolum) resurfaces when Prosper is writing, thanks to demonic artifice and craftiness (artemque malignam), while later in the text Prosper mentions “ancient cunningness.” In this light, the poem fully realizes the expectations suggested by the title De ingratis, which is devoted to the tracing back of a diabolic genealogy of men who pretend they are Christian and refuse to accept St. Augustine’s theories even though they are God-inspired, according to Prosper.35 The incompatibility of those two prefaces is more than striking to the reader. The duality of the topic comes to threaten the unity of the text as a whole, for the two opposite topics are addressed to two sorts of opposite readers: one topic expounds the Augustinian 32. Prudentius, Cath. 4, 46, Ham. 53, Symm. 2, 274, 503 (see R. J. Deferrari and J. M. Campbell, A Concordance of Prudentius [Hildesheim: G Olds Verlag, 1966], s.u. “pietas”: 537). 33. On this issue, see, among others, J. M. Chéné, “Que signifiaient ‘initium fidei’ et ‘affectus credulitatis’ pour les semipélagiens?” RechSR 35 (1948): 566–88; and about the development of this issue in the next century, M. Djuth, “Fulgentius of Ruspe and the Initium Bonae Voluntatis,” AS 20 (1989): 39–60 and “Faustus of Riez: Initium Bonae Voluntatis,” AS 21 (1990): 35–53. 34. Ep. ad Aug., Ep. 225 (among Aug.’s letters): “in istis Pelagianae reliquiis prauitatis.” 35. See the long eulogy for Augustine to which Prosper dedicates De ingratis, lines 92 to 113.

84  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

doctrine to those who fight it or ignore it (the Marseilles monks), while the other presents the doctrine of the anti-Augustinian writers to those who are unaware of it (other readers), which was already dealt with in Prosper’s letters to Rufinus and Augustine. Who, then, are the readers whose attention Prosper tries to draw? In the praefationes, the addressee’s identity is clear, as line VI’s lector can only be considered as the figure of the good Christian who is the opposite of the Marseilles monk: he does not do anything that could lead him to be forsaken by God. It is confirmed in line XIII when the poet tells us about the aim that divine inspiration has given him, and in which, in the same hemistiche, he expresses his faith—in a rather common way—in the power of poetry, which, setting the souls “ablaze” (accendere), acts like a divinity or an epic hero exhorting his men to fight.36 He also points to the readership he wants to reach in this way (pias . . . mentes)— which distinguishes them from the readers of Virgil’s Georgics. Virgil addressed his didactic poem to a learned readership who cultivated the otium (Cetera quae uacas tenuissent carmine mentes),37 while Prosper’s addressees are of a similar social background but also of genuine “piety” in a sense that is no longer Virgilian. The lector who is mentioned in the preface, and who could also be the addressee of the second preface, is a deception, for he or she never appears again in the poem. Most occurrences of the second person singular in the piece are, in fact, addressed not to the prefaces’ reader but to the poet’s rival who defends Pelagius’s views. This rival is, in fact, the real addressee of the poem.38 Hence the relationship between teacher and student, mentioned previously, is highly disrupted. If we refer to fourth-century gram36. The phrase “accendere animos” can be found twice in the Eneid, first dealing with Venus (7, 550), then Iapyx (12, 426), each time when they go and assault the enemy. 37. In his invocation to Pales (Georgics 3, 3): “The other subjects which could have charmed and cultivated the leisured minds.” 38. The second person always designates the opponent, with a few exceptions: line 72: “Tu [ . . . ] Africa”; line 767: “Tu uero, o noua gens.”

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  85

marian Diomedes’s definition of the genre of poems such as the Georgics and Lucretius’s poem—the second one, in Diomedes’s classification—the De ingratis is far from meeting the right requirements. Indeed, in “the exegetic or narrative genre, in which the poet is speaking, without any other instance interfering,”39 the teacher’s discourse has to be peremptory, to deliver knowledge or savoir faire to the readers. Conversely, in the De ingratis, the poet’s discourse aims at making his opponent speak, despite the poem’s use of didactic poetry’s devices (the frequent use of the second person, of exhortative imperative, among others). The many imperatives used by Prosper belong to such a genre: Dic, dicite, edite, and so forth.40 What’s more, the poem sometimes turns into a dialogue, especially when Prosper uses direct speech to somehow reinvent his opponents’ words, before replying emphatically to their arguments.41 Prosper’s rival’s words thus seem to have pride of place in the De ingratis, representing no less than two hundred and fifty lines (i.e., a fourth of the poem) when one takes into account the direct style passages and those in which Prosper sums up or simply expounds the Pelagian arguments. Those various inserted discourses are of great importance for Prosper’s enterprise. They are where polemics can happen, thanks to the agonistic dimension of dialogue, in which the Augustinians oppose the anti-Augustinians.42 Enabling your opponent to speak is allowing him to state things that the poet thinks false, and, because Prosper perfectly masters the content of his discourse, he is actually making them state false things. It is very difficult for us to evaluate the true degree of reconstruction and invention of these 39. Diomedes 1, 482, 21: “exegeticon est uel enarratiuum in quo poeta ipse loquitur sine ullius personae interlocutione” (ed. Keil, Grammatici Latini, 1). 40. See lines 138, 272 (“dic”), 496, 503, 515 (“dicite”), 498, 526 (“edite”). 41. See lines 149–72, 196–215, 354–65. 42. An example of a more detailed study about this rhetoric and poetic aspect can be found in J. Delmulle, “‘Prosper, poeta et rhetor.’ Les prosopopées des pélagiens dans le Carmen de ingratis,” in L’art du discours dans l’Antiquité: de l’orateur au poète, ed. P. Voisin and M. de Béchillon (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010), 235–48.

86  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

passages of direct speech. Of course, some sentences are entirely and directly borrowed either from Pelagian treatises, quotations in anti-Pelagian works, or pieces by the Marseilles monks;43 but for most, their origins are still quite difficult to trace. Yet there is a way to know more about Prosper’s heresiological practices. Even when he makes his rivals speak, he does not lose the thread of his own argumentation. Making the others speak is a predetermined part of his whole project. What he first and foremost tries to do is to prove the heterodoxy of the doctrine of Pelagius and his direct and indirect followers. To this end, he inserts within a text by the Marseilles monks in indirect speech the best argument to let them prove themselves wrong: Hic uanam insano profertis corde querelam, Omne opus arbitrii sublatum uociferantes, Currere currentum, si non, et uelle uolentum est44 Here, you exhale a useless complaint from your insane heart, when you proclaim everywhere that free will’s work is taken away entirely, if it is up to those who run to run, and to those who want to want.

In those lines, the learned reader can easily spot the reference to a Pauline verse.45 The poetic text then becomes polemic when, here, Prosper depicts the Marseilles monks as Christians who do not care about God’s mercy: Paul’s third term—sed miserentis est Dei—is not taken into account by them. Using Paul’s words, he introduces, in a very significant manner and between the two caesuras, a negation: this is the last straw that proves the Marseilles monks dissent from the Apostle’s voice and are heterodox. Consequently, the real addressee is not the student, but rather the heretic, since almost the entire poem is about him. Yet the 43. A famous sentence by Pelagius, for instance, can be found quoted by Jerome (Pelag. 1, 1, 1–2; 2, 15, 14–15; Ep. 133, 2) and Augustine (gest. Pel. 6, 16; 11, 23; 30, 54, etc.), and in some lines of the poem, adapted as: “Posse hominem sine peccato decurrere uitam, / si uelit” (Ingr. 232–33). 44. Ingr. 565–67. 45. See Rom. 9:16: “Igitur non uolentis, neque currentis, sed miserentis est Dei.”

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  87

question remains unanswered regarding the first praefatio’s reader, whom Prosper guides in his faith and who must not be mixed up with the impius, as we will see later on. Such devices tend to make the text go further than didactics and bring it closer to the sphere of polemics. That is exactly what was announced in the preface, through the use of two metaphors that acquire even more importance as we read the next one thousand lines—the metaphor of war and the metaphor of the snake. In a polemical context, agonistic images are commonplace when describing what opposes the “heretics” to God or to His faithful defenders, the “Catholics.” That is how the word rebellis (l. VII) is to be understood: as we have seen, what the poet tells his reader corresponds to the behavior that stands in sharp contrast to that of the post-Pelagians. The latter are depicted as re-belles, those who “make war” to God. In the inductio, the anti-heretical images become even more important. The same distressing atmosphere as what appears in the preface is described, dealing with a threatening and “hostile whirlwind” (aduerso turbine). But because of the polysemy of the epic image of the storm from which one has to seek shelter leaves the reader in doubt about the outcome, at this point he or she is taken to a post-war period (post confectum . . . bellum) in which victory does not necessarily mean blithe peace.46 Everyone has to stay on their guard. The image of the war, an eminently epic topic, comes back several times in the poem, dealing with what we could describe as the epic of Pelagianism’s condemnation.47 All the Catholic bishops, whether assembled as a council or acting on their own, like Augustine in his works, are represented as an army of defenders with “celestial javelins” (iaculis coelestibus, l. 37) driving off (exegerit, l. 71) or striking their enemies down: 46. We can also find a connection between storm and war in Virgil. En. 1, 42, 81, 441, etc.; see also Ingr. 114: “Iamque procellosae disiecto turbine noctis” after the lexical field of war. 47. A long historical excessus opens the poem (33–131) and describes how the church defeated the Pelagian heresy after a metaphorical battle. It is as if grace itself gave its defenders arms to fight its detractors.

88  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE   Fera uiscera belli Conficis et lato prosternis limite uictos.48 You finish off the innards of a cruel war and you overthrow the vanquished upon a large space.

All those constantly present elements remind the reader of the highly “polemic” character of the discussion between the Augustinians (and for Prosper, this group seems to designate the church as a whole) and the monks of Marseilles. But the extent of Prosper’s heresiological work is already contained in the weaving together of the text’s main two metaphors, that of war and that of the snake. Depicting the heretic as a snake is quite commonplace, as when Epiphanius of Salamis’s Panarion gives remedies against snake bites, snakes being as numerous as the heretics.49 Again, Prosper knowledgeably regenerates this topos, which fits his discourse perfectly; the heretics are depicted in the guise of a number of reptiles, which brings them closer in nature to the devil, the serpent of Genesis. The author of a heresy is intimately bound to Satan, for he is seen as truly Satan’s accomplice and not his victim.50 The behavior of those defending free will is just like that of the devil telling Eve to trust him. This parallel is explicit in lines 914–27, in which the poet compares both the Edenic and the contemporary situations, identifying the snake’s persuasion of Adam and Eve with that of the contemporary heretics.51 As soon as the poem itself begins, the heresiarch himself is represented in his union with the devil: Dogma quod antiqui satiatum felle draconis Pestifero uomuit coluber sermone Britannus52 48. Ingr. 74–75. 49. Épiphane, Panarion. Cf. A. Pourkier, L’ hérésiologie chez Épiphane de Salamine, Christianisme antique 4 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1992): 78, 80 and 495. 50. B. Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme et l’ hérésie, Études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 161 (Paris: Inst. d’Études Augustiniennes, 1999): 295. 51. “[Patribus primis] . . . hac arte omnes prostrauit in uno, / dum suadet [ . . . ] / quae nunc per ueteris serpens uestigia fraudis / ut [ . . . ] / suadeat [ . . . ] .” 52. Ingr. 1–2.

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  89 The venom-filled dogma of the old dragon which the British grass snake has vomited in his words.

Turning his rival Pelagius—who is never directly mentioned in the poem, except with reference to his nationality—into the devil strongly influences the reader’s view of him. Those two intertwined images, which can also be found in the two Epigrammata in obtretractorem Augustini, can be seen in the historical excessus that Prosper dedicates to the condemnation of heresy. In this text, Pelagius’s disciples are presented as “an army of adders” (agmen uipereum, l. 71). The poetic form—and in this precise instance the epic model linked to didactic poetry—proves to be perfectly fit to receive a polemic and anti-heretic discourse, which it efficiently helps to renew and regenerate. But to disseminate theories that are considered erroneous for such a long time would not really be, as L. Valentin writes, “to act as an apostle.” In fact, the insertion in the poem of the Marseilles monks’ doctrine is motivated by the same drive that led Prosper to write to Rufinus or Augustine: not only does he want to contradict his adversaries but he also, even chiefly, aims at warning the faithful (pias mentes) against the danger that accepting or even divulging such a doctrine may represent. As Prosper sends to Augustine his complaints about the reputation that those who confess the heresy have acquired,53 he similarly speaks in our poem about “those who teach reprehensible opinions and who, in the safety of famous cities, fill the mind of great peoples with those ideas,” with utter impunity.54 Of course, Prosper’s ultimate object in making his adversaries talk is to silence them (Conticeant igitur qui dicunt . . . , l. 944) and to impose on them the Augustinian doctrine of grace. And such is the reason why a veritable Bakhtinian dialogism is established 53. Ep. 225.2 (among letters of Aug.): “Ne simpliciores quique, apud quos horum magna est de probitatis contemplatione reuerentia, hoc tutissimum sibi aestiment, quod audiant eos, quorum auctoritatem sine iudicio sequuntur, adserere.” 54. Ingr. 212–14: “Cur extra inuidiam poenamque erroris habentur, / qui damnata docent et, per clara oppida tuti, / his magnos implent populos [ . . . ]?”

90  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

from the very start of the poem. By developing the Marseilles monks’ doctrine, Prosper allows himself to answer it argument by argument, and hence to present and demonstrate with authority what it is opportune to believe in. The poem remains a didactical piece by occasionally becoming a doctrinal exposé. Even more, in the poem and in the very prefaces themselves, the reader can find numerous occurrences of the underlying presence of grace. The use of evocative images or expressions are a way for the poet to scatter his own discourse with references to grace without expressing his views ex professo, as he sometimes does. For instance, this is the case in the last lines of the first preface. Grace has only been evoked so far through the use of paraphrases (ll. I–II), or in a play on the etymology of words (ingratos, l. III). But a more thorough reading reveals an ominous element in line IX, an element that announces the ulterior developments on the topic of grace. Prosper predicts to whoever will read his writing scrupulously: Sed bona quae tibi sunt, operante fatebere Christo Non esse ex merito sumpta, sed ad meritum.

The use of the ablative absolute operante Christo—as the PortRoyal editors already observed55—is remarkable in this perspective: by using the second person as the subject, but a subject which would appear as if it was acted by Christ operating within him, Prosper reveals at the same time the all-powerful action of efficient grace. Other occurrences of such a phenomenon can be found in the poem, especially as he is composing the laudatory portrait of his master Augustine, when Prosper is simultaneously painting him as the model of grace: grace’s most ardent defender but also a privileged receptacle of the same grace.56 55. PL 51:93: “Operante Christo. Vel id refer ad sequentia, ut sit constructio: Fatebere bona quae tibi sunt, operante Christo, sumpta esse ad meritum, sed non ex merito; vel potius, magisque e genio Prosperi, ad ipsum fatebere; ut ita magnificentius gratia commendetur, quando et illud fateri ipsamet operatur.” 56. See lines 92–94: “Augustinus [ . . . ] quem Christi gratia cornu / uberiore rigans nostro lumen dedit aeuo / accensum uero de lumine.”

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  91

One can therefore assert that the De ingratis, taken in a broader context as the poem introduced by the preface in distichs, can be categorized as a piece of anti-heretical polemic, while constituting at the same time a kind of handbook designed to protect him against the danger of heresy (Tutus ab aduerso turbine, lector, eris). The renewed dialogue between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, valid per se, would therefore be presented to the eyes of a reader already sheltered from the turmoil as a source of information which contains both the proscribed discourse and its positive refutation. Precisely as with De gratia, Prosper’s De ingratis attempts a reconciliation of poetry and theology, as Lucretius had done earlier with philosophy. Here we might find the solution to our problem, because if indeed we accept describing this poem as a “polemical poem,” we cannot help being surprised at the great discrepancy between the tone of the preface and the tone of the poem itself, a discrepancy which can hardly be explained by the mere “aesthetics mingling tones” mentioned previously. Prosper, who is beginning to become a vindictive controversialist when writing the De ingratis, turns into a fervent pacifist when writing the preface later. His only concern seems then to be to guarantee his reader’s protection and integrity. The poem must therefore be a tool for him to turn his reader into a good Christian, able to reject heretical thoughts, and to let Christ speak through his mouth. Similarly, rather than insisting on what may divide the two theories and be a source of dissension between them, Prosper underlines the possibility, even the reality, of a connection between the two theories. One can find a most telling proof of this in the fact that the poem is opened by a quite unusual word, especially in such a context—the adjective congenitus.57 It is quite surprising to have 57. This adjective can often be found in Augustine’s writings but is always associated with a negative term and an evocation of the original sin: malum (c. Iul. 1, 110; 3, 191), mors (c. Iul. 1, 110), peccatum (c. Iul. 2, 6), and so on. However, it is also present as the qualifier of the phrase liberum arbitrium (c. Iul. 6), libertas (c. Iul. 6). See the similar idea in Pope Leo, Serm. 5, 2: “cum ipso sumus in hac natiuitate congeniti.”

92  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

a polemical work, written aduersum ingratos, starting with the assertion of the Pauline doctrine of the mystical body of Christ. For such is the very meaning of the evocation by Prosper of this “chaste love towards the nation that shares from its birth a common nature within Christ” (and here, by “birth,” one must understand the spiritual birth bestowed on someone by baptism). On the contrary, in the rest of the poem, the hostes (l. 37, 58, 140, 173, 192, 836), whether Pelagians or not, are related by blood only among themselves: the simplest device—and the one Prosper uses the most—consists precisely in establishing a filiation between the theory developed by Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Eclanum on the one hand and the theory defended by John Cassian and his brothers on the other. He establishes this filiation in order to let them know that their condemnation has already been pronounced, even before the birth of their doctrine, so that it is therefore not necessary to prove each of their arguments false.58 In order to solve, even temporarily and hypothetically, the problem at stake in our study, it is necessary to analyze the overall structure of the poem, which evinces a real coherence, in spite of some repetitions. With Karla Pollman,59 we would like to observe in the composition of the poem a very widespread and resolutely optimistic movement, leading us from the original fall, represented by the “old dragon,”60 to the festive and eternal Sabbath evoked in the last words of the last line:

58. This device is rather common in the works of the heresiologists. See B. Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme et l’ hérésie, 361–70. 59. K. Pollmann (Das Carmen adversus Marcionitas, 46) about the composition of the Carmen aduersus Marcionitas: “Dieser findet sich z.B. auch in Prospers Carmen de ingratis: Nach praefatio und inductio hebt das Gedicht mit dem Sündenfall an und endet mit dem Hinweis auf den Ewigen Sabbat in Vers 1002.” 60. Line 1 in the poem evokes Satan and his trick in Gn. 3:1, which is immediately followed by the condemnation of men through death, to which they are immediately sentenced (lines 6–8): “Mortem istam prorsus, qua carnem uita relinquit, / Oppeterent, quae non peccato parta, sed ipso / Instituente Deo, comes esset fixa creatis.”

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  93 Legitima in sanctis ducamus sabbata festis.61 Let us lead a Sabbath in the middle of the holy days.

This universal vision of human life, which is at the same time the contemplation of the salutary deployment of the all-powerful grace, corresponds to a quasi-inversion that seems to go beyond the limits both of the didactic genre—the end of the dogmatic exposé does not correspond to the end of the poem—and of Prosper’s polemical project—the animadversion has been replaced by desire and by the possibility of communion. Over this universal and general structure, Prosper superimposes a scheme of evolution which, being that of humankind over the centuries, should be that of each human being during his own life, in an approach we can describe as microcosmic. The poem, using to its advantage the components of didactic poetry (first and foremost exhortation), would then be firmly anchored in a tendency that invigorates poetry at the start of the fifth century in Aquitaine: that of protreptic poetry, which aims at inciting its readers to “conversion”—a movement Michele Cutino recently redefined through the study of both Orientius’s Commonitorium and Prosper’s Poema coniugis ad uxorem.62 It is indeed possible to account for calls to conversion to God in the Carmen de ingratis, especially in its last quarter, as being directed not to pagans but to Christians who, living imperfect lives, need such a transformation. Perhaps the interpellation that appears in line 767 should be understood in that way: Tu uero, o noua gens, ueteris quae stirpe oleastri Velleris et sacrae ramis inolescis oliuae63 As for you, new nation, who tears itself away from the trunk of the old olive tree and grows in the branches of the sacred one.

The noua gens refers to the Christian nation in these lines, which Prosper separates from the Jewish people (electum ex cunctis 61. Ingr. 1001. 63. Ingr. 767–68.

62. Cutino, “Continuità,” 311–50.

94  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

populum Deus unum, l. 712; designated here by the Pauline image64 of the sacred olive tree, sacrae oliuae) and from all the pagans (the old olive tree, ueteris oleastri). But the reminiscence of the Epistle to the Romans is carried on in the following lines, when it comes to condemning pride. Prosper places the aspirations of this “new nation” on a higher level than the care for ostentation displayed both by the pagans and the monks, the bad Christians, who go into raptures over their free will: Vince superborum flatus et uana furentum, Turbinibus stabili fortis pietate resiste65 Overcome the whispering winds of pride and the vain ideas of these delirious people. Resist with force the whirlwinds thanks to the stability of your piety.

This admonition seems to be directed to the reader of the preface, taken as a natural member of the noua gens and so similar to the congenita in Christo gens mentioned previously. He is encouraged to turn his eyes toward God alone and recognize his own helplessness and the vanity of the sapientia mundi to which Adalbert de Vogüé refers, precisely about the early fifth-century literary production from Aquitaine.66 But it is also possible to interpret this invitation as being directed to everyone down to the adversaries themselves who, if they were able to prevail over the vices which drive them away from God, would also have their share of the promised happiness of an everlasting Sabbath. The enemies, often treated as heretics, are in fact in a more complex position: Cassian and his disciples have, according to Prosper, ceased to be orthodox, without having necessarily become actual and irrevocable heretics. Admittedly, Prosper often invites his opponents to carry on their logic to the absurd, 64. See. Rom. 11:17. 65. Ingr. 772–73. 66. A. de Vogüé, Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’antiquité, t. 7.1: L’essor de la littérature lérinienne et les écrits contemporains (410–500), Patrimoines Christianisme (Paris: Cerf, 2003), 181–82.

CARMEN DE INGRATIS  95

or to draw from this logic the obvious consequences, which would lead to the identification of this doctrine to Pelagianism. But, in doing so, he does not forget to occasionally indicate the opportunity these adversaries have to avoid the condemnation which is in store for heresy, and at the same time to indicate the opportunity they have to be a part of the Christian community in order to attain salvation. A passage of the poem is very telling in many ways on this issue: [Si…] et uos Non cum damnatis eadem ratis extulit alto Mergendos pelago, submittite uela tumoris Nobiscumque humiles placido consistite portu.67 If you are not on board the same ship as those condemned heretics in danger of drowning in the open sea, haul down the sails of your pompousness and come to a humble halt with us at the peaceful heaven.

Taking up the traditional image of the shipwreck, Prosper presents his reader with the contrast between the menacing atmosphere of the open sea, capable of drowning all aboard the ship who are by definition heretics (and we notice in the term pelago a play on words already present in Augustine’s writings,68 associating this danger to the very person of Pelagius), and the haven of safety provided by the church, the gift of an anchorage, the very shelter the preface had already mentioned and a refuge from the storm of controversy. The lector called to conversion can, in these conditions, be the heretic himself, whom Prosper warns against the pitfalls inherent to the doctrine he professes. Concluding our study, we must underline the originality displayed by Prosper of Aquitaine’s Carmen de ingratis, didactic both in its form and content, polemical in its purpose, which contributes to the renovation of the rules of a genre codified long ago and said to be particularly adapted to the Roman spirit. By directing 67. Ingr. 522–25. 68. See Aug., gr. et pecc. or. 1, 50: “Quid in eo pelago uult mergi Pelagius [ . . . ]?”

96  JÉRÉMY DELMULLE

his poem both to adversaries whose arguments he tries to prove false and whom it is his aim to put back on the straight and narrow, and to any other reader anxious to get information about the theological and anthropological controversies of his time, Prosper redeploys numerous tools the didactic poet usually employs to convey his doctrine. The topoi become the very expression of Prosper’s theory of grace, and he employs the same devices in later works, such as his Liber epigrammatum.69 As a comparison with the works of Commodian, Prudentius, or Avitus of Vienne would show, Christianized didactic poetry gains a polemical dimension that is not uniformly present, which contributes to the redefinition of didactic poetry. Apropos of the writing and the reception of the Carmen de ingratis, the fact that Prosper seems to point out two categories of persons as addressees gives the poem a double dimension and a double interest: however valid it is in the current controversy against the so-called semi-Pelagians, the text also continues to act by issuing a warning to another kind of dissident: negligent Christians. 69. On the place of the Liber epigrammatum in poetry, see the analysis of M. Cutino, “Le Liber epigrammatum de Prosper d’Aquitaine et l’évolution du genre épigrammatique dans la latinité tardive,” Revue des études latines 87 (2010): 190– 206; and J. Delmulle, “Le Liber epigrammatum de Prosper d’Aquitaine, un petit catéchisme augustinien,” in La renaissance de l’ épigramme dans la latinité tardive, Actes du colloque international de Mulhouse, 6–7 octobre 2011, Collections de l’Université de Strasbourg, Études d’archéologie et d’histoire ancienne (Paris: De Boccard, 2013), 193–209.

6

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY 

The Development of an Augustinian

Thomas L. Humphries Jr.

An essay on the development of a particular theologian’s ideas must take several things for granted, including which texts the author wrote and when he wrote them. In the case of Prosper of Aquitaine, historians and theologians meet a perplexing figure for whom such simple matters as which texts he wrote and when he wrote them are in dispute. The case is only further complicated when we attempt to address the extent to which Prosper engages the thought of Augustine. Many have supposed that Prosper’s theology is a pure form of “Augustinianism” that is better than other Gallic theological systems. But this picture of Prosper is not nuanced enough for today’s historical theologian. Many other Gallic theologians, even those against whom Prosper argued, also read and engaged Augustine’s thought. Prosper is not the only Augustinian theologian in fifth-century Gaul; nor is he entirely consistent in his theological opinions. In this short chapter, I would like to revisit one aspect of Prosper’s thought that is central to our understanding of his Augustinianism, his pneumatology. I argue that Prosper’s understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology developed. The basic form of my argument traces Prosper’s use of the Holy Spirit in explaining the 97

98  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

reformation of the will. In his early works, Prosper makes no use of pneumatological claims to support his arguments about free will and grace; whereas in his later works, Prosper uses key pneumatological verses like Rom. 5:5, 8:14–15, and Galatians 4:6 to great advantage. Prosper learned both his initial emphasis on the priority of grace and the importance of pneumatology in these arguments from texts like Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace, and, so, I argue that Prosper’s pneumatological development demonstrates his development as an Augustinian. As Prosper comes to understand Augustine’s pneumatology better, he makes use of it in his arguments about grace and free will in the same way Augustine did. Since the literary corpus of Prosper is contested, we must consider how my argument works in relation to texts that are generally accepted as authored by Prosper and texts for which his authorship is contested. We know that Prosper was a layman who had been taken captive by Arian Visigoths early in his life. When he returned to Catholic territories in Gaul (c. 415), he began his writing career. Before that, he had been educated where he was born (c. 390), in the region of western Gaul known as Aquitaine.1 The works that come from the middle of his career are seldom contested, while 1. The most recent biography and theological discussion of Prosper is Alexander Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009). The works of Prosper are collected in PL 51. Many are edited in CCL 68A and CSEL 47 and 57. English translations of select works are available in ACW 14 and 32, Supplements to VC, and FC 7. The works cited here are abbreviated as follows: prov. Dei = On the Providence of God; Ep. ad Aug. = Letter to Augustine; Ep. ad Ruf. = Letter to Rufinus; c. coll. = On Grace and Free Will Against the Conferencer [i.e. Cassian]; voc. om. gen. = The Call of All Nations; gr. et lib. arb. = On the Grace of God and the Free Choice of the Will. For a current critique of Prosper’s analysis of Cassian, see Augustine Casiday, “Rehabilitating John Cassian: An Evaluation of Prosper of Aquitaine’s Polemic against the ‘Semipelagians’,” SJT 58, no. 3 (2005): 270–84. See also M. Cappuyns, “Le Premier Repésentant De L’augustinisme Médiéval, Prosper D’aquitaine,” RTAM 1 (1929): 309–37; Ralph W. Mathisen, “For Specialists Only: The Reception of Augustine and His Teachings in Fifth-Century Gaul,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum, ed. Joseph T. Lienhard, Earl C. Muller, and Roland J. Teske, Collectanea Augustiniana (New York: P. Lang, 1993), 29–42; Steven Muhlberger, The Fifth-Century Chroniclers: Prosper, Hydatius, and the Gallic Chronicler of 452, Arca,

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  99

works from both the early and late periods of his life have been the subject of much controversy. Within the works that most scholars agree belong to Prosper, we can see a period in which he does not use Augustine’s pneumatological insight about grace and free will, followed by a period in which he does. I demonstrate below that there is a definite shift in Prosper’s exegetical strategy in presenting grace and free will. Prosper’s Against the Conferencer relies on the Holy Spirit (via verses like Rom. 5:5, 8:14–15, and Gal. 4:6) in ways that his Letter to Rufinus does not. This is an exegetical strategy he learned from Augustine. On these grounds, I argue that Prosper’s understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology developed, and I do not think this conclusion can be overturned on textual grounds because there is agreement that these works were written by Prosper. Within the texts that many assign to either end of Prosper’s career, there are several for which scholars seriously contest Prosper’s authorship. If we include among Prosper’s works the somewhat contested and supposedly late text The Call of All Nations, we can see a later stage of development in Prosper’s pneumatology. Within his mature reflections, Prosper shifts his understanding of how pneumatology is important to his arguments. In his midcareer works, Prosper continues to pit the action of the Holy Spirit against the action of the human will; whereas in his most mature works, Prosper argues that the Spirit reforms the human will, giving it a new power to choose and do the good. If we include the putatively early work of Prosper, On the Providence of God, then we see an initial stage in which Prosper did not emphasize the priority and necessity of grace at all. Augustine himself experienced such a shift from thinking that the will is sufficient to teaching total human dependence on grace. Still, the most recent critical editions of this text have argued that Prosper is not its author.2 Little, if anyClassical, and Medieval Texts, Papers, and Monographs (Leeds: F. Cairns, 1990), 48–135; and Valentin, Saint Prosper (Paris: Picard, 1900). 2. Though differing on when to date the text, both Marín and Cutino agree that De prov. Dei does not belong to Prosper. See Raúl Villegas Marín, Pseudo-Próspero

100  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

thing, in my argument depends on whether this early work belongs to Prosper, since there is not only no evidence of Augustine’s pneumatology but also little evidence of Prosper’s mature position on grace and human will. However, an entire (second) stage of development for Prosper could be evidenced in The Call of All Nations. My argument about development within Prosper’s undisputed corpus (i.e., between the Letter to Rufinus and Against the Conferencer) does two things for our study of Prosper. In the first place, it offers a new scale by which to gauge Prosper’s maturity. Instead of focusing on his critique of Cassian and the others Prosper accuses of Pelagianism, we can focus on Prosper’s own development as an Augustinian, a theme which also resonates with various arguments presented in this volume.3 Prosper becomes a more astute reader of Augustine as he matures, giving texture to the sense in which he is “Augustinian.” In the second place, if my argument maps various stages of development, then I have provided additional criteria by which to support the relative dating of certain treatises. That is, if Prosper had revelatory moments in which he realized the importance of the Holy Spirit in Augustine’s response to the issues raised by Pelagianism, then we have a moment which can act as a kind of divide for dating certain texts. In this regard, my argument supports the most recent dating of Prosper’s texts given by A. Hwang and offers further rationale for the theory that Prosper continued to deepen his understanding of the complex theological issues involved in discussing grace, free will, and the universal salfivic will of God. Alternatively, if one does not accept The Call of All Nations as written by Prosper, then the differences in understanding De Aquitania Sobre La Providencia De Dios; Introducción, Texto Latino Revisado, Traducción Y Commentario (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2011) and Michele Cutino, Ps-Prospero Di Aquitania, La Providenza Divina. Introduzione, Texto Latino Revisdo, Traducción E Commento (Piso: Universitá di Pavia, 2011). 3. Additionally, consider that Casiday, “Rehabilitating John Cassian,” has argued that “Augustinianism” is not a simple feature of fifth-century thought which belongs only to certain treatises written by Prosper. Furthermore, Hwang, Intrepid Lover, argues that Prosper’s attitude toward authorities shifts first to emphasis on Augustine and then to Rome as central to Catholicism.

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  101

the Holy Spirit could be taken as evidence that someone with a different (and perhaps deeper) understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology addressed the same issues. I will consider this last text to be written by Prosper in this chapter, though, as I have noted, if it is not, we can still see development in Prosper’s understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology. Any theory of development must show at least a beginning and an end that is different from that beginning. We should briefly consider the mature pneumatology of Prosper and then his immature pneumatology before considering the matter in more detail. At the end of his career, Prosper reflected deeply on the work of the Spirit throughout the world; he reflected on the Spirit’s intimate relationship with the humans who are called to paradise. They have the law of God written into their very hearts by the Holy Spirit. Using the adulterous woman saved from death by stoning (Jn. 8:6) as an image of each of us, Prosper wrote: He, bowing down—that is, stooping down to our human level and intent on the work of our reformation—“wrote with His finger on the ground,” [Jn. 8:6] in order to repeal the Law of the commandments with the decrees of His grace and to reveal Himself as the One who has said, “I will give my laws in their understanding and I will write them in their heart.” [Jer. 31:33] This indeed He does every day when He infuses His will into the hearts of those who are called, and when, with the pen of the Holy Spirit, the Truth mercifully rewrites on the pages of their souls all that the devil enviously falsified.4

Prosper’s mature explanation of the conversion of the will rests on the action of the Holy Spirit who writes on the hearts of Christians. In this same text, Prosper adopts a three-fold schema to describe the conversion of the human will. The highest level is the “spiritual will.” Humans begin at the sensual level and then progress to the animal level. If the special gift of the Spirit is given to the human will, it becomes a “spiritual will” and rules “all its affections” with a 4. Prosper, voc. om. gen. 1.8.12 (CSEL 47: 90; ACW 14: 38).

102  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

“higher wisdom.”5 Prosper argues that the human will is reformed so that it works on the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no opposition between the spiritual human will and the Holy Spirit. At the other end of Prosper’s career, we find something very different. In his early works, which argue that humans are in need of grace on every level, the Holy Spirit is not invoked to explain divine grace, human will, or conversion. Even after he articulated a robust need for grace, Prosper did not articulate a role for the Holy Spirit in human conversion. At the end of his career, however, Prosper relied extensively on the Holy Spirit as the agent of human reform. “What drove this change in Prosper’s theology?” we should ask. I argue that when Prosper raised the controversy with his fellow Gallic Catholics, he was forced to renew his study of Augustine’s material, and this brought about his use of Augustine’s pneumatology to discuss the reformation of the human will. This is why Prosper developed in his understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology.

Augustine’s Basic Insight: The Spirit Is the Divine Love by Which We Love The most relevant locus in Augustine’s theology for our consideration of Prosper’s development is his letter called On Rebuke and Grace. Augustine wrote this letter in the 420s, when he was engaged in lengthy explanations of his theology of grace and free will. Prosper knew this text and many of Augustine’s related texts well because he was very interested in opposing Pelagianism wherever he suspected it. For Augustine, Pelagianism posed the issue of the priority and agency of God by pitting the divine against the human.6 Pelagians argued that the human will is sufficient to do good 5. Prosper, voc. om. gen. 1.2.3 (CSEL 47: 80). 6. On Pelagianism and Augustine, see Gerald Bonner, “Pelagianism and Augustine,” AS 23 (1992): 33–51; Bonner, “Augustine and Pelagianism,” AS 24 (1993): 27– 49, Bonner, St Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies, 3rd ed. (Norwich: Canterbury, 2002), 312–93. On the later controversy which extended to Italy and Gaul,

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  103

without extra help from God. To Augustine, this always sounded like a denial of the fallen human condition, a denial of the basic reason for the Incarnation, and a denial of the presence of God in grace. There is some amount of genius in diagnosing the theological problem in this way, but part of Augustine’s genius also lies in his pneumatological solution to these problems. Augustine argues that the Holy Spirit is the love with which the Father and Son love and that this is the same love which is offered to Christians. The Holy Spirit reforms the human will, giving it not only true freedom but also enabling it to love with God’s love. The issue is not one of competition between human and divine wills but one of conversion in love. There is no competition between God’s love and the love of Christians, for Christians love on the authority of God through the Holy Spirit. New possibilities are opened for the human will because it is no longer bound by an existence subject to sin, but can truly love with God’s love. This is a sketch of the argument Augustine makes in the 420s in various texts, but especially in On Rebuke and Grace, a text which Prosper studied and referenced on several occasions. Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace was written for the monks at Hadrumetum in North Africa after he had already been in conversation with them. In response to initial questions from these monks, Augustine sent letters 214, 215, and On Grace and Free Choice to Hadrumetum.7 These texts raised more discussion in the community. This was conveyed to Augustine by additional letsee especially, D. Ogliari, Gratia Et Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003); Mathijs Lamberigts, “Pelagius and Pelagians,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 258–79, R. A. Markus, “The Legacy of Pelagius: Orthodoxy, Heresy and Conciliation,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. Rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 214–34. 7. For more discussion of this exchange and additional letters which are related, see Bonner, St Augustine of Hippo, 339–46.

104  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

ters. Upon Augustine’s request, the monk Florus arrived in Hippo with a letter from his abbot, Valentine, and Augustine sent him back with On Rebuke and Grace. It is important that we highlight the exegetical moves of Augustine’s argument because those same moves are conspicuous by their absence in some of Prosper’s earlier texts, while serving as the clear pattern for later arguments Prosper makes. The opening claim of Augustine’s missive is that God “helps us to turn away from evil and to do good, something which no one can do without the Spirit of grace.”8 Rom 8:14 quickly enters the discussion: But let them, rather, understand that, if they are the children of God, they are led by the Spirit of God so that they do what they should do and so that, when they have done it, they give thanks to him by whom they are led. For they are led in order to act, not in order that they may themselves do nothing.9

Exegesis of this verse allows Augustine to offer a pneumatological “solution” to problems raised by Pelagianism. The issue is not whether the human will does one thing and the divine will does another. Rather, Augustine argues that the human will is led to do something on its own. The human will gains a new kind of divine agency. In Augustine’s turn of phrase, for the holy, “their will is, of course, set afire by the Holy Spirit to the point that they are able because they will to so strongly, but they will to so strongly because God makes them will.”10 Furthermore, for those who are responsible for preaching and correcting others, Augustine argues, 8. Augustine, corr. et gr. 1.2 (CSEL 92: 219; WSA 1/26: 109). On Augustine’s analysis of the will, see especially R. J. O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Early THeory of Man, A.D. 386–391; J. M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, 148–202; J. Wetzel, Augustine and the Limits of Virtue. 9. Augustine, corr. et gr. 2.4 (CSEL 92: 221; WSA 1/26: 110, slightly modified). Augustine is able to play on the verb “agere” because it is used in various constructions for “to give thanks,” “to be led,” and “to do.” 10. Augustine, corr. et gr. 12.38 (CSEL 92: 266; WSA 1/26: 135). Cf. corr. et gr. 14.44.

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  105 God, then, commands us who do not know who are going to be saved to will that all to whom we preach this peace be saved, and he produces in us this will, pouring out his love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us [Rom 5:5] . . . just as the words “He sent the Spirit of his Son, crying, ‘Abba, Father’ [Gal 4:6]”. . . . Elsewhere, in fact, he says of this Spirit that “we have received the Spirit of adoption as children in whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ [Rom. 8:15]”11

By the 420s, Augustine made the role of the Spirit in the reformation of the human will a key part of his arguments against Pelagianism as evidenced in his exegesis of specific verses from Romans and Galatians. Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace is the final textual record we have of the discussion of grace, free will, and the Holy Spirit between Augustine and the African monks. The same text was almost immediately available and studied in Gaul, for Prosper mentioned it in his letter to Augustine.12 On the other side of the Mediterranean, Augustine’s letter helped to spark a new controversy over Pelagian theology in Gaul. In response to Prosper’s letter, Augustine wrote The Gift of Perseverance and The Predestination of the Saints specifically for the Gallic discussion of grace and free will that ensued after his discussion with the African monks. Both of these texts make use of the same pneumatological principle we have already seen at play in On Rebuke and Grace.13 Prosper was a student of On Rebuke and Grace and the recipient of The Gift of Perseverance and The Predestination of the Saints. Nevertheless, he employed this pneumatological strategy only later in his career (i.e., after the 420s), and, if I argue correctly, he employed it in two stages.

11. Augustine, corr. et gr. 15.47 (CSEL 92: 277; WSA 1/26: 142). 12. Prosper’s letter is recorded in the collection of Augustine’s letters as Ep. 225. 13. For example, persev. 23.63–23.65.

106  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

Led by the Spirit, But Not Yet: Prosper’s Early Thought Once Prosper accepted Augustine’s mature understanding of the human will, he used the part of it he understood in several texts. His earliest defense of Augustine, the Letter to Rufinus, shows an emphasis on grace with no connection to a doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Prosper analyzes the Pelagian error as deriving from the claim that grace is merited by human activity.14 To support his claim that “free will obeys the invitation of God . . . only when His grace has aroused . . . the desire to believe and obey,” Prosper only cites Scripture texts which reference the Son and Father.15 After writing to Rufinus, Prosper wrote a letter to Augustine in which he asked Augustine to “explain how the freedom of our will is not impeded by this pre-operating and co-operating grace.”16 The primary concern with Pelagianism for Prosper in this initial stage is whether grace or free will comes first. Discussion of the Holy Spirit is entirely lacking in Prosper’s letter to Augustine, even though he explicitly refers to Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace. Nor is the Holy Spirit used to explain grace and free will in Prosper’s Letter to Rufinus, which attempts to defend Augustine’s theology. Whatever Prosper had learned from reading Augustine’s text, he had not learned the 14. Prosper, Ep. ad Ruf. 1. 15. Prosper, Ep. ad Ruf. 5–6 (PL 51: 1796). He cites Jn. 15:5, 6:44, 6:66, 5:21; Lk. 10:22; Prov. 8:35; and Phil. 2:13. The few references to the Holy Spirit in this letter are separate from each other and do not reveal a connection between Prosper’s doctrine of grace and the Spirit. Prosper argues that some obey the Gospel and some do not because “believers are led by the Spirit of God; unbelievers turn away of their own free will,” Ep. ad Ruf. 6 (ACW 32: 26). Later, at Ep. ad Ruf. 8, Rom. 5:5 is used in an argument about the charity which is needed for faith, but the brunt of the argument is carried by passages that refer to Christ and love. Similarly, Acts 16:6 is cited at Ep. ad Ruf. 14 and Eph. 3:5ff and Acts 10:45 at Ep. ad Ruf. 16, but only as examples of a restricted salvific will. 16. Prosper, Ep. ad Augustinum 8 (CSEL 57: 466; my translation). “quo modo per istam praeoperantem et cooperantem gratiam liberum non impediatur arbitrium.” Prosper seems to be the first to use the term praeoperans. The term finds little use until John Scotus translates Ps-Dionysius in the ninth century.

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  107

importance of the Spirit and appeal to verses like Rom. 8:14 and 5:5 by the time he wrote this letter in 427.17 Instead, Prosper frames the problem in terms of competing agencies: he asks how the agency of God (Prosper uses the technical language of pre- and cooperating grace) does not undermine the agency of human will. The early categories for Prosper are divine grace and human will with no mention of the Holy Spirit.

A Moment of Transition, Against the Conferencer The first transition in Prosper’s pneumatology comes near the year 432, when he wrote Against the Conferencer. Prosper first quotes a decree of the African bishops which uses the paired verses Prov. 8:35 and Rom. 8:14. Shortly thereafter he uses Rom. 8:14 in his own argument: The grace of God does not endanger free will nor take away its volition when it produces in the will a good desire. For if our wills were no longer ours when they are perfected and ruled and guided and animated by grace, then we should have to say that the sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God are deprived of their freedom.18

Prosper’s argument now includes the Holy Spirit where before he had only discussed grace. Prosper recognizes a problem of agency posed by the categories grace and will, at least enough to state explicitly that being led by the Spirit is not necessarily to be deprived of freedom. The appeal to the Holy Spirit by using Rom. 5:5 and the concern with a problem of agency show that Prosper is using Augustine’s theology in a new way. Prosper follows Augustine in teaching that the priority of grace does not disrupt human freedom. The extent to which he synthesizes this with his pneumatology merits some discussion. Here, 17. On dating these letters, see O. Chadwick, “Euladius of Arles,” 200–205. 18. Prosper , c. coll. 6 (PL 51: 229; ACW 32: 84–85). The passage from the African synod is cited in section 5.

108  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

however, we should note that Prosper’s argument now includes the Holy Spirit where he previously did not. This observation is central for my argument about Prosper’s development. There is other evidence that Prosper has reconsidered Augustine’s arguments, like when Prosper connects charity as the fulfillment of the Law to the Holy Spirit via Rom. 5:5, exactly as Augustine had done nearly a decade before.19 Similarly, when Prosper is worried that Cassian argues for a human free will that precedes grace, he cites several Scripture verses, including Rom. 8:15, in response.20 The contrast is simple. Where he had earlier appealed only to the Father and the Son, as in his Letter to Rufinus, Prosper now includes the Spirit. We see that Prosper has made the first step in his pneumatological development. He now includes the Holy Spirit in his discussion of grace and free will, following the exegetical patterns that Augustine had adopted in the previous decade. Prosper’s treatment of Job suffices as a final example of this first stage of using pneumatology in arguments about the human will. Whether he offers a valid critique of Cassian is a related question which must go unexplored here so that we can continue to follow the development in Prosper’s pneumatology. Instead of speaking only of grace in opposition to human will, Prosper invokes the Holy Spirit: Divine grace helps by strengthening the human will. Of our own free will we pray [volentes oramus], yet God sent His Spirit into our hearts, crying Abba, Father. [Gal. 4:6] Of our own free will we speak, and yet, if what we say is devout, it is not we who speak but the Spirit of our Father who speaks in us. [Mt. 10:20] Of our own free will we work our salvation, and yet it is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish. [Phil. 2:13] Of our own free will we love God and our neighbor, and yet 19. Furthermore, in direct response to Cassian’s claim that Adam did not lose knowledge of what is good, Prosper makes the argument that the law which teaches knowledge of the good is written anew by the Holy Spirit on the hearts of men. The law requires charity for its fulfillment. Prosper, c. coll. 10.1–3. A similar argument using Rom. 5:5 is made at c. coll. 13.6. 20. Prosper, c. coll. 9.1. Prosper quotes Cassian, Coll. 13.11.5.

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  109 charity is from God, [1 Jn. 4:7] poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who is given us. [Rom. 5:5]21

That Prosper came to use pneumatology in his presentation of human volition as a response to Cassian is clear. However, in Against the Conferencer, Prosper fails to argue that the will is transformed by the Holy Spirit so that one may properly speak of the human will as the agent who does good. The juxtaposition of the participle volentes and the finite verbs with the Scripture passages preceded by et tamen (“and yet”) indicate that Prosper continues to entertain a model of competing agencies. At this stage in Prosper’s development, the mystery is that even though we will, the Holy Spirit acts. Prosper knows that the Holy Spirit is one key to Augustine’s arguments but has not yet settled on the transformation of the human will as the key element of this strategy. I do not want to push Prosper too far, but his first attempt at using pneumatology in his arguments about grace seems to assume that our willing should normally exclude the action of the Holy Spirit. On this model, if a human will directs an action, the human is responsible and God is not; conversely, if the divine will directs an action, God is responsible and the human is not. Such a model of competing agencies drives much of the Pelagian concern to argue that human agency is prior to grace. Where there are two agents, one must be the “real” actor, while the other sits aside. Pelagians were concerned to argue that humans are the “real” actors in our own lives. In the middle of his career, Prosper argued directly against this as though (in the first stage of his development grace and in the second stage) the Holy Spirit is the “real” actor in the life of holy men and women. In his arguments against Cassian, Prosper continues to operate from this model of competing agencies. He recognizes the problem, as when he says that to be led by the Spirit is not to abandon freedom, but he does not find a suitable solution until later. In this first stage of pneumatological develop21. Prosper, c. coll. 18.3 (PL 51: 265; ACW 32: 126).

110  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

ment, Prosper struggles to articulate the mechanism or theological rationale for how being led by the Spirit does not contradict free will. He realized that exegesis of Scriptural passages that refer to the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians was important for his theology of grace. This is what Prosper learned from a closer reading of texts from Augustine which he had studied and used in earlier works, like On Rebuke and Grace. This is the development we can see in the undisputed corpus of Prosper. This is a shift in his understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology that Prosper developed in his response to Cassian.

The Spiritual Will (Prosper’s Mature Pneumatology) In his direct response to Cassian, Prosper had made an initial transition from speaking of grace and free will to speaking of the action of the Holy Spirit on the human will. Still, he seems to have retained something of what I call a “competing agencies” model of how this works. On the Call of All Nations, which Prosper is thought to have written around 450, adopts a different approach to the same issue.22 While we do not have time to enter the various scholarly misunderstandings of the debate between Prosper and Cassian, it his helpful to point out that I am not the first to question Prosper’s pristine Augustinianism and how this can or cannot be contrasted with Cassian. Augustine Casiday has rejected the identification of Prosper’s early understanding of Augustine with “Augustinianism,” as though there was only one way of reading 22. Until recently, Prosperian authorship of this text was debated. M. Cappuyns, “L’auteur,” 198–226, is taken to have settled the issue of authorship. He also argues for 450 as the date for which it was written, which has been accepted by scholarly consensus. See A. Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover, 19–20; Teske, “The Augustinianism of Prosper of Aquitaine Revisited,” 491–503. One also sees a development in the focus of Prosper’s theology in that the issue of grace and will became one which was not directly focused on discerning where grace “prevenes” nature but on how to understand God’s universal salvific will (e.g., Prosper, voc. om. gen. 1.1.1).

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  111

Augustine in the mid-fifth century.23 Different and shifting understandings of Augustine are not uncommon among the authors we study in this region and period. I argue here that Prosper grasped the importance of Augustine’s pneumatology in two stages: first he came to understand the appeal to the Spirit through verses like those from Romans and Galatians; nearly twenty years later, he came to understand that this could reorient the entire discussion of grace and free will. Prosper continued to use Rom. 8:14 to announce the problem of agency, but he offered a new solution to the problem in his schema of the sensual, animal, and spiritual human will. The third degree is called “spiritual” because of the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. Using the language of Rom. 8:14, Prosper frequently notes that the spiritual will is led by the Spirit of God (spiritu dei agatur).24 We can see a similar development in his more mature explanation of Baptism as regeneration in the Spirit, but the “spiritual will” is sufficient to make my case that Prosper further developed his understanding of Augustine’s pneumatology.25 The term voluntas spiritalis finds two precursors in Augustine, but the systematization of the concept belongs to Prosper.26 For Prosper, the spiritual will is 23. Augustine Casiday is leading the investigation of the way in which authors like Vincent of Lérins were genuinely “Augustinian” without following the program Prosper outlined early in his career. See his chapter in this book. Cf. Philip L. Barclift, “Leo on Predestination,” CH 62.1 (1993): 5–21; Augustine Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St. John Cassian, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Casiday, “Grace and the Humanity of Christ according to St Vincent of Lérins,” VC 59, no. 3 (2005): 298–314, Casiday, “Rehabilitating John Cassian,” 270–84, and Thomas L. Humphries Jr., Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Others have suggested that Cassian is more Augustinian than he first appears: Boniface Ramsey, “John Cassian: Student of Augustine,” CSQ 28 (1993): 5–15. 24 Prosper, voc. om. gen. 1.4.5 (CSEL 47: 81). Cf. voc. om. gen. 1.8.10 (CSEL 47: 87). 25. See, for example, Prosper, voc. om. gen. 1.8.11 (CSEL 47: 88). 26 De Letter (ACW 14: 172n13) suggests that Augustine has the same conception as Prosper. There is an error in his citation of de civ. Dei. 13.2 and 13.4. The Latin text De Letter provides in his note is from the following chapter, 14.2 and 14.4. There, Augustine juxtaposes manners of living (vivere secundum qq.). Though

112  THOMAS L. HUMPHRIES JR

that will by which an agent acts for himself. This is the mechanism which allows him to overcome the model of competing agencies. The spiritual will desires the good, and, so, good can be attributed to that will. Instead of attributing good to a prior grace, as Prosper had argued early in his career, he argues that good can be attributed to the spiritual will. There is no competition of wills where the will is transformed by the Spirit. The problem of competing agencies dissolves, and with it the motivation for Pelagian anthropology. One need no longer argue that a human will is somehow independent of grace in order to exhort Christians to ascetic activity and good moral behavior. God’s action does not preclude or stand in opposition to human action. Rather, the immature human will is in need of reformation. As it progresses through stages, it ceases to compete with the divine will, and, instead, the human becomes a new agent able to do good: Every human soul . . . is endowed with a will manifesting itself in some manner or other. It desires what is pleasing and turns away from what displeases. With regard to its natural impulses now weakened by the infection of the first sin, this will is of two kinds, either sensual or animal [aut sensualis aut animalis]. But when God’s grace is present, a third kind is added by the gift of the Spirit [donum spiritus]. The will then thematically related, these are not discussions of the will. In Ep. 98.1 (CCL 31A: 227), Augustine responds to a question concerning baptism of children. Eugippius, thes. ex s. Aug. 230 (PL 62: 893), quotes this passage from Augustine. Knoell did not retain this passage in CSEL 9: 1, though Quesnell did in PL 62. Children are baptized on the faith of their parents and not on their own faith. Augustine’s response contrasts the carnal pleasures of some (“per aliorum carnalem voluptatem”), pleasures through which all men are sinners, with the spiritual will of others (“per aliorum spiritalem voluntatem”) through which children come to baptism. The spiritual will is contrasted with carnal pleasures in a helpful rhetorical turn, but the issue of agency with which Augustine is concerned differs from Prosper’s understanding of the spiritual will. Infants are baptized by the agency of another’s will in Augustine’s discussion here. More closely related, then, is the use of the phrase at div. qu. 49. A child begins life dependent on his mother, and then grows until he reaches an age at which he is able not to know carnally but to be converted to a spiritual will and regenerated within. Augustine, however, goes no further with the concept under this term. Prosper gives the term a technical meaning, and for this reason, the systematization of the concept belongs to him and not to Augustine.

PROSPER’S PNEUMATOLOGY  113 becomes spiritual, and thanks to this higher impulse, it rules all its affections [omnes affectus], from wherever they may arise, according to the law of a higher wisdom.27

The reformed will performs good actions, like ruling “all its affections,” according to the new source of activity brought about by the Holy Spirit but belonging to the will. For Prosper, the issue of grace as prior or posterior to free will shifted ever so subtly to the issue of the Spirit’s work in the reformation of the human will. What began for Prosper as a controversy about grace preceding human will ends with a characterization of the reformation of the human will brought about by the Holy Spirit working within. Thus, at the beginning of his career, Prosper did not invoke the Holy Spirit to explain grace and free will. In his attacks on Cassian, Prosper realized the need to refer to the Holy Spirit but had not completely developed a solution to the problem of agency which so vexed his arguments with Pelagianism. At his most mature, Prosper realized Augustine’s insight that since the Holy Spirit is love, the action of the Holy Spirit in human love reorients the will. There is no competition of wills between lovers. This observation drives Prosper’s mature theology in which he developed his three stages of the will. The spiritual will seems to have concluded his development as an Augustinian theologian, a development which we can hope was more than academic for Prosper. 27. Prosper , voc. om. gen. 1.2.3 (CSEL 47: 80; ACW 14: 27). I have altered De Letter’s translation. De Letter translates sensualis as “animal” and animalis as “natural” in order to accord with his understanding of later English and French scholastic terminology. The basic sensitive appetite belongs to animals, while the rational faculties of humans are natural. As such, this is a specifically anthropocentric system and does not intend to address the sense in which plants or animals might have souls, indicating Prosper’s lack of engagement with earlier philosophical treatments of the soul.

7

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTI NE

Boniface Ramsey

The careers and reputations of Augustine of Hippo and John Cassian have been linked for sixteen centuries in both life and death. Cassian, who lived from about 360 until the early 430s, was Augustine’s contemporary and, along with him, a product of Latin culture. Unlike him, however, Cassian had extensive exposure to the world of the eastern Mediterranean, since he lived in Palestine, Egypt, and Constantinople, where he was ordained a deacon by John Chrysostom, over the course of perhaps twenty years. He was a theologian of repute with a wide audience, as of course was Augustine, too. But Cassian’s greatest theological works, The Institutes and The Conferences,1 both addressed to Gallic monastics, were in what we would now call the area of spirituality (although in Christian antiquity no one would have separated theology into different areas), whereas Augustine’s writings were not restricted to a particular theme and addressed virtually every important theological question of the day. The intertwining of these two men’s reputations arises from the fact that Cassian seems to have had some familiarity with his 1. John Cassian, De institutis coenobiorum (CSEL 17: 3–231; SC 109; The Institutes, trans. Boniface Ramsey, ACW 58); Cassian, Conlationes (CSEL 13; SC 42, 54 64; The Conferences, trans. Boniface Ramsey, ACW 57).

114

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  115

contemporary’s writings, or at the very least with a number of his opinions, and has almost universally been viewed as Augustine’s antagonist with respect to the particular but critical matter of the theology of grace. In the third and last of his three treatises, On the Incarnation of the Lord (7.27), Cassian names Augustine and includes brief quotations from his Homilies on the Gospel of John (2.15) and from one of his letters (137.4.13). The mention of Augustine and the citation of his writings occur toward the middle of a series of such citations from other important fourth- and early fifth-century theologians, also named—Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Rufinus, Gregory Nazianzen, Athanasius, and John Chrysostom. All of these distinguished writers are quoted to show their support of the position that Cassian was defending, namely, that Mary was the Mother of God. But it is noteworthy that, although Hilary and the others are consistently referred to in the most glowing terms, Augustine alone is referred to without any encomium; he is simply Hipponae Regiensis oppidi sacerdos, “the bishop of the town of Hippo Regius.” The reason for this may be that, of the theologians whom Cassian cited, only Augustine was actually alive—or was assumed to be—and so deserved to be treated with a certain modesty; or it may be that Cassian, while anxious to include as many as possible on his side and eager to be able to appeal to a respected living authority to help him make his case, nonetheless also felt somewhat wary in his regard. Whatever the reason for Cassian’s understated reference to “the bishop of the town of Hippo Regius” in his final treatise, it is generally assumed that the thirteenth of his Conferences, “On God’s Protection,” was at least partly a response to Augustine’s uncompromising position on the role of grace in human activity. Before coming to that conference and to Cassian’s understanding of grace, however, it will be important to discuss briefly just how extensive Cassian’s acquaintance with Augustine’s writings may have been.2 2. For studies on the relationship between Cassian and Augustine, see Boniface Ramsey, “John Cassian: Student of Augustine,” CSQ 28 (1993): 5–15; Ramsey, “Addendum to Boniface Ramsey, ‘John Cassian: Student of Augustine,’ CSQ 28 (1993):

116  BONIFACE RAMSEY

Cassian’s seventeenth conference, titled “On Promises,” allows for the occasional breaking of promises and also for the occasional use of lying in order to accomplish some good purpose.3 With respect to the latter, Cassian follows a long Christian tradition that found justification in numerous passages of the Old Testament, where the deception and wiliness of the patriarchs either is praised or goes uncensored. It was a tradition that was especially dear to the Desert Fathers, whose views, of course, Cassian was purporting to represent in both The Institutes and The Conferences. The treatment of lying in the seventeenth conference, albeit well within this tradition, is exceptional for two reasons—its length and its ambivalence. No previous early Christian writer who spoke positively of the beneficial lie wrote on the subject at such length and in such detail; the critical edition of the Latin text of this conference occupies more than thirty pages, and Cassian quotes and alludes to both Old and New Testaments about fifty times. Nor had any previous Christian writer expressed ambivalence as to this millennia-old practice; Cassian is the first to appear reticent. As he puts it in 17.17.1: “A lie is to be thought of and used as if it were hellebore. If it is taken when a deadly disease is imminent it has a healthful effect, but taken when there is no urgent need it is the cause of immediate death.” And with more precision in 17.17.3: “When some grave danger is connected with speaking the truth, the refuge of lying must be resorted to, yet in such a way that we are bitten by the healthful guilt of a humbled conscience.” When speaking of Jacob’s famous lie in Genesis 27, Cassian calls it a “stain” that would, however, be washed away by Isaac’s blessing (17.17.6). 199–200; Augustine Casiday, “Rehabilitating John Cassian: An Evaluation of Prosper of Aquitaine’s Polemic against the ‘Semipelagians,’” SJT 58 (2005): 270–84. For recent general studies of Cassian, see Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), and Augustine Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 3. On the treatment of lying in Conference 17, cf. Boniface Ramsey, “Two Traditions on Lying and Deception in the Ancient Church,” The Thomist 49 (1985): 52–523.

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  117

It is reasonable to conclude that Cassian was writing with two of Augustine’s books in mind, On Lying and Against Lying. While he may not have actually read these two works, the revolutionary views on lying that Augustine propounded in them—namely, that all lying was sinful and that there was no such thing as a beneficial lie—could very easily have come to his attention. Cassian’s awareness of Augustine’s position would be the simplest explanation for his extended study of this issue, which consists mostly in citing and commenting on scriptural texts and, simultaneously, for the caution that he shows in commending what Augustine so decisively condemned. One could say that, in sum, while Cassian knew what Augustine had said about lying and disagreed with it, he did so respectfully, as indicated by his slight modification, in light of Augustine’s arguments, of the age-old tradition that was not opposed to certain kinds of deception. Elsewhere, to be found in various places in The Institutes and The Conferences, are hints that Cassian may have been otherwise acquainted with Augustine’s writings. For example, in Institutes 7.3.1 Cassian seems to mirror Confessions 1.7.11 in describing the anger that infants have but that they are unable to act upon in an effectual way. This description represents a distinctly minority opinion in a culture that almost unanimously viewed infants and children as outside the scope of passion and sinfulness, and hence it is noteworthy that Augustine and Cassian shared it. Other similar passages include Conference 8.4.2 and Confessions 12.18.27, in which both authors affirm that a given text of scripture may be interpreted differently by different persons as long as the different interpretations do not stray from the truth. If Augustine was the first Latin writer to state this principle in an explicit way, as he seems to have been (Ephrem had voiced the same thought in Syriac in his Commentary on the Diatessaron 7.22), then his influence on Cassian in this regard must be accepted as a serious possibility. Likewise, Cassian concludes his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in Conference 9.24 in very much the same way that Augustine con-

118  BONIFACE RAMSEY

cludes his own exposition of that prayer in his Letter 130.12.22–23. Each insists that the petitions of the prayer are essentially spiritual, and that for a person to pray for temporal and material things— both Augustine and Cassian mention riches and honors as examples—is to go contrary to the sense of the prayer. It is true that Cyprian of Carthage makes a similar statement at the very beginning of his treatise On the Lord’s Prayer, but it is briefer and more general and does not include the example of riches and honor. Here, too, then, we may reasonably suggest that Cassian depended on Augustine as the mediator of a tradition of understanding the Our Father that stretched back to Cyprian and perhaps even to Tertullian (cf. On Prayer 10).4 The upshot of our brief investigation thus far is that Cassian quite likely had knowledge of Augustine’s opinions on lying and that he may very well have read his Confessions and his great treatise on prayer, Letter 130, addressed to the widow Proba. It should not be surprising that Cassian might have been familiar with these latter two works, given that both these writings took up issues—conversion and prayer—that were of obvious concern to him. What is surprising, on the other hand, is that he seems to have borrowed so little from each, and, in the case of Confessions 1.7.11/Institutes 7.3.1, that what was borrowed should not have been more central to his concerns. In addition, of course, as his treatise On the Incarnation of the Lord shows, he had access not only to another one of Augustine’s letters (137) but also to at least the second of his homilies on John’s gospel. With this in mind, we can at last approach the famous thirteenth conference, “On God’s Protection,” which scholars have almost unanimously viewed as displaying a more-than-passing acquaintance with Augustine’s anti-Pelagian position. 4. Cassian’s discussion of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer (9.18.2–23.2) follows the traditional interpretation, beginning with Tertullian and continuing as far as Augustine. Since what Cassian says in this regard is shared by so many other early writers, it is unreasonable to suggest that he was particularly inspired by Augustine—or indeed by any individual Father.

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  119

It is important to note that this conference is immediately preceded by one in which the topic under discussion is chastity. Like the thirteenth conference, the spokesman for the twelfth (and also for the eleventh) is Abba Chaeremon. Of the fifteen abbas who preside over the twenty-four dialogues that constitute The Conferences, Chaeremon stands out by reason of his extreme old age—he is more than one hundred years old—and a body that is stooped by both age and prayer (12.4.1). His age and prayer life give Chaeremon a particular authority that corresponds to the seriousness of the topic; that authority is buttressed by the fact that he is one of only two abbas who is entrusted with three conferences, rather than just one or two. In Chaeremon’s understanding, perfect chastity—as distinct from mere abstinence—is difficult to acquire because it involves the calming of a rebellious member of the flesh not only when awake but even in sleep (12.11.1–4). Hence, Chaeremon concludes the twelfth conference by asserting that, in addition to the practice of various ascetical exercises, the one who is in pursuit of perfect chastity must “not believe that he will obtain it due to these efforts or this abstinence but rather by the mercy of the Lord, because without this belief every intense human effort is in vain. . . . To begin not to hope for it by one’s own laborious efforts is a clear sign that purity is already near. For if someone has truly grasped the force of the verse, ‘Unless the Lord has built the house, those who are building it have labored in vain’ (Ps. 127:1), it follows that he should not glory in the deserts of his purity, since he realizes that he has obtained it not by his own toil but by the Lord’s mercy” (12.15.2–3; cf. 12.4.1–2). This clear teaching on the need for divine grace to attain to perfect chastity is in essence a repetition of what Cassian had previously stated at greater length in Institutes 12.9–23, where the attainment of chastity was also at issue; there, too, human effort was subordinated to divine grace. This twelfth conference, then, recapitulates a previous teaching and serves as the intentional prelude to the thirteenth.

120  BONIFACE RAMSEY

That conference is devoted entirely to the question of grace, and it begins with a statement of the problem, which Cassian places in the mouth of Germanus, his traveling companion and, after the abbas themselves, the main speaker in The Conferences. Germanus points to the apparent absurdity of not attributing the perfection of chastity to one’s own efforts. After all, by way of example, he says, a successful harvest is due to the farmer’s diligence (13.2). But no, Chaeremon replies; there are things over which a farmer’s diligence has no control, such as rainfall, which contribute to either a good or a bad harvest; hence a farmer must also pray for favorable conditions (13.3.1–4). From this Chaeremon concludes that “the origin not only of good acts but even of good thoughts is God. He both inspires in us the beginnings of a holy will and grants the ability and the opportunity to bring to fulfillment the things that we rightly desire” (13.3.5). Germanus sees here a danger to free will. He also wonders why so many pagans succeeded in living a virtuous life and were able to be chaste when they were ignorant of both God and his grace (13.4). Chaeremon responds by distinguishing between bodily abstinence on the one hand and purity of mind and lasting bodily purity on the other; the pagans who seemed to practice chastity had the former, which was an utterly external quality, but not the latter (13.5.2). He emphatically affirms that, apart from God’s help, human beings can accomplish nothing on behalf of their own salvation, and that this is particularly evident in the acquisition and maintenance of chastity (13.6.1). God is responsible not only for the ability to do what is good in such cases but even for presenting the occasion to exercise that ability (13.6.5). But, inasmuch as God’s purpose is to bring us to salvation, whenever “his kindness sees shining in us the slightest glimmer of good will, which he himself has in fact sparked from the hard flint of our heart, he fosters it, stirs it up, and strengthens it with his inspiration, ‘desiring all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2:4)” (13.7.1). Chaeremon then cites other passages of scripture (Mt. 18:14; 2 Sm. 14:14;

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  121

Ez. 33:11; Mt. 11:28) that support 1 Tim. 2:4, as well as passages that describe human resistance to God’s saving plan (Mt. 23:37; Jer. 8:5; 5:3; Hos. 2:7-9; Jer. 3:19-20) (13.7.1–8.2). It is in the context of stressing the divine mercy even with respect to those who resist it that Chaeremon takes what has been seen as a fateful turn. “When [God] notices good will making an appearance in us,” he says, “at once he enlightens and encourages it and spurs it on to salvation, giving increase to what he himself planted or saw arise from our own efforts” (13.8.4).5 With this Cassian, using Chaeremon as his spokesman, returns to the issue that was raised at the very outset of the thirteenth conference—namely, the correct understanding of the roles, respectively, of grace and free will; and now, after having hitherto emphasized the divine initiative—that is, grace—he seeks to discern some sort of balance between it and human freedom. Chaeremon carries out this process by juxtaposing scriptural texts that appear to emphasize either grace or free will. To offer just one convenient example, 2 Sm. 12:13 contains both David’s acknowledgment of his sinfulness, which according to Chaeremon was his own doing, and God’s forgiveness of him, which was an act of grace. In fact, until shortly before the end of the conference, Chaeremon cites well over a hundred such texts from the Old and New Testaments (far more scriptural texts are cited in the thirteenth than in any other conference), which demonstrate to his satisfaction that scripture has ample room for each of these two elements and which suggest that the abba understands that scripture treats them equally. Interspersed among these citations are reflections—often repetitive—on the problem. Thus, most importantly: What does all this mean except that in each of these cases [i.e., when texts of scripture seem to contradict each other] both the grace of God 5. The Latin for the final phrase reads: “incrementum tribues ei quam ipse plantavit vel nostro conatu viderit emersisse.” “Vel . . . vel” usually means “both . . . and” in The Conferences rather than “either . . . or.” This is a rare instance in which the latter seems to be the case, pace my translation in ACW 57: 474.

122  BONIFACE RAMSEY and our freedom of will are affirmed, since even by his own activity a person can occasionally be brought to a desire for virtue, but always needs to be helped by the Lord (13.9.4)? These things [i.e., grace and free will] are mixed together and fused so indistinguishably that which is dependent on which is a great question as far as many people are concerned—that is, whether God has mercy on us because we manifest the beginnings of a good will, or we acquire the beginnings of a good will because God is merciful. For many who hold to one of these alternatives and assert it more freely than is right have fallen into different self-contradictory errors (13.11.1). These two things—that is, the grace of God and free will— certainly seem mutually opposed to one another, but both are in accord, and we understand that we must accept both in like manner by reason of our religion, lest by removing one of them from the human being we seem to contravene the rule of the Church’s faith (13.11.4). It must not be believed that God made the human being in such a way that he could never will or be capable of the good. He has not allowed him a free will if he has only conceded that he will what is evil and be capable of it but not to will the good or be capable of it (13.12.1). We must be on the watch lest we attribute all the good works of holy persons to the Lord in such a way that we ascribe nothing but what is bad and perverse to human nature (13.12.5). It cannot be doubted . . . that the seeds of virtue exist in every soul, having been placed there by the kindness of the Creator. But unless they have been germinated by the help of God they will not be able to increase in perfection (13.12.7). The grace of God always works together with our will on behalf of the good, helping it in everything and protecting and defending it, so that sometimes it even demands and expects from it certain efforts of a good will, lest it seem to bestow its gifts wholly on one who is asleep or relaxed in lazy sluggishness. It seeks occasions whereby the torpor of human slothfulness may be shattered and its own munificent generosity may not appear unreasonable, dispensing it under the pretext of a certain desire and toil. But the grace of God nonetheless remains free, since with inestimable generosity it confers on meager and small efforts such immortal glory and such gifts of everlasting blessedness (13.13.1). However much human weakness may strive, then, it will be unable to reach the level of the future reward, nor will it diminish divine grace by its own labors in such a way that it would not always remain free (13.13.4).

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  123 How much more [than a nurse with the child for whom she cares] does the heavenly Father of all know whom to carry in the bosom of his grace and whom to exercise in his sight for virtue’s sake by a decision of free will, yet helping him as he struggles, hearing him when he calls, not abandoning him when he looks for him, and occasionally snatching him from danger even unbeknownst to him (13.14.9). The manifold wisdom of God dispenses the salvation of human beings by numerous and inscrutable kindnesses and imparts its generous grace according to the capacity of each person, so that he wills to administer healing not according to the uniform power of his majesty but according to the degree of faith that he finds in each person or that he himself has bestowed on each person (13.15.2). God’s generosity is shaped according to the capacity of human faith. . . . But no one should think that we have suggested these things in an attempt to say that the whole of salvation is entirely dependent on our faith, according to the godless opinion of some, who ascribe everything to free will and understand that the grace of God is dispensed to each person in conformity with his deserts. We, however, declare firmly and clearly that the grace of God sometimes even overflows and surpasses the limits of human faithlessness. (13.15.5–16.1) From these examples which we have produced from the gospel writings we shall be able to perceive very clearly that God provides for the salvation of the human race in numberless different manners and in inscrutable ways. He inspires some, who wish for it and thirst for it, to a greater ardor, while some others, who do not even wish it, he compels against their will. Sometimes he helps to accomplish the things that he sees we desire for our own good, and at other times he inspires the beginnings of that holy desire and bestows the commencement of a good work and perseverance in it (13.17.1).

As the thirteenth conference draws more closely to its conclusion, Chaeremon cites Rom. 11:33–34 (“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God”). The old abba equates God’s inscrutable judgments and unsearchable ways with the loving design that he has to save humankind, and as an illustration of the divine benevolence in our regard he quotes Is. 49:15 (“Can a mother forget her baby, so as not to have compassion on the son of

124  BONIFACE RAMSEY

her womb?). Besides being like a mother, God is also “like a most loving father and a most gracious physician,” working “all things evenhandedly in everyone” (13.17.2–18.2). After reiterating some previously expressed thoughts on God’s “evenhanded” work, Chaeremon makes three points that he insists represent the view of “all the Catholic fathers who have taught perfection of heart not by idle disputation but in fact and in deed”: 1) grace operates so that a person is inflamed to desire the good, but in such a way that he does not lose the ability to choose alternatives; 2) under grace the practice of virtue produces results, yet the possibility of making a choice is not extinguished; 3) grace is necessary to persevere in the virtue that one has already acquired, but it does not destroy one’s freedom. “Thus it is that the God of the universe must be believed to work all things in all, so that he stirs up, protects, and strengthens, but not so that he removes the freedom of will that he himself once granted” (13.18.5). The conference ends with Chaeremon’s assertion that only faith and not human reasoning is guaranteed to grasp the divine plan and its relation to freedom of will. For, as scripture says (Is. 7:9 LXX), it is faith that provides the basis for understanding (13.18.5). An analysis of the thirteenth conference reveals, first of all, Cassian’s unmistakable concern for balance. The balance in question is between grace and free will and also, mainly in function of that, between the numerous passages of scripture that testify to the importance of either the one or the other. Sets of passages favoring the one are succeeded by sets of passages favoring the other, and the alternating process is repeated several times. The opponents to whom Cassian occasionally makes anonymous reference—Augustine and the Pelagians—have lost their balance. It was Cassian’s method, shared by many other writers of the early church, to saturate his argumentation with biblical texts. As has already been mentioned, he placed these texts, which emphasized either grace or free will, in juxtaposition. The fact that these texts usually came from very different places within scripture, each

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  125

addressing its own concerns, was of no real importance to Cassian. Like all or nearly all the Church Fathers, he felt justified in treating such passages independently of their contexts. In particular contrast to Augustine, who typically sought to exhaust the meaning of whatever scriptural text he might have been discussing, Cassian was satisfied simply to cite texts with a bare minimum of commentary, if with any at all. Inasmuch as, according to the common patristic opinion, the words of scripture were all equally inspired, they could that much more easily be separated from their contexts and used ad libitum. Moreover, it was the unanimous position of the Fathers that scripture was at the service of the church’s teaching and could only be read and interpreted in light of that teaching.6 Since, then, it was Cassian’s apparently confident view that he was passing on to his readers nothing more than received doctrine, he was well within his rights to cite passages from scripture that would illustrate that view. This brings us to the matter of authority. In 13.11.4 Cassian expresses concern that the attempt to remove either grace or free will from human activity would “contravene the rule of the Church’s faith.” Shortly thereafter, in 13.12.2, he writes that to deny the human possibility of choosing good over evil would be “quite absurd and utterly foreign to the Catholic faith.” Finally, in 13.18.4, he presents his teaching on the balance between grace and free will as something “understood by all the Catholic fathers.” Nowhere else in his Conferences, apart from the early chapters of the tenth conference, where the error of anthropomorphism is discussed and condemned, does Cassian appeal so emphatically to the church’s authority. When in 13.18.4 Cassian mentions “the Catholic fathers,” he may well be referring to the great ecclesiastical figures who preceded him, whereas it is uncertain to whom he is referring—whether 6. Cf. Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’ écriture 1.1 (Paris: Aubier, 1959), 59.

126  BONIFACE RAMSEY

to such figures or simply to locally important monastic personages—when he uses the same term for the only other time in The Conferences in 1.20.6.7 Would not Cassian have been familiar, at least in a general way, with the opinions on the correct balance of grace and free will of “the Catholic fathers” whose writings in the areas of spirituality and monasticism clearly influenced his own? These fathers, usually Greek-speaking, often used language that allowed for the will’s far-reaching capabilities and were not always explicit in expressing the need for grace. Thus, for example, Athanasius in The Life of Saint Antony 20, where he insists upon the basic ease with which virtue can be practiced: “Virtue only needs our will, since it is within us and originates in us.” And in Contra gentes 30, where he voices an identical view. Thus Basil, in his series of homilies on the Hexaemeron (9.4), where he claims that virtue arises from within our nature and that the soul on its own is able to grasp what conforms to nature—namely, virtue. Thus John Chrysostom, in his homilies on the Acts of the Apostles (32.3), where he says that it is within our own power to be either a devil or an angel, and that we can only blame our wills and not our natures if we do not attain to a life comparable to that of the angels. The still-living “bishop of the town of Hippo Regius” may not have qualified as one of “the Catholic fathers,” and there are a number of places in the thirteenth conference where Cassian, via his surrogate Chaeremon, diverges from his thinking, although he never names him. As already noted, in 13.7.1 he cites 1 Tim. 2:4, in which God is said to desire “all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” He takes this verse in what may be described as its conventional and optimistic sense. Besides adding several other verses from both the Old and the New Testaments which confirm that he understands 1 Tim. 2:4 in that sense, Cassian annexes his own commentary: “How can it be thought without great sacrilege of him who does not want a single little one to perish (cf. Mt. 18:14) 7. “The approved and Catholic fathers” of 1.20.6 may be the abbas, since Cassian immediately refers to “their conferences.”

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  127

that he does not wish all to be saved universally, but only a few instead of all? Those who perish, therefore, perish against his will” (13.7.2). Augustine’s inability to deal plausibly with 1 Tim. 2:4 is well known, as Enchiridion 27.103, for example, particularly demonstrates. Cassian offers a more optimistic understanding of the verse in question, while allowing for the divine will to be thwarted, but he does not explain—as Augustine at least attempts to do in, for example, Contra Julianum 4.8.42–44—how the same will can be both divine and apparently capable of being thwarted. Cassian’s recourse in this context to Mt. 18:14 (“It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish”) suggests his disagreement with Augustine’s famous opinion about the fate of unbaptized infants in, for example, De natura et gratia 8.9. Once again Cassian is guilty of a failure to supply an explanation— in this case, of the purpose of baptism and of the difference between being baptized and not being baptized, which is, of course, central in Augustine’s theology. And there is more than a hint of resistance to Augustine as well in 13.12.5, where Cassian says, as previously quoted, that it would be erroneous to “ascribe nothing but what is bad and perverse to human nature.” Augustine’s view is succinctly expressed in his Homily on the Gospel of John 5.1: “No one has anything on his own except falsehood and sin.” It is true that there is a change of emphasis in Cassian’s handling of grace and free will at 13.8.4, when he speaks of God’s “giving increase to what he himself planted or saw arise from our own efforts.” From that point on, in Cassian’s analysis of the partnership of grace and free will, grace is no longer the obviously dominant partner. Yet even before that passage in the thirteenth conference, as in the twelfth book of The Institutes, grace does not have the same weight for Cassian that it does for Augustine. By way of example, a look at how each of them treats a crucial text in the debate on grace and free will, Rom. 9:16 (“It is not of the one who wills or of the one who runs, but of God who is merciful”), is instructive. Prior to the aforementioned change of emphasis in Conference

128  BONIFACE RAMSEY

13.8.4, Cassian refers to this verse from Romans several times in the twelfth book of The Institutes and once in the fourth conference. In The Institutes, which is the earlier of the two works and therefore presumably untainted by the spirit—antithetical to Augustine—of the second half of the thirteenth conference, it is first quoted in 12.9, at the conclusion of a series of seven verses that are intended to highlight the necessity of grace, and a discussion of the implications of these verses, but especially of Rom. 9:16, continues at some length. In 12.13 Cassian appeals to “the fathers,” as he would later do in Conference 13.18.4; it is their opinion, in their own words, that he intends to publicize. This opinion, in sum, is the familiar one that “a person’s own effort and human diligence will never be equal to the divine gift, if it has not been granted by the divine compassion to the one who desires it.” A few lines later he writes: “We assert that God’s mercy and grace are bestowed only on those who toil and labor and that, to use the Apostle’s words, they are given to those who will and those who run. . . . He is ready, so long as we have offered him our good will, to grant all these things. . .” (12.14.1–2). Conference 4.5 need only be briefly noted. There Cassian quotes Rom. 9:16 to illustrate the indispensability of grace and makes a perfunctory comment. Augustine, too, experienced a change of mind in his understanding of grace. This occurred with similar abruptness while he was composing his Ad Simplicianum, which was written sometime between 396 and 398. Whereas previously—in the very same treatise (1.1.14)—he, like Cassian, had allowed for an individual to will the good, although accomplishing it was impossible apart from grace, and now, without explanation,8 he denied the possibility of even willing the good apart from grace. In Ad Simplicianum 1.2.10, commenting on Rom. 9:16, Augustine affirms the necessity 8. An explanation is not provided until Retractations 2.1.3, where Augustine writes simply that, after having striven “on behalf of the free choice of the will, God’s grace conquered.”

JOHN CASSIAN AND AUGUSTINE  129

of both willing and running but now adds that it is God himself who bestows the willing and the running along with the desired object of the willing and the running. This was the position that Augustine would maintain throughout his career. And, when he was not merely citing them as something self-explanatory, as he did for example in Grace and Free Will 7.16, this was how, with insignificant nuances, he would interpret Paul’s words in, for example, The Grace of Christ and Original Sin 1.46.51, The Answer to Two Letters of Pelagius 2.5.10, and The Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian 1.141.3–6. Cassian uses Rom. 9:16, as he uses any number of other verses from both Old and New Testaments, to demonstrate that grace must play the major role in the acquisition of virtue. But he treats in substantially the same way the biblical verses that underline the subordinate role of free will—subordinate, to be sure, but indispensable and occasionally initiatory of the movement toward virtue. For Augustine, on the other hand, Rom. 9:16 stands as a clear assertion not merely of grace’s major role but, indeed, of the fact that grace is the very theater within which free will plays any role at all. It has frequently been said that monasticism shaped Cassian’s attitude toward grace. Certainly part of his aim in writing The Institutes and The Conferences was to reassure his monastic audience in southern Gaul that their arduous life counted for something and that somehow grace and human effort could meet one another partway. But Cassian was also the legatee of a tradition, some of whose exponents have been previously named, in which grace was often not prominently or even explicitly discussed. That some of the exponents of this tradition—figures like Athanasius and Basil—also happened to be heroes of the monastic movement that linked the tradition that much more closely to monasticism and hence to Cassian’s project. Augustine’s theology of grace, which if anything was exceedingly emphatic and explicit in treatment of its subject, could hardly be made to jibe with this well-established

130  BONIFACE RAMSEY

tradition and undoubtedly seemed to Cassian and many of his contemporaries as utterly unprecedented; and so it was, in form if not in substance. It can probably be reasonably said that Augustine, with at least some of whose thinking Cassian was acquainted and allowed himself to be positively influenced by, helped to move Cassian away from his fairly conventional understanding of grace, which was within the parameters of the tradition that he had inherited (although, in fact, he was rather liberal in his mention of grace, in contrast to a number of “the Catholic fathers”), to a position where free will and human effort needed to be defended. It is that defense for which Cassian is primarily known, and which is so strikingly evident in the second half of his thirteenth conference.

8

VI NCENT OF LÉR INS’S

COMMONITOR IUM, OBJECTIONES, AND EXCER PTA   Responding to Augustine’s Legacy in Fifth-Century Gaul

Augustine Casiday

Because St. Vincent of Lérins was contemporaneous to the authors, debates, and events that are central to the chapters in this volume, scholars have for centuries attempted to identify his place within the controversies stoked by Augustine and by Pelagius. Primary evidence for where to place him is frequently taken from Vincent’s Commonitorium, a work generally recognized as presenting an important perspective on the antiquity and universality of the catholic faith (if one that was probably idiosyncratic for its time). As a single specimen from a period when Vincent’s influence was felt, and commented upon, we may note that the third Catena Patrum prepared by members of the Oxford Movement in 1836 was dedicated to the “testimony of writers in the later English Church to the duty of maintaining quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est”—Vincent’s celebrated tagline, albeit slightly misquoted.1 1. The order of the first two clauses has been inverted; cf. Tracts for the Times, vol. 4 (Oxford: Parker, 1839), no. 78, p. 1, and Vincent, Comm. 1.2.3; ed. R.S. Moxon, The

131

132  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

Vincent’s concept of tradition thus formulated is a major component in any attempt at reconstructing his role in the debates about Augustine’s works in the decades following that theologian’s death, implying as it does a considerable reservation when confronted with novelty. In this chapter, our approach to that reconstruction will be by way of studying the writings attributed to him and some disputes concerning those attributions. This review of his works, genuine and spurious, will enable us to consider afresh Vincent’s beliefs as relevant to those debates. A preliminary assumption should be disclosed. In seeking to situate Vincent’s position with reference to the literary and theological heritage of Augustine, this chapter assumes that the debates cannot be reduced to a simple dichotomy, as, for example, that dichotomy which was generated and advocated by self-described partisans of Augustine in fifth-century Gaul who recognized only a continuum stretching from Augustinianism to Pelagianism. The presumption here is that such a polarization is inadequate to cope with the perspectives that are preserved in fifth-century writings. It will be justified (or not) to the extent that the following study succeeds in presenting a meaningful account of Vincent’s topical contributions that integrates evidence from across his accepted writings.

The Vincentian Canon Four works have been attributed to Vincent: the Commonitorium (CPL 510), the Objectiones Vincentianae (CPL 521), the Excerpta (CPL 511), and the Quicumque vult (CPL 167). We will take them in turn, noting along the way some of the debates about whether some of them are rightly to be attributed to Vincent, because these debates often turn on what one makes of Vincent’s involvement in the receptions of and responses to Augustine’s theology. Commonitorium of Vincentius of Lérins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), 10. Many editions of the Commonitorium are available (cf. CCL 64), but having found Moxon’s notes and introduction useful I refer here to his edition.

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  133

The oldest ascription of any writing to Vincent is found in Gennadius of Marseilles’s De uiris inlustribus 65. Since that brief chapter is also the best ancient account of Vincent’s life, I quote it in full: Vincent, an ethnically Gallic priest at the monastery on the isle of Lérins, a man learned in the sacred writings and sufficiently instructed in the minutiae of ecclesiastical doctrines, composed an extremely robust argument in terms complete and clear enough for the avoidance of the guild of heretics, which (suppressing his own name) he called The Pilgrim’s Book Against Heretics. When he lost the second and largest number of pages of this work which was stolen by someone, he composed anew a reproduction of the sense of it in a few words and published it in a single book.2 He died during the reign of Theodosius and Valentinianus [i.e., c. 425–450].3

What Gennadius called The Pilgrim’s Book against Heretics is universally identified with the book now known as the Commonitorium, which an internal reference to the Council of Ephesus having met three years earlier allows us to date to 434.4 As the title Commonitorium indicates, the book is a “reminder” of the basic principles that distinguish orthodox belief from heresy. Vincent peppered it with examples of notorious heretics and with some memorable maxims. Examples of the latter include Vincent’s call to hold always to “what has been handed down everywhere, always, by everyone” and his somewhat wistful tribute to Origen, whose greatness would almost move one to say, “I would rather err with Origen than think rightly with others,” were it not for the seriousness of his apparent flaws.5 Whatever the distinctly personal features of Vincent’s perspective, his arguments about interpreting Scripture, articulating doctrines, and evaluating developments are 2. Cf. Vincent, Comm. 2.33.43 (135–36); it is, however, unclear whether the alleged theft of Vincent’s script is a reliable assertion. 3. W. Herding, ed., Hieronymi De Viris Inlustribus Liber. Accedit Gennadii Catalogus Virorum Inlustrium (Leipzig: Teubner, 1879), 98. 4. Vincent, Comm. 2.29.42 (Moxon, 121–22). 5. Vincent, Comm. 1.2.3, 1.17.23 (Moxon, 10, 72).

134  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

a major contribution to early medieval theology. For that reason, it is curious that the Commonitorium comes down to us in only four manuscripts.6 Both the undisputed ancient external witness and the precise date distinguish the Commonitorium from the other works. True, a long-standing tradition exists which identifies Vincent of Lérins as author of the Objectiones Vincentianae, a collection of sixteen trenchant points that refute various implications of the doctrine of predestination and that survives imbedded within Prosper of Aquitaine’s polemical Responsiones ad Capitula Objectionum Vincentianarum. Circumstantial evidence favors identifying the author as Vincent of Lérins, but no contemporaneous witnesses corroborate that identification. Even so, from Cardinal Noris’s Historia pelagiana (1673) to the modern day, most scholars have supported this attribution; Hugo Koch’s comparative study of the Objectiones and the Commonitorium is widely regarded as conclusive.7 However, a minority position has for centuries challenged this position, most recently and forcefully in a study by William O’Connor.8 O’Connor’s rejection is part of an ambitious re-reading of Vincent’s theology, which will be important for purposes of this chapter, but before we come to his thesis the remaining two writings need to be introduced. For now, it suffices to notice that Noris and others have for centuries published learned studies through which their insights, arguments, and suspicions have crystallized into a confident assumption that Vincent’s Objectiones (with its characteristic rejection of predestination) and his Commonitorium (with its characteristic re6. See Moxon, The Commonitorium, lxxvii–lxxxiv 7. H. Koch, “Vincenz von Lerin und Gennadius. Ein Beitrag zur Literaturgeschichte des Semipelagianismus,” TU 31 (1907): 37–58. 8. In addition to providing an excellent survey of the late medieval to modern debates, many of which are not readily available, William O’Connor argues against the dominant attribution in his “Saint Vincent of Lerins and Saint Augustine: Was the Commonitorium of Saint Vincent of Lerins intended as a polemic treatise against Saint Augustine and his doctrine on predestination?” Doctor Communis 16 (1963): 125–254.

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  135

jection of novelties) are twin polemics against Augustine’s theology. The third work attributed to Vincent is known from a passing reference in a ninth-century commentary on Cassiodorus’s Divine Institutes: “For the confirming of the Catholic faith and the avoidance of the heretics’ snares, these things should be read: . . . Also the book of Vincent, a priest from the island of Lérins, which he compiled from the books of the blessed Augustine and sent to Pope St Sixtus, is useful to be read on this topic.”9 Such an obscure comment could easily be overlooked, but in the first half of the twentieth century Fr. José Madoz discovered a manuscript in Ripoll, the contents of which correspond to that medieval description: the Excerpta sancte memorie Vincentii Lirinensis insule prebiteri ex uniuerso beate recordacionis Agustini in unum collecta (or the Excerpta). Like all the other documents endorsed in the ninthcentury commentary, Vincent’s Excerpta is concerned chiefly with the Trinity and with Christology. The contents are not strictly taken ex uniuerso beate recordacionis Agustini; instead, Vincent compiled his excerpts from a select range of Augustine’s, chiefly De Trinitate but also De Doctrina Christiana, Contra Maximinum Arianorum Episcopum, De Consensus Evangelistarum, Epistulae 137 and 205, De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione, Enchiridion, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, and De Dono Perseverantiae. Particularly conspicuous is the inclusion of excerpts from those works that Augustine wrote for circulation in southern Gaul to clarify his position on grace and predestination. Madoz published a preliminary notice of his finding in 1940.10 On that limited basis, Jules Lebreton published a remarkably prescient note that accurately anticipated the ramifications of Madoz’s discovery for the study of Vincent’s 9. Anonymous, De expositioribus divinae legis et de auctoribus a Christianis perlegendis 16; ed. P. Lehmann, “Ein mittelalterliches Compendium der Institutiones divinarum litterarum,” in Erforschung des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1959–62), 2: 66–81 at 76 (reprinted from Philologus 73 [1914]: 253–73). 10. J. Madoz, “Un tratado desconocido de San Vicente de Lerins,” Gregorianum 21 (1940): 75–84.

136  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

work.11 Lebreton’s piece was striking because he drew his conclusions before Madoz made his findings available in a critical edition with an exemplary introduction that puts Vincent’s authorship of this work beyond reasonable doubt.12 A fourth and final work attributed to Vincent can be mentioned briefly. Vincent is one of several competitors for the honor of having written a creed that is as well known as the “Athanasian Creed” but that, due to the uncertainty of its provenance, is better referred to by its Latin opening as the “Quicumque Vult.” In addition to Vincent and to Athanasius of Alexandria, Ambrose of Milan, Fulgentius of Ruspe, and several others have also been put forward as the composer of this document.13 The case for identifying Vincent rests on a comparison of the terminology and phrases found in the “Quicumque Vult” to those found in the Commonitorium.14 Comparisons between the creed and the Excerpta have also been advanced, though again the results are not definitive.15 All studies to date have delivered results that are more provisional than decisive. Lacking a compelling argument for the creed’s authorship and for its relationship to Vincent’s established writings, it seems prudent to conclude that the creed displays traces of Vincent’s influence. The available evidence makes a more robust claim difficult to sustain. However, if the modest assertion that the “Quicumque Vult” disseminates ideas characteristic of the Commonitorium is accepted, then this creed can be seen as a major vehicle for transmitting Vincent’s theological method and major preoccupations, 11. J. Lebreton, “Saint Vincent de Lérins et Saint Augustin,” RechScRel 30 (1940): 368–69. 12. J. Madoz, Excerpta Vincenti Lirinensis según el códice de Ripoll, n. 151 con un studio crítico introductorio (Madrid: Aldecoa, 1940); Madoz’s edition has been reprinted in CCL 64, but because Madoz’s commentary and introduction are relevant to this analysis I prefer to cite Vincent’s text from Madoz’s publication rather than from the CCL publication. 13. See J. N. D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1964). 14. Ibid., 5; 116–19. 15. Madoz, Excerpta Vincentii Lirinensis, 88–90.

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  137

particularly if (as the paucity of manuscripts indicates) the Commonitorium’s circulation was relatively limited.

Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Christology— and Vincent’s Response The relationship between the three writings that have been attributed to Vincent on the basis of serious analysis (i.e., the Commonitorium, the Objectiones, and the Excerpta) is an important question for students of the reception of Augustinian thought and literature in the decades following the African bishop’s death. Perceiving a tension between the alleged “semi-Pelagianism” of the Objectiones and the patent Augustinianism of the Excerpta, scholars have pursued three distinct strategies (sometimes in tandem). The first strategy has been to deny the authenticity of the Objectiones: O’Connor’s thesis is the most recent example, which is based on a theological analysis of the Excerpta and a comparison with the content of the Objectiones. Finding the Excerpta’s Augustinianism unimpeachable, O’Connor proceeds by logical steps to the conclusion that the Objectiones could not have been framed by such a careful student of Augustine’s works. No one has yet, to my knowledge, contested the authenticity of the Excerpta, though a counteranalysis running along a parallel argument against Vincent’s authorship of that work is easily imagined: such a hostile critic of Augustine could not be thought to have written such a creative synthesis of Augustine’s theology. In other words, the dilemma of the Vincentian corpus can be solved by eliminating one of the proposed members of that set. The second, and related, strategy is also exemplified by O’Connor’s study. As well as rejecting the authenticity of the Excerpta, one can critique the scholarly habit (traced by O’Connor to an uncritical acceptance that the Objectiones exposes Vincent’s opposition to Augustine) that finds latent anti-Augustinianism in every nook and cranny of the Commonitorium. O’Connor has evaluated

138  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

Commonitorium 26.37,16 the passage from that work that his interlocutors have consistently identified as revealing Vincent’s uninformed prejudice against Augustine. Through a close reading of that passage and with reference to Augustine’s own works, O’Connor has created at the very least a reasonable doubt concerning the merits of reading it as anti-Augustinian polemic. O’Connor has perspicaciously observed, for example, that nothing in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian argument corresponds to the passage’s description of its target as a self-identified conventiculum of which every member is guaranteed salvation (quicumque illi ad numerum suum pertinent).17 O’Connor persuasively argues that this point, to which we shall return in due course, tells against identifying Vincent’s target as the writings of Augustine, since such a guarantee is beyond the scope of Augustine’s teachings. To summarize, the second strategy is to revisit the allegedly semi-Pelagian elements in Vincent’s Commonitorium and to reinterpret them as referring to a target other than Augustine. This strategy can be bolstered by identifying Augustinian elements in the Commonitorium. The third strategy, advanced by José Madoz, seeks instead to affirm Vincent’s authorship of all the works in question while identifying major Augustinian themes in each and isolating Vincent’s response to each specific theme. Thus Madoz proposed that Vincent’s Objectiones demonstrated his opposition to Augustinian grace and predestination, whereas his Excerpta showed him to be an admirer of Augustine’s Christology and Trinitarian theology.18 Madoz was disposed to maintain the authenticity of the Commonitorium and the Objectiones because those works were fundamental to his study on Vincent’s attitude toward tradition;19 since he 16. Commonitorium (Moxon, 109–10). 17. See O’Connor, “Saint Vincent of Lerins,” 203–7; 216. 18. Madoz, Excerpta Vincentii Lirinensis, 29: “Claro está que cabe la posibilidad de que el autor del Conmonitorio esgrimiera en él sus armas contra el Doctor de la predestinación y de la gracia, reservando después sus elogios para el Doctor de la Trinidad y de la Encarnación.” 19. J. Madoz, El concepto de la tradición en s. Vicente de Lerins: Estudio

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  139

himself discovered the Excerpta, it stands to reason that he would seek to affirm all three works as genuine. This solution has much to recommend it, seeking as it does to treat Vincent as an independent, creative reader of Augustine’s works who adopted and adapted themes from those works with a degree of critical engagement. What is striking, however, about all three approaches to these writings is that they all attempt to explain the range of Vincent’s works while supposing the normalcy of two polar opposites: Augustinianism versus Pelagianism. Suggesting that earlier research has categorically presupposed such a stark polarity may do a slight disservice to the sophistication of some arguments. O’Connor, for example, shows a sensitive awareness that one need not criticize Augustine in order to find fault with subsequent admirers who lacked that theologian’s finesse. And yet O’Connor’s commendable argument still relies on an assumption that has gone without comment, namely, that the Objectiones is targeted against Augustine’s antiPelagian writings. This assumption demonstrates a tendency to situate all the surviving evidence on a spectrum that runs from Augustine to Pelagius, sometimes with an explicit acknowledgment that there are other figures who are frustratingly difficult to describe in terms drawn from that polarity, whether as “semi-Augustinians” or “semi-Pelagians.” Such a polarization is by no means limited to the study of Vincent’s works but is indeed a general phenomenon in the study of fifth-century Gaul, as a recent survey demonstrates. For all its theoretical sophistication, this survey nevertheless presumes that Augustine’s late theological interventions against Pelagianism provide the criteria for the modern study of the reception of Augustine’s writings by near contemporaries like Vincent.20 histórico-critico del “Conmonitorio,” Analecta Gregoriana 5 (Rome: Gregorianum, 1933). 20. See Karla Pollmann and David Lambert, “After Augustine. A Survey of His Reception from 430 to 2000,” in Millenium: Jahrbuch zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. 1 (2004): 165–83, who at 183 appear to regard “adherence to Augustine” and “criticism as Augustine” as amounting to precisely the position one takes with respect to “the reaction in Gaul to his late works on grace and

140  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

To illustrate the limitations of such an approach, we may ask a preliminary question: where, precisely, one ought to position Jerome on that spectrum? The position taken by Jerome, who entered into debates with Pelagius before Augustine,21 is scarcely to be described as Augustinian. Jerome’s anti-Pelagian polemic alone suffices to expose the inadequacy of presuming that the debate occurred between two camps. However, recent publications provide little evidence that many scholars are prepared to acknowledge the likelihood that there were positions in these debates which are not to be assimilated to Augustine or to Pelagius. Moreover, although numerous studies have explored the coherence of “Pelagianism” as designating a group and many have concluded that, with appropriate nuance, the term is meaningful,22 there have been relatively few comparable attempts to explore the coherence of “Augustinianism” as designating another group. More to the point for our purposes, such a perspective leads to the dilemma that confronted Madoz. It is by no means clear that one should resort (as Madoz did) to the categories established by Prosper’s invective against Cassian and other locals in order to parse the Augustinian influence in Vincent’s writings. Taking grace and predestination as the point of departure produces huge difficulties in accounting for the response to Augustine’s Christology that we find in Vincent’s Excerpta. Prosper’s intervention on Augustine’s behalf on the debates about grace and predestination do not, in fact, correspond adequately to Vincent’s book, which actually accepts predestination, but with special attention to its Christological predestination” (174). Yet, as we shall see, there is evidence that other works by and themes from Augustine were also studied by Gallic readers. 21. See Robert F. Evans, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1968), for example, at 4: “Jerome knew Pelagius by personal acquaintance in Rome during the 380’s, whereas Augustine knew him only through his writings. Jerome was already at odds with Pelagius as early as 394, almost two decades before ‘the Pelagian controversy’ began.” Evans devotes chapters two, three, and four of his book to substantiating these claims. 22. See A. M. C. Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 73–74.

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  141

elements. Donald Fairbairn’s recent monograph has demonstrated that attention to the ramifications of Christology for late ancient reflection on grace is well worthwhile.23 His method has illuminated previously obscure contours of ancient debates. But, because his scope is broader and Vincent’s contributions to this area have had modest historical consequences (to put it politely) and therefore escaped Fairbairn’s attention, it remains to be seen whether similarly illuminating results can be had from looking to Vincent’s reception of Augustinian Christology. Before applying that method, a word may be helpful on how this approach differs from the conventional approach to the reactions to Augustine’s doctrine of grace by Gallic monks. A contrast between theological rigor and moral exhortation has often been proposed to distinguish “Augustinians” from “Augustine’s critics”; the monastic inclinations of the latter are usually, and perhaps not incidentally, frequently signaled as though this for some reason sets them apart from Augustine, himself a monastic founder.24 This basic contrast leaves unaddressed the profound question of why some monks seem to have found Augustine’s teachings congenial (e.g., at Hadrumetum),25 whereas others allegedly did not (e.g., at Lérins). 23. Donald Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Fifth-Century Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 24. For example, Columba Stewart (Cassian the Monk [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 19), who, despite recognizing that Augustine himself founded a monastery (and might therefore be thought to have some monastic sensibility himself), claims that “Cassian and other monks thought that Augustine’s denial of any ‘initium fidei’ (‘initiative of faith’) to human beings and his concomitant doctrine of predestination effectively excluded human responsibility from the process of salvation. This made little sense in a monastic context where the interplay of ascetical discipline, prayer and the support of other human beings created the context for growth toward Christian perfection.” On Augustine’s monasticism, see George Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), Luc Verheijen, La règle de saint Augustine, I–II (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1968), and Adolar Zumkeller, Augustine’s Ideal of the Religious Life (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986). 25. In his Letters 214 and 215, Augustine responded to concerns presented to him by Cresconius and Felix in behalf of Valentinus, the abbot of their community in Hadrumetum. The monks there were reportedly troubled that preaching grace

142  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

It also leaves readers with the impression that there is an irreconcilable difference between the systematic concerns of the theologians and the practical concerns of the monks, and perhaps that the two groups could not effectively communicate because their prior commitments make their positions mutually unintelligible. However, since both Augustine and Vincent (one of his monastic readers) engaged with the contested topics of grace and predestination by way of sustained reflection on Christology, this seeming impasse need not hold us back. Not only does Christology open up a fresh vantage on grace and predestination, but the fact that a monk wrote a distinctly theological work enables us to compare like with like rather than fretting over how to extract content from a treatise and from an exhortation for purposes of comparison. Turning, then, to Christology, Augustine began to draw out the Christological dimensions of his teachings on grace about a decade before he received letters from Gaul that alerted him to the disquiet that met his writings there. In 418 Augustine wrote On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin. Augustine chides Pelagius’s Letter to Demetrias for acknowledging the grace of God, which on Augustine’s reading of Pelagius is tantamount to the goodness of creation, but making a passing mention only of the grace of Christ, which is ambivalent on Pelagius’s presentation: It is simply not clear whether he wants to us to understand that it consists in the forgiveness of sins or also in the teaching of Christ, which also included the example of his life, as he does in some passages of his works, or whether he believes that some help for acting well has been added to nature and teaching by the inspiration of a love that is ablaze and filled with light.26 undermined the freedom of human will. Augustine’s explanation is starkly antiPelagian. Given the complete lack of evidence that the trouble roiled on, one may conclude that his letters met a favorable response. The deduction is not compelling, but these letters must be regarded as a serious challenge to any unconsidered assumption that Augustine’s teaching on grace and predestination was divorced from his thinking on the ascetical life. 26. Augustine, De gratia Christi et de peccato originali 1.35.38 (CSEL 42: 154; WSA I/23 [Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1997], 410).

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  143

Augustine criticizes this lack of clarity and considers it entirely inadequate: Christ cannot be regarded as a mere teacher and helper whose example inspires Christians to imitate him through moral living.27 Moreover, Augustine calls for recognition that Christ exercised an inner influence on Peter and therefore was not—indeed, is not—limited to disposing circumstances and modifying environments in order to effect changes in the behavior of his followers.28 In the second book, Augustine introduces a consideration of precisely how Christ acts as a mediator that initiated a development in his thinking about Christ, the Trinity, and grace. Christ, stresses Augustine, is not the mediator because he is equal with the Father; in that respect he is as distant from us as the Father is. And how is he to be the middle ground, when he is equally distant? For this reason the apostle did not say: The one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, but: the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). He is, then, the mediator by the fact that he is man; he is inferior to the Father in terms that by which he is closer to us; he is superior to us in terms of that by which he is nearer to the Father. This is clearly stated as follows: He is inferior to the Father in the form of the servant; he is superior to us, because he is without the stain of sin.29

Making this conceptual distinction between the humanity of Christ Jesus and the divinity of Christ Jesus opens for Augustine a way forward in his theological reflection. It is not too much to say that it lays the foundation for a significant advance in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian “Christology of grace” as expressed several years later in The Predestination of the Saints and The Gift of Perseverance. Augustine takes this important observation forward in The Predestination of the Saints and The Gift of Perseverance. Having insisted on the importance for an orthodox teaching of grace that the full humanity of Christ (no less than the full divinity of Christ) be 27. See further Augustine’s gr. et pecc. or. 1.38.42–39.43 (CSEL 42: 155–57). 28. Augustine, gr. et pecc. or. 1.45.49 (CSEL 42: 161). 29. Augustine, gr. et pecc. or. 2.28.33 (CSEL 42: 193, WSA I/23: 437).

144  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

affirmed, Augustine emphasizes in his writings to Gaul that, as perfect man, Christ is the perfect exemplar of predestination. The connection between The Grace of Christ and Augustine’s later Christological reflections in The Predestination of the Saints is patent, thanks to his renewed citation of 1 Tim. 2:5: There is also the most brilliant beacon of predestination and of grace, the savior himself, the very mediator between God and human beings, the man Jesus Christ. By what preceding merits of his, either of works or of faith, did the human nature which is in him obtain such a dignity [qui ut hoc esset, quibus tandem suis uel operum uel fidei praecedentibus meritis natura humana quae in illo est comparauit]? Please reply!30 Because Augustine has already made a point of insisting on the full humanity of Christ Jesus, he is able in The Predestination of the Saints to press on with a consideration of what it means for a particular human to come into existence (by definition, with no antecedent merits) in a relationship of unstinting grace. Augustine finds support from his reading of St. Paul.31 This interpretation opens Augustine up to criticism, however, on grounds that too great a stress on the humanity of Christ introduces a theological heresy. By insisting that Christ Jesus was fully human, Augustine could be seen to have introduced a human person into the Trinity in that such a person (as simultaneously fully divine) would exist alongside the three divine persons. Augustine himself raises this problem, leaving no doubt that he was aware of the interface of Christology and Trinitarian theology necessitated by his polemic against Pelagius. He writes, 30. Augustine, praed. sanct. 15.30 (PL 44: 981; WSA I/26 [Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1999], 173); emphasis added. 31. Augustine, praed. sanct. 15.31 (PL 44: 982; WSA I/26: 174): “For we have learned that the very Lord of glory was predestined insofar as he became man. The teacher of the nations cries out in the beginning of his letters: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God which he had previously promised through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his Son, who was born for him according to the flesh of the offspring of David, who was predestined to be the son of God in power [qui praedestinatus est filius dei in uirtute] and according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:1–4).”

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  145 This is that ineffably accomplished sole taking up of man by God the Word, so that He might truly and properly be called at the same time the Son of God and the Son of man, Son of man on account of the man taken up, and the Son of God on account of the God only-begotten who took Him up, so that a Trinity and not a Quaternity might be believed in.32

Augustine then describes the effect of “the man” being “taken up” in terms familiar from classical Christological reflection—but this time, the terms are interspersed with typical language from Augustine’s repertoire: Such a transporting of human nature was predestinated, so great, so lofty, and so sublime that there was no exalting it more highly, just as on our behalf that divinity had no possibility of more humbly putting itself off, than by the assumption of man’s nature with the weakness of the flesh, even to the death of the cross.33

Augustine moves quickly, without offering an exposition of the terms “Trinity,” “nature,” or the implied “person” (the addition to the Trinity of which would result in a “Quaternity”), which rest instead on broadly familiar usage within the emerging catholic tradition. Instead, he provides a description of the dynamic of exchange in salvation that is Christocentric: “Just as, then, that one was predestined to be our head, so we many have been predestined to be his members [sicut ergo praedestinatus est ille unus, ut caput nostrum esset: ita multi praedestinati sumus, ut membra eius essemus].”34 Because the “man taken up” is, first and foremost, the instantiation of human nature, the effects of this “assumption” reach far beyond the particularity of the “man,” who is nevertheless unique because of his relationship with God the Word. Since human nature itself is transformed by this intimate connection through the divine nature of Christ, humans can be incorporated into Christ and so have a 32. Praed. sanct. 15.33 (PL 44: 984). 33. Ibid. 34. Augustine, praed. sanct. 15.31 (PL 44: 982; WSA I/26: 175).

146  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

share in Christ’s predestination (which, again, owes nothing to merits, whether personal or collective): God indeed calls many predestinated children of His, to make them members of His only predestinated Son, not with that calling with which they were called who would not come to the marriage, since with that calling were called also the Jews, to whom Christ crucified is an offence, and the Gentiles, to whom Christ crucified is foolishness; but with that calling He calls the predestinated which the apostle distinguished when he said that he preached Christ, the wisdom of God and the power of God, to them that were called, Jews as well as Greeks.35

Augustine posits that one and the same process—predestination— accounts both for the incarnation of God the Word as Jesus Christ and for the salvation of Christians. Augustine worked out this Christological argument about grace approximately a decade after laying a foundation for it, and once he had worked it out he did not abandon it. In fact, he recapitulated it in The Gift of Perseverance, with added detail. Although he had been content in The Predestination of the Saints simply to invoke the language of persons and natures, when he returned to his argument he elaborated on the implications of those terms. Despite the initial associations that Augustine’s preference for speaking in terms of an “assumed man” might elicit in modern scholars,36 Augustine clarifies that the person of Christ Jesus is the singular and exceptional instance of human nature (common to all humans) being assumed by God the Word in the Word’s own person without thereby generating a fourth divine person.37 To preempt some 35. Augustine, praed. sanct. 15.31 (PL 44: 983; WSA I/26: 175). 36. The term is repudiated in condemnations of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s teachings at Constantinople II (553), but before that time it is relatively common and unexceptional. See Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian, 108–9, and more generally Fairbairn, Grace and Christology, 190–92. 37. Augustine, persev. 24.67 (PL 45: 1033; WSA I/26: 236): “Let any believer who wants to understand it well pay attention to him, and let him find himself in him. I mean: a believer who believes and confesses in him a true human nature, that is, our nature, though raised up to the only Son of God by God the Word who assumes it in a singular manner, so that he who assumed it and what he assumed is one person

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  147

obvious confusion, Augustine then disowns and distances himself from three Christological errors—Manichaean, Photinian, and Apollinarian.38 It has been important to review the ways Augustine worked out the Christological implications of his doctrine of grace since Vincent’s Excerpta derives from Augustine’s Christological and Trinitarian teachings. In the Commonitorium, Vincent stated an intention to develop his theological reflections at length later—a reference identified by Madoz and by O’Connor as foreshadowing the Excerpta—and, when he made good on that intention, he did so with constant recourse to writings by Augustine.39 The Excerpta is a closely constructed argument, no mere pastiche, and its integrated use of Augustinian themes indicates detailed knowledge of Augustine’s works as well as competent theological creativity. The style and substance of the Excerpta give good preliminary reasons to expect that Vincent understood Augustine’s Christology, his Trinitarian theology, and their implications. Already in the Commonitorium, Vincent outlined the chief features of his Christological teachings.40 Characteristic features are Vincent’s emphasis on the two natures, on Christ’s consubstantiality with God the Father and with the Virgin Mary, the stability of the individuating features of each nature even after the union, and the completeness of each nature. Additionally, Vincent uses the concrete noun homo to designate the human nature instantiated in Christ. There is also an acknowledgement—similar to Augustine’s point, in the Trinity. For, when the man was assumed, a quaternity was not produced, but there remained a trinity, since that assumption ineffably produced the truth of one person in God and man [neque enim homine assumpto quaternitas facta est, sed trinitas mansit, assumptione illa ineffabiliter faciente personae unius in deo et homine ueritatem].” 38. Ibid. 39. Vincent, Comm. 1.16.22 (Moxon, 65–66); Madoz, Excerpta Vincentii Lirinensis, 6; O’Connor, “Saint Vincent of Lerins,” 131–32. 40. For references and discussion of what follows, see A. M. C. Casiday, “Grace and the Humanity of Christ according to St Vincent of Lérins,” VC 59 (2005): 298–314.

148  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

as we have seen in his The Predestination of the Saints—that there is an irreducible inequality between the two natures (“one coeternal with and equal to the Father, the other temporal and less than the Father”).41 Vincent does not develop the implications of that inequality in this context, but he returns to these points in his Excerpta. Considering these features of Vincent’s Excerpta, we can begin to appreciate why Madoz’s struggle to reconcile the Excerpta with the paradigmatic view of Vincent as a staunch critic of Augustine as a theologian of grace cannot be convincing. Madoz claimed confirmation of this thesis by noting a passage in which Vincent’s Excerpta substituted the expression “gratiae singularis” for Augustine’s original “praedestiationis et gratiae.”42 But Madoz overlooked details from the Excerpta that complicated his straightforward parsing of Vincent’s attitude toward Augustine’s theology. For example, Vincent relates the quintessentially Augustinian claim that “therefore singularly assumed, singularly ‘predestinated is Jesus’ . . . ”—a passage to which O’Connor has given due attention.43 Vincent’s use of the term praedestinatus in this context makes it impossible to conclude with Madoz that Vincent was opposed to Augustine’s terminology of grace. Rather, this passage in the Excerpta indicates that Vincent was prepared to endorse Augustine’s anti-Pelagian Christology. Further confirmation that Vincent did indeed make Augustine’s anti-Pelagian Christology his own can be seen in one of the rare comments of his own that he inserts into the Excerpta. In the eighth section of the Excerpta, between his quotations from Letter 187 and The Predestination of the Saints 15, Vincent makes farreaching claims about the process of salvation.44 Vincent describes 41. Vincent, Comm. 1.13.19 (Moxon, 52): “una [substantia] coaeterna et aequalis patri altera ex tempore et minor patre.” 42. Vincent, Excerpta, 35–37; for a different reading of this substitution, see Casiday, “Grace and the Humanity of Christ.” 43. O’Connor, “Saint Vincent of Lerins and Saint Augustine,” 249–53; Vincent, Excerpta 8 (Madoz, 126), quoting Augustine’s praed. sanct. 15.31 (PL 44: 982). 44. Vincent, Excerpta 8 (Madoz, 124–25): “Ad conuincendum igitur atque aufer-

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  149

salvation as a humble God mercifully descending in order to cure “man swollen with pride” (ad elatum hominem per superbiam Deus humilis descendit per misercordiam). Vincent goes to some lengths to distinguish the relationship of God and “that man” (in illo homine) that obtains in Christ from how God relates to other people. These features are redolent of Augustine’s Christological arguments against Pelagianism, but Vincent carries forward his own analysis using terms that are striking. Most conspicuous are these four expressions: “a singular and distinctive grace” (gratiam singularem praecipuamque), “and it did not happen by the antecedent merits of his will” (neque . . . praecedentibus suae uoluntatis meritis fecit, per singularem Dei donum), but “as a special gift from God” (per singulare Dei donum), and “not through ordinary human freewill” (non . . . per commune hominum liberum arbitrium). These phrases establish the parameters for the relationship between divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ. They also, and not incidentally, define that relationship as being totally unique. But most significantly they do so using the technical terminology of Augustinian grace. In fact, Vincent explicitly endorses the Augustinian argument that the “assumed man” cannot possibly merit being assumed “by the antecedent merits of his will.” There is no possibility that such a relationship could be earned, because it can only come to be “as a special gift from God” and never “by ordinary human freewill.” With such extensive use of anti-Pelagian terms about grace, Vincent’s Christology stands squarely in the tradition of Augustine’s own teaching about the predestination of the “assumed man.” When he makes his account of the uniqueness of Christ, Vincent endum tumorem mortalium talis medicina caelitus uenit, ad elatum hominem per superbiam Deus humilis descendit per misercordiam, gratiam singularem praecipuamque commendans in illo homine, quem tanta prae participibus suis caritate suscepit. Neque enim et ipse ita Verbo Dei coniunctus ut et coniunctione unus Filius Dei et ipse unus filius hominis fieret, praecedentibus suae uoluntatis meritis fecit. Unum quippe illum esse oportebat; essent autem et duo et tres et plures, si hoc fieri non posset per singulare Dei donum, sed per commune hominum liberum arbitrium.”

150  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

effortlessly connects multiple claims about grace and predestination in an unmistakably anti-Pelagian way. Vincent’s profound hostility toward heresy (as evident from his denunciations of Arianism, Photinianism, and Nestorianism) is directed chiefly against currents of Pelagianism and, to redress those currents, he made extensive and informed use of Augustine’s doctrines. Because Augustine’s arguments against Pelagianism about grace and predestination are recapitulated in a specifically Augustinian Christology, the recurrence of critical Augustinian terminology about grace, predestination, and Christ within Vincent’s Excerpta tells against the presumption that Vincent was a principled opponent of Augustine’s teachings on those fronts.

Varieties of the Augustinian Experience Vincent’s reputation as an eminent theologian rests on his articulation of (what we might anachronistically call) a method for historical theology in his Commonitorium. With assertions pungent and prosaic, Vincent’s Commonitorium provides numerous examples of good and bad technique in interpreting the Scriptures and in responding to the works of earlier theologians. This is well and good; but what the Commonitorium fails to provide is a sustained theological analysis of a significant theme: hence, the importance of his Excerpta. A full study of Vincent’s Christology is beyond the scope of this chapter. What I have demonstrated instead in these pages is that the form and content of Vincent’s Christological and Trinitarian treatise are both derived from Augustine and incorporate—indeed, advance—Augustine’s characteristically antiPelagian assertions about grace and predestination. Further study of Vincent’s sophisticated response to Augustine’s controversial anti-Pelagian works needs to begin with the Excerpta. Such study adds desirable nuance to the study of Augustine’s reception. As Augustine’s legacy was passed to the subsequent generation, its inheritors were not constrained by the categories

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  151

of thinking that are most immediate to us. The first generation of heirs was receptive to currents that may now resonate only feebly, if at all, for us. There is no reason to assume that the categories of Christian doctrine (of whatever confession) provide the best conceptual tools for an interpretation of that process. For an example of a theologically driven interpretation that displays methodological limitations, we can turn one last time to O’Connor’s landmark study. O’Connor seems to presume that Augustine’s heritage was monolithic, such that any inheritors of Augustine’s work would be substantially in agreement with one another and critiquing any heir is therefore tantamount to undermining Augustine himself. This presumption can be seen at work in O’Connor’s flawed evaluation of the Objectiones, which seeks to make Augustine himself and his own ideas the target of that work. That O’Connor was able to conceive of someone within the Augustinian tradition arguing against others within that tradition is manifest in his insightful analysis of Vincent’s use of the term “conventiculus” in the Commonitorium. O’Connor notes that this sect think that they are all bound to be saved by virtue of belonging to the group. He thus draws the conclusion that probably Vincent provided an astute description of a local group of Christians who admired Augustine intensely and sought from his writings to emphasize predestination extremely, losing, for instance, Augustine’s own recognition of the necessity (but not the sufficiency) of personal involvement in the process.45 O’Connor’s reconstruction makes clear his recognition that some enthusiastic readers of Augustine’s books promoted teachings that were not consistent with a wide reading of the Augustinian corpus. So although O’Connor understood that different readers were coming to different conclusions about Augustine, he nevertheless lacks the recognition that such people in all likelihood embraced different, or competing, or even irreducibly hostile, interpretations of Augustine’s theology. 45. See note 17.

152  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

This subtle interpretation of the Commonitorium makes the first platform of O’Connor’s reading of the Objectiones all the more startling. It demonstrates a pronounced commitment to put Augustine beyond criticism: We shall endeavour to demonstrate that the doctrine expounded in the Objections is so evidently foreign to the mind of Augustine, as expressed in his works, that no intelligent man who studied these same works, could ever have, in good faith and without malice, attributed it to him.46

Since O’Connor accepts, on the strength of the Excerpta, that Vincent was an attentive student of Augustine’s works, O’Connor does not accept that Vincent wrote the Objectiones. But then O’Connor immediately proceeds, it seems, to solve his own problem in the subsequent lines: The objections are aimed more directly against Prosper, Hilaire, and other followers, and defenders of the doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo, than against the Holy Doctor himself, who was already dead two years, when the work was written, as is clear from the replies of Prosper and the title of these replies, as they are found among the works of Saint Prosper. Consequently, though apparently against Prosper and Hilaire, they were intended as an attack on the doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo.47

Prosper’s testimony about the intentions of the author of a work he rejected is of doubtful value.48 On the other hand, there is much sense in O’Connor’s claim that the Objectiones are “aimed more directly against Prosper, Hilaire, and other followers, and defenders of the doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo”—so long as we add “and elaborators” to the running description of possible relationships to Augustine’s doctrine. After all, it is reasonably clear that proponents of exaggerated Augustinian doctrines proliferated. Future research needs to be conducted into Vincent’s writings 46. O’Connor, “Saint Vincent of Lerins,” 156. 47. Ibid. 48. Elsewhere, I have criticized Prosper’s fairness in the polemic Contra collatorem and argued for treating Prosper’s claims in general with discretion; see A. Casiday, “Rehabilitating John Cassian,” SJT 58 (2005): 270–84.

RESPONDING TO AUGUSTINE’S LEGACY  153

and those by other contemporaries by scholars conscientious of widespread assumptions that Augustinianism was monolithic in the decades immediately following Augustine’s death. It is incumbent upon students of early medieval Christianity to acknowledge the diversity that is revealed in surviving evidence, even at the cost of an elegantly simple summary. What the evidence from Vincent’s works suggests is that a mature reading of those works has been hampered by unconsidered assumptions about Vincent’s membership in a group of anti-Augustinian monks—even though that group itself is a construct that has been worked up from hints and allegations found in sources immoderate in their hostility to perceived opposition. Contemporary historiography of fifthcentury Gaul retains a strong presumption that there was a dominant, normative reception of Augustinian theology (identified first and foremost as his teachings on grace as exemplified in the subsequent generation in the teachings of Prosper of Aquitaine), and that any divergence whatever from that normative position justifies a modern presumption that those divergences are part of a subversive agenda. Once that agenda has been posited, it provides the terms in which all other receptions of Augustine’s writings and thinking are interpreted, often to their detriment. When pursued relentlessly enough, this approach even makes it difficult to come to a satisfactory reading of Prosper of Aquitaine’s own take on Augustinian theology. His later writings depart from the “strict” Augustinianism of the earlier works. But, as Alexander Hwang has shown, this departure from unswerving Augustinianism (whatever that might be) is actually better understood in terms of the evolution of Prosper’s own thinking, which was chiefly concerned with exploring the sources of theological legitimacy and authority and which led him gradually to modify his position on predestination.49 Despite those modifications, no one considers 49. Alexander Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009).

154  AUGUSTINE CASI DAY

Prosper to have been an anti-Augustinian. By the same token, we are justified in allowing a margin for critical engagement with Augustinian themes in the works of Prosper’s contemporaries without treating those contemporaries, among whom Vincent surely stands out conspicuously, as having been anti-Augustinian simply because their reception of Augustine was creative and critical.

9

FULGENT IUS OF RUSPE ON THE

SAV ING WILL OF GOD

Francis X. Gumerlock

The Difficulty of 1 Tim. 2:4 for Augustine and Others While early Greek biblical commentators experienced little or no difficulty interpreting the New Testament passage which says that God “wills all humans to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), for Augustine and those who followed his later views on predestination, interpreting this verse became a Herculean task.1 Augustine’s attempt to reconcile divine predestination with this assertion of God’s universal saving will resulted in at least five different interpretations in his writings.2 After 1. H. B. Swete, ed., Theodori episcope Mopsuesteni in epistolas B. Pauli commentarii, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1882), 87n11: “Th.’s statement [on 1 Tim. 2:4] seems to accord with the judgement of the other Greek fathers, who were disposed to accept S. Paul’s words in their prima facie sense.” Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 29. Cited in William G. Most, Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will of God (Front Royal, Va.: Christendom Press, 1997), 106; John Chrysostom, Homily 18 on Hebrews (NPNF 14: 451); Homily 1 on Ephesians (NPNF 13: 52); Andrew of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Commentarius in Apocalypsin (PG 106: 403–6); John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith II.29 (NPNF, 2nd series 9: 42). 2. Augustine, Spir. et litt., 58; cat. rud., 26; epp. 149.2, 217.6, 226; corrept., 44–

155

156  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

Augustine’s death, Prosper of Aquitaine devoted two entire books De vocatione omnium gentium to the explanation of this one brief passage.3 A century later, Fulgentius of Ruspe, described recently as “the foremost North African theologian of his day,” was still grappling with its interpretation.4 This chapter demonstrates that, for help in his interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4, Fulgentius employed classical literary theory, namely, the figure of speech called synecdoche. Synecdoche is that figure in which a part is used for a whole, or a whole used for a part.5 For Fulgentius, God does not want “all” or the whole of humankind to be saved, but only a part, that is, that portion of humanity divinely chosen for salvation out of all nations and all classes of people. Before analyzing Fulgentius’s interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4, this chapter will first provide a short account of his life and explore in some detail the historical context of his comments. Finally, it will place his thoughts within the larger frameworks of North African biblical interpretation and exegesis in late antiquity. Claudius Gordianus Fulgentius, more widely known as Fulgentius of Ruspe, was born in 468 and raised in a wealthy, noble 47; civ. Dei, 22.I.2; ench., 103; c. Jul., 4.8. Studies of Augustine’s interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4 include A. Hwang, “Augustine’s Interpretations of 1 Tim. 2:4,” SP 43 (2006): 137–42; D. Ogliari, Gratia et Certamen (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 357–66; Vittorino Grossi, “La cuestión de la voluntad salvífica en los últimos escritos de Augustin (420–27),” Augustinus 36 (1991): 127–39; Athanase Sage, “La volonté salvifique universelle de Dieu dan la pensée de saint Augustin,” RechAug 3 (1965): 107–31; Jean Chéné, “Saint Augustin enseigne-t-il dans le De spiritu et littera l’universalité de la volonté salvifique de Dieu?” RechSR 47 (1959): 215–24; Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “La volonté salvifique chez saint Augustin,” Revue Thomiste 35 (1930): 473–86. 3. Prosper of Aquitaine, De vocatione omnium gentium (CCL 97). 4. Thomas S. Ferguson, “Fulgentius of Ruspe,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians, ed. Patrick W. Carey and Joseph T. Lienhard (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2000), 203. 5. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible: Illustrated and Explained (London: Messrs. Eyre Spottiswoode, 1898; reprinted Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1968), 613. This enduring 1,100-page work was in its twenty-first printing in 1997. A synecdoche is “when a part of a thing is put by a kind of Metonymy for the whole of it, or the whole for a part.”

FULGENTI US  157

family in the province of Byzacena in Vandal North Africa.6 Educated in Greek and Latin literature, he became fiscal procurator of the province as a young adult. Around 493, when he was in his mid-twenties, he resigned from his position and joined a monastery in the desert area near his home. Later he served as co-abbot of the monastery. Having relocated to Sicca Veneria and Ididi in Mauritania, afterward he traveled to Syracuse in Sicily and to Rome and lived on the deserted island of Junca off the coast of modern Tunisia. Around 507, Fulgentius was consecrated bishop of the coastal seaport of Ruspe, which is now Kudiat Rosfa in Tunisia. Soon after his ordination, the Arian Vandal king Thrasamund banished about sixty Catholic bishops, including Fulgentius, to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. From Cagliari, on the southern tip of Sardinia, he and the other bishops founded monasteries. Recalled to Carthage by the same king in 515 to debate the doctrine of the Trinity with the Arian bishops, Fulgentius was sent back to Sardinia in 517 where he resided until Thrasamund died in 523. In that year, he returned to his see in Ruspe where he lived another ten years.7

The Occasion for Fulgentius’s Epistula 17 Around 520, during the period of his second exile to Sardinia, Fulgentius was dragged into a controversy on grace and free will 6. Recent scholarship distinguishes Fulgentius of Ruspe from Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, also known as “Fulgentius the Mythographer.” The reasons for the distinction are delineated in Gregory Hays, “The Date and Identity of the Mythographer Fulgentius,” Journal of Medieval Latin 13 (2003): 163–252. 7. A main source for the details regarding the life of Fulgentius is the Vita Fulgentiii, written shortly after his death by a monk who lived in a monastery with Fulgentius in Cagliari. Gabriel G. Lapeyre, Vie de saint Fulgence de Ruspe par Ferrand (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1929). English translation in Fulgentius, Selected Works, trans. Robert B. Eno (FC 95), 1–56. On the life of Fulgentius, see my Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God, Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 2009), 16–22; and Yves Modéran, “La chronologie de la vie de saint Fulgence de Ruspe et ses incidences sur l’histoire de l’Afrique vandale,” in Melanges de l’ecole Francaise de Rome antiquite 105 (1993): 135–88.

158  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

taking place in Constantinople between certain Scythian monks and others in that city. The monks wrote to Fulgentius for his input and he responded with Epistula 17.8 In this letter, Fulgentius gave considerable attention to the interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4 and the saving will of God. In 518 or early 519 a group of Latin-speaking monks from Scythia, more specifically the city of Tomi in the region south of where the Danube River runs into the Black Sea, went to Constantinople to seek imperial approval of their “theopaschite” formula.9 These monks were intent on restoring unity to the church which had recently experienced serious divisions over Christology in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon (451). The recognized leader of the monks was John Maxentius.10 For almost forty years, the relationship between the sees of Rome and Constantinople had been strained in what is known as the Acacian schism.11 Many in Alexandria, following the Christology 8. Epistula 17 is edited in J. Fraipont, ed., Sancti Fulgentii episcopi Ruspensis opera (CCL 91A: 563–615). Italian: Fulgenzio di Ruspe, Le Lettere, trans. Antonio Isola (Rome: Città Nuova, 1999), 391–470. Short excerpts in English are translated in David Maxwell, “Christology and Grace in the Sixth-Century Latin West: The Theopaschite Controversy,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Notre Dame, 2003), 218–37, and W. A. Jurgens, trans., The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 3 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1979), 287–89. 9. Papal delegates were sent from Rome to Constantinople on February 1, 519. They arrived on March 25, 519, the Monday of Holy Week. The Scythian monks were already in Constantinople when they arrived. On the origin of the Scythian monks, William C. Bark, “John Maxentius and the Collectio Palatina,” Harvard Theological Review 36 (1943): 93–107 at 103–4; and Bark, “Marius Mercator and the Collectio Palatina,” Ph.D. diss. (Cornell University, 1936), 104–6. 10. On monks in Constantinople at the time, Peter Hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 11. Primary sources related to the Acacian schism are translated in P. R. Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church: A Collection of Legal Documents to A.D. 535, 3 vols. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1966), 3: 915–67. Secondary literature on the schism includes J. N. D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 46–54; W. H. C. Frend, “The Acacian Schism and Its Aftermath,” in The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 807–27; Frend, “Eastern Attitudes to Rome in the Acacian Schism,” in The Orthodox Churches and the West, ed. D. Baker, Studies in Church History 12 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell & Mott, 1976), 69–81; Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Chris-

FULGENTI US  159

of Cyril, claimed that Christ had only one nature and rejected the two-nature Christology of the Council of Chalcedon, believing that it was Nestorian. Rome followed the two-nature Christology reflected in the Tome of Leo and the Creed of Chalcedon. The archbishop of Constantinople found it difficult to maintain religious unity with both the patriarchate of Alexandria and the see of Rome. In an attempt to heal the division, the Scythian monks proposed a solution: those who support the Council of Chalcedon can show that they are not Nestorians by subscribing to the formula, “One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh.”12 This proposal at first met negative reaction, and the disagreement that ensued is called the theopaschite controversy. Condemnation of Pelagians and “Pelagian” tenets also played a significant role in the theopaschite controversy. Some scholars interpret the condemnation of Pelagians by the supporters of thetian Tradition, vol. 2, part 1 (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975), 236–317; Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 143–254; Francis Dvornik, “Growth of the Idea of Apostolicity During the Acacian Schism,” chapter three in The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958). 12. Secondary literature on the theopaschite controversy includes Maxwell, “Christology and Grace in the Sixth-Century Latin West: The Theopaschite Controversy”; Grillmeier, “One of the Trinity Was Crucified,” chapter one in Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2, part 2 (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 317–43; J. A. McGuckin, “The ‘Theopaschite Confession’ (Text and Historical Context): A Study in the Cyrilline Re-interpretation of Chalcedon,” JEH 35 (1984): 239–55; Franciscus Glorie, “Prolegomena” in Maxentii aliorumque Scytharum monachorum Ioannis Tomitanae urbis episcopi opuscula (CCL 85A), xxiii–xli; John Meyendorff, “God Suffered in the Flesh,” chapter 4 of Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975), 69–89; Berthold Altaner, “Zum Schriftttum der ‘skythischen’ (gotischen) Mönche,” in Kleine patristische Schriften (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 489–506; Jean Chéné, “Unus de Trinitate passus est,” RechScRel 53 (1965): 545–88; Milton V. Anastos, “Justinian’s Despotic Control over the Church as Illustrated by His Edicts on the Theopaschite Formula and His Letter to Pope John II in 533,” in Mélanges Georges Ostrogorsky, vol. 2 (Belgrade: Institut d’Études byzantines, 1964), 1–11; Werner Elert, “Die Theopaschitische Formel,” Theologische Literaturzeitung (1950): 195–206; M. Richard, “Proculus de Constantinople et le théophaschisme,” RHE 38 (1942): 303–31; Viktor Schurr, Die Trinitätslehre des Boethius im Lichte der “skythischen Kontroversen” (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1935); William Holden Hutton, The Church of the Sixth Century (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), 145–48.

160  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

opaschitism as merely a tactical move by the Scythian monks to gain Western support for their theopaschite Christology.13 However, historical theologian David Maxwell has recently demonstrated rather convincingly that the theology of grace was an important issue to the Scythian monks from the very beginning of the controversy, and that from the standpoint of these monks Christology and grace were essentially connected doctrines.14 In Constantinople, the Scythian monks had a few powerful allies: the high-ranking military official Vitalian, who was a relative of one of the monks and in whose home the visiting monks resided, and various piissimi principii.15 In the spring of 519 Maxentius and his monks were feuding bitterly with Victor, a deacon to the archbishop of Constantinople, over Maxentius’s Capitula. Having met resistance from Victor regarding theopaschitism, Maxentius accused him of being Nestorian. Maxentius then sought audience with papal legates in Constantinople to accept his theopaschite formula. These papal legates had arrived in Constantinople from Rome just before Easter, and effected reconciliation between the two sees, putting an official end to the Acacian schism. Maxentius presented his theopaschite formula in the form of a libellus. However, the legates asserted that subscription to the canons and creed of the four councils and to the letters of Pope Leo were sufficient for orthodox Christology, and perceived Maxentius as an impediment to unity. Maxentius’s capitula and libellus, along with their anti-Nestorian 13. Thomas A. Smith, De gratia: Faustus of Riez’s Treatise on Grace and Its Place in the History of Theology (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 3; R. A. Markus, “The Legacy of Pelagius: Orthodoxy, Heresy and Conciliation,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. Rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 214–34 at 223; McGuckin, “The ‘Theopaschite Confession,’” 245. 14. Maxwell, “Christology and Grace in the Sixth-Century Latin West,” and his “Theopaschites: Ancient and Modern,” a paper delivered at the 27th Annual Symposium on Lutheran Confessions, Fort Wayne, Ind., January 2004, 11–14. Another study illustrating the connection between Christology and grace in the early church is Donald Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 15. Glorie, “Prolegomena,” xxvii.

FULGENTI US  161

propositions and anathemas, had very Augustinian-sounding propositions on original sin, free will, and grace; and they contained anathemas against Pelagians.16 Disappointed by the response of Victor and the papal legates, the Scythian monks left Constantinople for Rome to seek support for theopaschitism in person from the pope. They arrived in the eternal city in the summer of 519 and resided there for fourteen months.17 Maxentius, however, stayed back in Constantinople. Justinian I, of the imperial family in Constantinople, also involved himself in the controversy while his uncle Justin was reigning as emperor. In June 519 Justinian wrote to Pope Hormisdas, warning him that the Scythian monks were on their way to Rome and that Hormisdas should not receive them.18 However, shortly thereafter, before Hormsidas had a chance to reply, Justinian wrote again to the pope expressing that the theopaschite formula might reconcile the orthodox and Monophysites. The letter also urged Hormisdas to decide quickly on the formula’s orthodoxy.19 Then a third letter in October of that year from Justinian sought a definitive reply on the theopaschite formula from the pope.20 In 520 Justinian again, through a letter, pressed Hormisdas to decide on the definition that one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh.21 In the letter, Justinian defended the formula, citing in support of it Augustine, some of whose writings Justinian had in a florilegium, and requested a complete answer from Hormisdas.22 Hormisdas was 16. Maxentius’s Chapters and a portion of his Booklet on the Faith are translated in my “Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God,” 199–207. 17. The Scythian monks were in Rome from June 519 to August 520 according to Isola, Fulgenzio di Ruspe Le Lettere, 370; and Antonio Quacquarelli, “Papa Ormisda al vescovo Possessore,” Vetera Christianorum 30 (1993): 5–15 at 6. 18. CSEL 35: 644–45. English: Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church, 3: 968–70. 19. CSEL 35: 648–49. Coleman-Norton, 970–72. 20. CSEL 35: 645–46. Coleman-Norton, 972–73. 21. CSEL 35: 655–56. Coleman-Norton, 989–91. 22. On the florilegium, Altaner, “Zum Schrifttum der ‘skythischen’ (gotischen) Mönche,” 491–92.

162  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

hesitant to accept the theopaschite formula, and withheld ratification of it. In 533, however, Pope John II succeeded Hormisdas; and Justinian corresponded with him about the theopaschite formula, to which the new pope replied in 534 that it was fully orthodox.23 As for Justinian, from 527 when he became the sole ruler, the theopaschite teaching “was not omitted from any document [of his] related to Christology.”24 The Codex Iustinianus made it an essential part of his confession, as did Justinian’s confession of faith addressed to the citizens of Constantinople in March of 553.25 Back in Rome in 519, the Scythian monks presented their libellus to Pope Hormisdas; and it was also read by all of the senators and by a gathering of bishops. Hormisdas, however, was hesitant to make any ruling upon it because the papal legates had written to him speaking negatively about the Scythian monks; and the monks in turn had made accusations against the legates. Hormisdas wanted to wait until the legates returned from Constantinople so that he could sort out the issues between them face to face. Therefore, Hormisdas kept the monks in Rome during the fall of 519 and winter of 520 to await the arrival of the legates.26 Meanwhile, the Scythian monks residing in Rome wrote a letter to Fulgentius and the African bishops living in exile in Sardinia. According to Franciscus Glorie, they wrote the letter, a reworking of the Libellus of Maxentius, in December of 519 or January of 520.27 It was taken to Sardinia by a deacon named John.28 The letter presents the Scythian monks’ version of the orthodox faith 23. Anastos, “Justinian’s Despotic Control,” 10. 24. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, 2, 2: 338. 25. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, 2, 2: 339. 26. However, the Scythian monks left Rome before the legates returned. 27. Scythian monks, Epistula Scytharum monachorum ad episcopos also in Fulgentius, Epistula 16 (CCL 85A: 157–72; CCL 91A: 551–62; English: McGuckin, “The ‘Theopaschite Confession’”; Italian: Isola, Fulgenzio di Ruspe. Le Lettere, 369– 90). On its date, Glorie, “Prolegomena,” xxxii–xxxiii; and Isola, “In marine a una lettura dell’epistolario fulgenziano,” Sacris Erudiri 37 (1997): 57–110 at 107; Isola, Fulgenzio di Ruspe. Le Lettere, 369–70. 28. Susan T. Stevens, “The Circle of Bishop Fulgentius,” Traditio 38 (1982): 327– 41 at 331.

FULGENTI US  163

to the bishops of the African province, asking for their judgment in the hope that a vindication of their faith by the Africans would strengthen their case.29 Besides the Christological issues important to the Scythian monks, their letter also touched upon the issue of grace and shows that the Scythian monks had been heavily influenced by Augustine’s later anti-Pelagian writings. It is obvious from their letter that they were involved in a controversy on grace, since along with their own views on grace they published the opinions of those who were opposing them. From later correspondence of John Maxentius, we learn that the ringleader in Constantinople against the position of the Scythian monks on grace and free will was an African bishop named Possessor living in exile there.30 In Constantinople, Possessor had quite a bit of theological and political influence. He wrote a commentary on the Pauline epistles, which he had given to Pope Hormisdas as a gift.31 He preached “with great authority” and had a deacon named Justin assisting him with his pastoral duties in the city.32 Possessor also had connections in high places. These included relationships with the aforementioned magister militum Vitalian and Justinian I, both of whom were aware of the controversy.33 In addition, Posses29. McGuckin, “The ‘Theopaschite Confession,’” 247. 30. John Maxentius (Responsio Maxentii Ioannis servi dei adversus epistulam quam ad Possessorem a Romano episcopo dicunt haeretici destinatam, 40–41 [CCL 85A: 143]) speaks of those who were defending the books of Faustus, among whom the “princeps et auctor est Possessor Africanus episcopus.” Possessor was bishop of Zabi or Zabensis, now Bechilga in Algeria. See W. Geerlings, “Possessor,” in Dictionary of Early Christian Literature, ed. Siegman Döpp and Wilhelm Geerlings (New York: Crossroads, 2000), 496; Isola, Fulgenzio di Ruspe. Le Lettere, 367n10; André Mondouze, Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1982), 889. 31. Mention of the commentary is in Possessor, Relatio Possessoris episcopi Afri. Per Iustinum diaconum eius, Otto Guenther, ed., Epistulae imperatorum pontificum aliorum (CSEL 35: 695–96). Cf. PL 65: 489–90. To my knowledge, the Pauline commentary is not extant. 32. On Possessor preaching with great authority, see Maxentius, Responsio 41 (CCL 85A: 143): “magnam praedicat auctoritatem.” Justin, Possessor’s deacon, is mentioned in the title of Possessor’s Relatio (CSEL 35: 695; PL 65: 489). 33. Possessor, Relatio (CSEL 35: 696). In this letter to Pope Hormisdas, Possessor

164  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

sor had a following with respect to his views on grace; for Maxentius spoke of “those who agree with” Possessor, and the Scythian monks frequently mentioned their opponents in the plural.34 These opponents of the Scythian monks had a catchphrase or slogan that encapsulated their view of how salvation is transacted between God and man: “It is ours to choose, but God’s to finish,” or in another version, “It is mine to choose to believe, but it is the grace of God to help.”35 The Scythian monks also reported their opponents as saying, “Grace does not come to me unless I first choose it.”36 From these reports, their ordo salutis was that human free choice comes first, followed by the grace of God.37 Possessor and his theological allies in Constantinople seem to asks about the authority of Faustus of Riez on matters related to grace and says that Vitalian and Justinian also desire to be informed on the matter. For Hormisdas’s reply, see CCL 85A: 115–21; CSEL 35: 696–700; PL 45: 1777–778. 34. Maxentius, Responsio, epilogue (CCL 85A: 153). Cf. CCL 85A: 143, 145, 167–68. 35. Cited in John Maxentius, Libellus fidei 18 (CCL 85A: 25): “Nostrum est velle, dei vero perficere”; Scythian monks, Epistula Scytharum monachorum ad episcopos 19 (CCL 91A: 558): “Meum est velle credere, Dei autem gratia est adiuvare.” Variations of the slogans mentioned previously were circulating in the empire for at least a century. For example, Hilary of Poitiers (d. 368), Tractatus in CXVII psalmum (PL 9: 610): “ex nobis autem initium est, ut ille perficiat.” “But the beginning is from us, that he may finish.” Jerome (d. 420), Dialogue against Pelagians III.1 (PL 23: 596): “It is ours to ask, to him it belongs to bestow what we ask; ours to begin, his it is to finish.” It also appears in Homily 11 of the Gallic bishop Valerian of Céméle (d. c. 460) (PL 52: 726): “Nostrum est igitur bonum velle, Christi vero perficere.” “Therefore it is ours to choose the good, but Christ’s to finish.” On Valerian’s theology of grace, Carlo Tibiletti, “Valeriano di Cimiez e la teologia dei Maestri Provenzali,” Aug 22 (1982): 513–32. The scriptural basis of the slogan seems to have been Rom. 7:18, which in an Old Latin version the Apostle says: “velle adiacet mihi, perficere autem non invenio.” “To choose is present with me; but to finish I do not find.” Cf. Ennodius of Milan, Epistola 56 Constantio (MGH, AA VII: 71); Origen, Commentary on Romans. On Rom. 7:14-25 (PG 14: 1087). 36. Scythian monks, Epistula Scytharum monachorum ad episcopos 23 (CCL 91A: 560; McGuckin, “The ‘Theopaschite Confession,’” 253). 37. Possessor and his followers most likely believed that certain graces come before the movement of free will. These graces include Christ’s incarnation and death on behalf of humanity, the many graces associated with infant baptism, the preaching of the word of God, God’s invitations and exhortations, and the image of God in human nature. What they denied was the necessity of a special enabling grace for believing in Christ and choosing good. See John Maxentius, Responsio, 46 (CCL 85A: 145).

FULGENTI US  165

have based their soteriological ideas on the concept that human free will lies as the basis of punishments and rewards, a notion that is not necessarily anti-Augustinian.38 They reportedly believed, in agreement with Faustus of Riez’s De gratia, that “God awaits the human will, so that there may be an equitable reward in the case of the willing, and a just condemnation in the case of the unwilling.”39 In other words, in order for God to be just in distributing rewards and punishments to people, it is a prerequisite that human actions are done freely. However, their concept of God awaiting a person’s will, rather than God first actively converting or liberating one’s will with interior grace, was particularly unsettling to the Scythian monks. It does not appear that these opponents of the Scythian monks put down their opinions in writing. The Scythian monks never mentioned Possessor’s commentary on the Pauline epistles or any other writings of their opponents which presented their viewpoint. Rather, on the literary level the opponents of the Scythian monks simply defended the treatise on grace by Faustus of Riez.40 Maxentius mentions that “those who try to defend him [Faustus] as catholic say, ‘But Faustus does not attribute the first part to man, but to the grace of God,’” and that Faustus’s defenders cited from his De gratia 1.5 to support their point. To this, Maxentius explained that what Faustus means by grace is not an internal work of the Holy Spirit by which a person is made obedient but rather the mere external preaching of the word.41 38. Cf. Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, 2. 39. Scythian monks, Epistula Scytharum monachorum ad episcopos, 20 (CCL 91A: 559; McGuckin, “The ‘Theopaschite Confession,’” 252). Cf. Faustus of Riez, De gratia 1.18; 2.12 (CSEL 21: 56, 91). 40. Maxentius, Responsio 61 (CCL 85A: 153). Each of their opinions, as reported by the Scythian monks in their letter to the African bishops, are preceded by dicunt, “they say,” perhaps suggesting that the debate was more oral than literary on the side of Maxentius’s opponents. 41. Maxentius, Responsio 46 (CCL 85A: 145). For a summary of how the writings of Faustus came into the theopashite-grace controversy, see Maxwell, “Christology and Grace,” 147–53.

166  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

Concerning how 1 Tim. 2:4 and the saving will of God entered the controversy, the Scythian monks reported to Fulgentius that the “heretics” were arguing in this manner: If, as you Scythian monks say, no one is able to believe naturally or choose anything good pertaining to eternal life, but rather God makes it so that a person chooses to believe, why then does God not make all men willing, since he is no respecter of persons and “wills all persons to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4)?42 From this report of their rhetorical question, it can be inferred that the opponents of the Scythian monks believed that God’s saving will is universal, and they cited 1 Timothy 2:4 as support. However, human willingness plays a significant role in the actualization of that salvation. For, if it depended entirely upon God who is no respecter of persons, God would make everyone willing. Fulgentius, a devotee of Augustine, had many things to say in response to this.

The Limitation of God’s Saving Will in Fulgentius’s Epistula 17 Fulgentius’s answer to the Scythian monks, preserved as Epistula 17 among his works, was a synodal letter written in the early part of 520 in the name of fifteen African bishops that were exiled in Sardinia.43 Chapters 1 and 67 are the introduction and epilogue, re42. Scythian monks, Epistula Scytharum monachorum ad episcopos 20 (CCL 91A: 559; McGuckin, “The ‘Theopashite Confession,’” 252). We only have evidence of this line of argumentation as it was reported by their adversaries. It is probable that these views were expressed in Possessor’s commentary on the Pauline epistles, perhaps on Rom. 7:18 and 1 Tim. 2:4. However, this question was popular among those who opposed the predestinarianism of Augustine and his followers. Responses to it are in Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, 14; Januarius, Epistula ad Valentinum; and Caesarius of Arles, De gratia. 43. The extent, if any, that the other exiled African bishops influenced Fulgentius’s views on the extent of God’s saving will is a topic worthy of further investigation. On the date of 520 for Epistula 17, Glorie says that the Scythian monks in Rome wrote their letter to Fulgentius in December 519 or January 520. However, the seas were normally closed between October and April. Therefore, the letter carrier, John the deacon, may not have gotten to Cagliari, Sardinia, until well into the

FULGENTI US  167

spectively. Chapters 2 through 22 treat Christological issues, while chapters 23 through 66 deal with the subject of grace.44 Concerning Christology, Fulgentius and the African bishops gave their support to the theopaschite formula, adding a slight clarification so that it read: “One person of the Trinity, Christ, the only begotten Son of God,” suffered in the flesh.45 In the section on grace, Fulgentius explained the damaging effects of Adam’s transgression on his descendants, that grace must precede free will in order for a person to believe, and that it is improper to assign the beginning of faith to oneself. Chapters 42 through 66 deal with the extent of God’s saving will. Fulgentius begins to answer the objection that the position of the Scythian monks makes God a respecter of persons. Fulgentius turns the tables on this argument and says that if God gives grace on the basis of his finding a good will in a person, as the opponents would have it, then that makes him a respecter of persons, namely, of those who have a good will. But the truth of the matter, according to Fulgentius, is that God “finds a good will in no one,” and that everyone who receives the gift of faith receives it gratuitously. Concerning why God does not make everyone willing, Fulgentius appeals to Rom. 9:21, which says that a potter has power over his clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and also another for dishonor.46 Next, Fulgentius explains that the belief that faith is a divine gift does not mean that faith is inimical to human nature.47 He then teaches that human nature is insufficient for performing spring. But the Scythian monks would have pressed the Africans there for an urgent response, which they could take back to Rome before the arrival of the papal legates coming back from Constantinople. Therefore, Fulgentius’s response, Epistula 17, was most likely written in May of the year 520. 44. Isola, Fulgenzio di Ruspe. Le Lettere, 391; Isola, “In margine a una lettura dell’epistolario fulgenziano,” 107. 45. CCL 91A: 576–77. Cf. Bark, “Marius Mercator and the Collectio Palatina,” 353; Hutton, The Church of the Sixth Century, 145–46. 46. CCL 91A: 596. 47. CCL 91A: 597–600.

168  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

works that result in justification by God.48 Concerning why God does not make everyone believe, Fulgentius writes that those who ask the question are trying to scrutinize the “higher things” which scripture forbids (Eccl. 3:22).49 A proper interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4, for Fulgentius, is bound within the truth of divine omnipotence. “Since scripture testifies,” he says, “All things whatsoever he willed, he did (Ps. 115:3), there is nothing that he has willed and has not done. . . . For, it is evil for someone to say that the Omnipotent is not able to do something that he willed to do.”50 With this as a presupposition, Fulgentius rejects the idea that a general will of God for the salvation of everyone exists. Since no one, he writes, should think “that the will of the omnipotent God in some way cannot be fulfilled or that it can be impeded in some way,” all whom God wills to be saved without doubt are saved. “Truly, by these all persons whom God wills to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4) are signified not the entire human race completely, but the entirety of all who are to be saved.”51 To support this interpretation, the exiled bishop interjects the text of Acts 2:38-39, saying that in this passage Peter used the term “all” but then defined it as “as many as the Lord will call.” He writes, And so that we might know more fully who those “all” are, let us listen to the words of the same blessed Peter who, speaking by the Holy Spirit, concluded that Joel’s prediction was fulfilled in the exhortation where he says: Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. “For, the promise is for you, and for your children, and for as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39). And so he says “all,” but “as many as the Lord will call.” Also, blessed Paul refers to them as those “called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).52

48. CCL 91A: 600–606. 50. CCL 91A: 614. 52. CCL 91A: 611–12.

49. CCL 91A: 606–7. 51. CCL 91A: 610–11.

FULGENTI US  169

1 Timothy 2:4 Contains a Synecdoche: “All” Means a Part Fulgentius continues that when the Apostle said that God wills all persons to be saved, he really meant “all kinds” of persons. He explains, “They are called ‘all’ because divine goodness saves all those from all humanity, that is, from every nation, condition, and age, from every language and from every province.”53 Fulgentius justified this synecdochic interpretation of “all” in 1 Tim. 2:4, in which “all” means only a part, saying that it is well known that the divine writers sometimes use “all” when clearly the entire human race is not intended to be understood.54 In support of the notion that “all” in scripture does not necessarily mean the entire human race (and consequently God’s saving will does not extend to all of humanity entirely), Fulgentius gives at least six examples from the Bible. These he draws from passages ranging from the prophets and the Psalter in the Hebrew Scriptures to the Gospel and Epistles in the New Testament. From Joel, Fulgentius quotes: “In the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (2:28). Although in this passage, Fulgentius writes, the author uses the term “all flesh,” Peter showed that this prophecy was fulfilled when the Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire on only one hundred and twenty people in the upper room (cf. Acts 1:15; 2:3, 17).55 Fulgentius next places two seemingly contrary biblical passages against each other. In the Psalms, the prophet foretold that “all the nations . . . will adore before you, Lord, and will glorify your name forever” (Ps. 86:9). However, Jesus said that his faithful ones would be hated by all nations because of him (Matt. 10:22). The question of which passage is true flows naturally from the juxtaposition. Will all nations glorify Christ? Or will all nations persecute Christ? Firm in his conviction that “scripture does not fight 53. CCL 91A: 611. 55. CCL 91A: 611.

54. CCL 91A: 611–12.

170  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

against itself with contrary opinions,” Fulgentius claims that both are true. The way that all nations glorify Christ, and at the same time all nations hate Christ, is if one understands that all does not mean all entirely. Rather, each “all” represents a segment of people from all nations. All the believers among all the nations will glorify the name of the Lord, and all the unbelievers in those same nations will hate the name of Christ and persecute his people.56 For Fulgentius, it is clear that “all” nations can be interpreted as a portion of people in all nations. Therefore, when it comes to the extent of God’s saving will, although the Apostle used the universal term omnes, it is not necessary, according to him, for it to be understood as omnes omnino, or “absolutely everyone.” From the Gospel, Fulgentius presents John 12:32: When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all to myself. He explains that Jesus “did not say that he draws everyone entirely, but that no one is saved except the one who is drawn (cf. John 6:44).”57 Here again he insists that “all” not be taken to mean all humans entirely. From the Pauline epistles, Fulgentius brings to the discussion a few passages from Romans, upon which he again tries to demonstrate that “all” cannot be interpreted as “absolutely everyone.” In Rom. 11:32, Paul said that God shut up all in unbelief so that he might have mercy upon all, “yet God does not have mercy upon everyone entirely whom he has shut up in unbelief.” Rather, he has mercy on some and not others (cf. Ex. 33:19) and mercifully gives the grace of faith to some, but to others it is not given (cf. Matt. 13:11).58 According to Fulgentius, in Rom. 5:18 the Apostle mentioned “all persons without exception, and then immediately indicates a certain ‘all persons’ excluded from the others.” In this passage—“Just as through the sin of one man, condemnation came upon all persons, so also through the righteousness of one man, 56. CCL 91A: 613. 58. CCL 91A: 612.

57. CCL 91A: 611.

FULGENTI US  171

justification unto life came upon all persons”—everyone who has been condemned through the sin of Adam is not necessarily going to be justified. Fulgentius explains, For, when the Apostle says, “condemnation upon all persons and justification upon all persons,” should we believe that all the people who were condemned through the original sin of Adam are the same as all those whom we believe are going to be justified through Christ, when it stands that there are innumerable deaths of unbelievers, who pass from this life without the grace of justification, and without the sacrament of baptism, and are snatched up into the eternal punishments of the second death (cf. Rev. 2:11; 20:6)? Therefore, it stands that the Apostle does not write it in such a way that we should think that absolutely everyone who is under condemnation is a recipient of the grace of justification. Rather, we should understand that only some from all those who are under condemnation receive the grace of justification. And so all through Adam come under condemnation and are children of wrath (cf. Eph. 2:3); and out of them “some” become “all” the children of grace through Christ.59

Finally, in Colossians the Apostle wrote that “all things” have been created through Christ and “all things” have been reconciled through Christ. The first “all things,” Fulgentius says, should be interpreted in its normative sense, but the second “all things” cannot be interpreted in a strictly universal sense without impiety. For, if it is believed that all things in heaven and on earth are reconciled through the cross, then even the devil and his angels are reconciled, God forbid! Then, cross-referencing this with a passage from Matthew’s Gospel (25:41), Fulgentius says, “If Christ were going to save him [the devil], his fiery eternal end would not have been pronounced by the mouth of Christ.”60 So here the bishop gives another scriptural example of where “all” does not mean all entirely, but is used in a more restrictive sense. Accordingly, he says, the faithful should “altogether preserve” this restricted meaning of “all,” and 59. CCL 91A: 612–13. 60. CCL 91A: 613–14.

172  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

“from this rule” they should understand the all persons whom God wills to be saved in 1 Tim. 2:4.61 For Fulgentius, many scripture passages provide cases in which “all” not only can be, but should be, interpreted as a part. This rule Fulgentius then applied to 1 Tim. 2:4. And upon doing this, the universality of the saving will of God in that passage faded into particularity, and all humanity transformed into merely a part of humanity.

Synecdoche in North African Exegesis Most scholarship, including that of Manlio Simonetti, Carlos Tibiletti, and Barthold Altaner, explains Fulgentius’s particularist interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4 by saying that he was echoing the thought of his mentor, Augustine.62 This is partially correct. Literary parallels, although not direct quotations, between Augustine and Fulgentius on 1 Tim. 2:4 have been established by Tibiletti and Francesco Di Sciascio.63 However, the idea that Fulgentius was simply mimicking Augustine is weakened by the fact that Augustine had offered five or six different interpretations of the passage in his writings. Fulgentius was undoubtedly influenced by Augustine, but as an exegete in his own right he was selective in his use of the bishop of Hippo for interpreting the passage. What has been overlooked in the literature on Fulgentius is that, in their biblical interpretations, both Augustine and Fulgentius were drawing from the common resource of classical rhetoric. While there is no lack of secondary literature about Augustine’s classical education and its influence on his theology, since Fulgen61. CCL 91A: 612, 614. 62. Manlio Simonetti, “Fulgentius of Ruspe,” EEChurch 2: 331; Carlo Tibiletti, “Polemiche in Africa contro i teologi Provenzali,” AS 26 (1986): 499–517 at 508; Berthold Altaner, Patrology, trans. Hilda C. Graef (St. Louis: Herder and Herder, 1960), 589. 63. Tibiletti, “Polemiche in Africa,” 508nn35–38; Francesco Di Sciascio, Fulgenzio di Ruspe (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1941), 126–29.

FULGENTI US  173

tius is a more obscure figure, it may be helpful to briefly recount his classical training. The Life of Fulgentius, written by a friend for the first anniversary of Fulgentius’s death, revealed that he had come from a senatorial family and had been educated in the Greek and Latin classics. Praising his intellectual capacities and talents, The Life relates that Fulgentius had committed to memory all of Homer and a good portion of Menander before moving on to Latin classical authors.64 Two recent studies have successfully shown that Fulgentius employed classical literary theory in his biblical exegesis and explanation of theology. Thomas S. Ferguson demonstrated that the author of a series of North African collects, whom he believes was most likely Fulgentius, used poiesis, aisthesis, and catharsis in his interpretation of the Psalms.65 And David Maxwell indicated that Fulgentius used the classical rhetorical device of an extended chiasm when he described the relationship between Christology and soteriology.66 I would submit that Fulgentius was also drawing upon his training in classical rhetoric when he interpreted universal terms in scripture, such as the one in 1 Tim. 2:4, as synecdochic figures of speech. In such interpretation, Fulgentius stood in a long line of early Christians in North Africa who had applied rules used in their study of classical literature for better understanding of the Bible. Some one hundred and fifty years earlier, a North African of Donatist persuasion named Tyconius saw the value of applying theories of classical literary interpretation to Scripture. Among figures of speech used in classic rhetoric, synecdoche was recognized as being especially helpful for interpreting biblical difficulties involving quantity. Tyconius wrote that the mystic significance of specific numbers in Scripture can be understood “through the rhetorical 64. Pseudo-Ferrandus, Vita Fulgentii 1, in Fulgentius, Selected Works, trans. Robert B. Eno (FC 95: 7). Fulgentius quoted Virgil’s Aen., VI.429 in Letter 2.5 (FC 95: 293). 65. Everett Ferguson, Visita nos: Reception, Rhetoric, and Prayer in a North African Monastery (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 6, 107. 66. Maxwell, “Theopaschites,” 14.

174  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

figure of synechdoche [sic].” “In synecdoche,” he continued, “. . . either a part represents the whole or a whole represents the part.” 67 Concerning synecdochic figures in Scripture where wholistic words or phrases are used to designate only a part, Tyconius gave the example of Christ being in the grave for three days and three nights. Between his death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Sunday morning, Saturday was really the only full day and night Christ spent in the belly of the earth. “The first day and the last . . . are parts representing the whole.” 68 Tyconius’s rules, including the use of synecdoche for interpreting scriptural difficulties, were popularized when Augustine incorporated them into his De Doctrina Christiana.69 Augustine himself often interpreted as synecdochic figures words that on the surface seem to convey universality. At several places in his Tractates on John’s Gospel, for example, Augustine interpreted the word “world” in the Gospel as only a part of humanity, sometimes signifying the world of the church and other times the world of unbelievers.70 In the early fifth century the North African cleric Januarius limited the “all” in 1 Tim. 2:4 to the members of Christ’s body, that is, “all those who will be saved” through divine grace. He explains this in his letter to the abbot at Hadrumetum, Valentinus: First, this Apostle tells us how to understand “who wills all persons to be saved.” For, here in this manner it is told how “all” is spoken by the Apostle in another passage: “Through a man came death, and through a man came the resurrection of the dead. For, just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21–22). For, because it is said, “in Adam all die,” it is clear that it is necessary that all people die through him. But because it is said, “so also in Christ all will be made 67. Tyconius, Reg., V, trans. William S. Babcock, Tyconius: The Book of Rules (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 89. 68. Tyconius, Reg., V (Babcock, Tyconius, 91–93). 69. Augustine, doc. Chr., III.117–21, trans. R. P. H. Green, Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 187–89. 70. Augustine, Tractates of John’s Gospel 2.10–11; 106; 110.2; 111.5 (NPNF 7: 16– 17, 399–402, 409, 415).

FULGENTI US  175 alive,” here now it does not pertain to all people but to all those who will be saved through his grace.71

Januarius continues with his synecdochic interpretation of “all” by citing Rom. 5:18, which says that “through the righteousness of one the justification of life came on all persons.” These “all,” he says, “pertain to his members,” those who are designated “his body.” Besides Tyconius, Augustine, and Januarius, the fifth-century deacon and later bishop of Carthage Quodvultdeus employed synecdoche in his interpretation of certain universal terms in scripture. In his treatise On the Promises and Predictions of God, he offered as one interpretation of the thousand years of Revelation 20 as “a whole from the part.”72 And on Ps. 2:8, which says, “I will give to you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession,” Quodvultdeus interpreted the “nations” and the “ends of the earth,” terms that convey universality, as “all of the predestined.”73 Thus, when Fulgentius interpreted the “all” in 1 Tim. 2:4 as a part, he was following a well-established tradition of viewing universal terms in some passages of scripture as synecdochic figures of speech.

Synecdoche and the Saving Will of God in Late Antiquity It should not be thought, however, that the figure of synecdoche was employed exclusively by African Christians to support predestinarian theology commonly espoused by them. Pelagius himself, 71. Januarius, Epistle to Valentinus edited in Germain Morin, “Lettres inédites de s. Augustin et du prétre Januarien dan l’affaire des moines d’Adrumète,’ RB 18 (1901): 241–56 at 249–50. 72. Quodvultdeus, Liber de promissionibus et praedictionibus dei, “Dimidium Temporis in signis Antichristi,” 4.6 (SC 102: 598): “Mille vero anni aut a parte totum accipiendi sunt.” 73. Quodvultdeus, Liber de promissionibus II.55 (CCL 60: 123): “Totus praedestinatus.”

176  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

who is viewed by some as the heresiarch from whom all free will soteriology flows, made use of synecdoche in his commentary on the Pauline epistles. Pelagius held that there were some people who had lived without sin. When Paul wrote in Rom. 3:4 that “God is true and everyone [omnis homo] else is a liar,” Pelagius clarified, “Here he uses ‘all’ for the greatest part, as in ‘[a]ll seek their own,’ and ‘[all have abandoned me,’ ‘Luke alone is with me’ (Phil. 2:21; 2 Tim. 4:16; 2 Tim. 4:11).”74 So Pelagius asserted that in at least four passages Paul used “all” or “every” for only a part. Two vocal opponents of Augustinian predestinarianism John Cassian and Faustus of Riez, considered by some to be the quintessential representatives of so-called semi-Pelagianism, also acknowledged the validity of interpreting certain biblical passages as synecdochic figures. Cassian indicated that synecdoche was helpful for understanding the person and natures of Christ. In On the Incarnation, Against Nestorius, he wrote that “by the grammatical trope synecdoche in which you understand the whole from the parts and a part is put for the whole,” one comes to understand a principle of Christ. That is, whatever can be said about one nature of Christ can be said about his whole person.75 Faustus of Riez also affirmed that scripture writers often used a wholistic term to mean only a part, but he disagreed with his predestinarian opponents that the Apostle was using synecdoche in the passages they claimed he did.76 It seems that every faction in the fifth- and sixth-century debates on grace and free will—Pelagius and his supporters, Augustine and his followers, and the Gallic opponents of predestination—recognized that scripture contains synecdochic figures of speech. Their point of disagreement seems to have been over which biblical passages the figure applied. 74. Theodore de Bruyn, trans., Pelagius’s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 77. 75. John Cassian, On the Incarnation, Against Nestorius VI.23 (NPNF, 2nd series, 11: 602). 76. Faustus, De gratia, I.16 (CSEL 21: 48–49): “Sicut in Adam omnes moriuntur, ita in Christo omnes vivificabuntur? Hic dici non potest pro parte totum.”

FULGENTI US  177

The restrictive interpretation of “all” in 1 Tim. 2:4, as held by Fulgentius, was carried into several early medieval commentaries on the Pauline epistles. A commentary on Paul written by the students of Cassiodorus in the sixth century, the Würzburg gloss which is an Old Irish commentary on scripture dated about 700, and the ninth-century commentary on the Pauline epistles by Sedulius Scottus all gave as one possible interpretation among several that the “all” of 1 Tim. 2:4 expresses a part and that God wants to save people from all nations and all conditions. They read as follows: Students of Cassiodorus: “For according to the figure of synecdoche here, we ought to interpret ‘all’ as a whole from a part.”77 Würzburg gloss: “Or is it pars pro toto [a part for a whole], for there is neither race nor nation in the world in which some one shall not have been saved”?78 Sedulius Scottus: “Or: ‘All men,’ that is, every gender, nation, condition, etc.”79

In the ninth-century debate on predestination, sparked by a Benedictine monk named Gottschalk, theologians interpreted 1 Tim. 2:4 in manners akin to both the restrictive view of Fulgentius and the position where God wants to save absolutely everyone but awaits their willingness.80 The Council of Tousey in 860, at which 77. The commentary of Cassiodorus’s students (pseudo-Primasius) (PL 68: 663): “Nam juxta figuram synecdochen hic, omnes, a parte totum debemus accipere.” On its authorship, see David W. Johnson, Purging the Poison: The Revision of Pelagius’ Pauline Commentaries by Cassiodorus and His Students, Ph.D. diss. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1989), 8–14. 78. Whitley Stokes and John Strachen, eds., Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses Scholia Prose and Verse, vol. 1: Biblical Glosses and Scholia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901), 681. 79. Hermann Josef Frede and Herbert Stanjek, eds., Seduli Scotti Collectaneum in Apostolum II, in Epistolas ad Corinthios usque ad Hebraeos (Freiburg: Herder, 1997), 663: “Omnes homines, hoc est omnem sexum, gentem, conditionem, et reliqua.” 80. On the Gottschalk controversy, Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock, Gottschalk and a Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated from the Lat-

178  FRANCIS X. GUMERLOCK

the views of Gottschalk’s opponent Hincmar of Reims held sway, brought an official end to the predestination controversy. Its canons simply stated that God “wants all men to be saved and no one to perish.”81 Today, the universality of God’s saving will, based in large part upon 1 Tim. 2:4, is part of Catholic doctrine. Nevertheless, according to Josephine Lombardi, while the magisterium upholds God’s desire to save all people, it has not “solemnly defined” the doctrine. Hence, current discussions are ongoing, centering upon the inclusion of people from non-Christian religious traditions in the saving will of God.82 The extent of God’s saving will is also being currently debated within evangelical Protestantism. Those from “Arminian” traditions tend to believe in God’s desire to save all people, even if all will not be saved in the end, while others in the Calvinist tradition limit the saving will of God to the predestined and interpret “all” in 1 Tim. 2:4 as “all kinds” of people.83 In the sixth century, Fulgentius of Ruspe became involved in in (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2010); Gumerlock, “Gottschalk of Orbais: A Medieval Predestinarian,” Kerux 22: 3 (December 2007): 17–34; Bernard Boller, Gottschalk d’Orbais de Fulda à Hautvillers: une dissidence (Paris: Société des Écrivains, 2004); David Ganz, “The Debate on Predestination,” in Margarte T. Gibson and Janet L. Nelson, eds., Charles the Bald. Court and Kingdom, 2nd ed. (Brookfield, Conn.: Variorum, 1990), 283–302. 81. Preserved in Hincmar of Reims, Epistola 21 (PL 126: 122–32 at 123): “Qui vult omnes homines salvos fieri, et neminem vult perire.” 82. Josephine Lombardi, What Are They Saying about the Universal Saving Will of God? (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 2008), 7; Catechism of the Catholic Church (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1994), part 1, art. 2.74 (p. 24); part 1, “Profession of Faith,” 851 (p. 225); and part 4.III.2822 (p. 677). 83. On the Arminian side, see Dave Hunt, What Love Is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God, updated and expanded (Bend, Ore.: Berean Call, 2004), 261, 340–44; and Norman Geisler, Chosen But Free, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Bethany, 2001), 50, 61, 78, 81, 140, 207. On the Calvinist side, James White, The Potter’s Freedom (Amityville, Ky.: Calvary Press Publishing, 2000), 140, 145. Some with Calvinist tendencies insist on both predestination and a sincere universal saving will of God, for example, John Piper, “Are There Two Wills in God? Divine Election and God’s Desire for All to Be Saved,” in Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2000), 107–31.

FULGENTI US  179

the exchange that was going on in New Rome, between John Maxentius and his band of Scythian monks on the one side and the bishop Possessor and his followers on the other, over the dynamics of grace and free will. Based on the reports of the Scythian monks, Fulgentius sided with them, believing that Possessor and his party were giving undue priority to the role of free will in salvation. For according to the information Fulgentius had received from them, Possessor was making the efficacy of God’s saving will dependent upon human freedom and was using 1 Tim. 2:4 as support. For an alternative interpretation of 1 Tim. 2:4, Fulgentius, “the most authoritative and important figure of African Christianity in the late fifth and early sixth centuries,” drew upon interpretive theory acquired though his classical education and African theological heritage, including the literary monuments of Augustine.84 He saw “all” in 1 Tim. 2:4 as a figure of synecdoche, a universal term employed by the Apostle to really designate only a part. Through this interpretation, Fulgentius found what seemed to him the best way to preserve the invincibility of God’s will and the complete gratuity of human salvation. 84. Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli, eds., Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History, vol. 2, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2005), 472.

10

AUGUSTINE, PELAGI US, AND

THE SOUTHER N GALLIC TR ADI T ION  Faustus of Riez’s De gratia Dei

Matthew J. Pereira

One of Faustus’s most significant contributions to the southern Gallic theological tradition was his critical use of the twin authorities of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers, which reflected the ascetical tradition of south Gaul a generation after their initial encounter with the Augustinians. Faustus’s De gratia proposed a view of grace that sought to maintain both the southern Gallic ascetic tradition and the now-established orthodoxy of Augustine, and the continued heterodoxy of the Pelagians.1 Faustus’s treatise was also at the center of a debate in Constantinople that involved Scythian monks, African exiled bishops, Pelagianism, Augustine’s orthodoxy, and Rome.2 The reception of De gratia has suffered from this association for the rest of the Middle Ages.

1. Faustus, De gratia (CSEL 21: 1–98). There is no English translation of De gratia; however, there is a recent Italian translation; see Fausto di Riez, La Grazia, trans. Emanuele Lana (Roma: Città Nuova, 2004). 2. John Maxentius, Responsio adversus Epistulam quam ad Possessorem a Romano episcopo dicunt haeretici destinatam (CCL 85A: 123–53).

180

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  181

Context By the beginning of the fifth century, doctrinal commitments were increasingly advanced through the integration of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. This process involved interrogating, reframing, and strategically appropriating the writings of the Fathers. Christian writers interpreted the Scriptures in light of the views of the Church Fathers. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the conflict over the doctrine of predestination was simultaneously a debate over conflicting evaluations of the Church Fathers and competing approaches to biblical exegesis. All theologians believed that they properly interpreted the Scriptures. For example, Prosper of Aquitaine’s letter addressed to Rufinus reveals his confidence in biblical exegesis, and it underscores the importance of interpretation in the predestinarian debates. Prosper explained to his trusted confidant that the controversy was the consequence of defective biblical exegesis. He declared that his adversaries had transgressed one of his hermeneutical rules, which stated that biblical passages deemed vulnerable to varied theological conclusions could not be justifiably employed to prove the theological truths of another scriptural reference. In other words, he contended that a proposition was only valid when the biblical passage under investigation could not be reinterpreted in any other possible direction that conflicted with the original hypothesis.3 This hermeneutical rule assumed an univocal rendering of biblical texts, which allowed for only one correct reading of difficult scriptural passages. In the midst of the predestinarian controversy, one thing shared in common by all factions was the belief in one correct theological reading of the Scriptures. Prosper’s confidence in his exegetical rules was symptomatic of the broader theological 3. “Asserunt quidem haec quibusdum sanctarum Scripturarum testimoniis, sed non rationabiliter assumptis. Ad defensionem enim alicujus definitionis ea promenda sunt, quae alteri intellectui, a quo videtur definitio dissonare, non cedant, et eam regulam, cui sunt aptata non deserant,” Prosper, Ep. ad Rufinum 5 (PL 51: 80).

182  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

culture. This unbridled self-assurance allowed theologians to believe in their reading of the Scriptures, whereas, conversely, their opponents remained mired in misguided hermeneutical practices.

Faustus and the Southern Gallic Tradition Faustus assumed the role of the abbot at the famed monastery in Lérins in 433, where he remained until his eventual elevation to the bishopric of Riez around 457.4 In addition to earning the devotion of Prosper, Augustine’s teachings on predestination gained the support of a numerically limited albeit enthusiastic circle of southern Gallic theologians.5 In the late 460s the Gallic priest Lucidus’s adherence to the doctrine of predestination inflamed dissensions in southern Gaul that eventually culminated in conciliar hearings and the composition of De gratia.6 In an attempt to mitigate the disputation, Faustus sent a letter to Lucidus that included anathemas condemning Pelagius and the doctrine of predestination.7 4. Biographical details of Faustus’s life are located within his own correspondence and letters addressed to him. A collection of twelve such letters is located in (CSEL 21: 161–219). For a concise overview of Faustus’s life and works, see Thomas A. Smith, “Faustus of Riez,” ATA, 356–58. 5. In his correspondence addressed to Augustine, Prosper approvingly refers to such ascetics from southern Gaul who shared a common appreciation of Augustine as those “intrepid lovers of perfect grace”: “nec facile quisquam praeter paucos perfectae gratiae intrepidos amatores tanto superiorum disputationibus ausus est contra ire,” Prosper, Ep. 225.7 (CSEL 57: 465). 6. The only extant information related to Lucidus comes from Faustus’s correspondence to Lucidus Ep. 1 (CSEL 21: 165–68) and the recantation of Lucidus Ep. 2 (CSEL 21: 161–65). Lucidus’s doctrine may have been more extreme than Augustine’s, Labrousse asserts, “Fauste lui-même avait rédigé son traité ‘Sur la grâce’ en réaction contre l’extrémisme de Lucidus, qui soutenait des thèses inacceptables, bien éloignées de la véritable pensée de saint Augustin,” Mireille Labrousse, Saint Honorat: fondateur de Lérins et évêque d’Arles: Étude et traduction de textes d’Hilaire d’Arles, Fauste de Riez et Césaire d’Arles, Collection Vie Monastique 31 (Bégrolles-en-Magues: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1995), 96. For a valuable historical account of the Lucidus controversy, see Ralph W. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 244–72. 7. “Anathema ergo illi, qui inter reliquas Pelagii inpietates hominem sine pecca-

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  183

If Lucidus signed off on these anathemas, he would have avoided conciliar hearings; however, he refused to notate his agreement with Faustus’s condemnations.8 Upon arriving at a stalemate, it was rendered that the conflict required further resolution at the annual council of bishops convened at Arles in 473. The interrelated doctrines of grace and predestination, which initially had unsettled the monks at Hadrumetum nearly half a century earlier, once again under the patronage of Lucidus, were threatening the cohesiveness of the ecclesiastical networks in southern Gaul.9 In the middle of these conciliar proceedings, with theological clarification and ecclesiastical reconciliation largely informing their selection, the Gallic bishops commissioned Faustus to compose De gratia. Faustus’s De gratia is largely representative of the southern Gallic monk-bishops’ theology of grace.10 The southern Gallic tradition, beginning with Honoratus of Lérins and John Cassian, was certainly variegated but one common concern shared amongst these welleducated leaders was their commitment to accounting for the apparent tension between divine grace and human free will as it is revealed to nasci et per solum laborem posse saluari damnanda praesumptione contenderit et qui eum sine gratia dei liberari posse crediderit,” Faustus, Ep. 1 (CSEL 21: 162). 8. Lucidus would eventually sign the second recantation (libellus subiectionis) after the anathemas were slightly altered, which suggests that he was not merely being stubborn but rather he had specific theological complaints. Mathisen has cautioned against assuming that Lucidus was guilty of all the beliefs listed in the anathemas. The practice of recantation was a ritualistic practice that reaffirmed orthodoxy without being rigidly accurate at every point. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism, 265. 9. For a valuable account of the controversy over the doctrine of predestination at Hadrumetum, see Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, North American Patristic Society Monograph Series 15 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1996), 1–35. 10. In his assessment of De gratia, Smith concludes, “The treatise De gratia, therefore, represents Faustus’s theological exposition of two episcopal synods’ deliberations. Despite any idiosyncracies that the work may possess, it is essentially the portrait of what one must regard the mainstream, centrist doctrine of grace in southern Gaul in the latter fifth century”: Thomas A. Smith, De Gratia: Faustus of Riez’s Treatise on Grace and Its Place in the History of Theology, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 4, ed. Charles Kannengiesser (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 59.

184  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

within the Scriptures. The doctores Gallicani, who represented the educated ascetics of southern Gaul, denied the doctrine of predestination because they recognized that the testimony of the Scriptures endorsed a symbiotic relationship between divine grace and human labor. In a feedback loop of interpretation, the Scriptures provided the rationale for theology whereas in the reverse direction doctrinal leanings guided the reading of the sacred text. Perhaps, more than any other southern Gallic ascetic theologian, Cassian’s biblical exegesis epitomizes the hermeneutical approach that would be recapitulated by Faustus and the other doctores Gallicani. Cassian’s biblical exegesis began with the core assumption that divine grace and human works coalesced together in the process of salvation. Prior to the composition of Faustus’s De gratia, as Simonetti has rightly pointed out, Cassian was already engaging in a method of argumentation against Augustine, which employed alternative scriptural passages confirming the free will of humanity.11 In the sixth chapter of the Institutes, for example, Cassian credited the Lord for the grace and the victory in all virtuous advances in collaboration with the eradication of every vice.12 Cassian affirmed the merit of human work but he never advocated for any configuration of autonomy that separated the devout seeker from the grace of God. Cassian’s theological exegesis, which carefully attended to the processes of divine grace and human work, is typified within the thirteenth chapter of the Conferences. In agreement with the majority of theologians within the southern Gallic tradition, Cassian condemned Pelagius and he affirmed that all goodness within humanity was derived from God.13 Furthermore, Cassian recalls that 11. Manlio Simonetti, “Il De gratia di Fausto di Riez,” Studi Storico-Religiosi 1 (1977): 125–45, 130. 12. “Et revera cum in omnibus virtutum profectibus et cunctorum expugnatione vitiorum Domini sit gratia atque victoria, in hoc praecipue peculiare beneficium Dei ac speciale donum et patrum sententia et experimento purgationis ipsius manifestissime declaratur his, qui eam merverint possidere,” Cassian, Institutes 6.6 (SC 109: 268). 13. In reference to the Pelagian viewpoint, Cassian asserts: “Nemo autem aes-

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  185

the Scriptures affirm that the faithful enquirer may approach God, but he adds the caveat that no one advances toward Jesus Christ unless the Father first draws them.14 Upon weighing the diversity within the biblical witness, Cassian declares that the faithful are able to lift themselves up by their movement to desire virtue, but at every moment there remains the demand for the Lord’s assistance.15 On the one hand, Cassian’s evaluation of the mutual reciprocation between divine grace and human agency distanced himself from Pelagius’s overemphasis on free will, whereas on the other hand, his belief in the possibility that the faithful could take the initial step toward God placed him in direct opposition against Augustine.16 Faustus’s biblical exegesis shares important affinities with Cassian’s interpretive approach. In both cases, the ascetical experience provided the horizon for biblical interpretation, which, in turn, served as the foundation for the integrative theology characteristic of Castimet haec a nobis ob hoc fuisse prolata, ut nitamur adstruere summam salutis in nostrae fidei dicione consistere secundum quorundum profanam opinionem, qui totum libero arbitrio deputantes gratiam dei dispensari secundum meritum uniuscuiusque definiunt: sed absoluta plane pronuntiamus sententia etiam exuberare gratiam dei et transgredi humanae interdum infidelitatis angustias,” Conferences 13.16 (SC 54: 176). For a reassessment of the dating of Conference 13 and Cassian’s opposition to Pelagianism, see Augustine M. C. Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St John Cassian (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 72–118. 14. Among other scriptural references that demonstrate the enigmatic nature of the relationship between free will and divine grace, Cassian refers to James 4:8 to support human agency that is capable of approaching God, and, conversely, he references Jn. 6:44 to emphasize that the Father must call one to Jesus Christ. “Cui autem facile pateat, quomodo salutis summa nostro tribuatur arbitrio . . . quid sit etiam illud quod dicitur: adpropinquate domino, et adpropinquabit vobis, et quod alibi dicit: nemo venit ad me nisi pater qui misit me adtraxerit eum?” Conferences 13.9 (SC 54: 159). 15. “. . . nisi quod in his omnibus et gratia dei et libertas nostri declaratur arbitrii, quia etiam suis interdum motibus homo ad virtutum adpetitus possit extendi, semper vero a domino indigeat adiuvari?” Cassian, Conferences 13.9 (SC 54: 160). 16. In a letter addressed to Vitale (ca. 427), Augustine insisted that human free will can never precede the grace of God: “Haec et alia testimonia divina, quae commemorare longum est, ostendunt deum gratia sua auferre infidelibus cor lapideum et praeveniri in hominibus bonarum merita voluntatem, ita ut voluntas per antecedentem gratiam praeparetur, non ut gratia merito voluntatis antecedente donetur,” Augustine, Ep. 217 (CSEL 57: 423).

186  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

sian, Faustus, and other eminent theologians groomed within the southern Gallic tradition.

De gratia and the Augustinians and the Pelagians Augustine diligently collated the Scriptures into an anthology of theological proof-texts largely derived from the Pauline epistles. Simonetti suggests that Augustine produced a “reductive interpretation [dall’ interpretazione riduttiva]” of the Scriptures in support of the doctrine of predestination.17 In Faustus’s reassessment of biblical passages pertaining to divine sovereignty, he effectively transformed the theological import so that these Scriptures were aligned with the Gallic doctrines of creation, anthropology, sin, and salvation. In a virtuoso display of interpretation, Faustus recasts the theological meaning of Augustine’s favored predestinarian biblical texts, which had traditionally challenged the ascetical theology of the doctores Gallicani.18 From the inchoate stages of the predestinarian controversy, Prosper framed the debate in a manner that associated those theologians who opposed Augustine’s teachings with the errors of Pelagius.19 In view of Prosper’s conception of the predestinarian conflict, Faustus carefully interrogated and appropriated both Augustine and Pelagi17. In his assessment of Augustine’s biblical exegesis, Simonetti asserts, “Com’è noto, Agostino ha fondato la sua dottrina della grazia su un certo numero di passi scritturistici soprattutto paolini, ripropòsti instancabilmente lungo tutto l’arco degli scritti impegnati nella polemica e affiancati dall’interpretazione riduttiva dei passi che a quella dottrina sembravano opporre ostacolo,” Simonetti, “De gratia,” 130. 18. For a comprehensive account of Faustus’s use of sources within De gratia, see Smith, De Gratia, 107–55. 19. Alexander Y. Hwang’s study provides a detailed assessment of the stages of interrelated development within Prosper’s theology and ecclesiology. In assessing the relationship between Prosper’s opponents and Pelagius, Hwang observes, “There appears to be a progression in Prosper’s view of his opponents from being in error (Epistula ad Rufinum, 426), to closely resembling Pelagianism (Epistula ad Augustinum, 427), and now to being an offspring from the seed of Pelagianism,” Alexander Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 122.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  187

us in a manner that was consistent with the ecclesiastical canonization (of Augustine), the formal condemnation (of Pelagius), and in accord with the southern Gallic theological tradition. The theology of Pelagius had influenced the theological outlook of the ascetical networks in southern Gaul through the channels of eastern monasticism. In spite of the similarities between Pelagius and the ascetical tradition of southern Gaul, the doctores Gallicani routinely denounced Pelagius. In his valuable study on Faustus’s doctrines of divine grace and free will, Tibiletti recognizes the occasional and formal convergences (occasionali e formali convergenze) between the theology of Pelagius and Faustus,20 but also concludes that “Faustus proves no less hostile to Pelagius than Augustine [Fausto si dimostra ostile a Pelagio non meno di Agostino].”21 By the middle of the fifth century, ecclesiastical and political authorities had roundly condemned Pelagius, and thus it was becoming increasingly necessary for Faustus and his Gallic brethren to subvert lingering accusations of furtive Pelagianism within their theological heritage. In De gratia I.1 and I.2, Faustus focuses on answering the challenge of Pelagius in order to distance himself and the southern Gallic tradition from this condemned theologian. In these two chapters, Faustus addressed concrete theological issues that revealed specific differences between the doctores Gallicani and the errors of Pelagius. In the opening chapter of De gratia, without explicitly referencing either of the theologians, Faustus asserts that one (Augustine) errors because of an overemphasis on grace whereas the other (Pelagius) wanders away by placing too much stress on human agency.22 20. Carlo Tibiletti, “Libero arbitrio e grazia in Fausto di Riez,” Aug 19 (1979): 259–85; 275. 21. Tibiletti, “Fausto di Riez,” 260. 22. “Hic ergo dum altius humanum fragilitatem immemor divini timoris extollit, iudicii sui perdidit sanitatem ita ex parte alia cecidit, dum arbitrii libertatem integram praedicat et inlaesam, sicut illi, qui eam ex toto asserunt fuisse evacuatam. Hoc itaque loco gemini inter se conluctantur errores, quorum unus solam gratiam, alter solum laborem relicto tramite atque mensura veritatis insinuat. Sectarum

188  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

Faustus argues that the middle course was the optimal approach that allowed the theologian to steer clear from the errors of overemphasizing divine grace or human agency.23 In the prologue of De gratia (a prefatory letter addressed to Leontius), Faustus invokes the imagery of the royal way (via regia) as representative of the surefooted path between the extremes of divine grace alone or human works alone.24 This approach was not merely a compromise between Augustine and Pelagius, but rather Faustus believed that the via media more accurately reflected the mystery of salvation as witnessed in the Scriptures. In De gratia I.2, Faustus replies to Pelagius’s puzzlement concerning the nature of the mechanism that allowed baptized parents to transmit the original sin to their offspring after having been cleansed through the sacrament of baptism. In response to Pelagius, Faustus employed Augustine’s doctrine of original sin in order to explain how parents passed on inherent traits to their children according to their first nature rather than in reference to grace and the second nature.

Faustus and Augustine Prior to the publication of De gratia, Faustus demonstrated restraint whenever he was called upon to pass judgment on Augustine’s troublesome doctrines. In a reply to Graecus, Faustus cautioned against impetuous pronouncements and advised the Gallic genere dispares, sed inpietate consimilies diverso quidem studio, sed spiritu unius serpentis insibilant. Quorum unus, id est solius gratiae praedicator prima quidem fronte venenum suum sub specie pietatis occultat, alter, id est laboris assertor protinus extantem tumorem inproba elatione manifestat,” Faustus, De gratia I.1 (CSEL 21: 7). 23. “Sed quia velut temerarii remiges sine magistro inexplorato mari vela conmittunt ac temperare moderamina nesciunt at gubernacula tractare non norunt, hic tamquam in Scyllae male dextrum fertur periclum, ille in laevum Charybdis tendit abruptum. Et quid eos inter haec facere oporteat, si requiras: proviso gubernatore navem fluctibus credant, medium teneant cursum et ambo flatu dextro perducentur ad portum,” Faustus, De gratia I.1 (CSEL 21: 7). 24. “. . . et omissa via regia in dexteram cadens in sinistram declinare nos crederet, et, dum de labore servo gratiae loquimur, offendiculum ante pedes caeci opposuisse videremur,” Faustus, De gratia, Prologus (CSEL 21:4).

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  189

deacon to refrain from overindulgent readings of Augustine since only the most learned theologians were properly qualified to evaluate the suspect doctrines of the North African bishop.25 Faustus was certainly an expert theologian, but, nonetheless, even he appears reluctant when given the chance to vigorously engage in deliberations concerning the doctrine of predestination. Faustus’s balanced and timely appropriation of Augustine is consistent with the overall approach exhibited among the monkbishops of southern Gaul.26 Furthermore, the positive and strategic appropriation of Augustine within De gratia suggests that Faustus did not want the condemnation of Lucidus to be collapsed into an attack against the esteemed bishop of Hippo. In De gratia, to some extent, Faustus resists reductively equating Augustine with the doctrine of predestination. Faustus explicitly referenced Augustine only twice within De gratia;27 however, there are a number of other positive allusions throughout the treatise that suggest the Gallic bishop was well acquainted with Augustine’s theology. In his detailed analysis of the influence of Augustine in De gratia, Thomas A. Smith concludes that Faustus either gained knowledge of Augustine through a firsthand reading of texts or indirectly within the intellectual climate of southern Gaul.28 In the second explicit reference of Augustine, located in De gratia II.9, Faustus argues that the bishop of Hippo 25. “Et quia legimus: manducare mel multum non est bonum, magis enim inflat parum fundatum sensum scientia quam aedificat, ita cave nimiam lectionem, ut cordi parum capaci tamquam sumpti inmoderatius vini periculosam moveris ebrietatem,” Faustus, Ep. 7 (CSEL 21: 207). 26. In agreement with a number of other contemporary evaluations, Cayré asserts that Faustus “combated the writings of Saint Augustine, though he treated the writer with respect”: Fulbert Cayré, Manual of Patrology and History of Theology, second vol., trans. H. Howitt (Paris: Society of St. John the Evangelist, Desclée and Co., 1940), 173. 27. The two explicit citations of Augustine are located at De gratia I.5 and II.9. 28. Furthermore, Smith asserts that among other writings of Augustine, Faustus certainly was familiar with portions of Augustine’s De civitate dei and perhaps De doctrina christiana and De trinitate. For a fuller and detailed discussion of Faustus’s use of Augustine, see Smith, De Gratia, 126.

190  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

upholds the philosophy of natural law. Faustus recalls how Augustine asserts that “both run simultaneously in the stream and current of the human race: evil, which is handed on by the parent, and goodness, which is given by the creator.”29 The aforementioned excerpt provides an instance where Augustine simultaneously affirms the goodness and the wickedness within humanity. In the first two chapters of De gratia, Faustus draws from Augustine’s doctrine of original sin and concupiscence in order to distance the southern Gallic tradition from Pelagius.30 In addition to the doctrines of divine grace and human nature, Smith suggests that another possible correlation between Augustine and Faustus pertains to the similar language used by these two theologians in reference to the doctrine of the Trinity.31 In the main, Faustus employs Augustine’s theology in an ambidextrous fashion that shows him equally at ease with both the positive and the negative handling of Augustinian teachings. One serious theological difference between Faustus and Augustine is located in their anthropological outlooks. Tibiletti delineates three tenets of Faustus’s anthropology. Firstly, humanity has received from God free will, secondly, humanity is prone to do the good, and lastly, original sin does not destroy these original gifts albeit it weakens human nature.32 In De gratia I.12, Faustus opposes 29. “. . . utrumque simul currit in isto alveo atque torrente generis humani, malum, quod a parente trahitur, et bonum, quod a creante tribuitur,” Faustus, De gratia, II.9 (CSEL 21: 81). This particular translation was borrowed from Smith. Smith, De Gratia, 127. 30. Faustus, De gratia I.1–2 (CSEL 21: 6–14). Smith’s assessment of Faustus’s reliance upon Augustine in De gratia I.1–2 is worth repeating: “In general, we may say that the passage in De gratia I.1–2, from beginning to end, depends extensively on the thought of Augustine in his anti-Pelagian works, especially De nuptiis et concupiscentia. The broad material agreement is not matched by detailed textual dependence or a one-to-one correspondence of parallel passages, some similar vocabulary notwithstanding. The impression obtains that Augustine’s works have been learned at secondhand, or more likely, that his sensibilities have simply become a well-known backdrop to the discussion of original sin and its effects.” Thomas A. Smith, “Augustine in Two Gallic Controversies: Use or Abuse?” in Augustine Presbyter Factus Sum, ed. Joseph Lienhard et al. (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 43–55, 51. 31. Smith, De Gratia, 137–39. 32. Tibiletti, “Fausto di Riez,” 263–64.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  191

the Augustinian bifurcation of humanity into two classes, where the saved are on one side and the damned stand on the other side. Faustus argues that the Scriptures assert that humanity was created from one and the same lump.33 Both bishops agreed that the original state of humanity was damaged by sin, but Faustus contended this Adamic fall never leads to the eradication of free will (liberum arbitrium). Faustus argues for only one mass of human beings and he insists that any distinctions are solely based on intentions and will. Faustus and Augustine diverged in their estimation of the role of human agency within the economy of salvation. Whereas Augustine locates salvation within the sovereign grace of God, Tibiletti concludes that Faustus teaches, “The free will, not predestination, determines man’s situation in the future life.”34 Augustine’s doctrine of two classes of humanity allowed for the separation of the elect from the damned, whereas Faustus’s insistence on human solidarity represented in one collective mass provided space for the rehabilitation of free will. Faustus and Augustine stand in tension, where both agreement and disagreement coexists within their varied understandings of the relationship between divine grace and human autonomy. In De gratia I.7, Faustus departs from Augustine when he argues for the necessity and merits of free will. Faustus proposes that if humanity was left without free will, then the divine image would be reduced to that of the brutes.35 Faustus made use of two analogies that illustrate how the liberum arbitrium could be weakened without being obliterated. In both of these scenarios, one being that 33. “Inter haec dum dicit ex eadem massa, quicumque duas generis humani massa esse arbitrabaris, unam sacra ex lectione cognosce. Duas autem facit pravitas studiorum et diversitas voluntatum. Ita pro earum qualitatibus, non pro inpulsu dei unusquisque aut contumeliae vas aut honoris efficitur,” Faustus, De gratia I.12 (CSEL 21: 44). 34. Tibiletti, “Fausto di Riez,” 264. 35. “Huius inprobae persuasionis assertor hominem intellectu locupletatum, ratione praeditum, divinae imaginis honore decoratum brutis animantibus et iumentis insipientibus aestimat conparandum,” Faustus, De gratia I.7 (CSEL 21: 23).

192  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

of physical illness and the other being that of a person in the state of intoxication, Faustus insists that recovery requires the collaborative efforts of the weakened individual with the assistance of a capable person.36 Faustus’s emphasis on the necessity for outside intervention in the cases of illness and intoxication insinuates that divine grace is requisite for the spiritual restoration of humanity. In De gratia I.8, Faustus continues affirming the role of free will but at the same time he privileges divine grace.37 In his comparative assessment of the doctrine of divine grace in the theologies of Faustus and Augustine, Tibiletti concludes that for Faustus, “grace appears as the completion and perfection of human nature, and is exalted in terms no less enthusiastic than does Augustine.”38 One significant difference between Faustus and Augustine may be discerned in where they priveledge the location of divine grace, where for the former it remains in creation and the creature and whereas for the latter divine grace remains in the divine will.

De gratia’s Theology of Grace The accumulation and oblique employment of biblical prooftexts provided the majority of support for the theology of De gratia. However, on several occasions, Faustus entered into sustained biblical exegesis, especially when he was reinterpreting several of the most contentious biblical passages related to the debates over predestination. Faustus engages in some of his most rigorous and layered exegesis in De gratia I.5 and I.6. In her recent monograph on Faustus, Rossana Barcellona describes the exegetical efforts of 36. “Adtenuata libertas eius ita gratiae adminicula plus requirit, sicut homo longa infirmitate confectus adiutoriis ac solaciis gressu titubante magis indiget. Igitur sicut post inveteratam luxuriae consuetudinem reparatio continentiae multo labore constabit et sicut longo temulentiae usu captivata sobrietas cum violentia rigidae crucis vix recipitur,” Faustus, De gratia I.8 (CSEL 21: 24). 37. “Nunc ista dicentes non laborem gratiae coaequamus, sed omnino gratiam sine comparatione praeponimus,” Faustus, De gratia I.8 (CSEL 21: 26). 38. Tibiletti, “Fausto di Riez,” 270.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  193

De gratia I.5 and I.6 as an attempt to demonstrate that “the work of man is the joint gift of grace.”39 The ensuing analysis of these two chapters offers a preliminary exploration into Faustus’s interpretation of the Scriptures and Augustine. This evaluation is guided by the supposition that the theology of De gratia is most accurately interpreted when one accounts for the complex interaction between biblical exegeses, the variegated reception of Augustine and Pelagius (among other antecedents), and the cultural background of the monastic networks in southern Gaul. In De gratia I.5, Faustus engages in an extended interpretation of 1 Cor. 15:10. In his recent translation of De gratia, Lana reasserts that De gratia I.5 was directed to Lucidus, who remains as a likely counterpart throughout the entire treatise.40 Lucidus often stands in the background of De gratia, whereas biblical exegesis and theology stand in the foreground. In much the same way as Augustine had done in De gratia et libero arbitrio, Faustus portrays the Apostle Paul as an exemplary model of the Christian life.41 The debate over divine grace and free will, to a significant degree, was a dispute about who could lay claim to being the most accurate interpreter of the Apostle Paul. In the opening of De gratia I.5, Faustus admonishes his readers to listen to the Apostle Paul, the one who mixed labor with grace in a humble confession.42 From the outset, Faustus recalls Paul’s declaration, “But by the grace of God I am the thing which I am, and that grace of God within me was not in vain, but I worked more abundantly than everyone: yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”43 After recalling the words of the 39. Rossana Barcellona, Fausto di Riez interprete del suo tempo: Un vescovo tardoantico dentro la crisis dell’ impero (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2006), 60. 40. Lana asserts, “Il discorso è rivolto direttamente a Lucido, che fin d’ora resterà uno dei probabili interlocutori di tutta l’opera,” La Grazia, 57n31. 41. De gratia et libero arbitrio 5.11–12. For a recent English translation of De gratia et libero arbitrio, see Augustine, Answer to the Pelagians, IV: To the Monks of Hadrumetum and Provence, WSA (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1999), 70–106. 42. “Audi apostolum laborem cum gratia humili confessione miscentem,” Faustus, De gratia I.5 (CSEL 21: 19). 43. “Audi apostolum laborem cum gratia humili confessione miscentem gratia

194  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

Apostle Paul, Faustus interjects a hermeneutical rule into the discourse. He argues that when one truth in the Scriptures is asserted without the other truth, then the latter thing is not necessarily denied. Consequently, when Paul affirms that divine grace was with him, even though he does not explicitly mention human works, the proximity of human labor to the Apostle may be rightly implied. Faustus contends that the Scriptures do not always spell out every essential aspect related to salvation. In order to support his argument from textual silence, Faustus submits a hermeneutical rule that he accredited to Augustine: “Not everything which is unmentioned is denied.”44 This interpretive rule does not appear verbatim in Augustine’s literary corpus, but it does exist as a similar concept in many passages. Augustine’s rule is the only hermeneutical guideline offered throughout De gratia. This reference to Augustine may suggest an underlying influence upon Faustus’s biblical interpretation, alternatively, as Lana has recently suggested, this quote may have been “mischievously [maliziosamente]” placed in between various Pauline quotations that were being reinterpreted against Augustine’s “extreme theory of grace [estremizzato la teoria della grazia].”45 Whether from mischievous intentions or otherwise, the subversive character of Faustus’s appropriation of the esteemed North African bishop reveals itself when he employs Augustine’s hermeneutical rule to defend the efficaciousness of human labor. Later in the same chapter, Faustus references Paul once again, this time quoting where the apostle discloses, “I chastise my body autem dei sum id, quod sum, et gratia illius in me vacua non fuit, sed abundantius illis omnibus laboravi: non ego autem, sed gratia dei me cum,” Faustus, De gratia I.5 (CSEL 21: 19); 1 Cor. 15:10. 44. “Cum unum sine altero dicitur, tacetur alterum, non negatur secundum illam regulam, quam antistes Augustinus insinuat: non omnia quae tacentur negantur,” Faustus, De gratia I.5 (CSEL 21: 20). Smith explains that Faustus did not provide a verbatim quote but rather sums up a general principle found throughout the literary corpus of Augustine. For example, see Augustine De doctrina christiana II.6.8 (CCL 33: 36). For further discussion of Faustus’s employment of Augustine, see Smith, “Two Gallic Controversies,” 47. 45. Lana, La Grazia, 58n24.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  195

and reduce it into slavery in order that perhaps I myself might not become false.”46 After reflecting upon this Pauline passage, Faustus concludes, “Behold now the blessed Apostle having been added to Christ, now the vessel of election having been brought about, by no means does the hand relax to leisure under the name of predestination or grace, but with the kindness of God he joins together his own efforts and declares: I chastise my body and reduce it into slavery.”47 Faustus upholds the Apostle Paul as the paragon of holy living. The chastising of the body, which the Apostle Paul validates, resonates well with the Gallic ascetical practices. On account of God’s grace, the Apostle Paul states, “I am what I am,” yet the possibility remains that he may “become false” if he rests in the comforts of predestination. Faustus portrays Paul as the one who righteously embodies the gifts of divine grace and human work in order to guard against slothfulness. In the conclusion of De gratia I.5, Faustus declares that those who deny the merit of human work have risen up with the “arms of impious error and contradict Christ, he [Christ] who speaks within Paul. While you remove the slavery of labor and the reasons for praying, recognize that you block off the door of salvation from the human race.”48 The ascetical experience of prayer as a transformative event related to the sanctification of the faithful readily informs Faustus’s assertion that the “door of salvation [ianum salutis]” is obstructed when the rationale for the prayerful life is dislodged.Thereafter, Faustus declares that anyone who denies the 46. “Sed et alio loco dicit apostolus: castigo corpus meum et in servitutem redigo, ne forte, cum aliis praedicaverim, ipse reprobus efficiar,” Faustus, De gratia I.5 (CSEL 21: 20); 1 Cor. 9:27. 47. “Ecce beatus apostolus iam Christo adquisitus, iam vas electionis effectus nequaquam sub nomine praedestinationis et gratiae otio manus relaxat, sed cum dei beneficiis conatus suos iungit et dicit: castigo corpus meum et in servitutem redigo,” De gratia I.5 (CSEL 21: 20). 48. “Armis impii erroris insurgere et Christo, qui intra eum loquitor, contradicere. Dumque laboris servitium et orandi causas adimis, ianuam salutis humano generi intercludere te agnosce et, dum Pelagii impietatem nescis refugere, ad Manichaeorum dogma pestiferum, qui liberum arbitrium totum denegant, te intellege declinare,” De gratia I.5 (CSEL 21: 20–21).

196  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

merit of human labor may escape the impiety of Pelagius but advances “towards the destructive Manichean dogma [ad Manichaeorum dogma pestiferum]” who entirely deny free will. Faustus is likely associating Lucidus’s devaluing of prayer and work with the Manichean dogma.49 He avoids the binary of Augustine and Pelagius, thereby safeguarding the reputation of the bishop of Hippo. Faustus would be uninterested in maligning Augustine, especially when in this same chapter he already referenced him in support of his argument. In the aforementioned discourse, the opposite theological extreme to the Pelagians are the Manicheans. Faustus appears to insinuate that Lucidus is not properly Augustinian inasmuch as he is a misled theologian following the Manichean errors. The performative nature of Faustus’s coalescing biblical interpretation with the appropriation of Augustine is all the more remarkable in light of the conclusions reached in De gratia et libero arbitrio. In his interpretation of 1 Cor. 15:10, Augustine turns to the Apostle Paul as an example of the Christian reliance upon divine grace. Reflecting upon Paul’s self-attestation, “Not I, but the grace of God with me,” Augustine concludes, “And for this reason it was neither the grace of God alone nor the apostle alone, but the grace of God with me.”50 This assertion ostensibly agrees with Faustus’s insistence on the joining together of divine grace and human works. However, when Augustine continues his assessment of Paul’s confession, he declares, “But that he (Paul) received a call from heaven and was converted by such an efficacious calling was the grace of God alone, for his merits were, but evil ones.”51 Augustine and Faustus share commonalities but they certainly diverged on their evaluation of human merits. In conclusion, Faustus’s appropriation of Augustine in De gratia 49. In one of his explanatory footnotes on De gratia, Lana suggests that Lucidus is the one being alluded to, who fell into the Manichean dogma (cade nel dogma manicheo). Lana, La Grazia, 59n36. 50. Augustine, Grace and Free Choice (De gratia et libero arbitrio) 5.12 in Answer to the Pelagians, IV, 79. 51. Augustine, Grace and Free Choice, 79.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  197

I.5 reveals one instance of the nuanced theological approach characteristic of expert theologians, who were able to pluck out ideas from the Church Fathers, align them with the Scriptures, and then recast divine truth in a manner that cohered with their own theological purposes. In De gratia I.6, Faustus examines the notion that salvation is by faith, which is a gift from God rather than from the efforts of humanity. His underlying supposition is that divine grace and human labor work in a cooperative relationship within the dynamics of salvation. He begins his argument with an assessment of Eph. 2:8–9, followed by Gal. 3:6, and then concludes with Heb. 10:38 and 11:6. These biblical passages are interpreted in a seamless fashion, which suggests a level of intertextuality as these scriptural selections coalesce into one theological vision. Faustus begins with an analysis of Eph. 2:8–9, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not from works, lest anyone glory.” When interpreting Eph. 2:8–9 in collaboration with two other New Testament passages (Gal. 3:6 and Heb. 10:38), Faustus makes a distinction between the two “occasions of grace [tempora gratiae].” As Faustus transitions to an explication of Gal. 3:6 and Heb. 10:38, he declares: The occasions of grace, in which we have been redeemed, does not await the merits of men, it does not seek works deep inside, it only (depends on) God having preserved our faith by devotion according to that of the apostle: “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and as Paul states in another place: “but the righteous man lives by my faith. But if he withdraws himself, then he will not satisfy his soul.”52

52. “Tempus gratiae, quo redempti sumus, merita hominum non expectavit, opera penitus non quaesivit, sola deus fidei nostrae devotione contentus fuit secundum illud apostoli: credidit Abraham deo et reputatum est illi ad iustitiam, sicut et alio loco dicit: iustus autem ex fide mea vivit. Quod si subtraxerit se, non placebit animae meae,” Faustus, De gratia I.6 (CSEL 21: 21); Gal. 3:6; Heb. 10:38.

198  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

The time of grace, according to Faustus and in agreement with Augustine, is not dependent on the merits of humanity.53 Faustus’s interpretation of Heb. 10:38 discloses his ascetical mindset, which, as has been argued throughout this chapter, significantly contoured his biblical exegesis. In his reflections upon the unfaithful person mentioned in Heb. 10:38, that is, the one who “withdraws himself,” Faustus submits that the reprobate willingly “deviates to the devious things, he does not perish as if being abandoned, he who, ungrateful, removes himself from assailing mercy.”54 Likewise, in reference to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Faustus argues that it is proper to understand that the faithful one who approaches God also believes that God exists and that God rewards the inquiring ones.55 The role of human agency in the process of salvation is elevated within the aforementioned argument, where the unfaithful person turns away from the assailing mercy of God and the faithful one believes that God exists as he approaches the divine life. Upon assessing Heb. 10:38, Faustus concludes with approval, “How well he [Paul] conjoins both the office of the lord and of the slave by saying: and God himself rewards the inquiring ones. Indeed just as the generosity of rewarding looks back to God, thus devotion of the inquiring man looks back to man.”56 The key term within the aforementioned passage is “devotion” as it keenly exhibits the ascetical underpinnings of Faustus’s theological outlook. In his analyzing of the notion of salvation within De gratia, 53. In regard to the agreement between Augustine and Faustus, concerning the time of grace as mentioned in De Gratia I.6, Simonetti asserts, “il tempo della grazia—osserva Fausto con Agostino—nel quale siamo stati redenti, merita hominum non expectavit, opera penitus non quaesivit, sola deus fidei nostrae devoitione contentus fuit,” Simonetti, “De gratia,” 139. 54. “Quod si subtraxerit se, cum ad devia voluntarius declinavit, non periit quasi derelictus, qui se ingerenti misericordiae subtraxit ingratus,” Faustus, De gratia I.6 (CSEL 21: 21). 55. “Item ad Hebraeos: credere autem oportet accedentem ad deum, quia est, et inquirentibus se remunerator fit,” Faustus, De gratia I.6 (CSEL 21: 21); Heb. 11:6. 56. “Quam bene et domini officium coniunxit et famuli dicendo: et inquirentibus se remunerator fit. Sicut enim ad deum largitio remunerandi, ita ad hominem devotio respicit inquirendi,” Faustus, De gratia I.6 (CSEL 21: 21).

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  199

Tibiletti rightly asserts that Faustus employs the theological term devotio in a manner that is nearly synonymous with labor, effort, and asceticism.57 Faustus reiterates the positive relationship between divine grace and human labor, for generosity looks back to God, but, alas, devotio looks back to man. In Faustus’s reflection, an implied symmetry or golden mean emerges between divine generosity and human devotion within the economy of salvation.

Reception Faustus died around 490, a Catholic bishop. Through the ages, Faustus’s De gratia has received appraisals ranging from the laudatory to the polemical to the relatively balanced assessments of contemporary scholarship.58 Gennadius of Marseilles provided the first significant assessment of De gratia in De viris illustribus (ca. 490), where he praised Faustus, and recounted that Faustus taught that the grace of God invites, precedes, and assists humanity. Furthermore, Gennadius asserted that Faustus taught that rewards earned in this lifetime are divine gifts rather than the result of any human labor.59 Contestation over the legacy of Faustus and De gratia initially surfaced in the early sixth century. In a correspondence addressed to the Gallic King Gundobad, Avitus of Vienne expressed his opposition to Faustus’s questioning of the efficacy of deathbed pen57. In comparing the terms devotion, labor, effort, and asceticism within De gratia, Tibiletti concludes, “Devotio è pressoché sinonimo di labor, sforzo ascetico,” Tibiletti, “La salvezza umana in Fausto di Riez,” Orpheus 1 (1980): 377n28. 58. Smith provides a detailed and comprehensive account of the reception of Faustus’s De gratia through the centuries. Smith, De Gratia, 2–20. 59. Gennadius continued the work of Jerome’s Liber de viris inlustribus by extending coverage to the end of the fifth century. In the eighty-sixth chapter, Gennadius praised Faustus: “Faustus, ex abate Lerinensis Monasterii apud Regium Galliae episcopus factus, vir in Divinis Scripturis satis intentus . . . Edidit quoque opus egregium De gratia Dei, qua salvamur, et libero humanae mentis arbitrio, in quo salvamur; in quo opere docet gratiam Dei semper et invitare et praecederet et iuvare voluntatem nostram, et quicquid ipsa libertas arbitrii pro labore pio mercedis acquisierit, non esse proprium meritum, sed gratiae donum,” Liber de viris inlustribus 86 (TU 14.1: 91).

200  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

itence. Furthermore, as an apparent challenge to Faustus, Avitus proclaimed that faith alone ensures the salvation of the faithful.60 In addition to Avitus’s correspondence, the Decretum Gelasianum, a work purportedly produced by a Roman council of seventy-two bishops under Gelasius I (r. 492–96), deemed De gratia as an apocryphal writing along with other works attributed to John Cassian and Arnobius the Younger.61 Avitus and the Decretum Gelasianum signaled the beginning of the polemical gestures against Faustus. Fulgentius of Ruspe planned on writing seven books against De gratia, but these are not extant and it remains a point of speculation as to whether these writings were ever produced. Without Fulgentius’s refutation of De gratia, John Maxentius, the leader of the Scythian monks and an unexpected ally of Fulgentius,62 provided the seminal assessment of De gratia that dramatically configured the legacy of Faustus throughout the Middle Ages. Maxentius and the Scythian monks abruptly appeared on the ecclesiastical stage at Constantinople in early 519.63 On account of 60. Markus has suggested that Avitus was more invested in portraying the “Gallic Church as united than in assessing Faustus’ teaching, about which he may, anyway, have been confused or ill informed,” R. A. Markus, “The Legacy of Pelagius: Orthodoxy, Heresy and Conciliation,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honor of Henry Chadwick, ed. Rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 214–32, 221. For the entire correspondence, see Avitus of Vienne, Letters and Selected Prose, Translated Texts for Historians, vol. 38, trans. Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002), 193–200. 61. Das Decretum Gelasianum: De libris et non recipiendis (TU 38: 1–358, 56). 62. For a concise summary of the historiographical material related to Fulgentius, see Francis X. Gumerlock, Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God, Ph.D. diss. (St. Louis University, 2004), 7–13. See also Gumerlock’s review of contemporary scholarship on Fulgentius’s theology of grace, Fulgentius of Ruspe on the Saving Will of God: The Development of a Sixth-Century African Bishop’s Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:4 during the Semi-Pelagian Controversy (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009), 6–11. 63. The political and ecclesiastical machinations of the so-called Scythian controversy at Constantinople are largely known through correspondence addressed to Pope Hormisdas. In two letters addressed to Hormisdas (dated June 29, 519, and October 15, 519), the Alexandrian deacon Dioscorus reports that Vitalian in collaboration with the emperor convoked several meetings with the Scythian monks. In the earlier correspondence (from June), Dioscorus reports: “insidiator antiquus excitauit

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  201

their energetic defense of the so-called Theopaschite formula, the Scythian monks have been routinely characterized as stubborn controversialists. The so-called rabble-rouser Maxentius debated with Dioscorus, the former Alexandrian deacon turned official representative of Rome in Constantinople.64 In correspondence with Pope Hormisdas in 519, Dioscorus called Maxentius a “false abbot” and accused the Scythian monks of holding anti-Roman sentiments.65 In addition to Dioscorus, Maxentius debated with Possessor, an exiled African bishop who had recently relocated to Constantinople.66 In presenting his case against Maxentius, Possessor cited Faustus as an expert witness against the Theopaschite formonachos de Scythia, qui de domo magistri militum Vitaliani sunt, omnium Christianorum votis aduersarios,” Ep. 216 (CSEL 35: 675). In the later correspondence (from October), Dioscorus reports: “verba ista nos audiuimus: dei est animum iudicare. Postea sine nobis magnificus vir Vitalianus magister militum inter se et episcopum Constantinopolitanum vocauerunt praedictum Victorem,” Ep. 224 (CSEL 35: 786). For a detailed chronological account of the Scythian controversy, see Viktor Schurr, Die Trinitätslehre des Boethius im Lichte der ‘skythischen Kontroverse,’ Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeshichte 18.1 (Paderborn, 1935), 127–67. Additionally, in reverse chronological order, the following provide valuable historical accounts of the Scythian Controversy: Patrick T. R. Gray, “The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451–553),” in Studies in the History of Christian Thought 20, ed. Heiko A. Oberman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979), 44–58; William H. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 221–54; Aleksandr A. Vasiliev, Justin the First: An Introduction to the Epoch of Justinian the Great (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950), 132–212. 64. In his multivolume study on Christology, Grillmeier calls Maxentius “the real rabble-rouser in the whole theopaschite affair,” Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in the Christian Tradition: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590– 604), The Church of Constantinople in the Sixth Century, vol. II.2, trans. John Cawte and Pauline Allen (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 324. 65. “Maxentius tamen quod sub abbatis vocabulo dixit se congregationem habere, si interrogetur aut cum quibus monachis factus est, dicere non potest,” Epistula 224 in Coll. Avellana (CSEL 35: 687). Additionally, in an earlier correspondence, Dioscorus reports: “Et quia ista aguntur et in his cotidie proficit ecclesia catholica, insidiator antiquus excitavit monachos de Scythia,” Epistula 216 in Coll. Avellana (CSEL 35: 675). 66. For an overview of the life and works of Possessor, see W. Enßlin, “Possessor,” in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Alterumwissenschaft, vol. 22.1, new edition (Stuttgart: Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1953), 859–60.

202  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

mula. Faustus was being widely remembered as a venerable Gallic monk-bishop who failed to reach the canonical status of a Church Father but nonetheless was held in high esteem. In collaboration with Fulgentius, Maxentius responded to attacks on the Theopaschite formula and expanded the theological debate to include the doctrine of grace. The widening of the discourse resonates well with Maxentius’s order of theological reflection, which regularly moved from the Incarnation to the doctrine of grace.67 Maxentius’s attention quickly shifted to Faustus on account of a correspondence between Possessor and Hormisdas. The exchange began with Possessor inquiring into Hormisdas’s opinion regarding the authority of De gratia.68 In response to Possessor’s inquiry, Hormisdas offered a balanced evaluation of Faustus’s De gratia. Hormisdas declared that Faustus was not to be considered as one of the Church Fathers and he affirmed that Augustine was the authoritative teacher on the doctrine of grace. Hormisdas merely maintained the Catholic position although he was more reserved in his judgment than his papal predecessors, thus he appears less committed to continuing the vigorous attacks against those southern Gallic theologians who challenged Augustine.69 Hormisdas’s diplomatic response to the status of De gratia in67. For further discussion concerning the relationship between the Incarnation and grace in the Scythian monks’ theological discourse, see David R. Maxwell Christology and Grace in the Sixth Century Latin West: The Theopashcite Controversy, Ph.D. diss. (University of Notre Dame, 2003), 134–40. 68. “Unde cum quorundam fratrum animus de codice Fausti cuiusdam natione Galli Reginae civitatis episcopi. Qui de diversis rebus et frequentius de gratia dei diserte visus est disputare, in scandalum moveretur aliis, ut se habent humana studia, in contrarium renitentibus, me crediderunt de hoc ambiguo consulendum.” Hormisdas received Possessor’s correspondence on July 18, 520. This correspondence is the first sign of Possessor entering the debate. Possessor, Exemplum relationis Possessori episcopi Afri. per Iustinum Diaconum eius (CSEL 35: 695). 69. Hormisdas was primarily concerned with using his diplomatic acumen to situate the Roman Church in a position of power and influence. Frend calls Pope Hormisdas a “diplomat of the first rank,” indeed, as a pope he gained concessions surpassing even his own expectations. For further discussion on Hormisdas’s accomplishments at the conclusion of the Acacian schism and during the Scythian controversy, see Frend, Monophysite, 235–45, 235.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  203

spired Maxentius to compose his final extant work: Responsio adversus Epistulam quam ad Possessorem a Romano episcopo dicunt haeretici destinatam.70 In the Responsio, Maxentius provided a summary of Hormisdas’s evaluation of De gratia as follows, “For, when concerning whether or not these books must be read, or whether they are Catholic, as the question is considered, he [Hormisdas] himself does not decide what must be thought concerning them, but in fact these books, although they must not be held in authority, nevertheless [Hormisdas concludes] these books must be read.”71 Maxentius’s response to Hormisdas reaches its crescendo in the conclusion of the Responsio, where he culls over selections from De gratia and juxtaposes them with Augustine’s writings in order to demonstrate that Faustus shared more in common with the profane comments of Pelagius than with the bishop of Hippo. Maxentius confirms that Hormisdas upheld the doctrines of human free will and divine grace in accord with the books of Augustine addressed to Prosper and Hilary. However, in Maxentius’s judgment, Hormisdas’s assessment of Augustine’s writings represented a superfluous evaluation. In response to Hormisdas’s conclusions, Maxentius plucked out excerpts from the writings of Augustine and Faustus and arranged them one after another. Maxentius’s comparative analysis demonstrated the apparent incompatibility between De gratia and Augustine’s teachings.72 Prior to the 70. See note 2 for bibliographic details. 71. “Nam, cum de ipsis libris non utrum legendi sint, sed utrum sint catholici, versatur quaestio, iste non de ipsis quid sentiendum sit, sed eos, quamvis non in auctoritate habendos, tamen legendos esse decernit,” Maxentius, Responsio (CCL 85A: 142). 72. “Verumtamen, quia ‘eos libros, quos beatissimus Augustinus episcopus ad Hilarium scripsit et Prosperum,’ in fine huius epistulae ‘Romanam’ testatur ‘suscipere ecclesiam,’ et ‘quid, de gratia dei et libero humano arbitrio, eadem teneat et servet ecclesia, ex ipsis libris abunde posse sciri’ asserit: omittentes ea, quae superflue et prolixe in ista digesta probantur epistula, conveniens credidi aliqua, tam de Fausti quam de antedictis libris eiusdem sanctissimi viri Augustini, certa capitula decerpere, et huic nostro opusculo inserere, ut, cum, in brevi collota ab invicem, contraria sibi reperta fuerint, evidenter clareat libros Fausti esse haereticos, sicque confundantur omnes, qui eos hactenus defendunt catholicos,” Maxentius, Responsio (CCL 85A: 142–43).

204  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

juxtaposing of Faustus and Augustine, Maxentius explained the purpose behind the writings of both theologians as follows, Therefore the same most blessed Augustine teaches that human free will, illumination, power and salvation exists for him from Christ and through Christ and with Christ. As in truth Faustus attempts to teach Christian free will, namely that the illumination of man, power and salvation is not from Christ, but from nature and in order that it becomes plain what we say: that he (Augustine) asserts that we Christians exist, salubriously faithful and obedient to God by the grace of Christ, which gave to us this powerful presence of his incarnation; and that the latter (Faustus), just like the profane arguments of Pelagius, judges that we exist naturally.73

In Maxentius’s estimation, Faustus emphasized that salvation subsides in free will whereas conversely Augustine teaches that one is saved solely through divine grace. The manner in which Maxentius framed the theological differences between Augustine and Faustus became the privileged interpretation transmitted throughout the Middle Ages. Isidore of Seville’s De viris illustribus (early seventh century),74 the Vita Fulgentii,75 and the Chronicon of Ado (ninth century),76 relied heavily upon Maxentius’s evaluation and consequently lacked any serious independent reading of De gratia. 73. “Igitur idem beatissimus Augustinus ita humanum arbitrium docet, ut illuminatio, virtus et salus illi a Christo et per Christum et cum Christo sit: Faustus vero ita liberum Christianum arbitrium docere conatur, ut illuminatio eius, virtus et salus non a Christo, sed natura sit—et, ut planum fiat quod dicimus: ille nos Christianos, fideles atque oboedientes deo salubriter gratia Christi, quam nobis incarnationis suae donavit praesentia, esse definit; iste, iuxta profana commenta Pelagii, naturaliter esse decernit,” Maxentius, Responsio (CCL 85A: 143). 74. In his brief account of the life and merits of Fulgentius, Isidore recalls that Fulgentius was writing against the crafty Pelagian Faustus: “quibus legimus, de gratia Dei et libero arbitrio libros. Responsionum septem, in quibus Fausto, Galliae Regiensis urbis episcopo, Pelagianae pravitati consentienti, respondens, obnititur ejus profundam destruere calliditatem,” De viris illustribus 27, 35 (PL 83: 1097). 75. The Vita Fulgentii recapitulates the characterization of Faustus as a Pelagian in disguise as an orthodox: “Ita namque notior fuit pene omnibus gentibus etiam illi duo libri quos Faustus episcopus Galliarum contra gratiam subdolo sermone composuit, favens occulte Pelagianis, sed catholicus tamen volens videri” (PL 65: 145A). 76. In contestation against the Gennadius’s praise of Faustus, the Gallic bishop

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  205

Rehabilitation The rehabilitation of Faustus and De gratia would not occur until the advent of Christian humanism and the return to reading ancient texts in the Renaissance period. Desiderius Erasmsus’s study represents a transition in the scholarship on De gratia. In contrast with the medieval glosses, Erasmus appears to have read De gratia and thereafter arrived at his own conclusions. Erasmus concluded that Faustus was a “circumspect defender of Augustine against Pelagius.”77 Following Erasmus’s contribution, the early modern Catholic debates over divine grace and free will once again shaped the reception of De gratia in terms of theological concerns rather than emphasizing the historical context and literary structure of the treatise. In accord with Erasmus’s conclusions, contemporary scholar­ ship demonstrates that De gratia shares more in common with Augustine than has been previously assumed. In his evenhanded study, Smith suggests that De gratia may be viewed as one instance within the “broad and variegated reception of Augustinianism in the fifth century” rather than as an “exemplary species of the genus semipelagianism.”78 Maxentius’s Responsio has been devalued because of its polemical slant and its dominance over the Middle Ages. Recent critiques of the Responsio have merit, but they often fail to engage in the rigorous analysis of the sociohistorical conditions in which this type of comparative assessment would have flourished. The privileging of excerpts over and against reading a theological treatise en toto may appear negligent to modern sensibilities, but in the sixth cenAdo asserted: “Faustus ex abbate Lirinensis monasterii apud Regium Galliae episcopus factus, Pelagianum dogma destruere conatus, in errorem labitur: unde qui ejus sensus in hac parte catholicos praedicant, sicuti Gennadius de illustribus viris scribens, omnino errant,” Chronicon, Aetas Sexta (PL 123: 107A–B). 77. Smith, De Gratia, 8. 78. Smith, De Gratia, 234.

206  MATTHEW J. PEREI RA

tury the majority of theological truths were transmitted and assimilated through abbreviated mediums such as the florilegia.79 Theological knowledge was acquired from excerpts, which were bound together for convenience and often for the defense of a theological perspective. The composition of florigelia and other abridged collections was rarely a neutral exercise. The culling over of theological texts was an acceptable if not always valued approach to theological reading and transmission in the late antique period. Maxentius’s Responsio demonstrates best practices in the sixth century. He arranges and analyzes the parts of De gratia with the intention of discerning the unitive whole. Maxentius’s comparative approach made good methodological sense even if his conclusions reveal an overtly polemical starting point. Of course, the same complaint can be advanced toward De gratia, for Faustus also selectively appropriated the Scriptures and the Church Fathers for his own theological ends.

Conclusion The collaboration of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers provided pigmentation to Faustus’s theological vision. Faustus’s ingenuity is revealed in his ability to advance a theology of salvation that coalesces the Scriptures and the Church Fathers into a singular expression of the Gospel message. It is impossible for any given theologian to convey the Scriptures and the Church Fathers in their entirety. In the fifth century, expert theologians discerned the central message of the Gospel by selectively interpreting and collating the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. The conciliar rhetoric of the fifth and sixth centuries may have engendered a stale and monolithic theology, but there concomitantly existed sophisticated patterns of biblical interpretation and the strategic reception of 79. For a brief synopsis of florilegia, especially in reference to Augustine, see Joseph T. Lienhard, “Florilegia,” ATA, 370–71.

THE SOUTHERN GALLIC TRADIT ION  207

the Church Fathers that supported theological creativity. De gratia stood in agreement with the overarching theological tradition of Southern Gaul. De gratia was not an original theological treatise. However, in De gratia, Faustus elegantly coalesced the Scriptures and the Church Fathers into a singular proclamation of the Gospel that went beyond his contemporaries. Faustus’s synthesis of the Scriptures and the Church Fathers stands as one of the most comprehensive and balanced explorations into the mystery of salvation from the fifth and sixth centuries. This was the greatest achievement of De gratia.

11

CAESAR IUS OF AR LES,

PR EVENIENT GR ACE, AND THE SECOND COUNCIL OF OR ANGE

Ralph W. Mathisen

In his De gratia, written ca. 471 after the priest Lucidus had been condemned for his predestinarian beliefs at councils at Arles and Lyon, bishop Faustus of Riez rhetorically associated Pelagius— whom everyone everywhere condemned—with Augustine, saying, Here, therefore, both errors contradict themselves. . . . One [i.e., Augustine] stresses only grace and the other [i.e., Pelagius] only labor, disparate by the kind of beliefs, but similar in impiety through their equally divergent approach, they hiss with the spirit of a single serpent, of whom one, that is the supporter of grace alone, with a distinguished facade hides his venom under the guise of piety, whereas the other, that is the assertor of labor, openly displays his conspicuous arrogance in his shameless elation.1 1. “Hoc itaque loco gemini inter se conluctantur errores, quorum unus solam gratiam, alter solum laborem relicto tramite atque mensura veritatis insinuat. sectarum genere dispares, sed inpietate consimiles diverso quidem studio, sed spiritu unius serpentis insibilant. quorum unus, id est solius gratiae praedicator prima quidem fronte venenum suum sub specie pietatis occultat, alter, id est laboris assertor protinus extantem tumorem inproba elatione manifestat,” De gratia 1.1 (CSEL 21: 7); see R. W. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century

208

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  209

Faustus’s middle-of-the-road path acknowledged the need for the assistance of grace to gain salvation but also denied that free will had been completely debilitated by original sin. Not until 519 were Faustus’s teachings on grace questioned, and even then not in Gaul but in Italy, when a group of Scythian monks traveled to Rome and, among other things, accused Faustus of “Nestorianism,” but Pope Hormisdas’s only response was to declare in 520 that Augustine’s teaching on grace was preferable to Faustus’s. At the same time, the exiled African bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe, sensitive to any attack on his fellow countryman Augustine, weighed in with his personal opinion that Faustus’s teaching on grace was incorrect.2

Caesarius of Arles Meanwhile, back in Provence, now part of the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy, the ambitious bishop Caesarius of Arles, using a method often adopted by Gallic bishops facing local opposition, had allied himself with the bishop of Rome. In 514 Caesarius gained support for extended metropolitan authority, primarily at the expense of the bishop of Vienne, from Pope Symmachus (498–514), who also made Caesarius his “vicar,” with responsibility for overseeing papal interests in Gaul. Caesarius then pursued his own ecclesiastical agendas, such as tightening up the rules for ordinations and establishing parish churches, first with the support of Pope Hormisdas (514–23) and then, when he felt he was in a stronger position, by summoning church councils, at Arles in 524 and Carpentras in 527. In addition, Ostrogothic expansion in 523 gained for Caesarius additional sees that previously had been Gaul (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 244–68; also C. Tibiletti, “Libero arbitrio e grazia in Fausto di Riez,” Aug. 19 (1979): 259–85, and idem, “La salvezza umana in Fausto di Riez,” Orpheus 1 (1980): 371–90. 2. For these events, see Rebecca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1996), 181–96.

210  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

suffragans of Vienne. Whenever Caesarius ran into opposition, which happened often enough, he appealed to the bishop of Rome.3 The playing field changed in 528, however, when bishop Julianus of Vienne adopted a tried-and-true method for attacking one’s ecclesiastical opponents, especially when all else had failed: an accusation of heresy. According to the Life of Caesarius, written only about seven years after Caesarius’s death in 542, “And many rivals arose who resisted the teaching he preached about grace . . . indeed, through the whisperings and wicked interpretation of certain persons, suspicion arose against the preaching of the man of God in parts of Gaul. For this reason, the bishops of Christ established on the other side of the Isère River met in the city of Valence.”4 At this time, the Isère marked the boundary of ecclesiastical authority in the province of Viennensis between Arles and Vienne, meaning that the Council of Valence had been summoned by Caesarius’s rival, bishop Julianus of Vienne.5 Caesarius himself, pleading illness, and no doubt declining to attend a council organized by his rivals, absented himself, but his loyal partisan, Cyprianus of Toulon, a specialist in canon law,6 went in his stead, defending Caesarius’s view that “one can obtain nothing in divine undertakings through oneself unless first summoned by the prevenient grace of God.”7 3. For these developments, see W. Klingshirn, Caesarius of Arles: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 127–41; see, for example, p. 250 for Caesarius’s need for “papal intervention to support his own faltering authority.” 4. “Et multi quidem aemuli surrexerunt qui eius resisterent doctrinae de gratia praedicandi . . . etenim susurris et mala interpretatione quorundam oboritur in Galliarum partibus contra praedicationem dei hominis . . . suspicio. ob hoc antistites Christi ultra Iseram consistentes . . . in Valentina civitate conveniunt,” VCaesarii 1.60 (MGH, SRM 3: 481). 5. For the date, see Klingshirn, Caesarius, 140; K. J. von Hefele, H. Leclercq, Histoire des conciles (Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1907), 2.2.1108–9, suggest 529 for this council, but given that canonical Gallic councils usually occurred in the fall and that Caesarius would have needed some lead time to make his preparations for the Council of Orange in July, 528 seems more likely. 6. As discussed later in the chapter. 7. “Nihil per se in divinis profectibus quenquem arripere posse, nisi fuerit primitus, dei gratia praeveniente, vocatus,” VCaesarii 1.60 (MGH SRM 3: 482).

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  211

The problem that Julianus and his partisans had with Caesarius’s teaching, therefore, was his support of the Augustinian position on prevenient grace, which was in direct opposition to what had been the Gallic consensus for nearly a hundred years.8 It thus should be no surprise that Cyprianus’s defense of Caesarius went for nought: as the Life reported, “When [Caesarius’s opponents] sought to establish justice, they were not subject to the justice of God.”9 On strictly theological grounds, and irrespective of any political considerations, the Augustinian concept of prevenient grace was duly condemned in favor of prevailing Gallic orthodoxy. Caesarius was convicted of heresy and perhaps even ritually deposed from office.

The Second Council of Orange In order to defend himself, Caesarius quickly pursued his usual course of action when confronted by local trouble: he appealed to Pope Felix IV (526–30) in Rome. Felix might have been rather taken aback, given that Caesarius had appealed to him just the year before for support in his fruitless efforts, in spite of a council held at Carpentras, to discipline bishop Agroecius of Antibes.10 On that occasion, Felix provided the de rigueur letter of support, and in 528/529, he did likewise, forwarding to Caesarius a collection of capitula—extracts—supporting Augustine’s view of prevenient grace.11 Then on July 3, 529, on the occasion of the dedication of a church underwritten by the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius, Caesarius assembled an impromptu church 8. C. Leyser, “Semipelagianism,” in ATA, 761–65, at 764, supposes that the charge involved “an accusation of ‘predestinarianism,’” but this only would have been by implication, that is, on an assumption that support for prevenient grace necessarily implied support for predestination, something that most Gauls would not have accepted. 9. “Sed dum suam iustitiam quaerebant statuere, iustitiae dei non erant subiecti.” 10. CCL 148A: 47–52. 11. D. M. Cappuyns, “L’origine des ‘Capitula’ d’Orange, 529,” RTAM 6 (1934): 121–42.

212  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

council, now known as the Second Council of Orange, in support of his own teachings on grace.12 The only elements of the surviving acta of the council13 that were authored at the time of the meeting consist of a preamble and, more significantly, a definitio fidei (definition of faith) that presented Caesarius’s interpretation of the role of grace. The bulk of the acta, placed between these two sections, consisted of twenty-five canons reiterating, it seems, the capitula that Caesarius had received from Felix. The preamble stated the circumstances of the council, what it proposed to do, and its authority for doing so: When we had gathered, with the support of God and at the invitation of Liberius, for the dedication of the basilica that the most illustrious prefect and patrician, our son Liberius, constructed with the most faithful devotion in the city of Orange, and when a spiritual gathering arose among us regarding matters that pertain to ecclesiastical rightness, it occurred to us that there were some, who, on account of their simplicity, desired to feel less cautiously, and not according to the rightness of catholic faith, regarding grace and free will. Whence, according to the advice and authority of the Apostolic See, it seemed just and reasonable to us that we should put forth a few extracts [capitula] sent to us by the Apostolic See, which have been gathered especially for this case from the ancient fathers and the volumes of sacred scriptures for the purpose of teaching those who believe otherwise than they should, and that we should subscribe to them with our own hands. When these capitula have been read, whoever until now has not believed as is fitting regarding grace and free will, let him not delay inclining his spirit to those beliefs that are appropriate for the catholic faith.14 12. See Hefele-Leclercq, Conciles 2.2.1085–1109; also Weaver, Grace, 229; Mark A. Dietrich, “Semi-Pelagian Thought in the Second Council of Orange (529 C.E.),” master’s thesis (Regent University, 1995). The first council of Orange met in 441: see R. W. Mathisen, “A Reconstruction of the List of Subscriptions to the Council of Orange (A.D. 441),” Annuarium historiae conciliorum 20 (1988): 1–12. 13. For the acta, see CCL 148A: 53–76; for an English translation, see J. Patout Burns, Theological Anthropology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 109–28. 14. “Cum ad dedicationem basilicae, quam inlustrissimus praefectus et patricius filius noster Liberius in Arausica civitate fidelissima devotione construxit, deo propitiante et ipso invitante convenissemus, et de rebus quae ad ecclesiasticam regu-

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  213

It is clear from the preamble that the council was assembled only after the bishops had convened for the dedication of the basilica, and one wonders whether it might have come as something of a surprise to those in attendance.15 Caesarius and his partisans stated up front that they had the support of both the Ostrogothic secular administration and the bishop of Rome, non-Gallic authorities that prima facie indicate that the bishops anticipated that their agenda would not have strong local support. The following capitula began with eight anathemametized beliefs, each of which commenced with the words si quis (“if anyone”). The first included a routine denunciation of Pelagianism, stating, “If anyone says that through Adam’s sin of lying man was not totally, that is with respect to body and soul, changed for the worse, and believes that the only the body was liable to corruption, with the freedom of the soul remaining unharmed, then, having been delam pertinent, inter nos fuisset spiritualis oborta conlatio; pervenit ad nos, esse aliquos, qui de gratia et libero arbitrio per simplicitatem minus caute et non secundum fidei catholicae regulam sentire velint. Unde id nobis secundum admonitionem et auctoritatem sedis apostolicae iustum et rationabile visum est, ut pauca capitula ab apostolica nobis sede transmissa, quae ab antiquis patribus de sanctarum scripturarum voluminibus in hac praecipue causa collecta sunt, ad docendos eos, qui aliter quam oportet sentiunt, ab omnibus observanda proferre et manibus nostris subscribere deberemus. Quibus lectis, qui hucusque non sicut oportebat de gratia et libero arbitrio credidit, ad ea quae fidei catholicae conveniunt, animum suum inclinare non differat,” based on CCL 148A: 55, with obvious orthographical errors resulting from transmission normalized. 15. Contrary to the assumptions, for example, of Leyser (“Semipelagianism,” 765), that the bishops met “officially to sanction Caesarius’s teaching”; and of Klingshirn, Caesarius, 137, who supposes that the bishops were invited to the council and then happened to attend the dedication; the acta demonstrate that the declared purpose of the assembly was the dedication, on which see Weaver, Grace, 227. Caesarius already had used this ploy in 524: after eighteen bishops had come to Arles for a church dedication, he induced them to remain for a council, viz. “Cum . . . ad dedicationem basilicae sanctae Mariae in Arelatensi civitate sacerdotes domini convenissent, congruum eis . . . visum est ut . . . qualiter ab ipsis ecclesiastica regula servaretur salubri consilio definirent” (“After the bishops of the Lord had convened in the city of Arles for the dedication of the basilica of St. Mary, it seemed fitting to them that they define in a salubrious council how ecclesiastical standards should be preserved by them”), Conc. Arel. Praef. (CCL 148A: 43). The similar wording of the two preambles (italicized) shows that the preamble from Arles served as a template for that at Orange.

214  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

ceived by the error of Pelagius, he is opposed to scripture. . . .”16 The next seven capitula anathematized—and, inversely, indicated what proper belief was to be—anyone who claimed (2) that Adam’s sin did not affect his descendents;17 (3) that grace could be conferred as a result of one’s own prayers alone;18 (4) that it was through one’s own will that God cleansed one from sin;19 (5) that both the beginning and the increase of faith came from nature and not from grace;20 (6) that God’s mercy came not from grace but from one’s own actions, or that one could be humble or obedient without the gift of grace;21 (7) that through the vigor of nature, without inspiration from the Holy Spirit, it was possible to think or choose anything related to salvation or to be saved;22 and (8) that some could gain grace through divine mercy and others through free will.23 All 16. Capit.1: “Si quis per offensam praevaricationis Adae non totum, id est, secundum corpus et animam, in deterius dicit hominem commutatum; sed animae libertate illaesa durante, corpus tantummodo corruptioni credit obnoxium: Pelagii errore deceptus, adversatur scripturae. . . .” 17. Capit. 2: “Si quis soli Adae praevaricationem suam, non et ejus propagini, asserit nocuisse . . . iniustitiam deo dabit, contradicens apostolo. . . .” 18. Capit. 3: “Si quis invocatione humana gratiam dei dicit posse conferri; non autem ipsam gratiam facere, ut invocetur a nobis; contradicit Isaiae prophetae, vel apostolo. . . .” 19. Capit. 4: “Si quis, ut a peccato purgemur, voluntatem nostram deum exspectare contendit . . . resistit ipsi spiritui sancto. . . .” 20. Capit. 5: “Si quis sicut augmentum ita etiam initium fidei ipsumque credulitatis affectum . . . non per gratiae donum . . . sed naturaliter nobis inesse dicit, apostolicis dogmatibus adversarius approbatur. . . .” 21. Capit. 6: “Si quis sine gratia dei, credentibus, volentibus, desiderantibus, conantibus, laborantibus, vigilantibus, studentibus, petentibus, quaerentibus, pulsantibus nobis misericordiam dicit conferri divinitus . . . et aut humilitati, aut obedientiae humanae subiungit gratiae adiutorium, nec ut obedientes et humiles simus ipsius gratiae donum esse consentit; resistit apostolo. . . .” 22. Capit. 7: “Si quis per naturae vigorem bonum aliquod, quod ad salutem pertinet vitae aeternae, cogitare ut expedit, aut eligere, sive salutari . . . posse confirmat absque illuminatione et inspiratione spiritus sancti. . . . haeretico fallitur spiritu, non intelligens vocem dei in evangelio. . . .” 23. Capit. 8: “Si quis alios misericordia, alios vero per liberum arbitrium . . . ad gratiam baptismi posse venire contendit . . . Is enim non omnium liberum arbitrium per peccatum primi hominis asserit infirmatum; aut certe ita laesum putat, ut tamen quidam valeant, sine revelatione dei, mysterium salutis aeternae per semetipsos conquirere.”

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  215

of these anathemas confirm that the focus of the debate was on the role of prevenient grace; other issues, such as original sin and free will, certainly had important roles in the debate, but only insofar as they related to prevenient grace. Having covered several combinations of impermissible beliefs, the capitula then proceeded to a list of seventeen definitions, some fortified with scriptural citations, relating to the interactions between God and humanity in the context of the preceding anathemas and statements of proper belief,24 which can be summarized as follows: (9) As often as we do good, God works in us and with us so that we may do it;25 (10) The assistance of God always must be sought by the reborn and the blessed so that they can come to a good end or persevere in good work;26 (11) No one rightly prays for anything from God unless he receives that for which he prayed (citing 1 Cor. 29:14);27 (12) God loves us for such as we are going to be by his gift not as we are by our own merit;28 (13) The free will lost in the first man cannot be restored except through the grace of baptism (citing Jn. 8:56;29 (14) No one who is miserable is freed from any misery except for one who is anticipated by the mercy of God (citing Ps. 78:8, 58:11);30 (15) Adam was changed, but for the worse, by his own sin . . . the faithful one is changed, but for the better, through the grace of God (citing Ps. 76:11);31 24. All cited from CCL 148A: 58–62. 25. Capit. 9: “Quoties enim bona agimus, deus in nobis atque nobiscum, ut operemur, operatur.” 26. Capit. 10: “Adjutorium dei etiam renatis ac sanctis semper est implorandum, ut ad finem bonum pervenire, vel in bono possint opere perdurare.” 27. Capit. 11: “Nemo quidquam domino recte voveret, nisi ab illo acciperet quod voveret.” 28. Capit.12: “Tales nos amat Deus, quales futuri sumus ipsius dono, non quales sumus nostro merito.” 29. Capit.13: “Arbitrium voluntatis in primo homine infirmatum, nisi per gratiam baptismi, non potest reparari.” 30. Capit.14: “Nullus miser de quacumque miseria liberatur, nisi qui dei misericordia praevenitur.” 31. Capit.15: “Mutatus est Adam, sed in peius, per iniquitatem suam . . . mutatur fidelis, sed in melius, per gratiam Dei.”

216  RALPH W. MATH I SEN (16) No one should glory in what he seems to have as if he had not been given it (citing Gal. 2:21, Eph. 4:8);32 (17) Love of God creates the fortitude of Christians, not through free will but through the Holy Spirit;33 (18) Payment is owed to good works if they occur, but grace, which is not owed, precedes them so that they can occur;34 (19) No one can be saved except through the mercy of God;35 (20) Man is capable of nothing good without God;36 (21) “Regarding nature and grace, if justice comes from nature, then Christ died for naught,”37 citing Gal. 2:21, Matt. 5:17; (22) No one has anything of his own except for mendacity and sin;38 (23) When they do what displeases God, men do it of their own will, but when they do what they wish in accordance with divine will, even if they do what they do willingly, nevertheless it is the will of him by whom what they wish is prepared and commanded;39 (24) There thus are branches on the vine that convey nothing to the vine, but that accept from it what they need to live;40 and (25) To love God is completely a gift of God.41

The only sources indicated for any of these commonplaces are the scriptural citations that accompany some of them. The preamble, however, had specified that the capitula had been drawn “from 32. Capit.16: “Nemo ex eo, quod videtur habere, glorietur, tanquam non acceperit.” 33. Capit.17: “Fortitudinem autem Christianorum dei caritas facit . . . non per voluntatis arbitrium . . . sed per spiritum sanctum.” 34. Capit. 18: “Debetur merces bonis operibus, si fiant; sed gratia, quae non debetur, praecedit ut fiant.” 35. Capit. 19: “Neminem nisi deo miserante salvari.” 36. Capit. 20: “Nihil boni hominem posse sine Deo.” 37. Capit. 21: “De natura et gratia . . . si ex natura iustitia, ergo Christus gratis mortuus est.” 38. Capit. 22: “Nemo habet de suo, nisi mendacium et peccatum.” 39. Capit. 23: “Suam voluntatem homines faciunt, non dei, quando id agunt quod deo displicet: quando autem ita faciunt quod volunt, ut divinae serviant voluntati, quamvis volentes agant quod agunt, illius tamen voluntas est, a quo et praeparatur et iubetur quod volunt.” 40. Capit. 24: “Ita sunt in vite palmites, ut viti nihil conferant, sed inde accipiant unde vivant.” 41. Capit. 25: “Prorsus donum dei est, diligere Deum.”

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  217

the ancient fathers and the volumes of sacred scriptures.” Yet, there are no identifiable quotations from any ancient fathers, nor are any cited. But it appears, in fact, that the capitula were simply copies, perhaps somewhat revised by Caesarius and his partisans,42 of some fifth-century compilations, the eight anathemas being drawn from the so-called Capitula sancti Augustini (“Extracts from St. Augustine”), and the remaining definitions culled from some rather freely cited extracts from Augustine made by Prosper of Aquitaine known as the Sententiae ex Augustino delibatae (“Opinions drawn from Augustine”).43 The citation of these Augustine-based passages demonstrates, again, Caesarius’s strong devotion to Augustinian theology. But, on the other hand, these extracts do not name either of the distinguished authors they were citing, preferring to rely for authority on scriptural citations alone. It thus may be that the bishops at Orange wished to distance themselves from using Augustine and his acolyte Prosper directly as sources of authority, knowing that doing so would not convince any of the Gallic antiAugustinians. The concluding definitio fidei then provided the meat of the acta, initially stating, “We ought to teach and believe that because of the sin of the first man, free will has been so damaged and weakened that no one afterward can either love God as is fitting or believe in God or do for the sake of God that which is good, unless grace and divine mercy has anticipated him. . . . We understand and at the same time believe that this grace is not embodied in the free will of all who desire to be baptized, but is granted by the generos42. See, for example, Weaver, Grace, 228–29. 43. See Fr. Glorie, ed., Maxentii aliorumque scytharum Monachorum necnon Ioannis Tomitanae Urbis Episcopi Opuscula; Capitula sancti Augustini, CCL 85A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978); D. M. Cappuyns, “L’origine,”121–42; note also Glorie, “L’origine des capitula pseudo-Célestiniens contre le semipélagianisme,” RB 41 (1929): 156–70. Compare, for example, Capit. 9, “Quoties enim bona agimus, deus in nobis atque nobiscum, ut operemur, operatur,” with Prosper, Sententiae 22 (PL 51: 432), “Quoties enim bona agimus, deus in nobis atque nobiscum, ut operemur, operatur.”

218  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

ity of Christ.”44 Although few, or none, in Gaul would have contested the concluding anti-Pelagian assertion, the sticking point was in the first clause, which crippled free will even to the ability to believe in God. The definitio went on, it seemed, to provide a small window of opportunity for free will—in combination, of course, with divine assistance—in the performance of good works, stating, “We likewise believe this, according to the catholic faith, that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons, if they desire [voluerint] to labor faithfully, are able to and ought to fulfill those things that pertain to salvation, with Christ assisting and supporting.”45 Here, the council indicated that baptism brought not only grace, but also a strengthening of free will, the latter of which some could argue was not completely consistent with Augustinian teachings. But, perhaps concerned that this apparent, albeit unacknowledged, nod to the teachings of Faustus of Riez and the contemporary anti-Augustinians was conceding too much to free will, the council then felt the need to clarify that even here, the initial impulse to perform any sort of good works always came from God, saying, “We also profess and believe that in every good work we do not begin and later receive help through the mercy of God, but that he himself, preceded by none of our own good works, first inspires both our faith and our love of him, so that we both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism and, after baptism, are able to fulfill those things that are pleasing to him with his assistance.”46 In this way, 44. “Praedicare debemus et credere, quod per peccatum primi hominis ita inclinatum et attenuatum fuerit liberum arbitrium, ut nullus postea aut diligere deum sicut oportuit, aut credere in Deum, aut operari propter deum quod bonum est, possit, nisi gratia eum et misericordia divina praevenerit . . . quam gratiam . . . omnibus qui baptizari desiderant non in libero arbitrio haberi, sed Christi novimus simul et credimus largitate conferri.” 45. “Hoc etiam secundum fidem catholicam credimus, quod accepta per baptismum gratia, omnes baptizati, Christo auxiliante et cooperante, quae ad salutem pertinent, possint, et debeant, si fideliter laborare voluerint, adimplere.” 46. “Hoc etiam salubriter profitemur et credimus quod in omni opere bono, non nos incipimus et postea per dei misericordiam adiuvamur, sed ipse nobis nullis

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  219

the Council of Orange aligned itself firmly on the side of Augustinian prevenient grace, a clear response to the challenges to Caesarius’s orthodoxy raised shortly before. Curiously, even though this particular controversy was specifically over prevenient grace, the bishops also felt the need to appear to be distancing themselves from the one element of Augustine’s teachings that always had aroused the greatest opposition in Gaul: predestination.47 A clause inserted in between the two statements supporting prevenient grace declared, “Indeed, not only do we not believe that some have been predestined by divine power to wickedness, but if there are those who wish to believe such a great evil we also say anathema to them with all loathing.”48 But this clause, which characteristically did not name Augustine, only condemned predestination to evil, something that Augustine himself had condemned and that was completely noncontroversial. It said nothing about predestination to salvation, which the Gallic ecclesiastical establishment condemned but which a strict Augustinian would have supported. Was the explicit condemnation of predestination to evil a blind intended to obfuscate Caesarius’s support for predestination to salvation, which surely would have marked him as a heretic in Gaul? If Caesarius was as devoted to Augustine as many believe, this may well have been the case.

praecedentibus bonis meritis, et fidem et amorem sui prius inspirat, ut et baptismi sacramenta fideliter requiramus, et post baptismum cum ipsius adiutorio ea quae sibi sunt placita implere possimus.” This statement that even after baptism grace was necessary for “every good work” seems contrary to Weaver, Grace, 233, who sees Orange advocating that “baptism restores the freedom to choose either good or evil.” 47. For example, Chron. Gall.452 s.a. 418, “praedestinatorum haeresis quae ab Augustino accepisse initium dicitur his temporibus serpere exorsa” (“the heresy of the predestinarians, which is said to have received its impetus from Augustine, once arisen creeps along”). 48. “Aliquos vero ad malum divina potestate praedestinatos esse, non solum non credimus, sed etiam si sunt, qui tantum malum credere velint, cum omni detestatione illis anathema dicimus”; contrary to the assertion of Leyser (“Semipelagianism,” 765), “No mention whatsoever is made in the conciliar decrees of predestination.”

220  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

Counciliar Anomalies The Second Council of Orange had several striking irregularities. For one thing, it was not one of Caesarius’s normal provincial councils, for that would be held just a few months later, on November 5, at Vaison.49 Moreover, unlike Caesarius’s previous, and subsequent, councils, which dealt with Caesarius’s attempts to impose his ideas of ecclesiastical discipline on others,50 this council was a response to attempts to do the same to him. In addition, in place of the contemporary canons one would expect at a bona fide council, the council promulgated a collection of previously issued capitula.51 And the only actual document emanating from the council was not a canon but a statement of faith of the sort typically composed by someone whose orthodoxy had been challenged.52 This was all very irregular and quite out of keeping with how church councils normally functioned in late and post-Roman Gaul. Indeed, this council rather harks back to councils of the late fourth and early fifth centuries that did, in fact, deal with accusations of heresy, such as the Councils of Aquileia in 381 and Carthage in 411, not to mention the ecumenical councils of Nicaea (325), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451). In Gaul, however, the only precedent for putting a heretic on trial at a council was the aforementioned case of Lucidus. Additionally, in none of the previous cases was the council organized by the accused himself. Nevertheless, Caesarius resorted 49. CCL 148A: 77–81. 50. The Councils of Arles (524) and Vaison (529) promulgated general regulations, whereas those of Carpentras (527) and Marseilles (533) attempted to punish bishops who violated Caesarius’s disciplinary standards. 51. Contrary to the assumption of Leyser, “Semipelagianism,” 765, that these were bona fide “decrees.” A possible analogy might be the so-called “Second Council of Arles,” all of whose canons had been issued at earlier councils; see R. W. Mathisen, “The Second Council of Arles and the Spirit of Compilation and Codification in Late Roman Gaul,” JECS 5 (1997): 511–54. 52. For such documents and a Spanish example perhaps used in a Gallic context, see R. W. Mathisen, “Agrestius of Lugo, Eparchius Avitus, and a Curious FifthCentury Statement of Faith,” JECS 2 (1994): 71–102.

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  221

to this means not only to clear himself of the accusations raised at Valence but also to go on the offensive by lining up all the support he could in support of his own theological views. After a hurried appeal to Felix, which may help to account for the rather slap-dash reply consisting simply of extracts, Caesarius then used the occasion of Liberius’s church dedication to convene a church council solely for the purpose of validating and promoting his own orthodoxy. The personal and even political nature of the council is attested by yet another glaring irregularity, for the conciliar acta were signed not only by fourteen bishops but also by seven viri inlustres, representing the most exalted members of the senatorial aristocracy and headed by Liberius himself, who ostentatiously subscribed, “I, Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius, a most distinguished and illustrious man, Praetorian prefect of Gaul and Patrician, being in agreement, subscribed.”53 By this extraordinary act, occasioned perhaps by the consideration that Caesarius’s opponents presumably had powerful secular support of their own,54 Caesarius demonstrated, even more clearly than in the preamble, that he was supported by powerful elements of the senatorial aristocracy and the Ostrogothic administration.

Consequences of the Council The traditional view is that Caesarius won a complete and lasting victory over his opponents at Orange.55 This perception no doubt 53. “Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius vir clarissimus et inlustris praefectus praetorii Galliarum atque patricius consentiens subscripsi,” CCL 148A: 65–66. Another example of lay participation is found at the ecumenical council of Chalcedon in 451, but this was a case where the council itself was stage-managed by the imperial government, something certainly not the case at Orange. 54. Subsequent bishops of Vienne included Pantagathus and Hesychius, both of whom served as “quaestor regum”: Louis Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l’ancienne Gaule, 3 vols., 2nd ed. (Paris: A. Fontemoing, 1907–15), 1.206. 55. As Leyser (“Semipelagianism,” 764), “Caesarius . . . triumphed at the Council of Orange”; (765): “Caesarius’s victory at Orange . . . overall the council must be counted as a success”; or Weaver, Grace, that the council brought “the Semipelagian

222  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

is based on the tendentious presentation of the Life of Caesarius, which not surprisingly asserted that Caesarius had triumphed, saying, “For Boniface of blessed memory, once pope of the church of Rome, when the same conflict had been revealed and after the squabbling of the quarrelsome had been suppressed, confirmed the program of the blessed Caesarius with apostolic authority.”56 But it is curious that Caesarius’s biographers declined even to mention the Council of Orange (although it might be implied in the reference to a suppression of squabbling) and attributed Caesarius’s triumph to the support of the pope. Perhaps the many irregularities surrounding the council influenced Caesarius’s biographers to downplay its significance in the vita. Another reason that modern scholars have seen Orange as a great success is that only the acta of Orange but not those of Valence were preserved in Gallic collections of canons. But there is a good reason for this: Caesarius and his church controlled the flow of information. It often has been argued that not only early sixth-century Gallic canon collections but also many other compositions, and their circulation, dealing with church law, doctrine, and discipline, reflected the efforts of Caesarius.57 And, although the role of Arles in this regard no doubt has been overemphasized, controversy to a conclusion” (200), and marked “the official ecclesiastical resolution of the Semi-Pelagian debate” (226)—although the Council of Orange was no more “official” than the Council of Valence—and that “the Augustinian tradition carried the day” (238). 56. “Nam et beatae memoriae Bonifacius Romanae ecclesiae papa olim, eandem conluctationem compertam, calcata intentione iurgantium, prosecutionem sancti Caesarii apostolica auctoritate firmavit,” VCaesarii 1.60. 57. See G. Morin, “Le ‘Breviarium fidei’ contre les ariens produit de l’atelier de Césaire d’Arles?” RHE 35 (1939): 35–53; and Morin, “Les Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, sont-ils de s. Césaire d’Arles?” RB 13 (1913): 334–42, C. H. Turner, “Arles and Rome: The First Developments of Canon Law in Gaul,” JTS 17 (1916): 236–47; K. Schäferdiek, “Das sogennante zweite Konzil von Arles und die älteste Kanonessammlung der arelatenser Kirche,” Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte der Savigny-Stiftung, Kanonistische Abteilung 71 (1985): 1–19, L. Duchesne, “Arles et le droit canonique,” in Duchesne, Fastes 1.142ff; and R. W. Mathisen, “Between Arles, Rome, and Toledo: Gallic Collections of Canon Law in Late Antiquity,” ‘Ilu revista de ciencias de las religiones 2 (1999): 33–46.

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  223

the church of Arles did have a well-developed chancery engaged in the preservation and circulation of various sorts of official documents, such as the so-called Epistulae Arelatenses, letters from emperors and popes attesting to the ecclesiastical privileges of the see of Arles;58 one of these, for example, a letter of Pope Zosimus to the bishop of Arles, turned up later, in altered form, in a collection created for the church of Autun.59 The acta of Orange were placed into the ecclesiastical archive of Arles by Caesarius himself, as attested by the “Cologne collection,” the Coloniensis 212, a manuscript of conciliar canons copied ca. 590–604, or just over sixty years after the council. It is the only manuscript to include, before the list of conciliar subscriptions, the note, “I, Caesarius, bishop in the name of Christ, edited this master copy of our constitution and placed an authentic copy in the archive of the church.” 60 Whoever initially created this collection, therefore, used as an exemplar Caesarius’s personal copy. And the identity of this person is suggested by the inclusion in the same collection of the only surviving copy of a letter of Caesarius’s staunch ally, bishop Cyprianus of Toulon, entry no. 38, addressed to bishop Maximus of Geneva, one of the suffragans of Julianus of Vienne.61 58. Wilhelm Gundlach, ed., Epistulae Arelatenses genuinae (MGH, Ep. 3: 1–83); and idem, “Der Streit der Bisthümer Arles und Vienne um den Primatus Galliarum,” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskund 14 (1888): 251–342, 15 (1889): 9–102. 59. See R. W. Mathisen, “Syagrius of Autun, Virgilius of Arles, and Gregory of Rome: Factionalism, Forgery, and Local Authority at the End of the Sixth Century,” in L’Eglise et la Mission au VIe siècle. La mission d’Augustin de Cantorbéry et les Eglises de Gaule sous l’ impulsion de Grégoire le Grand, ed. C. de Dreuille (Paris: Serf, 2000), 260–90; in addition, a copy of Caesarius’s extracts against Contumeliosus of Riez surfaced in the “Corbie collection,” Parisinus Latinus 12097, f.192v, written in the seventh century. 60. As indicated by Caesarius’s appended notation, “Caesarius in Christi nomine episcopus exemplar constitutionis nostrae edidi et authenticum in archivo ecclesiae reseravi,” CCL 148A: 64. On the other hand, a descriptive preface to the letter of Boniface and the acta of Orange preserved in the Parisinus Latinus 1451 probably is just a copyist’s addition and not a genuine artifact of Caesarius himself, as assumed in CCL 148A: 69. 61. Epist. “Pervenit ad parvitatem,” Epist. merov. 1 (MGH, Ep. 3: 434–36).

224  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

Cyprianus wrote that he had learned that Maximus “judges that my lack of learning must be rebuked, because I said that God suffered as a man.”62 In response, after many scriptural citations, Cyprianus accused Maximus of heresy: “You somehow create two Christs and you incur the Nestorian error, which is far from the truth.”63 Then, after recommending that Maximus review the letter of Leporius recanting Nestorianism in the 420s, Cyprianus made the rather curious request that Maximus forward his response care of Caesarius in Arles.64 Nor was an accusation of Nestorianism as curious as it might seem, for in the mid fifth century Prosper of Aquitaine had made a connection between Nestorianism and Pelagianism, which always was fair game in Gaul.65 Cyprianus’s letter is undated, but Cyprianus certainly would have met Maximus at the Council of Valence in 528 and, in that context, a counteraccusation of heresy against Maximus might have seemed just the thing in the theological game of tit-for-tat. Additionally, regardless of its immediate context, Cyprianus’s letter shows that accusations of heresy were being made on both sides of the Isère. Other items contained in the Cologne collection also suggest a compiler of Cyprianus’s stature and Arlesian connections. Two entries before, no. 36, is a copy of the emperor Honorius’s “Constitutio saluberrima,” otherwise preserved only in the Epistulae Arelatenses, and just afterward are five more letters, nos. 40–43, 45, from the Epistulae Arelatenses, and shortly after that, no. 49, is a copy of the Capitula sancti Augustini de monachis et sanctimonialibus, all works well-suited to the library of a partisan of the bishop of Arles and the teachings of Augustine. The compiler of this collection also had a 62. “Pervenit ad parvitatem meam quod beatitudo vestra imperitiam nostram iudicet esse culpandam, eo quod deum hominem passum dixerim.” 63. “Duos quoddammodo Christos facis et Nestorianum, quod absit, errorem incurris.” 64. “Etsi ad me forte difficile est pro longinquiori viam attendi aditus, fratri vestro, domno meo Caesario, dirigite, per quem ad me poterunt facillime vestrae epistulae pervenire.” 65. Prosper of Aquitaine, Epitaphium Nestorianae et Pelagianae haereseon (PL 51: 153–54).

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  225

knack for preserving rare documents, for it contains the only copies of the canons of the Council of Nîmes (394/396) (no. 8) and the full subscriptions of the Council of Vaison (442) (no. 9); in addition, the entry just before the Cyprianus letter, no. 37, is the only copy of a letter from Pope Anastasius to the bishops of Gaul; and before that, no. 35 is the only copy of the “Notitia Galliarum” to preserve the preface; following the “Capitula,” no. 50, is the only surviving copy of the documents from the Council of Marseilles in 533, when Caesarius attempted to depose Contumeliosus of Riez; and two entries after that, no. 52, is a rare copy of a letter from Pope Zosimus to Remigius of Aix. The proximity of Toulon to Aix, Riez, and Marseille again might suggest Cyprianus as one who had both an interest in and access to these documents, as would the consideration that the Cologne collection excised letters of Faustus of Riez that typically appear in other Gallic compilations containing similar material. Indeed, what we have here may be part of Cyprianus’s own theological library, a collection of significant documents worthy of a dedicated theologian and canon lawyer capable of making accusations of heresy on his own authority, and a bishop who was Caesarius’s stand-in at the Council of Valence, his hagiographer, one of the few persons to receive anything in his will (a cloak and his better-quality belt),66 and even, perhaps, the ghostwriter of some of his theological treatises. By carefully preserving documents favorable to the church of Arles, Caesarius’s supporters were able to influence the flow of documents that were passed on to future generations. But other evidence indicates that the acta of the Council of Orange did not have the desired result, and that Caesarius still faced strong resistance. For one thing, continued opposition to his theology forced Caesarius once again to appeal to Rome.67 His letter to pope Felix was answered on January 25, 531, by Felix’s successor, 66. “Domno meo Cypriano episcopo mantum et cinctorium meliorem dari volo”: Testamentum Caesarii (Morin, Caesarius 2.289). 67. Klingshirn, Caesarius, 247: this “signals his weakness rather than his strength, and suggests that his influence . . . was not particularly strong.”

226  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

Boniface II (530–32), who makes clear that the definitions issued by the Council of Orange had not settled the theological controversies in Gaul, saying, “You indicate that certain bishops of Gaul, although they now agree that other good things come from the grace of God, still wish the faith, whereby we believe in God, to be from nature and not from grace, and that since Adam—which is sacrilegious to say—it has remained for men in free will, and that not even now is it granted to individual persons through the generosity of divine mercy.”68 This statement suggests that Caesarius had rather misrepresented the views of his Gallic opponents, who never would have said that faith came from nature, a clearly Pelagian belief. Boniface then noted how Caesarius had requested his support, “Pleading that, in order to remove ambiguity, I confirm, by the authority of the apostolic see, your confession [confessionem], whereby you define . . . that proper faith in Christ, and the inception of all good intention, is inspired in the senses of individual persons through the prevenient grace of God.” 69 After reiterating that Caesarius’s view of prevenient grace was consistent with the views of Augustine and earlier bishops of Rome and after noting, “We rejoice that Your Fraternity, with a council having met with some of the bishops of Gaul, opined according to the catholic faith,”70 Boniface responded, “We approve your above-cited confession [confessionem] as being consistent with the catholic rules of the fathers.”71 And here, Boniface’s repetition of the key word “confessio” demon68. “Indicas enim quod aliqui episcopi Galliarum, cum caetera iam bona ex dei acquieverint gratia provenire, fidem tantum, qua in Christo credimus, naturae esse velint, non gratiae; et hominibus ex Adam, quod dici nefas est, in libero arbitrio remansisse, non etiam nunc in singulis misericordiae divinae largitate conferri,” CCL 148A: 66. 69. “Postulans ut pro ambiguitate tollenda, confessionem vestram, qua vos e diverso fidem rectam in Christo, totiusque bonae voluntatis initium, iuxta catholicam veritatem per praevenientem dei gratiam singulorum definitis sensibus inspirari, auctoritate sedis apostolicae firmaremus,” CCL 148A: 67. 70. “Fraternitatem tuam, habita collatione cum quibusdam sacerdotibus Galliarum, iuxta fidem gaudemus sensisse catholicam,” CCL 148A: 67 71. “Quapropter affectu congruo salutantes, supra scriptam confessionem vestram consentaneam catholicis patrum regulis approbamus,” CCL 148A: 68.

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  227

strates that Caesarius’s orthodoxy still was being questioned, and that Caesarius felt the need for confirmation from Rome in order to avoid being labeled as a heretic. Following a pro forma, and no doubt unsuccessful, attempt to out-argue the Gallic anti-Augustinians, Boniface then recommended how Caesarius should deal with the continued opposition in Gaul: Therefore, with these matters briefly dealt with, I do not think that there need be a response against the remaining stupidities of the Pelagian error, which that letter seems to contain which was sent to you by a certain bishop, because we hope, from divine mercy, that what is fitting will operate through the ministry and learning of Your Fraternity in the hearts of those whom you report disagree, so that on this basis they will acknowledge that all good will comes not from themselves but from divine grace, once they feel that they ought to defend that which they persistently struggled to attack.72

It would appear that, by introducing a possible accusation of Pelagianism, Caesarius had attempted to tar his Gallic opponents with the Pelagian brush, a tactic that had worked well in the past, and, by doing so, to gain even further support from the bishop of Rome. But Boniface was unreceptive. Rather than rising to the bait, Boniface simply told Caesarius to use his own powers of persuasion to deal with his problems. Clearly, Boniface’s willingness to support his increasingly embattled and importunate Gallic client only extended so far. He was decidedly uninterested in reviving any discussion of Pelagianism, which he knew was roundly condemned on all sides. Boniface also seems to have realized just how thin Caesarius’s Gallic support was, as seen also in his state72. “His itaque breviter assignatis, contra reliquas Pelagiani erroris ineptias, quas illa videtur epistola continere, quam a quodam tibi mandasti sacerdote transmissam, respondendum non duximus: quia speramus de misericordia divina, quod ita per ministerium tuae fraternitatis atque doctrinam, in omnium, quos dissentire mandasti, dignabitur cordibus operari, ut ex hoc omnem bonam voluntatem non ex se, sed ex divina credant gratia proficisci, cum se senserint id iam velle defendere, quod nitebantur pertinaciter impugnare,” CCL 148A: 68–69.

228  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

ment that quibusdam (“some”) Gallic bishops supported him—not “many,” or “most,” just “some.” Indeed, Caesarius’s support among his own partisans was waning: the number of supporters who subscribed to his provincial councils dropped from seventeen at Arles in 524 to eleven at Vaison, just after Orange, in 529, where it must have been exceptionally embarrassing that Alethius, the bishop of Vaison itself, declined to subscribe. Several of Caesarius’s erstwhile partisans, it would seem, were no longer as enthusiastic as they once had been, and Caesarius’s support for what always had been an unpopular theological position in Gaul might be one reason why.73 Caesarius’s attempts to promulgate his view of grace thus may have had disastrous effects on his efforts to consolidate his ecclesiastical authority. Not only had he squandered what political capital he had with the bishop of Rome, but he even was losing support at home. Nor would his political situation have improved when Provence was occupied by the Franks in 536 or 537, and Caesarius was reduced to boycotting councils as a means of demonstrating his dissatisfaction with Frankish agendas. And to add insult to injury, Agapitus (535–36), the new bishop of Rome, even overturned Caesarius’s condemnation of Contumeliosus of Riez, indicating the extent of Caesarius’s loss of influence.74 It perhaps should be no surprise, therefore, that Caesarius seems to have made no further attempt to promulgate his interpretation of grace. Indeed, the only possible evidence for any subsequent support of Caesarius’s theological agenda comes from a posthumous chapter on Caesarius added to Gennadius of Marseille’s De viris illustribus, originally composed in the mid 490s, stating, “He also issued an ‘On Grace and Free Will,’ fortified with testimony from the divine scriptures and the judgments of the blessed fathers, which teaches that man can do nothing good on his own unless di73. Klingshirn, Caesarius, 144, suggests that the unpopularity of Caesarius’s reforms resulted in “the failure of some of his strongest supporters to sign.” 74. Klingshirn, Caesarius, 249–50.

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  229

vine grace anticipates him, which work Pope Felix in fact strengthened in his letter and promulgated more widely.”75 The work On Grace and Free Will apparently survives as an Opusculum de gratia, which states that grace is a gratuitous gift of God completely unrelated to human merit or labor, and includes statements such as, “There is benefit for whoever confesses that he has received what he has through the grace of God; whoever presumes that what he seems to have is from his own merits and from a good of nature in will have it taken from him.”76 And the letter of Felix presumably is the response, containing the capitula, that Caesarius received to his appeal of 528, for by the time the letter Caesarius wrote after the Council of Orange was dealt with in Rome, Felix had been succeeded by Boniface. This, in turn, would mean that Caesarius already had written his tract On Grace and Free Will before he wrote to Felix, that is, before 528. And that makes sense, for it would mean that the Council of Valence of 528 had condemned the non-Gallic and pro-Augustinian teachings on prevenient grace that must have been presented in Caesarius’s On Grace. This, in turn, could suggest that Cyprianus of Toulon’s defense of Caesarius at Valence was cribbed from this De gratia, especially if there is any significance to the similarity between the words of Caesarius’s biographers, that all Cyprianus said was affirmed “de divinis utique scripturis . . . et de antiquissimis patrum institutionibus,” and those of pseudo-Gennadius, which describe Caesarius’s De gratia as fortified testimonis divinarum scripturarum et sanctorum patrum judiciis. This entry, favorable to Caesarius’s theological agenda, may have 75. “De gratia quoque et libero arbitrio edidit testimonis divinarum scripturarum et sanctorum patrum judiciis munita, ubi docet hominem nihil de proprio agere boni posse, nisi eum divina gratia praevenerit, quod opus etiam papa Felix per suam epistolam roboravit, et in latius promulgavit,” Gennadius, Vir. ill. 87. 76. “Opusculum de gratia,” in Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis opera omnia, ed. G. Morin (Maredsous, 1937–42), 2.159–64, “Qui confitetur se per dei gratiam acepisse quod habet, additur ei: qui de meritis eius et de naturae bono praesumit etiam quod videtur habere auferetur ab eo.”

230  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

been appended to Gennadius’s text as a counterpoint to the immediately preceding chapter, on Faustus of Riez, in which Gennadius stated, “He also issued a famous work ‘On the grace of God—by which we are saved—and the free will of the human spirit.’ In this work he taught that the grace of God always both invites, and precedes, and assists our will, and that whatever pious profit this same free will acquires by labor is not from our own merit but from a gift of grace.”77 This account of the contents of Faustus’s De gratia looks to be so close to Caesarius’s own definition that one almost wonders whether a contemporary or later reader would have understood what all the fuss was about.78 But there is no doubt that the added entry on Caesarius was intended to be paired with the entry on Faustus, for it even gave an incorrect date for Caesarius, floruit hic eo tempore quo et Faustus (“he flourished at the same time as Faustus”), indicating just whom the anonymous interpolator desired to be read side-by-side.

Synthesis The evidence from Pseudo-Gennadius suggests that the whole brouhaha over grace began with the circulation of Caesarius’s De gratia, which leaves one wondering why Caesarius had raised this contentious issue, so unrelated to the more tangible issues such as ecclesiastical discipline and expansion into the countryside on which he otherwise focused, in the first place. It often is assumed that the affair of the Scythian monks in Italy had repercussions in Gaul,79 but there was no mention of or even allusion to the Scyth77. “Edidit quoque opus egregium de gratia dei, qua salvamur, et libero humanae mentis arbitrio. In quo opere docet gratiam dei semper et invitare, et praecedere, et adiuvare voluntatem nostram, et quidquid ipsa libertas arbitrii labore piae mercedis acquisierit non esse proprium meritum, sed gratiae donum,” Gennadius Vir. ill. 86. 78. For Caesarius’s own concessions to local preferences, see Weaver, Grace, 224, “a theological stance . . . most suitable to the needs of his hearers.” 79. For example, Klingshirn, Caesarius, 141, supposes that Caesarius “was no doubt influenced by a renewed interest in condemning Pelagian ideas that arose

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  231

ian monks or Faustus’s teachings during the Gallic debates, so any such connection is tenuous at best. Nor is there much to suggest that Caesarius’s efforts were part of some agenda of the church of Rome, whose only involvement in these issues was purely reactive, to promote an Augustinian interpretation of prevenient grace. No, the genesis of the discussion in Gaul apparently was a purely Gallic matter. Now, with regard to theology, one might have expected Caesarius—like Faustus, an alumnus of the monastery of Lérins—to have subscribed to the standard Gallic views on grace and free will. But Caesarius also was a protégé of Julianus Pomerius, an African refugee and priest who had relocated to Arles and whom Caesarius’s vita describes as “a rhetor by training . . . whom learning in the art of grammar rendered singular and famous there.”80 From Pomerius, Caesarius would have acquired not only his rhetorical skills but perhaps also a sympathy for the teachings of Augustine not shared by his fellow Gauls.81 Caesarius’s devotion to Augustine also is suggested by his reported deathbed comment to his friends, “I believe that my death will not be far separated from that of the father Augustine because you yourselves know how much I have loved his most catholic teaching.”82 Another possible scenario for the origin of the controversy may be that Caesarius’s De gratia was penned as a response to questions about his orthodoxy that arose prior to the Council of Valence. At . . . as a consequence of pressure from the so-called ‘Scythian monks’”; also Leyser, “Semipelagianism,” 765, “this set a wider context for the deliberations over grace in Gaul”; and Weaver, Grace, 198, “the affair over the Scythian monks had called into question the suitability of the South Gallic consensus on grace.” 80. “Scientia rhetor . . . quem ibi singularem et clarum grammaticae artis doctrina reddebat,” VCaesarii 1.11. Gennadius of Marseille (Vir. ill. 99) described Pomerius as, “dialecticorum more respondens arte dialectica” (“responding with dialectic art in the manner of dialecticians”). 81. See C. Tibiletti, “La teologia della grazia in Giuliano Pomerio,” Aug. 25 (1985): 489–506. 82. “Confido quod meum transitum non longe divisurus est ab ipsius patris Augustini quia, ut ipsi nostis, quantum dilexi eius catholicissimum sensum,” VCaesarii 2.46.

232  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

this time, ritual accusations of heresy—Nestorianism, Pelagianism, and Predestination—often were bandied about in the same context as conflicts over other kinds of ecclesiastical authority, as attested by Cyprianus’s correspondence with Maximus and Caesarius’s attempted delation of the unnamed bishop with supposed Pelagian sympathies. When Caesarius’s pamphlet fell into the hands of his political and theological rivals, they saw his public stand on prevenient grace, definitely not a popular position in Gaul, as an opportunity to take the extreme measure of condemning him at a church council. The condemnation for heresy put Caesarius into a panic to attest to his own orthodoxy. Far from being a carefully considered and organized effort to impose his version of prevenient grace upon the Gallic church, the Council of Orange was a hasty effort, riddled with irregularities, to defend himself. Caesarius’s fears that his efforts were not successful are attested not only by his continued appeals to Rome for backing but also by Boniface’s rather lukewarm response, not to mention his weakening support even among his own suffragans. Nor is there much, or any, evidence that any Gauls outside Caesarius’s own circle, who would have retained their traditional anti-Augustinian views and transmitted them to future generations,83 supported the formula adopted at Caesarius’s stage-managed council of Orange. Indeed, it seems that Caesarius himself, having defended himself against the accusation of heresy as best as he could, let the matter lie and returned to his past policy of implementing ecclesiastical discipline, as at the Council of Marseille in 533, where another bishop, Contumeliosus of Riez, was disciplined, and where attendance went up to sixteen bishops. It also is quite possible that any theological differences between the views of Caesarius and Faustus have been exaggerated in the modern day, for Caesarius, who in fact never named Faustus as an opponent, cited him as an 83. Note Weaver, Grace, ix, “In subsequent centuries, variations of their teaching have functioned as the operative theology of the church.”

CAESARIUS OF ARLES  233

authority even on the concept of grace in the condemnation of Contumeliosus of Riez at in 533, saying, “The Lord Faustus also said in a letter, ‘He who still desires to exercise the duty of a husband loses the grace of one who has been consecrated.’”84 In the ensuing decades and centuries, interest in nuanced theological discussion on the one hand and gratuitous accusations of heresy on the other waned. Nor would the entries on Faustus and Caesarius in the De viris inlustribus, much less a comparison of their writings, have enlightened the casual reader about what the differences between these two theologians were, and readers in future years might well have been left scratching their heads. The time when theological nit-picking was of interest in the Gallic ecclesiastical establishment had passed. The Councils of Valence and Orange mark the last time, for some three centuries, that dissension over the issues of grace, free will, and predestination is attested in Gaul. It would seem, rather, that the Gauls returned to their live-and-let-live attitude toward theology. Any further debates are not recorded, and it was not until the mid-ninth century that these issues, and the traditional Gallic opposition to some of the teachings of Augustine, arose again in Gaul, when Gottschalk of Orbais was twice condemned for the heresy of predestination.85

Appendix It has been suggested that a small dossier of documents transmitted under the simple title Sententiae sanctorum patrum (“Opinions of the Blessed Fathers”), and responding to a charge that “the support of grace is a clumsy novelty and has not been recom84. “Domnus Faustus in epistula dixit, ‘Perdidit gratiam consecrati, qui adhuc officium vult exercere mariti,’” CCL 148A: 93. This letter does not survive; for the extant letters of Faustus, see R. W. Mathisen, Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Aquitania (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), 237–52. 85. See D. E. Nineham, “Gottschalk of Orbais: Reactionary or Precursor of the Reformation?” JEH 40 (1989): 1–18.

234  RALPH W. MATH I SEN

mended as deliberately and frequently by anyone other than the blessed Augustine,”86 was in fact authored by Caesarius himself.87 The Sententiae went on to claim that others, such as Innocent of Rome, Ambrose of Milan, and Jerome, also had similar views on grace, and concluded, “And for the purpose of recommending the grace of God we believe that the opinions, cited above, of such so great and so many fathers should be sufficient for the minds of everyone.”88 Although it might seem rash to assume that every anonymous work on grace must have been written by Caesarius, especially when the work in question seems to be of Italian rather than Gallic provenance89 and is really nothing more than a collection of notes, the fact that this collection is clearly responding to an anti-Augustine sentiment as well as an anti-prevenient grace sentiment does indeed have the flavor of late antique Gaul. 86. “Ne forte aliquis dicat quod insinuatio gratiae rudis sit ac novella, et a nullo alio tam deliberate et tam frequenter quomodo a sancto Augistino episcopo commendate est,” CCL 148A: 69. 87. G. Morin, “Un travail inédit de Saint Césaire, Les ‘capitula sanctorum patrum’ sur la grâce et le libre arbitre,” RB 21 (1904): 225–39; also published in CCL 149A: 69–76. 88. “Et ad commendandam dei gratiam talium ac tantorum patrum quae suprascriptae sunt sententias credimus posse cunctorum animis satis esse,” CCL 148A: 76, reading “sententias” for “sententiae.” 89. A manuscript from Bobbio, once the Vindobonensis 16, now the Napolitanus Latinus 2.

12

AUGUSTINE, THE CAROL INGI ANS,

AND DOUBLE PR EDESTINAT ION

Brian J. Matz

This chapter uncovers the legacy of the patristic debate over predestination during the ninth century, when the topic came up again in Gaul. During the patristic period, the debate over Augustine’s ideas about predestination was resolved at the II Council of Orange (529); in the ninth century, however, the debate more or less tires out rather than formally concludes. One side of the debate in the ninth century announced that God predestined both eternal glory for his elect and eternal damnation for those from whom he refrained to give grace. This group was known as the doublepredestinarians, for there was a two-fold aspect to their understanding of God’s judgment of the human race. On the other side of the debate stood those who said God predestined only one thing: the just judgment of eternal damnation for those who rejected him. With respect to the actors in the ninth-century debate, the Augustinian debate four centuries earlier grew in its significance as the debate wore on. Two decades of the ninth-century debate passed before anyone began to take seriously the II Council of Orange. Prior to that point, and judging by the wealth of patristic citations, Augustine, Prosper, and Fulgentius were believed to sup  235

236  BRIAN J. MATZ

port both sides of the debate. This was so in spite of the fact that no one displayed any knowledge of the earlier debate’s historical context. Even the II Council of Orange, prior to 859, was seen as no greater an authority than any other patristic source. Yet, by 859, it became clear that Orange’s closing statement was central to the debate and that its wording needed clarification. That clarification was provided during 859–60; then, almost as quickly as the debate arose, it disappeared for another six centuries. To proceed with this analysis, this chapter is divided into two parts. The first part introduces the characters and texts of the ninth-century debate and synthesizes its theological arguments. The second part analyzes the texts in which the Augustinian debate was recalled and how that debate was treated in the ninth century. In the end, the reader will be left with a sense of deja-vu all over again. To put it crassly, the ninth-century debate was little more than an opportunity for different people to rehash an old debate. More diplomatically, it was an opportunity for some extremely intelligent people to ask good questions about difficult biblical and patristic texts, even though they knew the same questions had already been asked and answered.

Part 1. Texts and Context Characters, Chronology, and Texts of the Controversy To any student of the ninth-century double-predestination controversy, one of the first things that becomes clear is that there is no one, good resource for tracking down the texts or finding out which texts are available in modern translation. Additionally, there were so many texts floating around and so many synods held that it is easy to become overwhelmed by the volume of material. The recent publication of Victor Genke and Frank Gumerlock goes a long way in rectifying this oversight, both with respect to making available in English translation so many texts for the first time but also with respect to its extensive introduction, which both sum-

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  237 Table 12-1. Double-Predestinarians vs. Predestinarians Double-Predestinarians Predestinarians

Gottschalk of Orbais

Rabanus Maurus

Ratramnus of Corbie

Hincmar of Rheims

Servatus Lupus of Ferrières

John Scottus Eriugena

Prudentius of Troyes

Pardulus of Lyons

Florus of Lyons

Amolo of Lyons (Amalar of Metz)

Marguard of Prüm

Aeneas of Paris

? Pope Nicholas I

Synod of Mainz (848)

Synod of Valence (855)

Synod of Quierzy (853)

Synod of Paris (856)

Synods of Savonnières and Tusey (859–60)

Synod of Langres (859)

marizes dozens of secondary literature since the sixteenth century and contextualizes the political and ecclesiastical contours of the debate.1 In this part of the chapter, I provide both some organization to the study of the debate and direct interested scholars to the relevant texts. To begin, there are a number of characters in the debate, chief among them being Gottschalk, who initiated it, and his main opponent, Hincmar of Rheims, who represented the broad coalition of “predestinarians.” Table 21-1 identifies those who fell on one side or the other of the debate.2 Related to these characters, table 12-2 both situates their contributions chronologically and identifies where one may locate the relevant texts. In reviewing the actors, the dates, and the texts just mentioned, one recognizes immediately that the debate was never formal1. Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais: Translated Texts from a Medieval Predestination Controversy, Medieval Texts in Translation (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2011). Pagination and quotations used in this article are from their unpublished manuscript of 2007. 2. Regarding Pope Nicholas I, Hincmar of Rheims, Epistola ad Egilonem (PL126: 70), writes that he had read in Bertin’s annals that the pope supported double-predestination, and thus asks Egilo to look into this matter during his upcoming visit to Rome.

238  BRIAN J. MATZ Table 12-2. Events and Texts in the Debate between Double-Predestinarians and Predestinarians Date

Event or Text

Latin Text

835–40 Gottschalk begins teaching about double-predestination while under patronage of Eberhard 840 or 849 Gottschalk, Confessio brevior Lambot, 52–54 840 Rabanus, De praedestinatione ad PL 112:1531–53 Notingum 842–48 Gottschalk, Epistola ad R. Maurus Lambot, 37–41 843 Gottschalk, Epistola ad Ratramnum PL 121:370 846 Rabanus, Epistola ad Eberhardum PL 112:1553–62 comitem Foroiuliensem 848 Gottschalk, Confessio Lambot, 38 848 Gottschalk, Tomus ad Giselmarum Lambot, 9, 41–44 October 848 Synod of Mainz: Gottschalk Mansi 14:914–15 condemned March 849 Synod of Quierzy: Gottschalk Mansi 14:921 sentenced to imprisonment at Hautvilliers 849 Hincmar, Epistola ad simplices suae Gundlach, 258ff. diocesos November 5, Synod of Paris: approved of n.a.9 849 Prudentius’s views

English Translation

Yes1 No Yes2 No Yes3 Yes4 Yes5 Yes6 Yes7 Yes8

1. Gottschalk, Confessio brevior (D. C. Lambot, ed., Oeuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d’Orbais, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense Études et documents, vol. 20 [Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense Bureaux, 1945], 52–54). English translation (ET): Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 114–18. 2. The letter and its contents are known only through nine excerpts in Hincmar’s De praedestinatione (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 37–41). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 106–09. 3. Rabanus Maurus, Epistola ad Eberhardum (PL 112: 1553–62). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 278–79 (excerpts). 4. The confession, which Gottschalk gave to the Council of Mainz, is quoted in Hincmar’s De praedestinatione (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 38). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 110. 5. Only fragments of this tome survive as a small part in Hincmar’s Epistola ad simplices suae dioeceseos and the rest in his De praedestinatione. Lambot, ed., Oeuvres, 9, 41–44. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 111–13. 6. The decisions of the council are known from Rabanus Maurus’s letter to Hincmar, Epistola VIII Synodalis, ad Hincmar archiepiscopum Rhemensem de Gothescalco. J. D. Mansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, vol. 14 (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- U. Verlagsanstalt, 1960), 914–15. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 280–81. 7. The council’s Ecclesiastica sententia in pertinacissimum is found in Mansi, but also with commentary in Wilhelm Gundlach, “Zwei Schriften Hinkmars von Reims,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 10 (1889): 258–309, at 308–09. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 282–83. 8. Hincmar, Epistola ad simplices suae dioeceseos. Wilhelm Gundlach, “Zwei Schriften Hinkmars von Reims,” 258–308. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 284–88 (excerpts). 9. The existence, date, and knowledge about the decisions of this council are known through a text of King Charles the Bald that confirms a donation to a church in Nevers (southern France), a donation which is said to have been agreed upon at this council. I have not tracked down this letter, if it remains extant. Cf. Karl Joseph von Hefele, ed., H. Leclercq, trans., Histoire des conciles d’apres les documents originaux, vol. 4 (Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1907), 162 and 1310. According to J. Turmel, “Histoire de l’interpretation de I Tim II.4,” Revue d’ histoire et de litterature religieuse 5 (1900): 385–415, here 403, the council approved Prudentius’s commentary on the text of 1 Tim. 2:4, which was then deemed to be in accordance with Augustine’s views.

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  239 Table 12-2 continued

Latin Text

English Translation

849/850 Gottschalk, Confessio prolixior post-849 Gottschalk, Responsa de diversis ab ipsomet alicui censori transmissa post-849 Gottschalk, De praedestinatione early 850 Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 78 (to Charles the Bald) early 850 Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 79 (to Hincmar) early 850 Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 80 (to Gottschalk) 850 Rabanus, Epistola ad Hincmarum: declining health leads Rabanus to turn over the debate to Hincmar 850 Ratramnus, De praedestinatione dei mid-850 Hincmar, Epistola ad Amolenem archiepiscopum Lugdunensem 850–52 Amolo of Lyons, Epistola ad Godescalcum 851 Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 851 Prudentius, De praedestinatione contra J. Scotum 851/852 Amolo of Lyons, De gratia et praescientia Dei . . . 852 Lupus of Ferrières, De tribus quaestionibus

Lambot, 55–78 Lambot, 130–71

Yes10 Yes11

Lambot, 180–258 PL 119:601–5

Yes12 Yes13

PL 119:606–8

Yes14

PL 119:491–95

Yes15

Lambot, 12–13

No

Date

Event or Text

Roberts Yes16 Lambot, 15–16 Yes17 PL 116:84–96

Yes18

CCM 50

Yes19

PL 115:1009–366

No

PL 116:101–6

Yes20

PL 116:101–6

No

10. Gottschalk, Confessio prolixior (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 55–78). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 119–59. 11. Gottschalk, Responsa . . . (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 130–71). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 160–76 (excerpts). 12. Gottschalk, De praedestinatione (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 180–258). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 177–260. 13. Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 78 (“To Charles the Bald”; PL 119: 601–5). ET: Graydon W. Regenos, The Letters of Lupus of Ferrières: Translated, with an Introduction and Notes (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), 86–91. This numbering of Lupus’s letters corresponds to the chronological studies made of these letters by L. Levillain, “Études sur les lettres de Loup de Ferrières,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 62–63 (1901–2). 14. Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 79 (“To Hincmar”; PL 119: 606–8). ET: Regenos, The Letters of Lupus of Ferrières, 91–94. 15. Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 80 (“To Gottschalk”; PL 119: 491–95). ET: Regenos, The Letters of Lupus of Ferrières, 94–98. 16. Timothy Roland Roberts. “A Translation and Critical Edition of Ratramnus of Corbie’s De predestinatione Dei,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Missouri, 1977). 17. Hincmar, Epistola ad Amolonem. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 289. 18. Amolo, Epistola ad Godescalcum. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 312–35. 19. Goulven Madec, ed., Iohannis Scotti: De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM 50 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ET: John Scottus Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture, vol. 5, trans. Mary Brennan (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998). 20. The full title of the work, which was assigned by a later editor of Amolo’s works, is De gratia et praescientia Dei, deque praedestinatione et libero arbitrio, de spe item ac fiducia salutis et de sententia sancti Augustini. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 336–45.

240  BRIAN J. MATZ Table 12-2 continued



English

Latin Text

Translation

852 Florus of Lyons, Liber adversus J. Scotum21 85222 Florus of Lyons, Sermo de praedestinatione 853 Synod of Quierzy: double- predestination condemned; source of the “four chapters” 853 Florus of Lyons, Libellus de tribus epistolis January 855 Synod of Valence: contra Eriguena; double-predestination accepted 856 Prudentius, Epistola ad Venilonem: articulation of four counter-chapters to Synod of Quierzy end 856 Synod of Paris: approves Prudentius’s view 857 Hincmar, Collectio de raptoribus May 859 Synod of Langres: repeats Valence’s canons, except condemnation of Quierzy’s four chapters June 859 Synod of Savonnières: no decision28

PL 119:101–250

No

PL 119:95–102

Yes23

Denzinger, 316–19

Yes24

PL 121:985–1068

Yes25

Denzinger, 316–19

Yes24

PL 115:1365–68

No

Date

Event or Text

n.a.27

MGH, Cap. 2, 287–89 No Mansi 15:537–42 No Mansi 15:527–42

No

21. On attribution of this otherwise anonymous text to Florus, cf. A. Wilmart, “Une lettre sans adresse écrite vers le milieu du IXe siècle,” RB 42 (1930): 149–62. 22. Whereas Genke and Gumerlock have suggested this text was composed so near in time to Amolo’s Epistola that it should be dated also at the end of 851 or early 852, I find so many more similarities between the arguments of this text and Eriugena’s arguments than I do between this and Amolo’s text. I would more firmly date this text to 852. Since Florus’s views change slightly in the Libellus, it should not be dated to 853. 23. Florus, Sermo de praedestinatione. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 346–54. 24. ES 316–19. ET: H. Denzinger, ed., The Sources of Catholic Dogma, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1957), §316-19. King Charles the Bald both called the synod and was a signatory to its four chapters, which is the likely reason behind the Synod of Langres’s, also called by Charles, decision not to include the Synod of Valence’s four counter-chapters even though it repeated its other canons on the predestination question. 25. Florus, Libellus de tribus epistolis. ET: George McCracken and Allen Cabaniss, eds. and trans., “A Reply to the Three Letters (selections),” Early Medieval Theology, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 9 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957), 148–75. The authors attribute the work to Bishop Remigius rather than to Florus even though they acknowledge Florus likely had a hand in preparing it. Yet, more recently, this text has been restored to Florus by Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, Florus von Lyon als Kirchenpolitiker und Publizist (Stuttgart: Jan Thorbecke, 1999), 131. 26. ES 320–25. ET: H. Denzinger, ed., The Sources of Catholic Dogma, §320–25. The council was convened by emperor Lothar. 27. The council was called to elect Aeneas to the bishopric of Paris. The clergy gathered for the council accepted Prudentius’s four, “counter-chapters,” which Prudentius had requested be used as a litmus test for Aeneas. Cf. Pietro Palazzini, ed. Dizionario dei concili, vol. 3 (Rome: Pope John XXIII Institute, 1963), 305. 28. The reason no decision was reached was because a final decision was delayed until Hincmar could present a different set of rules to those proposed at Langres. It is not entirely clear whether or not there was such a conclusion to the matter, according to P. R. McKeon, “The Carolingian Councils of Savonnières (859) and Tusey (860) and their Background: A Study in the Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Ninth Century,” RB 84 (1974): 75–110. What details we have that are supposed to have come out of Tusey on the predestination question actually belong to other texts that were written before Tusey (including, especially, Hincmar’s sermon, Collectio de raptoribus). In any case, argues McKeon, Tusey should not be seen as a separate synod from Savonnières.

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  241 Table 12-2 continued



English

Date

Event or Text

Latin Text

Translation

end 859 end 859

Hincmar, Epistola ad Regem: attached to his treatise on predestination at Charles’s request Hincmar, De praedestinatione dei

PL 125:65–69

No

PL 125:69–474

October 860 Synod of Tusey: vague support for Mansi 15:563–7129 Hincmar pre-86330 Gottschalk, Quibus modis dicatur Lambot, 279–82 redemptio 863 Hincmar, Epistola ad Nicolaum PL 126:25–46 papaum 866 Hincmar, Epistola ad Egilonem PL 126:70–76 archiepiscopum Senonensem ? Gottschalk, De praedestinatione (II) Lambot, 338–46 868 Gottschalk dies at Hautvillers

No

No Yes31 Yes32 Yes33 Yes34

29. Cf. also the text of the supposed, synodal letter of this council in PL 126: 123 and summarized in Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Predestination (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder Co., 1939), 19–20. 30. Heretofore, this text has been left undated, but its topic—at least ten different ways in which the word redemptio may be interpreted—is the partial subject of Hincmar’s Epistola ad Nicolaum papaum, in which he responds to Gottschalk’s ideas. Thus it seems fitting at least to declare this text was prepared by Gottschalk prior to 863. 31. Gottschalk, Quibus modis dicatur redemptio. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 261–65. 32. Pope Nicholas apparently had summoned Hincmar and Gottschalk to appear together in Metz so that he may question both men and get to the bottom of the dispute himself. Hincmar did not release Gottschalk or go himself to appear for reasons he explains in this letter (ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 293–301 [excerpts]). Were it not for Hincmar’s letter, we would not have known such a meeting had even been called. 33. Hincmar, Epistola ad Egilonem. ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 302–11. 34. Gottschalk, De praedestinatione (II). ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 266–74.

ly concluded. By 848, at the Council of Mainz, Gottschalk was judged to be in error. He was beaten and imprisoned in accordance with the Benedictine rule. Yet, it is surprising Hincmar and others are still writing about the controversy for the next two decades. Not everyone agreed the double-predestinarian position was erroneous. Elsewhere in Gaul, councils in the 850s treated doublepredestination more favorably. Moreover, even while incarcerated at Hautvilliers, Gottschalk had wide access to literature, apparently was unsuppressed in continuing to teach his ideas, and was even successful in sneaking a monk out of the monastery to take documents to Rome for Pope Nicholas intended to redeem his name.

242  BRIAN J. MATZ

Hincmar himself made no secret of his frustration at these events.3 Indeed, other double-predestinarians were exonerated by various councils.4 Notably, however, they were neither as vociferous nor as incorrigible in their propagation of double-predestination theology, so it is likely Gottschalk was as much despised for his disposition as he was for his views.5 The texts of the debate itself also reveal that, besides Gottschalk and those named earlier, there were many (likely improperly educated) followers who taught things that, according to the best evidence before us, Gottschalk himself did not say. Thus Gottschalk may not be entirely a Gottschalkian, as one of Rabanus’s letters complaining about Gottschalk’s followers suggests.6 Apparently, other followers of Gottschalk were far less skilled in preaching what they heard (or thought they heard) at one time or another from Gottschalk himself. Another important point to keep in mind, Gottschalk’s own 3. Hincmar, Letter to Pope Nicholas (PL 126: 25–46, esp. 26–27; English translation [hereafter ET]: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 293–301, esp. 294–95). 4. One exception is Ratramnus of Corbie; however, his support of Gottschalk was seen as the lesser offense compared to his pronouncements about the symbolic nature of the Eucharist. Ratramnus’s good name is preserved only in the context of the Latins debate with the Greeks over the filioque. 5. Cf. Lupus of Ferrières, Epistola 78, in which he concludes his arguments in support of double-predestination by saying that he would not teach it to the “unwilling” because of the propensity for this belief to draw him into open, public debates, and this would be more akin to the behavior of scribes and Pharisees (Mt. 23:5) than the behavior of Jesus. In addition, in his Epistola 80, Lupus encourages Gottschalk to take care not to look too deeply into matters that have been hidden by God. There is a time and place for asking deep questions, but we should not dwell on them for too long. 6. Rabanus, Epistola VIII (ed. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, vol. 14: 915 [see table 12-2, note 6]; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 281) complains of Gottschalk’s followers saying they can sin with impunity because they may be of the elect and will be saved regardless of their works/ misdeeds. There is no evidence Gottschalk supported such a position; indeed, Gottschalk apparently believed that elect and reprobate alike ought to be exhorted by the church to live morally upright lives since, in doing so, at least the reprobate may humble themselves and beg of God to lessen their torments in eternal damnation. Cf. Amolo, Letter to Gottschalk, the fifth argument (PL 116: 92; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 327).

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  243

travels and his requests to renounce the Benedictine, religious life complicated matters for himself. Apart from the Rule barring mobilitas for monks without the consent of their superior (Rule ch. 7), Gottschalk used his travels as an opportunity to befriend members of the nobility, especially Eberhard, a son-in-law of Louis the Pious. Gottschalk also taught in many parishes and visited other monasteries, apparently staying long enough to prick the ears of eager students but not long enough to settle down with any group in particular.7 On top of all this, Gottschalk apparently was quite brilliant, a brilliance supplemented by an impeccable memory. Hincmar wrote of him, “he . . . has the distinguished power to recite by memory mutilated sayings of the Catholic Fathers during a whole day without any break.”8 Little wonder Gottschalk, gifted with a brilliant mind, could so easily draw together a community of support in so short a period of time traveling through Gaul and northern Italy, not to mention his ability to do the same even after conviction of error and incarceration at Hautvilliers. Theology of the Controversy In addition to keeping track of the debate’s historical contours, it is also important to pay attention to its theological contours. Previously, I divided the actors in the debate like players into teams with the labels of double-predestinarians and predestinarians. The Double-Predestinarians  The argument of the doublepredestinarians is conceived largely within the framework of reading the Bible through the lens of Romans, including mostly Romans 5–9, which treats the restoration of otherwise hopelessly lost sinners.9 The Fall of Adam lays waste to the human condition; 7. Hincmar, Epistola ad Nicolaum papaum (PL 126: 26; Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 294). 8. Ibid. (PL 126: 45; Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 300): sed et catholicorum dicta detruncata per totum diem sine respiratione aliqua praevalet memoriter decantare. 9. Gottschalk cites verses from these chapters frequently. For example, De prae-

244  BRIAN J. MATZ

there is no longer any hope for humans of their own will to seek out the love or mercy of God. Every verse of the Bible about redemption, about salvation, about freedom, about human free will, about God’s elective will, about damnation—the entirety of the Bible’s hamartiological and soteriological worldview is to be understood as addressing the depravity of the human condition. It is this—and nearly this alone—that separates the double-predestinarians and their predestinarian opponents in the ninth century.10 If Romans is the lens through which the double-predestinarians read the Bible, then it remains to exposit the biblical-theology they have uncovered in reading the Bible this way. What one discovers is a fairly straightforward set of deductions from two overall principles. The two principles are these: (1) God is immutable and (2) God’s will was established in an eternity prior to the creation of the world. With respect to the former, God’s immutability is tied to his omnipotence. The movements (i.e., deeds, beliefs, or desires) of creatures are incapable of moving the unmovable God. His all-encompassing power ensures that whatever he wills shall be accomplished without change. With respect to the former, Gottschalk parsed his language about God’s will carefully. In one of his texts, he wrote, “Sometimes God’s will is termed so, that our holy doctors understand God’s will also as God. But predestination, because it is preparation of God’s destinatione Dei 5–6; Confessio prolixior 5, 17; Responsa de diversis . . . 1–2; and De praedestinatione; et alia. 10. I will point out later that there is a pastoral concern also operating within the predestinarian ranks, but this is altogether different from the lens through which one reads the Bible. Avital Wohlman, “Introduction to the English Translation,” in Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination (see table 12-2, note 19), argues that different conceptions of time separate the views of the double-predestinarians and predestinarians. According to Wohlman, xxi–xxii, Gottschalk saw time as circular, narrowing to a point in eternity past at which God decreed what was to be, whereas Eriugena saw time as linear, in which humans will their way from one decision to the next. Although I do not disagree with Wohlman, I think it is unhelpful to separate the two views in this way. Gottschalk nowhere draws his arguments from theories of time and Eriugena alone among his opponents only alludes to it. It is far better to focus on the biblical lenses that each side constructs for interpreting the Bible in order to understand the debate.

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  245

future works, which did not yet take place, is by no means God, but is his eternal foreordination of his works created and to be created.”11 Thus the will, the predestination of God, flows out of God’s intention to create, to be the Creator. What is exists because God made it so, to include, as we will soon see, the reality of an elect/reprobate distinction between humans. To wit, from these principles follow two lines of closely held values. The first line is hamartiological and begins with the argument that what God wills must be accomplished because God is immutable. Following that, God has willed (henceforth, predestined) one judgment for the human race, but this one judgment has a two-fold effect. The one judgment God makes for the human race is the decision on his part to give grace only to some of its members. The two-fold effect of this judgment is eternal damnation for those who are not recipients of this grace and eternal, heavenly rest for those who are recipients. Since all humans sin, it will be impossible for those humans who do not receive grace from God to claim eternal damnation is meted out to them unjustly. By their own, sinful behavior they have earned this punishment. By the same token, those who do receive grace from God cannot claim they have earned their receipt of heaven. They, too, merited eternal damnation, but God has for some mysterious reason chosen to lead them to a different end. The second line of closely held values is soteriological. According to Paul in Romans 3, no one loves God naturally. For this reason, salvation is a consequence of grace in a person’s life. God alone gives that grace. Therefore, salvation is solely and completely a gift of God. Tied into the two principles articulated previously, any de11. Gottschalk, De praedestinatione (II) §1 (ed. Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 341 [see table 12-2, note 1]; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 269): “Voluntas dei sic interdum dicitur ut a sanctis doctoribus nostris etiam voluntas dei deus intellegatur. Praedestinatio vero quia futurorum quae nondum erant operum dei est praeparatio, nullo modo deus est sed de creandis et de creatis operibus suis aeterna est eius praeordinatio.”

246  BRIAN J. MATZ

cision on God’s part to give or to withhold grace from a person was made in eternity past.12 The disposition of the reprobate person either in this life or the next is entirely inconsequential. Beginning with the two principles mentioned previously and following the hamartiological and soteriological lines of argument, one ends up with a common set of conclusions held by the double-predestinarians. First, the atoning work of Christ was for the benefit only of those elected by God to receive grace. Were its benefits unlimited, the work of Christ would defy the immutable, eternal will of God for the reprobate. Second, and related to this first point, there can be no possibility of passing from purgatory to heaven. Otherwise, argued the double-predestinarians, God has created an exception to his immutable, eternal will for the reprobate once they reach the afterlife. Third, the sacraments of the church are wholly unhelpful to the reprobate, lest the work of Christ through the church defy the immutable, eternal will of God for them. Gottschalk mentions time and again that the group of reprobate people includes some who have been baptized, but the redemption received through baptism is redemption only from original sin, in the case of an infant, or from original and personal sins, in the case of an adult. Redemption for glory is received only from the atoning work of Christ, whose blood was shed only for the elect.13 Interestingly enough, 12. Cf. Gottschalk, De praedestinatione §8 s.v. “On Grace” (ed. Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 234–35; Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 236–39). 13. On the distinctions Gottschalk makes between no fewer than ten different types of redemptions mentioned in the Bible and on the primacy of redemption for glory, cf. Gottschalk, Quibus modis dicatur redemptio (“On Different Ways of Speaking about Redemption”), in Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 279–82, esp. 282; Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 261–65, esp. 264. Also see Gottschalk, De praedestinatione (II) §1 (ed. Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 343; Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 271). This entire discussion leads one to ask what, then, is the particular benefit of water baptism for the elect that is not already secured by Christ’s atoning work, but Gottschalk nowhere speculates on this. I suspect he would say the elect require redemption from original sin and that God orchestrates events in the elect person’s life such that they receive baptism either as an infant or as an adult.

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  247

the practice of infant baptism in the church is precisely proof of the double-predestination position, for, as Gottschalk explains, “[W]hy does he save little babies who cry when being baptized and resist as much as they can, and who are altogether unwilling to be baptized in their own will?”14 No one is saved or rejected by God because of their willingness or unwillingness, respectively, to accept God; the elect are saved solely and simply by divine fiat in eternity past. The one question that looms over the entire enterprise of the double-predestinarians is on what basis God decides to whom he will give grace and from whom he will withhold it. Gottschalk rules out anything having to do with foreknowledge of any human person’s particular behavior, but, curiously, he does not say what Ratramnus repeated time and again. Citing Augustine, Fulgentius, and Isidore of Seville, Ratramnus at many points in his treatise reminds his readers that God’s predestination is shrouded in mystery. These writers cite Paul in Romans 9, who writes, “Does what is molded say to the molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom. 9:20). The bottom line is that the double-predestinarians have no clue about the basis upon which God chooses to offer grace to some and not to others. Perhaps, if we were privy to the many conversations Gottschalk had with fellow monks at Fulda, Corbie, or at Hautvilliers, we would have heard him speculate upon one reason or another. The Predestinarians  Gottschalk’s opponents never yielded to him the term “predestination.” They claimed it for their position too, but within an entirely different framework. Whereas Gottschalk had said it meant God’s decision to whom he willed to give grace leading to salvation, a judgment which had one of two 14. Gottschalk, Responsa . . . §9 (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 239; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 243): “Cur ergo salvat parvulos infantes quando baptizantur flentes et quantum possunt reluctantes et omnino baptizari sua propria voluntate nolentes?”

248  BRIAN J. MATZ

effects in every humans’ life, the predestinarians said it concerned only the nature of the two effects. As Amolo of Lyons explained, God predestines the judgment he will make upon those who of their own free will choose either to love or to reject him. Or, as Eriugena argued, predestination is always something directed toward what is good, including God’s decision to assign eternal rest to those who love him and to judge justly with eternal damnation the sins of the reprobate.15 As for how the predestinarians read the Bible and the Fathers, it is clear throughout that they rejected any lens built principally upon Romans. Rather, it seems the predestinarians read the Bible largely through the lens of 1 Timothy 2:4 (“[God] wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”).16 From this perspective, the omnipotence of God was equally important to the predestinarians as it was to the double-predestinarians. Omnipotence demands that God’s will for all to be saved not be thwarted by a contravening will to issue grace only to some elect few. For this reason, God may be said to predestine only the just judgment of eternal punishment for those who reject him. This understanding of predestination is a consequence of at least three values that run like a thread through many of the predestinarians’ texts. The first of these values is the protection of God’s justice, which in their view would be at stake if human free will was at all prevented from loving God. Humans must be completely free either to love or to reject God, even after having been baptized and receiving from God grace necessary for true faith. To the predestinarians, it is the same to say humans do not have a free will as it is to say God predestined to withhold from some humans the offer of grace. Put in other terms, God would not be just or loving toward 15. Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 17.2 (ed. Madec, De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM 50: 105 [see table 12-2, note 19]; ET: Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 112). 16. Cf., for example, Hincmar’s Epistola ad Amolonem; Epistola ad Nicolaum papam; Epistola ad Egilonem (esp. §3–5).

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  249

his creation if his predestination concerned the particular decisions of reprobate persons. Hincmar wrote in this regard, This perverse doctrine [i.e., of Gottschalk] explains that the works of the free will, either good or bad, are not efficient for any merit. . . . It also removes from the reprobate the merit of damnation and withdraws from the just the merit of salvation. And thus neither the former are justly condemned because they were not able to be just, nor the latter are justly rewarded. . . . [He, i.e., Gottschalk] makes God unjust.17

Having said these things, though, it is important to point out the double-predestinarians nowhere claim God’s predestination concerned the particular behaviors of anyone. Florus of Lyons specifically condemned any person—even Gottschalk, if necessary, since Florus apparently did not have Gottschalk’s texts in front of him—who taught such a thing.18 Florus, like Gottschalk, argued double-predestination concerned only God’s decision to give or to withhold grace. If the latter was done, the reprobate person was free to continue doing what his or her nature desired, which was to reject God. The concern, then, that the predestinarians had on this point suggests that either they were aware of some other, careless, double-predestinarian teachers or that they had concluded this idea was a logical end of the double-predestination view. Second, and related to the first, the predestinarians upheld the value that humans are free to reject Christ even after receiving the grace of baptism. Equal to the predestinarians’ belief in the justice of God was their belief in the freedom of the human person to reject God’s grace. Amolo wrote to Gottschalk,

17. Hincmar, Epistola ad Egilonem 2–3 (PL 126: 72–73; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 304–5): Liberi arbitrii opera, sive bona sive mala, nihil valere ad meritum . . . ab ista prava doctrina enucleatur. A qua et reprobis tollitur meritum damnationis, et iustis meritum aufertur salutis. Ac per hoc nec ille iuste damnatur, qui iusti esse non possunt . . . iniquum facit. 18. Florus of Lyons, Libellus de tribus epistolis 21 (PL 121: 1022–24; ET: McCracken and Cabaniss, Early Medieval Theology, 164 [see table 12-2, note 25]).

250  BRIAN J. MATZ We are highly displeased by the fact that you say and assert that no one among those redeemed by the blood of Christ can perish. . . . [A]ccording to the Catholic, apostolic, prophetic and evangelical faith, all those who have faithfully received the Baptism of Christ have been redeemed with no other price than with the blood of Christ. But because many among them have made this grace invalid in themselves, and therefore have eternally perished, why would it be true that none among those redeemed by the blood of Christ can ever perish?19

God would never direct the behavior of a reprobate person to sin or to spurn the grace given at baptism. Yet, everyone in this debate— double-predestinarians and predestinarians alike—agreed that there were baptized people walking around who no longer “believed” in Christ or in the teaching of the church. Gottschalk’s explanation was that such people were never redeemed in the first place; the predestinarians argued instead that the persons themselves willfully rejected the grace they had properly received from God at baptism, which flowed out of their conviction that human free will must be capable both of accepting God and of rejecting him. Third, the predestinarians upheld the value of being pastoral in theological construction. In brief, the predestinarians believed the doctrine of predestination should be taught in such a way that it does not confuse the laity, that it does not cause them to despair of salvation, and that it does not undermine the church’s teachings of God and of his justice. To modern ears, this may sound a bit like fuzzy math, but it was of no little concern to the predestinarians themselves, and it was manifest to them in several ways. On the matter of the doctrine’s potential for confusing the laity, Rabanus Maurus, who was among the first to see problems in Gottschalk’s ideas, wrote in his Letter to Eberhard, But he who says that just as piety, purity, love and other virtues should be preached so also predestination should be preached so that those 19. Amolo of Lyons, Epistola ad Godescalcum (PL 116: 87–88; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 317, 318–19): “displicet nobis valde, quod dicis et asseris neminem perire posse Christi sanguine redemptum.”

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  251 who hear these things with obedience may glory not in man nor in themselves but in the Lord, speaks well if he tempers his preaching with discretion and is mindful of the capacity of his hearers.20

The predestinarians also saw in the double-predestination position a license to sin with impunity. Again from Rabanus, in his Letter to Hincmar, “[Gottschalk] already has many who have been seduced who, less devoted to their own salvation, are saying, ‘Who will tell me that I must labor in the service of God? For, if I am predestined to death, I will never escape it. But if I live badly and I am predestined to life, without doubt I will go to eternal rest.’”21 In both their call for discretion and their concern about the attitude of laity toward sin, the predestinarians reveal a pastoral concern, and perhaps they and their predecessors were guilty of failing adequately to preach the doctrine of predestination in the past. Gottschalk had caught them short, and they needed to play catch-up. This does not mean what they have done in this debate is a power grab or that they feared a loss of authority; rather, as pastors they were thrown into a theological debate and needed to respond quickly. Having said this, their dealings with Gottschalk himself were rather more reflective of an authoritarian concern. The predestinarians deemed Gottschalk particularly disputatious. He would not yield to correction either of his superiors in the ecclesia, in the monastery, in the church’s patristic tradition, or even to the Benedictine rule. His stubbornness fostered disorder, and the predesti20. Rabanus Maurus, Epistola ad Eberhardum (PL 112: 1560; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 279): “Ille autem qui dicet, sicut praedicanda pietas, pudicitia, et charitas, et caeterae virtutes, ita praedestinatio praedicanda est, ut qui obedienter haec audit, non in homine, ac per hoc ne in se ipso, sed in Domino glorietur, bene hoc dicit, si discrete et secundum auditorum qualitatem praedicationem suam temperat, ne forte imfirmus auditor inde scandalum sumat unde debuit vitam haurire.” 21. Rabanus Maurus, Epistola ad Hincmarum (PL 112: 1575; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 281): “quia iam multos, ut audivi, seductos habet, et minus devotos erga suam salutem, qui dicunt: Qui mihi proderit laborare in servitio Dei? quia si praedestinatus sum ad mortem, nunquam illam evadam: si autem male egero, et praedestinatus sum ad vitam, sine ulla dubitatione ad aeternam requiem vado.”

252  BRIAN J. MATZ

narians felt this undermined the health of the church, to say almost nothing of Gottschalk’s own spiritual health. The physical whipping of Gottschalk after the Council of Quierzy was apparently so brutal, in fact, that it actually engendered sympathy for his position among some in the region, notably Florus of Lyons.22 Indeed, even Amolo, no lover of Gottschalk’s doctrine but probably upset with how he had been treated, sought to cultivate some rapport with the disgraced monk when he wrote lovingly to Gottschalk, I considered that to write a few things in answer to you, who are my brother, is a better and more beneficial solution than by useless silence to appear to be in doubt about these [questions] and to advise nothing to you, who are so much persecuted, afflicted, anxious and perplexed.23

Then later in his letter one reads, and here one can even imagine tears coming upon Amolo’s face, Do you not grieve that for so many years already you have been cut off from the body of the Church by a severe and just damnation, and having been refused the companionship and consolation of all good people, you have been dragging out an existence of a useless root, or that of a withered palm branch destined to be thrown into fire?24

This last quote is a rather powerful question, on par with that posed to Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms. The predestinarians, it is fair to say, had great difficulty understanding why anyone would persist in the propagation of ideas that had been, to their minds, 22. Florus, Libellus de tribus epistolis 24 (PL 121: 1027–29), describes the beating not only as being particularly vicious but, more importantly, uncanonically administered. 23. Amolo of Lyons, Epistola ad Godescalcum (PL 116: 85; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 314): “melius et salubrius existimavi aliquid tuae fraterinate rescribere, quam inutile taciturnitate, et de illis viderer diffidere, et tibi tam angustiato, tam afflicto, tam anxio et conturbato, nihil consulere.” 24. Amolo of Lyons, Epistola ad Godescalcum (PL 116: 95; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 332): “Nec doles, quod ecce tot annis a corpore Ecclesiae iustae severitatis damnatione praecisus, atque omni bonorum contubernio ac solatio defraudatus, remansisti velut stirps inutilis, et palmes aridus igni destinatus.” Cf. also Hincmar, Epistula ad Egilum 3 (PL 126: 73; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 305).

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  253

roundly condemned, and they were flummoxed by the persistence of the pernicious teaching in their region. It is worth noting here Eriugena’s ideas and his contribution to the debate, since his text served to be more of an embarrassment to his predestinarian comrades than a source of comfort to them. Whereas everyone on both sides of the debate viewed the problem as one of properly interpreting the Scriptures and the Church Fathers, Eriugena argued the problem was rather about a proper understanding of the divine nature. To Eriugena, it did not stand to reason that God, whose nature is one, and whose will is also one being consonant with nature, could have his will subdivided into two different effects (willing some to be saved and others to be damned).25 Worse, Eriugena found it inconceivable that God could will any to be sent to hell since hell is the repository for evil, and evil, properly speaking, has no existence. Evil is a privation of the good.26 God cannot will someone to an evil end, since there is no such thing as evil. Furthermore, although Eriugena agreed God’s predestination was the same as God’s will, and that God’s will is worked out in our conceptions of time and space, he considered it improper even to speak about God as predestining anything. As an eternal being, God does not know anything as future that he does not know as immediately present to him. Thus God cannot rightly be thought of as having in some eternity past predestined anything for the future, since there is neither a past nor a future to God. Apart from his critique of the double-predestination position on the basis of reason, Eriugena does make positive statements about predestination. In fact, and perhaps surprisingly, his remarks, although discounted by both sides of the debate, actually provide a roadmap toward a compromise position. Eriugena argued God pre25. Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 3.1. 7 (ed. Madec, De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM50: 18–19, 24–26; ET: Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 17–18, 22–23). 26. Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 16 (ed. Madec, De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM50: 93–104; ET: Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 101–10).

254  BRIAN J. MATZ

destines only what is good, including both the distribution of grace to an elect few that will direct those individuals toward righteousness and the distribution of just judgment of an eternity apart from God to those who, not having received grace and, thus, left to their own, natural, sinful will, reject God until their death.27 The end result of Eriugena’s teaching is the same as that from the doublepredestinarians. The only thing Eriugena removes from doublepredestination teaching is the demand that God will act in one way or another toward human persons by necessity of his will/predestination.28 If double-predestinarians are willing to say God’s predestination is not a function of any necessity in God’s nature, then Eriguena can be counted as one of their own! One may well suppose that this, as much as his arguments from reason, was behind the disdain for Eriugena’s ideas by his fellow predestinarians. Synods of 859–60: A Resolution? The debate ends, as far as the ninth century is concerned, with the synods at Langres, Savonnières, and Tusey. These councils were convened by Charles the Bald. Importantly in this regard, at the Synod of Quierzy, Charles had agreed to Hincmar’s “four chapters,” and so it was clear the king would not support any doublepredestination position that seemed to obviate free will. By the same token, the king apparently was ready to compromise. The decisions made at Langres, which were proffered for consideration at Savonnières, corresponded to those made at Valence. So, it seemed Charles was ready to accept the views that predestination is twofold and that it is not contingent on God’s foreknowledge. Yet, Hincmar’s supporters at Savonnières were not quite ready to concede any ground, so they requested and received a delay on the final 27. Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 17 (ed. Madec, De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM50: 104–10; ET: Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 111–16). 28. Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 4.2. 4 (ed. Madec, De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM50: 27–29; ET: Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 26, 28).

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  255

decision. It appears that a synod at Tusey in 860 was called for just this purpose. The evidence for what actually took place at Tusey is remarkably confusing,29 but the end result was that Charles and the clergy agreed human free will is capable of rejecting God’s offer of grace, even after baptism. At the same time, they also agreed God, in accordance with the mystery that is his will, offers grace not to all persons but only to an elect few. This was truly a compromise position, and it was anticipated a decade earlier by members of both camps.30 The double-predestinarians agreed that, after grace, humans have a truly free will (i.e., capable of accepting or rejecting grace). The predestinarians came to accept that God’s offer of grace is limited and that, since God’s foreknowledge is simultaneous with his predestination, it is possible to say that God knows before a person is ever born whether or not they will go to heaven or to hell. Summary In this first part, the characters, the texts, the chronology, and the theological context of the debate were laid out. As one recent writer has put it, “Judging by the number of blows thrown, this contest must be considered a draw.”31 The bottom line for the double-predestinarians was that God, in eternity past and shrouded within the mystery that is his will, decided to offer grace only to some members of the human race. Though many may come to the baptismal font, only those elected by God to receive grace will be saved. This is because the human will is never free. It is either constrained by original sin to always choose evil or it is constrained by grace to love God. The predestinarians countered that God willed 29. P. R. McKeon, “The Carolingian Councils of Savonnières (859) and Tusey (860) and their Background” (see table 12-2, note 28). 30. Cf. esp. Ratramnus of Corbie, De praedestinatione dei, Book I (Roberts, “A Translation and Critical Edition,” 152–53 [see table 12-2, note 16], and Eriugena, De praedestinatione dei 4.2–4; 17.2. 31. Jonathan H. Rainbow, “Redemptor Ecclesiae, Redemptor Mundi: An Historical and Theological Study of John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Extent of Redemption,” Ph.D. diss. (Santa Barbara: University of California, 1986), 83.

256  BRIAN J. MATZ

for all humans to be saved. Thus all who come to the baptismal font receive grace and so have their will restored to such a state that they are now completely free either to love or to reject God. In this way of thinking, biblical teaching about predestination must refer to something other than the distribution of grace or the disposition of each person’s will. Indeed, predestination refers instead to God’s judgment upon those who have rejected him. The eternal future of every person, then, is dependent not on God’s will for their lives but on their choice to love or to reject God. Although these distinctions were able to be teased out of the actors in the debate and explained at the synods of 859–60, the fact remained that the two sides continued to see the world through different biblical and Augustinian lenses, not to mention the fact that they did little to try to understand each other’s views more carefully.

Part 2. The Legacy of Augustinianism Having surveyed the ninth-century debate, we turn finally to the main argument of this chapter: not until 859–60 did the Augustinian debate take on any special urgency. Until that point, both the double-predestinarians and the predestinarians believed the earlier, Augustinian debate supported their side. Even then, in most cases, the simplicity of their use of patristic sources (including their resort to just listing books written by Augustine on the topic) reveals such a poverty of knowledge about Augustine’s and Pelagius’s particular views that one wonders if it came from nothing more than a second- or third-hand acquaintance with the sources. Such is surprising, in fact, since the library at the monastery of Corbie, at least, was well equipped with patristic texts from the Greek and Latin Fathers, and this may also have been true for libraries in Rheims and at Orbais.32 There are also problems diagnosing precisely 32. Cf. David Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance (Sigmaringen, Germany: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1991).

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  257

what was known about the II Council of Orange in the ninth century. Only some of our debaters mention it, and there are some surprises as to who is not on the list (e.g., Rabanus’s, Ratramnus’s, and Hincmar’s texts prior to the end of 859). What is more, only a small subset of those who mention the council included excerpts from it in their writings, and so it is possible copies of its canons were not widely distributed. Interestingly enough, general citations and quotations of Orange are more frequent in double-predestinarian texts than in predestinarian ones. It seems, then, that the Augustinian debate was a remarkably malleable tool in the hands of the ninth-century debaters. That this was so may have been driven by one of the problems raised earlier, that the two sides spent most of the first two decades of the debate talking past one another. From a bird’s-eye view of the ninth-century debate, allusions to or citations of Augustine’s texts fill the pages of Gottschalk’s, Ratramnus’s, Eriugena’s, Amolo’s, and others’ writings. Everyone seems capable of roundly denouncing Pelagius. For this reason, it would be impracticable to evaluate every one of these citations. Instead, in what follows I evaluate eight passages in which reference is made to the debates of the early fifth century or to the II Council of Orange. One caveat: Orange’s teachings on baptism had, by the ninth century, become so ingrained in the church’s culture that even if the predestinarians did not know or cite Orange they nevertheless sensed something was wrong with Gottschalk’s belief that baptism bore no connection to salvation.33 First, Gottschalk cited the II Council of Orange in his text, De 33. Cf. Council of Orange (529) Canon 13 (Jean Gaudemet and Brigitte Basdevant, Les canons des conciles Mérovingiens (VIe-VIIe siècles), SC 353: 162; ET: Ross Mackenzie, trans., in Creeds of the Churches: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present, ed. John H. Leith [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1982], 41), which states, “The freedom of the will that was destroyed in the first man can be restored only by the grace of baptism, for what is lost can be returned only by the one who was able to give it” (“Arbitrium voluntatis in primo homine infirmatum nisi per gratiam baptismi non potest reparari; quod amissum, nisi a quo potuit dari, non potest reddi”). The combatants in the ninth-century debate were, consciously or not, inheritors of this canon’s teaching. This is evident especially in Gottschalk’s

258  BRIAN J. MATZ

praedestinatione 1.9. The citation follows Gottschalk’s defense of a limited atonement view of Christ’s death on the cross. He then writes, Now what is briefly said in the Canons of Orange by holy Caesarius and confirmed by his fellow bishops in the city of Orange, that “whoever would say that God predestined people to evil, let him be anathema,” as the truth is obvious, must be understood [as said with regard to] the evil of sin, trespass and misdeed, not to the evil of torment, torture and punishment.34

This is the first of several citations discussed later on that alert us to two important facts. Irrespective of one’s position in the debate, it was clear that one’s view must correspond to Orange’s closing statement. Additionally, the meaning of malum in that statement was a legitimate point of debate. Everyone was obliged to define their terms, and how they defined these terms facilitated more or less orthodox readings of the ancient authorities. Gottschalk did not believe himself to be violating Orange’s canon in saying that God predestines reprobate persons to punishment for their sin, since and in Amolo’s texts where the debate over the efficacy of baptism was most pronounced. Both agreed the church’s tradition had placed substantial weight on the significance of baptism for receiving from God redemption (redemptio), but Gottschalk challenged the tradition in arguing the Bible speaks of no less than ten different types of redemption. The type offered in baptism, to Gottschalk, was of a lesser quality compared to that offered by the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Amolo responded that Paul in Romans 6 had already drawn a clear connection between the grace of baptism and the death and resurrection of Christ, so there should be no dispute about different types of redemption. This type of argument would seem trivial were it not for the II Council of Orange’s decision that baptism was the means by which God gives grace to humans. Yet, it is telling that neither Amolo nor Gottschalk recall Orange in their respective texts on this point; the teaching of Orange’s Canon 13 had become embedded in the church’s doctrinal culture, which Gottschalk felt free to question, but the memory of Canon 13 itself had been lost. 34. Gottschalk, De predestinatione 1.9 (ed. Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 189; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 188): “Quod etiam in Canonibus Arausicis videlicet a sancto Caesario suisque coepiscopis in Arausica civitate constitutis breviter dictum est quod qui dixerit quod deus homines ad malum praedestinaverit anathema sit, ad malum peccati facinoris atque flagitii, non ad malum tormenti cruciatus atque supplicii debet ut veritas constet intellegi.”

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  259

he assuredly denounced any belief that God had predestined reprobate persons to do certain, evil deeds. No one sins because God makes them sin; it is only the case that God predestined a certain judgment for sin. Yet, what this explanation of Gottschalk also shows is that he and his opponents may continue to disagree on the reason why reprobate persons are predestined to receive eternal damnation from God. To Gottschalk, the reason is God did not give grace to the reprobate; to the predestinarians, the reason is reprobate persons of their own free will chose to reject God. Second, Gottschalk cited at a number of places in his texts the writings of those who defended Augustine’s views, including, especially, Prosper and Fulgentius, against the semi-Pelagians. Most of these are just ornamental citations, repeating more or less what Gottschalk had already argued. However, one is worth discussing further. Gottschalk recalls Fulgentius’s Ad Monimum at nearly every place in his texts where he argues God predestines some persons to hell, but in De praedestinatione (II) Fulgentius is more than just a passing footnote citation. Here, Gottschalk explained that predestination is said of God in somewhat improper terms, since God is eternal. Predestination is one with God’s nature without being that nature. The consequences of that predestination are its two effects. At this point, Gottschalk cites Fulgentius and acknowledges that Fulgentius had said there are two predestinations, the second being the decision to send the reprobate to hell. Gottschalk writes, Predestination is called twofold, so that it should by no means be spoken about two predestinations, but [only] one, just as charity [is said] to be twofold and one. That is why also holy Fulgentius in his book To Monimus spoke of another predestination, by which the reprobate are predestined to hell, . . . but he knew that there is one predestination.35

35. Gottschalk, De praedestinatione (II) 1 (Lambot, Oeuvres . . . de Godescalc, 339; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 267): “Praedestinatio dicitur gemina, ut nequaquam duae praedestinationes quod absit dicantur sed una, sicut caritatem geminam et unam. Unde et sanctus Fulgentius in Libro ad Monimum aliam

260  BRIAN J. MATZ

Fulgentius spoke in sufficiently orthodox terms for the sixth century, but now he must be seen as orthodox for this ninth-century debate. In that respect, Fulgentius’s other predestination must be read as the second of the two effects of God’s one predestination that flows out of his nature. It seems almost trivial, but what this citation tells us is that Gottschalk was engaged in the texts of the Augustinian controversy, was aware of their shortcomings in light of his own controversy, and was willing to rework their arguments for the benefit of his readers. He does something similar with a citation of Augustine two paragraphs later in this text, so no one was off limits from being corrected in Gottschalk’s mind. Yet, noteworthy in all of this is the fact that nowhere does Gottschalk explain the historical context in which Fulgentius was writing—for that matter, he does not do this for citations of Prosper or of Hilary either. As important as Fulgentius is to Gottschalk’s theology, the particular arguments of the semi-Pelagians against which Fulgentius wrote were unimportant. Third, Ratramnus of Corbie, in a similar way as Gottschalk, incorporated Fulgentius’s Ad Monimum into his treatise. Ratramnus quotes at length several of Fulgentius’s chapters, all of which are then used by Ratramnus to draw conclusions about the distinction between foreknowledge and predestination. This is an important distinction, since if the double-predestinarians are seen by their opponents as arguing that the two effects of God’s predestination are the result of God’s foreknowledge of human behavior, the doublepredestinarians could, in fact, be charged with Pelagianism.36 That is, they could be read as saying God predestines the ends of a particular person after having foreknown their behaviors.37 To avoid the charge dixit praedestinationem qua reprobi praedestinati sunt in gehennam . . ., cum tamen utramque praedestinationem nequaquam nescierit unam.” 36. This is precisely the problem raised by Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione liber 4.2 (ed. Madec, De divina praedestinatione liber, CCM50: 27; ET: Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 26). Cf. also Roberts, “A Translation and Critical Edition,” 9–11, 35. 37. This was the position of the semi-Pelagians and the later Prosper. See Pros-

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  261

of Pelagianism, then, Ratramnus points to Fulgentius’s distinction between God’s foreknowledge and his predestination, and then he clarifies that the two are simultaneous. Ratramnus concludes this from Fulgentius’s text, Throughout all this, this doctor declares that the evil people are foreordained to the sinful life by their own iniquity. He does not say that they are fore-ordained to sin, since iniquity does not please God. . . . But since he knows that a man is going to sin, and that the man will remain in sin, he predestined him to punishments that justly might be applied. . . . As his foreknowledge drives no one to sinfulness (although he certainly foreknows the sins of everyone before the end of the world) so his predestination drives no one to punishment, although some person may be predestined before he is born if he is going to remain in iniquity all the way to his punishment.38

Ratramnus reaches this important conclusion after having surveyed Fulgentius’s argument that God does not predestine sin but only the punishment for sin. Only that which can come from God can be said to be predestined by God. Since God is only the author of goodness, what is predestined must be deemed good. Punishment for sin, the restoration of justice, is a good, so it may be said to be predestined by God. The performance of sin, however, cannot come from God. Thus, as with Gottschalk’s use of Fulgentius, the per’s Letter to Augustine §3 where he criticizes the semi-Pelagian understanding that God predestined those whom God foreknew would be faithful. Prosper continued to reject this view, but later, in Answers to the Gauls and Answers to the Vincentian Articles, Prosper admits that the withholding of predestination was due to God’s foreknowledge of the evil lives they would lead. Cf. Alexander Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009). 38. Ratramnus, De praedestinatione dei (Roberts, “A Translation and Critical Edition,” 237–40): “Per omnia doctor iste iniquos preordinator esse ad poenam vitam iniquitatibus suis dogmatizat. Ad peccatum vero non esse preordinatos, quoniam iniquitas Deo non placet. . . . Sed cum scierit hominem peccaturum, et in peccatis permansurum, predestinavit eum ad poenas quas iuste esset passurus. . . . Sicut enim prescientia Eius neminem compellit ad peccatum, cum utique prescierit singulorum ante saecula aeterna peccata, ita quoque et predestination Eius neminum compellit ad poenam, licet et antequam nascatur aliquis predestinatus sit si permansurus est in iniquitate ad poenam.”

262  BRIAN J. MATZ

text of this early writer remained particularly valuable, but the historical context in which it was written—the Augustinian controversy—was entirely ignored. Fourth, Amolo of Lyons cited the Council of Orange as the conclusion to his text, Epistola ad Godescalcum. After having expressed both his arguments against Gottschalk’s views and his concerns about Gottschalk’s incorrigible disposition, Amolo ends his letter with one final reason why Gottschalk should reconsider his ways. He wrote, In conclusion, I shall briefly remind you, my dearest brother, that in Gaul, at the time of the blessed Pope Leo or Pope Agapetus, a most useful and venerable council of the Church of God was held, where the blessed bishop Caesarius of Arles, [a man] of admirable sanctity, virtues, and miracles, presided over many bishops. There it was diligently determined in the most moderate way what is to be thought, held and taught concerning the grace of God and the free will of man, and concerning divine foreknowledge and predestination. Accordingly, I subjoin a few words that follow, for the sake of reminding you: “According to the Catholic faith we believe that after receiving the grace of Baptism all the baptized, with the help and cooperation of Christ, can and must accomplish all that pertains to the salvation of their souls, if they choose to labor faithfully. Not only [do we] not believe that some are predestined to evil by the power of God, but also if there are those who are willing to believe [in] such an evil thing, with all detestation we pronounce an anathema against them.”39 39. Amolo of Lyons, Epistola ad Godescalcum (PL 116: 96; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 334–35): “Ad extremum, breviter tuae intimo charitati, gestum esse intra Gallias, temporibus pene beati papae Leonis, sive Agapiti, concilium venerabile et Ecclesiae Dei valde utile, a pluribus epsicopus, quibus praefuit admirandae sanctitatis, et virtutum ac miraculorum, beatus Caesarius Arelatensis episcopus: ubi diligenter de gratia Dei et libero hominis arbitrio, de praescientia et praedestinatione divina constat esse definitum, qualiter moderatissima ratione sentiendum, tenendum et docendum sit. Unde haec ad commonitionem prudentiae tuae paucissima verba subnecto, quibus aiunt: ‘Hoc etiam secundum fidem catholicam credimus, quod post acceptam baptismi gratiam, omnes baptizati, Christo auxiliante et cooperante, quae ad salutem animae pertinet, possint et debeant, si fideliter laborare voluerint, adimplere. Aliquos vero ad malum divina potestate

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  263

Noteworthy in this citation is Amolo’s confusion about the timing of the II Council of Orange, whether during the reign of Pope Leo (440–61) or Pope Agapetus (535–36). Indeed, as will be clear also from the discussion of Hincmar’s text discussed later on, it seems the predestinarians in the ninth-century debate were unclear about several important, historical details of the Augustinian debate in the fifth and sixth centuries. While Amolo and others agree that Caesarius had called the council, there was some confusion as to what events actually sparked the controversy. Thus, although Amolo here is aware of Orange and is supportive of its authority, he gives us no reason to suspect that he knew anything more about the Augustinian controversy than did the others. Rhetorically, this conclusion to Amolo’s letter has an “oh, and by the way” quality, but it was by no means haphazard. It seems that Amolo recognized his preceding arguments were more or less an exposition of what had already been stated at Orange. Indeed, one may conclude both that Amolo recognized Orange as an authority in the church’s teaching tradition and that Amolo perceived the deeper problem of how to interpret language within the debate. This is why he did not address Gottschalk, as did Hincmar, as a superior to an inferior but sought to reason with Gottschalk on the level of equals about the proper interpretation of biblical and patristic texts. In this frame of mind, Amolo employed this reference to Orange more as an icing on the cake of his many preceding arguments. Consequently, one suspects Amolo had Orange in mind throughout the writing of his letter but waited until the end to suggest to Gottschalk that he pay careful heed to this important council’s decisions. Having done so, Amolo invited Gottschalk to read the words of Orange from a different perspective. Fifth, Prudentius commends the authority of the canons of the Council of Carthage (presumably, a reference to that of 411), the praedestinatos non solum non credimus, sed etiam, si sint qui tantum mali credere velint, cum omni detestatione illis anathema dicimus.”

264  BRIAN J. MATZ

teachings of Augustine, and of the several popes in the fifth century who roundly condemned the Pelagians40 to this question of predestination. Prudentius does this in a letter to Bishop Wenilo immediately prior to the Synod of Paris (856) at which Aeneas was elected to the Paris see. Prudentius, who was unable to attend, expressed in his letter to Wenilo that he consented to the upcoming appointment of Aeneas upon the condition that Aeneas affirmed his belief in the teachings of these ancient authorities. It is not clear to what extent Prudentius’s request was adhered to in the evaluation of Aeneas’s fitness for the Parisian bishopric. However, a letter of support for Aeneas also arrived at the council from Lupus, who had known Aeneas personally for several years and who had, by this point, already weighed in on the predestination affair.41 Sixth, a direct reference to the II Council of Orange with an admission of its authority to weigh in on the ninth century debate is found in the canons of at least two of the synods that met to debate the issue. As we have already seen, depending on the lens through which one reads the Scriptures and the Fathers, the II Council of Orange will be seen to support either the double-predestination or the predestination position. In these cases, Orange’s canons are found to be in support of the double-predestinarians in two councils: Valence (855)42 and Langres (859), the latter of which merely repeats most of the canons of the former. Valence’s third canon declares that God has predestined the judgment of eternal damnation 40. Prudentius, Epistola ad Wenilonem (PL 115: 1365). Specifically, Prudentius mentions: all the teachings of the apostolic see and of the blessed Fathers, to include popes Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, Leo, Gelasius, Sixtus, Celestine, and Gregory (the Great), and the fathers Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, Isidore, Fulgentius, Gregory (of Tours?), Jerome, Cassiodorus, Bede, “and others” (aliorumque), and also any other true writings and sayings of the Catholics and also of the Orthodox. Presumably, the identification of what texts and sayings comprise this last group is determined by their agreement with the four chapters Prudentius himself proffers later in the letter. 41. Lupus of Ferrières commended Aeneas for his loyalty to the king “in things human and divine” and for his “sound teaching.” Cf. Lupus, Epistola 92 and 93. ET: Regenos, The Letters of Lupus of Ferrières, 111–13 (see table 12-2, note 13). 42. Denzinger, ES 322, 325.

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  265

for the reprobate not because he made them to be reprobate but because it was good for him to justly judge reprobate persons. Faithfully we confess the predestination of the elect to life, and the predestination of the impious to death; in the election, moreover, of those who are to be saved, the mercy of God precedes the merited good. In the condemnation, however, of those who are to be lost, evil which they have deserved precedes the just judgment of God.43

At the end of the canon, Valence cites the anathema from Orange’s closing statement. This is something we have seen repeatedly. So long as the double-predestinarians make a clear distinction between God’s foreknowledge of a particular person’s sin and God’s predestination of the judgment for human sin, they believe themselves to be fully in agreement with Orange’s anathema against those who say God predestines people to evil. In other words, if the malum to which Orange refers is human sins, then the double-predestinarians are on safe ground. Yet, Orange did not make any distinction between sins and the end of sins; this is a distinction appearing in the ninthcentury debate only, as the question of the relationship between foreknowledge and predestination was clarified. Without this clarification, predestinarians like Amolo could see talk of God predestining evil ends for sin as the same as saying God predestined the end because he made certain persons to be sinful. The same issues are at stake in Valence’s sixth canon, when it cites Orange’s teaching about the “weakened” (infirmatum; cf. Canon 13) human will in support of its claim that without God’s gift of grace the human will shall remain in its weakened state. Here, again, the double-predestinarians recognized the authority of Orange to address the ninth-century debate, and they saw themselves as entirely in sync with its canons. Although the predes43. Synod of Valence, Canon 3 (ES 322): “Fidenter fatemur praedestinationem electorum ad vitam, et praedestinationem impiorum ad mortem: in electione tamen salvandorum misericordiam Dei praecedere meritum bonum: in damnatione autem periturorum meritum malum praecedere iustum Dei iudicium.”

266  BRIAN J. MATZ

tinarians did not dispute the necessity of a gift of grace, their belief that grace and human will cooperate throughout a person’s life to effect salvation suggested there remained an important distinction between the double-predestinarians and the predestinarians. As of the Synod of Valence, it remained to be resolved whether or not it was possible for a person to reject God’s grace after having received it. This does get resolved in favor of the predestinarians at the later synods, but it reveals again how important the ninth-century controversy was to resolving some issues left open by Orange. Seventh, Hincmar recalls the II Council of Orange on no less than seven occasions in his treatise, De praedestinatione.44 In all but one of these occasions, citation of, or quotation from, Orange functions as little more than a rhetorical ornament or an appeal to an authority. In one citation, however, Hincmar engages with the very problem mentioned in the previous discussion on the Synod of Valence. Recall that the double-predestinarians interpreted Orange’s use of malum as referring to human sins. In his treatise, Hincmar puts a finer point on the meaning of malum, which is yet another indication both of Orange’s significance to the debate and of the need to narrow the acceptable field of its interpretation, or to close some loopholes Orange may have left open. In chapter twelve, after having cited the canon from Orange, Hincmar then explored the meaning of malum. He wrote, And since in the Scriptures it is called evil, both sin and the suffering for sins, one sees in the teaching of catholics, in respect to man, just as predestination ought not to be understood as referring to the evil of sin so also it ought not to refer to the suffering for sin, but rather the suffering has been predestined by voluntary justice from a just judge as retribution for having sinned.45 44. Hincmar, De praedestinatione 12 (PL 125: 111 and 120), 21 (PL 125: 183 and 194), 22 (PL 125: 196–197, 205–06), 23 (PL 125: 208). 45. Hincmar, De praedestinatione 12 (PL 125: 120; author’s translation): “Et quia in Scripturis dicitur malum, non solum peccatum, sed et peccantis supplicium, videat in catholicorum sententiis, utrum homo, sicut nec ad peccati malum, ita

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  267

Thus, in Hincmar’s mind, the double-predestinarians have not sufficiently reconciled themselves to Orange’s closing statement simply by saying malum refers to the eternal punishment for sin. According to Hincmar, the scriptures use malum both to refer to human sins and the suffering for sins. So, God predestines neither human sins nor the suffering for sins. By promoting the second view, the double-predestinarians, if they are not careful, could still be seen as defending a belief that suffering is related to particular sins. Instead, Hincmar proposes that God predestines that there will be suffering as a retribution for sin without having any particular sins in mind. Although double-predestinarians such as Ratramnus, discussed earlier, already reveal a bit of this sophistication, doubtless Hincmar knows of others in the doublepredestinarian camp who have not been as careful. Finally, Hincmar raised the earlier, Augustinian debate in a letter addressed to fellow bishops Rudolph and Frotarius. Rudolph and Frotarius were fellow archbishops in the region of Aquitaine. Hincmar wrote to report the decisions of the Synod of Tusey (October–November 859) and to affirm its decisions in regard to the illegitimacy of the recent marriage of Count Stephen of Auvergne.46 It seems he had remarried after committing adultery, which was not to be accepted. Near the conclusion of the letter, Hincmar explained that he had to compose this because some teachers in Rudolph and Frotarius’s region had misinterpreted the teachings of Paul in 1 Cor. 7, a problem not unlike that found among those who misinterpreted Paul’s words about predestination in the days of Augustine. This then called to Hincmar’s mind Gottschalk and his followers who were trying to resurrect that old, predestinarian heresy.

etiam nec ad pro peccato supplicium praedestinatus intellegi debeat, sed potius ex retributione iustitiae voluntariae peccanti a iusto iudice debitum sit praedestinatum supplicium.” 46. Cf. MGH, Ep. 8.1, no. 136.

268  BRIAN J. MATZ

So far, so good. The problem, however, is that Hincmar believed the teachers of predestinarianism were those who had been “beat down” at an African council. He writes, They do not understand that when the words of the Apostle are interpreted in this manner, it is with a false understanding, just as they did against whom blessed Augustine once had described in certain books, and according to what the African council, that we mentioned earlier, defined, when it laid waste to the Celestians and also beat down the strongest arguments of the Pelagians. But this is no wonder; for, they [the Celestians and Pelagians] were infected with false teaching just as also are the modern predestinarians, who are working to resurrect the old predestinarian heresy.47

Hincmar goes on to suggest a list of texts to which Rudolph and Frotarius may turn if they wish to learn more about the predestinarian heresy. He identifies: Pope Celestine’s decretal letter to Venerius and the other bishops of Gaul; Augustine’s On Rebuke and Grace, On the Predestination of the Saints, and On the Gift of Perseverance; Prosper’s Answers to the Objections of the Gauls, Answers to the Vincentian Articles, Answers to the Objections of the Massilians, and On the Call of All Nations. On the relevancy of these texts to the debate, Hincmar gets the facts right. The problem, however, is that he is apparently confused about the historical context of the debate. The problem centers on his reference to “the African council, that we mentioned earlier.” Hincmar also had referred to an African council in his earlier De praedestinatione, connecting its teachings to those of Orange.48 As in that text, in this letter, too, Hincmar nowhere identified precisely 47. Hincmar, Letter 22 (PL 126: 150; ET: Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk of Orbais, 290): “non advertentes, quia sic adulterino sensu interpretabantur verba Apostoli, sicut et illi, contra quos olim beatus Augustinus istos libros descripserat, et Africana synodus, quae praemisimus, definivit, quando et Coelestianos evisceravit, et ipsas etiam Pelagianorum medullas excussit. Nec mirum: sic enim pravo erant infecti dogmate, sicut et moderni Praedestinatiani, qui veterum Praedestinationorum haeresim.” 48. Hincmar, De praedestinatione 21 (PL 125: 183).

DOUBLE PREDESTI NATION  269

to which African council he was referring, but since he included a citation from one of its canons, it is clear he intended the Council of Carthage in 407. Hincmar quotes from that council’s canon 102, it’s teaching on divorce and remarriage.49 Yet, it is not at this council that the Celestians and Pelagians were “beat down.” That must wait until the Council of Carthage in 411, a condemnation that is renewed by Pope Zosimus in 417, when Celestius was then at Rome and later at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Hincmar clearly conflated the events of the two councils—both here and also, apparently, in his De praedestinatione. We may, perhaps, forgive him of this oversight. Much less forgivable, however, is his association of Celestius and Pelagius with the predestinarian position! Is it really the case that Hincmar believed this? In the only published analysis of this aspect of Hincmar’s text, Albert Freystedt has argued this was nothing less than a malicious misrepresentation of history in order to link Gottschalk to an earlier, condemned heresy.50 According to Freystedt, Hincmar did this because he was unable to cite any particular heretic condemned for views of double-predestination. If Freystedt’s analysis is correct, it is doubly remarkable that Hincmar could have safely presumed his addressees also would not know that Celestius and Pelagius had been condemned for their nonpredestinarian views. One ought to conclude, then, that Hincmar was arrogant and that his addressees were ignorant. This may have been the case, so one cannot rule it out. As noted previously, Hincmar’s De praedestinatione reveals an awareness of the earlier debates and had engaged in some relatively sophisticated interpretation of Orange’s closing statement. Yet, it is equally plausible that Hincmar had delegated the drafting of this letter to an associate and had not carefully reviewed its contents. After all, 49. Hincmar, Letter 22 (PL 126: 145). For the council’s canon, see CCL 149: 218. 50. Albert Freystedt, “Der Ausgang des Prädestinationsstreites im. 9 Jahrhundert und die Stellung des Papsttumes zu demselben,” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 41 (1898): 112–37, here 114–16.

270  BRIAN J. MATZ

this reference to the Pelagians is little more than an aside to the letter’s main content, which was a patristic florilegia on the topic of divorce and remarriage. It seems unlikely that Hincmar would have conducted this research on his own; members of his staff no doubt sifted through documents in the church’s or a nearby monastery’s library. It would be understandable if Hincmar overlooked—and, thus, failed to correct—this error on the part of a member of his staff. Thus, while one cannot rule out Freystedt’s suggestion, there may be a more benign explanation. In the final analysis, the bishop’s office in Rheims, intentionally or unintentionally, woefully misrepresented the historical context of the Augustinian debate of the fifth and sixth centuries. Summary The eight passages discussed earlier reveal three important points. First, the historical context of the Augustinian debate from the early fifth to early sixth centuries was unknown as were the particular arguments of the semi-Pelagians themselves. No one engages with the ideas of Faustus of Riez, John Cassian, Vincent of Lérins, and so forth. When Fulgentius’s or Prosper’s texts are cited or quoted in the ninth century, it is always in reference either to the views of Augustine or in opposition to the ideas of one’s ninthcentury contemporaries. Second, the II Council of Orange grew in status over the course of the debate. By 859, it was clear that everyone needed to reconcile themselves to its language. Third, and related to this last point, Orange’s closing statement anathematized any who taught that God predestined humans to malum. Our texts reveal that was not sufficiently precise language, for malum could mean both sins and the suffering for sins. By 860, both sides were able to agree that, to avoid Orange’s anathema, they must confess God predestined punishment for sin without having any particular sins in mind.

13

AN EASTER N V IEW  Theodore of

Mopsuestia’s Against the Defenders of Original Sin

Nestor Kavvadas

The controversy between Augustine and the doctores Gallicani, as well as its predecessor, the Pelagian controversy, have rightly been regarded as most typical of Western, Latin, patristic theology and as indicators of its difference from Eastern, foremost Greek, theological thought.1 The Pelagian controversy as well as the subsequent predestination controversy left most Eastern theologians, who appear unaware of its critical issues, uninterested.2 As is well known, 1. According to a widely accepted pattern, the Eastern Christian tradition is supposed to be characterized by an emphasis on the Trinitarian and Christological questions (i.e., on the questions regarding the foundation of human salvation in God) while Latin patristic thought focuses on the appropriation of salvation from the side of the human being (i.e., on the more “practical” question, how can one acquire salvation); see Alfred Schindler, “Gnade und Freiheit: Zum Vergleich zwischen den griechischen und lateinischen Kirchenvätern,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 62 (1965): 178–95. Consequently, a “natural” soteriology of deification is regarded as characteristic of the Eastern tradition, while a rather juridical soteriology concentrated on the deliverance of the human being from guilt is, supposedly, the trademark of the Latin West. Like all generalizing affirmations in the history of ideas, this scheme is dangerously misleading if applied to single theological authors of either tradition without a special examination of each case, but possesses nevertheless some interpretative value if applied to large-scale developments of church history. 2. There are certain pieces of evidence that Cyril of Alexandria dealt with Pe-

271

272  NESTOR KAVVADAS

Pelagius was acquitted of the charge of heresy by a synod held in Jerusalem (415) just by admitting that the actions of human free will cannot be perfected without the help of divine grace. Even as late as 428–29, Nestorius was unaware of the main issues of the Pelagian controversy, as demonstrated by his epistles asking Celestine of Rome for information on the teaching of those “Pelagians” who had found shelter in Constantinople, as well as on the reasons for their condemnation.3 The extremely reticent condemnation of Pelagianism by the Council of Ephesus, affected on demand from the Roman delegation, demonstrates this same lack of interest.4

Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Involvement in the Pelagian Controversy Here in brief is the background against which Theodore’s attitude toward these “Western” controversies reveals itself as quite a singular case. Firstly, Theodore is the author of the only Greek work we know of which directly addresses the issues of the Pelagian controversy. This polemical treatise, probably against Jerome’s Dialogi contra Pelagianos, titled “Against Those Who Imagine That Humans Sin by Nature and Not by Decision-Making” (hereafter, C.Def.),5 is now lost. Nevertheless, we possess a number of extensive excerpts preserved in Latin translation by Marius Mercator in the Collectio Palatina and a long passage cited in Syriac translation in Isaac of Nineveh’s “Second Part” (as well as in Solomon of Boslagian position in his Responsiones ad Tiberium 12–13, see Lionel Wickam, “Pelagianism in the East,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. Rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 205; cf. Karl Pinggéra, “Heilsverwirklichung in eschatologischer Spannung—Zu Cyrill von Alexandrien, Responsiones ad Tiberium 12,” in Patristica et Oecumenica: Festschfirt für Wolfgang A. Bienert zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. P. Gemeinhardt and U. Kühneweg (Marburg: Elwert, 2004), 51–63, esp. 62–63. 3. Council of Ephesus (ACO I.1.2.12–15). 4. See ACO I.1.3. 9. 5. From the “title” “Contra defensores peccati originalis” given to the treatise by Marius Mercator (see Clavis Patrum Graecorum 3860).

AN EASTERN VIEW  273

ra’s Book of the Bee) as well as an informative if short summary of the entire tractate in Photius’s Bibliotheca. Taken together, the surviving fragments and the summary allow a reconstruction of this tractate’s main lines of argumentation. Secondly, Marius Mercator’s Commonitorium lectori adversum hearesim Pelagii et Caelestii includes some striking allegations about Theodore’s relationship to Pelagianism: Theodore is presented here as the father of Pelagianism! 6 Pelagius is supposed to have indirectly borrowed his main soteriological position from the Antiochian exegete. A direct connection between Pelagius and Theodore, this time the other way around, has been suggested also by Swete, the editor of Theodore’s Commentaries on Paul. In order to explain some slight, short parallels between Pelagius’s Commentary on the Romans and Theodore, Swete suggests that the latter read and used the former’s Commentary.7 Swete’s thesis, which has been rejected by several scholars, should be regarded now as extremely unlikely.8 Marius Mercator supplies no real evidence to support his genealogy of Pelagianism; he simply tells us that a Syriac theologian named Rufinus, allegedly a mediator between Theodore and his Western pupils, brought “Pelagian” ideas to Rome and conveyed them to Pelagius.9 Furthermore, he relates in a few lines that Julian of Eclanum found shelter for a certain period of time in Mopsuestia near Theodore, who should have shared some of his soteriological “errors.” Later on, Theodore expelled Julian from Mopsuestia, according to Marius Mercator, and officially condemned him at a 6. ACO I.1.5. 7. Mainly on the grounds that Pelagius probably didn’t know Greek, while Theodore could have known some Latin, as a faint hint in one of his works seems to suggest, see Swete’s introduction to Theodori episcopi Mopsuesteni in epistolas beati Pauli commentarii, 2 vols., ed. H. B. Swete (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1880–82), 1: lxxiv–lxxvii. 8. De Bruyn has managed to trace down two of the parallels presented by Swete in the Ambrosiaster, who is, of course, much more likely to have been the source of Pelagius, Theodore De Bruyn, Pelagius’s Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 3n16. 9. ACO I.5.1.5.

274  NESTOR KAVVADAS

local council in Cilicia.10 Apart from Julian’s sojourn in Mopsuestia, which is further corroborated by the fact that Julian translated Theodore’s Commentary on the Psalms into Latin, as well as by the presence of Julian and other exiled Pelagian bishops in Constantinople after Theodore’s death, under the protection of Theodore’s pupil Nestorius,11 all other contents of Marius Mercator’s narration are of very questionable reliability.12 Thirdly, Pelagian soteriology is, remarkably enough, regarded by John Cassian in De incarnatione as the soteriological error exactly corresponding to the fundamental Christological error he believes to find in Nestorius’s teaching.13 This systematic connection between Pelagian soteriology and Nestorian Christology is almost equal to a connection between the former and Theodore’s Christology, which was also championed, albeit in modified form, by Nestorius.

“Against Those Who Imagine That Humans Sin by Nature and Not by Decision-Making” This article intends to study Theodore of Mopsuestia’s attempts to deal with these vexed problems of sin, grace, human free will, and divine predestination, foremost in his polemical treatise C.Def. It intends to show that in Theodore’s work and thought, the fundamental questions of the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian controversies 10. Ibid., I.5.1.23. 11. See Josef Lössl, Julian von Aeclanum—Studien zu seinem Leben, seinem Werk, seiner Lehre und ihrer Überlieferung, Supplements to VC 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 292–99. 12. Cf. the disdainful comments of W. Dunphy, “Marius Mercator on Rufinus the Syrian,” Aug 32 (1992): 279–88, esp. 285–88. 13. See Augustine Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St. John Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 110n191. As Casiday observes, the same claim was made in the text with the title “Copies of the Western Bishops’ Actions Against the Nestorian Dogmas” ( Ἴσα πεπραγμένων ἐν τοῖς δυτικοῖς ἐπισκόποις κατὰ τῶν Νεστοριανῶν δογμάτων) summarized by Photius! See Photius, cod. 54, 14a36–37, in Bibliothèque Tome I and II, ed. R. Henry (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959–60), I: 42–44.

AN EASTERN VIEW  275

play a more important role than in any other Eastern Father. This is so not just as a result of his personal involvement but, much more, because these “Western” questions, or a certain tentative answer to them, were inherent in the systematical structure of his soteriology, so strangely unequaled in Eastern patristic theology. His personal involvement may, of course, have additionally motivated him in developing his soteriological insights.

Photius’s Summary The information provided in Photius’s summary concerning the historical context in which C.Def. was written leaves no doubt that the target of its polemics is Jerome’s anti-Pelagianism.14 According to Photius, the most important “heretical” assertions in Jerome’s anti-Pelagianism are as follows. Firstly, Adam’s nature, which was initially good, as a work of God, and immortal, has been rendered evil and mortal as a consequence of the sin of the protoplasts (i.e., the “first-formed” humans), so that thereafter sin should be ascribed to human nature and not to decision-making (γνώμη) or to free will (προαίρεσις) as the agent of decision-making. Secondly, newborn infants are also not free from sin, whence they are being baptized and receive the holy sacrament εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (“for the remission of sins”). Thirdly, no human being can ever achieve righteousness. Fourthly, even Jesus Christ was not free from sin, inasmuch as he assumed a human nature vilified from sin. Fifthly, that sexual drive, marriage and all things pertaining to procreation should be ascribed to the fallen, deteriorated state of human nature.15 All in all, Photius is almost enthusiastic about Theodore’s refutation of this dangerous heresy, and he appears equally happy with the condemnation of the heretical Pelagians, the opponents 14. See I. Marrou, “Les attaches orientales du Pélagianisme,” in Patristique et humanisme: mélanges (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1976), 341: the nickname “Aram,” Aramean, is a mockery of Jerome’s self-asserted mastery of Hebrew. 15. See Photius, cod. 177, 122a5–40 (II: 177–79).

276  NESTOR KAVVADAS

of Saint Augustine!16 Concerning Theodore’s scriptural arguments, Photius says that the Antiochene interpreter “demonstrates their [his opponents’] utter ignorance by assigning the appropriate meaning to scriptural quotations which they interpreted badly.”17 On the other hand, almost half of his summary is dedicated to criticism of Theodore’s aberrations from “orthodox” tradition. In many places in this treatise, Photius maintains, he appears to be a precursor of Nestorianism and an adherent of the Origenist doctrine of hell’s temporary character.18 Furthermore, in striving to refute the heretical assertions of his adversaries Theodore has been misled, according to Photius, into developing a false interpretation of the biblical narration on human creation and fall, and maintaining that “Adam was made mortal from the beginning, and that God arranged only for the sake of demonstration, in order that we might detest sin, that death should have been imposed as a penalty for sin.”19 The fervent zeal to refute his opponents’ position concerning the theological rationale of infant baptism impelled Theodore into an unacceptable distinction between two modes of absolution of sins, the first one forgiving sins already committed and the second conveying the divine gift of permanent abstinence from sin; the latter appeared for the first time in Christ’s earthly life and is granted, for the time being, only in the form of a pledge through the baptism, to be perfected in the future life after the general resurrection.20 Photius argues extensively against this distinction.21 The “heretical” positions of Theodore’s opponents concerning in16. See Photius, cod. 53–54, 13b39–15a28 (I: 41–44). 17. Photius, cod. 177, 122b2–4 (2: 179): “ταῖς γραφικαῖς φωναῖς, ἃς ἐκεῖνοι κακῶς ἐξελάμβανον, τὰς καταλλήλους ἐννοίας ἁρμόζων ἀμαθεῖς αὐτοὺς τελείως ἐξελέγχει,” The Bibliotheca (trans. N. G. Wilson [London: Duckworth, 1994], 163). 18. Ibid., 122b4–6 (II: 179). 19. Ibid., 122b8–10 (2: 179): “ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς μὲν θνητὸν πεπλάσθαι τὸν Ἀδάμ, ἐνδείξει δὲ μόνον, ἵνα μισήσωμεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, σχηματίσαι οὕτω τὸν Θεὸν ὡς διὰ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἀντὶ τιμωρίας ἐπιτέθειται ὁ θάνατος” (trans. Wilson, slightly modified). 20. Ibid., 122b19–26. 21. Ibid., 122b27–123a22. Photius maintains this divine gift of permanent abstaining from sin should be called ἀναμαρτησία, and not ἄφεσις.

AN EASTERN VIEW  277

fant baptism can also be refuted by means of much better, orthodox counterarguments; the same is true regarding their heretical teaching on the protoplasts’ sin.

The Fragments Cited by Marius Mercator The first of the four fragments preserved in Marius Mercator’s Latin translation is taken from the fourth book; the other three fragments all belong to the third book of the treatise, which originally comprised five books, according to Photius.22 On the basis of Photius’s outline, these fragments can fill a few gaps and contribute to a better understanding of Photius’s testimony. The first and the third fragments (and a part of the long second fragment) refute the position at the top of Photius’s list of heretical assertions refuted by Theodore: it is totally wrong to maintain that Adam and Eve were created immortal and were then condemned to death because of their disobedience.23 Against this reading of Genesis, Theodore presents his own interpretation. He maintains that Adam “was in such a manner fashioned from earth (as appropriate) for someone who was going to be mortal right away”24 and interprets biblical passages referred to by the “most wise defenders of the original sin”25 in his own way. So Theodore emphasizes that in Gen. 2:17 God did not say, “‘You shall be mortal,’ but ‘you shall surely die,’ threatening so to inflict the experience of death on those who were mortal by nature from the beginning.”26 The rest of Theodore’s scriptural arguments point in the very same direction: for example, if death were a punishment for sin, it would be totally unacceptable that only Enoch among all the righteous, “of whom 22. The latter uses the word λόγοι for what Marius Mercator calls liber, reserving the exact Greek equivalent to liber (βιβλίον) for the whole treatise. 23. See ACO I.5.1.1. 24. ACO I.5.1.173: “sic ex terra formatum ut mortalis prorsus existeret.” 25. Ibid. I.5.1.174: “sapientissimi defensores peccati originalis.” 26. Ibid. I.5.1.173: “‘mortales eritis,’ sed ‘morte moriemini,’ prorsus existentibus natura mortalibus inferre mortis experientiam comminatus.”

278  NESTOR KAVVADAS

the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38), did not experience death, while so many prophets far more virtuous than Enoch and—above all—Jesus Christ Himself, who is absolutely free from sin, did die (iuxta carnem).27 Another major counterargument developed in the second preserved fragment refutes the assertion that the punishment of death was not imposed only on the protoplasts but also on their offspring in all generations. The “innovation of dogma” (dogmatis novitas) introduced by Theodore’s opponent consists in the assertion “that God decreed out of anger and fury that Adam shall be mortal, and punished with death all humans, yet unborn, because of this man’s one crime.”28 Holding Theodore’s counterarguments to Photius’s list, one realizes that they correspond again to the first heresy. Theodore argues against this assertion with God’s goodness and justice. Whoever ascribes to God such an unjust punishment “is not ashamed . . . holding such opinions about God, that no one would ever have thought of holding about humans who have a healthy mind and take care of justice.”29 He also cites Ezek. 18:2–4, which refutes the passing of guilt and punishment from one generation to the next, as well as Rom. 2:6, where the same principle of individual responsibility and individual punishment is expressed.30 Now, transmitting punishment from generation to generation implies transmission of guilt (i.e., of sin) so that considering natural mortality as a penalty for Adam’s sin implies attaching this sin to human nature. Against this teaching, Theodore demonstrates at length the consequences of it regarding Jesus Christ. Since He pos27. Ibid. I.5.1.175. 28. Ibid. I.5.1.174: “quod ira atque furore deus Adam mortalem esse praeceperit et propter eius unum delictum cunctos et necdum natos homines morte multaverit.” 29. Ibid. I.5.1.174: “non veretur . . . ea sentire de deo quae nec de hominibus sanum sapientibus et aliquam iustitiae curam gerentibus umquam quis aestimare temptavit”; cf. ibid. (I.5.1.175): “Sed vir mirabilis propter unum peccatum Adae tanto furore commotum arbitratus est deum, ut et illum atrocissimae ponae subderet et ad universos omnes posteros eius parem sententiam promulgaret, inter quos quanti iusti fuerint, non facile numerari quis poterit.” 30. Ibid. I.5.1.174–75.

AN EASTERN VIEW  279

sesses a complete human nature, if human nature were sinful then even He would not be free from sin. According to Theodore, the fact that the Savior was really free from sin, but experienced death, clearly demonstrates, firstly, that mortality belongs to human nature while sinfulness does not, and, secondly, that mortality is not a punishment for sin, since in that case one should draw from Christ’s death the conclusion that He was guilty of sin.31 The fourth fragment contains two arguments, an exegetical and a theological one, against the eternity of hell. Firstly, St. Paul would not praise the resurrection as a blessing if it should bring punishments “sine fine et sine correctione” to a large number of people. Secondly, this same form of punishment is not compatible with God’s goodness.32 Neither Marius Mercator nor Photius identify which anti-Pelagian assertion Theodore wanted to refute by this argument. At any rate, the assertion of apocatastasis (i.e., universal salvation) is, generally speaking, quite appropriate to a polemic against positions ascribing sin to the human nature (i.e., giving sin an ontological foundation). This is so because in most cases the doctrine of apocatastasis argues that God’s almighty goodness is incompatible with ascribing to sin any ontological reality, while presupposing that the eternal, hopeless punishment of a part of God’s creation in hell necessarily implies that sin should possess an ontological reality. What has eternal consequences must be itself eternal and what is eternal must be a “being” in the full ontological sense. Therefore, the advocates of hell’s eternity are either abolishing God’s goodness or assert the existence of evil on the ontological level, thus abolishing God’s almightiness.33 Photius 31. Ibid. I.5.1.175–76. It is quite surprising that Theodore does not discuss the teaching of Christ’s death as redemptory for the sins of humanity. 32. Ibid. I.5.1.176. Obviously, the exegetical argument is based on the theological-ethical assumption that imposing an endless punishment which, of course, does not lead to correction, cannot be a good action. 33. Cf., for example, Gregory of Nyssa, “In illud: Tunc et ipse filius,” in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, III: Opera minora dogmatica 2, ed. J. K. Downing (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 17, 12–21.

280  NESTOR KAVVADAS

relates that Theodore also maintains the doctrine of apocatastasis in his treatise Contra Magos (Περὶ τῆς ἐν Περσίδι Μαγικῆς), to refute Zoroastrian dualism.34 In our context, the assertion of universal salvation has probably been intended to make clear that sin has not vitiated human nature.

The Fragment Cited by Isaac of Nineveh A relatively long passage cited by Isaac of Nineveh, who knew no Greek, is the sole piece of evidence35 testifying to the existence of a Syriac translation of C.Def. According to Isaac, it is taken from “the end of the first volume . . . which he [Theodore] composed against those who say that sin is present by nature.”36 This passage contains more than a confirmation of Photius’s assertion, also corroborated by the fourth Latin fragment, that Theodore supported the doctrine of apocatastasis. It gives us an insight into Theodore’s understanding of the relationship between human will and divine Providence in a special case where this relationship becomes critical, namely, in his temporary hell, conceived as a place of correction. In the world to come . . . the wicked . . . , once they have been set in order in their minds by punishments and the fear of them, choose the good, having come to learn how much they have sinned, and that they have persevered in doing evil things and not good; by means of all this they receive a knowledge of religion’s excellent teaching, and are educated so 34. See Photius, cod. 81, 63b33–64a9 (I: 187); on “apocatastasis”: 64a8–9. 35. This same passage is also cited in Solomon of Bosra’s Book of the Bee, where Solomon is surely quoting this passage from Isaac, as observed by Sebastian Brock (see Isaac of Nineveh, The Second Part, ed. and trans. Sebastian Brock, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Syr. 224–25 [Louvain: Peeters, 1995], at Syr. 225, 166n8). 36. This passage is cited in memra 39 of Isaac of Nineveh’s The Second Part, 162– 73, before three quotations from Diodore of Tarsus’s lost treatise De providentia also denying the eternity of hell’s punishment, as evidence of the traditional, orthodox character of this questionable doctrine; on this treatise, see Heinz-Gerhard Weis, “Diodor von Tarsus, Περὶ Προνοίας,” in Paul de Lagarde und die syrische Kirchengeschichte (Göttingen: Lagarde-Haus, 1968), 217–30.

AN EASTERN VIEW  281 as to hold on to it with a good will, [and so eventually] they are held worthy of the felicity of divine munificence.37

It seems certain that Isaac’s assertion that this restoration of the “wicked” shall not occur without (the consent of) their own free will,38 also stems from Theodore’s C.Def.

Conclusions A comparison of Photius’s summary and Marius Mercator’s fragments shows that both of our sources of information concerning C.Def. are more or less trustworthy.39 Most of Theodore’s arguments contained in the Latin fragments are probably central parts of his refutation of what Photius’s summary presents as the first and gravest heresy refuted by Theodore.40 Minor incongruence between Photius and Marius Mercator does not speak against their reliability. Where Theodore demonstrates in the Latin fragments that the ascription of sinfulness to human nature as such bears the blasphemous consequence that Christ’s human nature was not free 37. Isaac of Nineveh, The Second Part, 166–67. 38. Ibid. 39. In trying to defend Theodore’s “orthodoxy,” Devreesse proposed that Mercator’s fragments must be considered forged on the grounds of their supposed incongruence with more “traditional” soteriological positions expressed in the Catechetical Homilies, see Robert Devreesse, Essai sur Théodore de Mopsueste (Vatican: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1948), 102–3. But J. Groß has demonstrated the untenability of this suggestion; see Julius Groß, “Theodor von Mopsuestia, ein Gegner der Erbsündenlehre,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 65 (1953–54: 1–15, esp. 10–15). 40. Photius, Bibliothèque cod. 177, 122a5–15 (II: 17–18). The ascription of sinfulness to the infralapsarian human nature must have been a kind of motto representing the Western anti-Pelagian “orthodoxy” in the eyes of Eastern theologians, who were rather uninformed about its details. Not long after Theodore had given his treatise this title, Pope Celestine I confirmed Nestorius’s orthodoxy with regard to the issues of the Pelagian controversy—as opposed to his grave Christological heresy—with the following words: “legimus quam bene teneas originale peccatum, qualiter ipsam naturam asserveris debitricem et eum debitum merito reddere qui descenderit de genere debitoris,” ACO I.2.2.11; cf. Nestorius, Sermo a Mario Mercatore translatus, ACO I.5.1 (33): “Christus debentis suscipit personam naturae et per eam debitum tamquam Adae filus reddit.”

282  NESTOR KAVVADAS

from sin, Photius presents this conclusion drawn polemically by Theodore as a positive statement of his adversaries—probably due to rather too quick a perusal of Theodore’s long, complicated sentences.41 The same kind of a slight misunderstanding can be supposed where Photius tells us that the heretics refuted by Theodore had claimed that there has not been one single righteous man ever, while Theodore of the Latin fragments argues that if mortality is a punishment for sin and has been imposed to all mankind because of Adam’s disobedience, then all the uncountable righteous of the Old Testament would have been unjustly punished with death.42 Photius could have hastily concluded from this (or other similar) counterarguments by Theodore that the latter’s adversaries actually did deny the righteousness of the Old Testament prophets.43 If we search in the Latin fragments for contents not mentioned in Photius’s summary, we find nothing worth mentioning. This fact allows us to assume that the summary, sparing with words as it may be, is nevertheless a complete “table of contents”—notwithstanding minor misunderstandings. On the other hand, the contents presented by Photius as absolutely fundamental parts of the treatise correspond to quite long Latin fragments. In concluding, we can say that our sources of information on C.Def. allow us to reconstruct the main theological contents of this work. The relative completeness of Photius’s summary and the representative character of the passages extracted by Marius Mercator are further corroborated by the fact that the main theological contents of Theodore’s treatise, according to these two testimonies, are also represented in Isaac of Nineveh’s Second Part, memra 39.44 41. Photius complains at length about Theodore’s “unclear” style (see cod. 177, 123a28–38, 2, 181). 42. ACO I.5.1.175. 43. See Photius, cod. 177, 122a24–25 (2: 178). It is also possible that Photius’s comments on these points might be based on the lost parts of Theodore’s treatise. 44. Concerning the partial dependence of this memra on Theodore’s C.Def., see Nestor Kavvadas, “On the Relations between the Eschatological Doctrine of Isaac of Nineveh and Theodore of Mopsuestia,” SP 45 (2013): 245–50.

AN EASTERN VIEW  283

Theodore’s Interpretation on the Protoplasts’ Sin and on Its Consequences In criticizing some of Theodore’s arguments, Photius was not consciously being unfair. Against the background of “classical” Eastern Orthodox soteriology—namely, a harmonizing reception of the relevant teachings of Athanasius and Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom—Theodore’s positions on the soteriological issues under examination make an awkward impression. Photius explains his uneasiness with these thoughts by supposing that the author invented them ad hoc in order to refute the heretical assertions of his adversaries without giving much thought to the grave problems inherent in his own arguments. He had been misled by his anti-heretical zeal into fighting heresies with errors. What follows is an examination of these concepts criticized by Photius. Theodore appears to contradict himself concerning the relationship between mortality and the tendency to sin in the case of the protoplasts. While in many places, like in our treatise, he seems to assert that Adam and Eve had been originally created mortal by God, elsewhere in equally numerous places he repeats the claim that mortality was a punishment inflicted on the protoplasts by God because of their sin.45 Modern scholarship has tried more than once to find a way out of this apparent self-contradiction. The possible solutions which have been proposed can be divided into three groups. A radical development in Theodore’s theological interpretation on the biblical narration of the protoplasts’ sin can be supposed.46 According to 45. See, for example, his Commentarius in Epistulam ad Romanos 5:17, in Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche, ed. Karl Staab (Münster: Aschendorff, 1984), 120; cf. In Ep. ad Rom. 5:13, 119; cf. Commentarius in Evangelium Iohannis Apostoli, ed. and trans. Jacques Marie Vosté, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Syr. 62–63 (Louvain: Peeters, 1940), here Syr. 63, 173–74 (on v. 12:31– 32); cf. In Ev. Ioh. 12:18, 170. 46. See, for example, Wilhelm de Vries, “Der ‘Nestorianismus’ Theodors von Mopsuestia in seiner Sakramentenlehre,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 7 (1941):

284  NESTOR KAVVADAS

this suggestion, Theodore held to the “traditional” interpretation (considering mortality and death as a punishment for “original sin”) in the early stages of his career as a theological writer. Gradually though, he developed his own “peculiar” interpretation, maintaining that mortality was the cause of sin; this development is obvious in his commentary on the Pauline Epistles. The latter interpretation is proclaimed—somewhat overstated—against Jerome in C.Def., which is one of Theodore’s last works.47 The selfcontradiction can be considered merely apparent. According to Theodore’s interpretation of Genesis, God initially created the protoplasts as mortal exactly because He knew in advance that they would fall to sin. Thus mortality has a “temporal” priority against sin, whereby sin has a logical or causal priority over mortality.48 Theodore could have presupposed that the protoplasts were created by God neither mortal nor immortal, but in an “intermediate” state-of-being, open to both immortality (which would be granted to them if they had obeyed God’s command) and mortality (which was the penalty for their actual disobedience).49 Among the three suggestions, the first hypothesis seems least plausible. It is indubitable, on the one hand, that Theodore’s own “peculiar” interpretation on the relationship between sin and mortality in the Genesis narrative becomes more and more important in his later works. On the other hand, it never totally edges out the “traditional” interpretation. Even in C.Def., Theodore writes that God knew in advance that “Adam was going to sin and, for this 91–148, here at 99–100; Peter Bruns, Den Menschen mit dem Himmel verbinden: eine Studie zu den katechetischen Homilien des Theodor von Mopsuestia (Louvain: Peeters, 1995), 158–67. 47. It must have been written after 415; see Jacques Marie Vosté, “La chronologie de l’activité littéraire de Théodore de Mopsueste,” RB 34 (1925): 79. 48. See Richard A. Norris, Manhood and Christ—A Study in the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 173–89; Joanne McWilliam Dewart, The Theology of Grace of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1971), 33–36. 49. Groß, Theodor von Mopsuestia, 7.

AN EASTERN VIEW  285

reason, was doubtlessly going to die.”50 This passage demonstrates clearly that Theodore held these two seemingly contradictory interpretations on the relationship between sin and mortality to be somehow compatible. Regarding the third possible solution, one observes that it does not totally rule out the self-contradiction under discussion. If this suggestion is correct, Theodore still contradicts himself in all the places where he asserts that Adam and Eve were created mortal. Nevertheless, this suggestion cannot be rejected that easily, seeing that it is supported by at least one important place in Theodore’s Commentary on Genesis: . . . God well knew that mortality is an advantage for men. For if they remain without death, they will fall everlastingly . . . [Yet God] did not confer the advantage [of mortality] straightway, lest He be reviled for not having conferred immortality from the beginning. But first He gives the commandment, which He knew they would not keep: and this in order to demonstrate that [men]—promised immortality if they obeyed and death if they disobeyed—would so disbelieve their Maker and Benefactor as to hope that if they disobeyed they would not only acquire immortality, but also lay hold on the dignity of divine status. . . . First, therefore, by giving the commandment and by the disobedience of Adam, [God] shows that mortality is necessary (for man): and then he makes the gift of mortality, at once instructing men, and not withholding what is necessary. For the very pattern of male and female shows that (God) prepared men for the mortal life. . . . Thus the formation of man was adapted to the mortal life.51

In this passage, Theodore clearly maintains that God neither created Adam as a mortal being in the first place, nor granted him the gift of immortality; He promised immortality as a trophy for obe50. ACO I.5.1.176: “et peccaturum eum noverat et propter hoc procul dubio moriturum.” 51. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentarius in Genesim (fragmenta), in Catenae Graecae in Genesim et in Exodum, II: Collectio Coisliana in Genesim (CCG 15: 118–19).

286  NESTOR KAVVADAS

dience to His command. God obviously equipped the protoplasts for life under mortality (ἐπὶ τῷ θνητῷ βίῳ ηὐτρέπιζεν); this presupposes that they were not already mortal. Further, in his treatise against Jerome, Theodore also asserts that the Biblical testimony confirms that “Adam was in such manner fashioned from earth, [as appropriate] for someone who was going to be mortal right away.”52 This is not exactly the same thing as saying that Adam was created mortal. But these assertions are outnumbered greatly by the places where Theodore maintains that Adam was created mortal from the very beginning. The second suggestion of a possible solution has been brilliantly developed by Norris, author of the most elaborate reconstruction of Theodore’s soteriology.53 It is impossible to refer here to the arguments supporting his suggestion. The discussion will be restricted to some critical problems inherent, in my opinion, in this approach. First of all, according to Norris’s approach, a main concern of Theodore’s interpretation lies in underlining the idea that sin is the only cause of mortality, the latter being a punishment for or a consequence of the former.54 But this view is directly opposed to Theodore’s argumentation against any causal dependence of mortality from sin, as deployed in C.Def. Furthermore, Norris supports this fundamental assumption of his approach by maintaining that the protoplasts’ sin, according to Theodore, was not committed under the pressure of mortality, like all sinful acts subsequent to it; instead, it was the implementation of a free choice of the soul, a choice to disobey.55 This first sin cannot be attributed to any exterior causes, because it is an action of the free will alone; only thereafter begins the vicious circle of reciprocal causation between mortality and sin, which makes it impossible, in “this world,” to ascribe 52. ACO I.5.1.173: “Adam sic ex terra formatum ut mortalis prorsus existeret.” 53. See Norris, Manhood and Christ, esp. 137–89. 54. Ibid., esp. 184. 55. Norris, Manhood and Christ, esp. 157–58; Norris cites a passage of the Catechetical Homilies where Theodore makes this distinction between the protoplasts’ sin and all subsequent human sin.

AN EASTERN VIEW  287

a causal priority to either sin or death.56 But Norris assumes that the protoplasts were created mortal, according to Theodore, from the very beginning—in which case they would have already been mortal and acted necessarily under the pressure of mortality while trespassing the command! Consequently, this reconstruction of Theodore’s interpretation on the protoplasts’ sin appears to be untenable. If we are to read the Genesis narrative as a “realistic” depiction of incidents taking place within a temporal succession, causal priority cannot be separated from temporal priority, not even by appealing to God’s foreknowledge. Norris’s aforementioned assumption, that Theodore consistently regards sin as the cause (in the full sense) of mortality, is closely connected with his view of the role attributed to human free will in the Interpreter’s theological anthropology. Human rational free will is primarily, according to Norris’s reconstruction, freedom of choice between good and evil.57 Exercising this kind of freedom is the form of life proper to the human rational soul; it is with his freedom of choice that the human being participates in the divine work of salvation and this same freedom must have been the agent of his “original sin.” But is such a view of the protoplasts’ sin as an action of free will and as the cause of mortality consistent with Theodore’s soteriology? For the latter, sin and mortality are the fundamental objective structures of “this world”—the main difference between this world and the world-to-come, which will be characterized by freedom from sin and immortality. On the other hand, this world, with its high tension between temptation arising from mortality and the command of the divine law, is, at the same time, the appropriate field for the exercise and growth of human freedom of choice between good and bad. What is more, Theodore reduces, 56. See, for example, ibid., 185–86. On the basis of this reconstruction of Theodore’s interpretation on the protoplasts’ sin, Norris concludes that, for Theodore, sin can never be a mere consequence of mortality, as it always implies an active participation of the free will (ibid., 158). 57. See ibid., 132–34 and 157–58.

288  NESTOR KAVVADAS

in many places, God’s decision, made before all eternity, to divide His salvific economy into two stages, namely, this world and the world-to-come, exactly to the natural exigencies of human practical rationality that must be first exercised in free choice between good and evil.58 This means that if one considers these insights of Theodore together with Norris’s reconstruction of his theological anthropology and soteriology, one would have to conclude that the appropriate objective conditions for exercise and growth of human free will are at the same time the punishment for a sin committed by human free will. Furthermore, one would also have to consider God’s eternal plan as a consequence of human sin—a thought quite incompatible with Theodore’s emphasis on the omnipotence of divine providence. These problems suggest that one should search for a possible solution in other directions. The following considerations are an attempt for a new approach to this difficult self-contradiction of Theodore of Mopsuestia. The main insights of this approach are, firstly, that the core of Theodore’s understanding of God’s salvific economy consists in his eschatology, so that the entire deployment of salvation history is considered in his writings from the point of view of the eschatological world-to-come; and, secondly, that Theodore understands God’s action in His salvific economy primarily in pedagogical terms. Consequently, we turn first to Theodore’s description of the human mode-of-existence in the eschatological world-to-come, so as to reconstruct his view of the human condition in “this present world.” In the future world’s life, humans are free from all tendencies to sin, which stem from mortality, and enjoy a positively determined freedom fundamentally different from his present freedom of choice, namely, a freedom for the good. This eschatological freedom is no longer the activity of human practical rationality alone, 58. Most extensive in his Commentarius in epistolam ad Romanos 11:15, 157; cf. Comm. in Genesim 2:15, in Theodori Mopsuesteni fragmenta syriaca, ed. and trans. Ed. Sachau (Leipzig: Englemann, 1869), 9–11; Comm. in ep. ad Gal. 2:15–16, 1:25–26.

AN EASTERN VIEW  289

but, at the same time, the activity of the Holy Spirit (or of the Spirit’s Grace) as well.59 Therefore, human freedom of choice between good and evil reveals itself as a preparatory stage, appropriate to this present world, in which human free will is being brought up for its future fulfillment in the positively determined freedomfor-the-good. Clearly enough, this same distinction between two forms of free will is being presupposed in Theodore’s doctrine of hell’s temporary character. In the case of those who persevered in their sinfulness with no remorse until the end of their earthly lives, Theodore says that the “punishments and the fear of punishments” in the temporary hell shall bring their self-consciousness in the right order without violating their freedom of will. They will have been liberated before this from mortality and thus from tendency to sin stemming from mortality, like all the resurrected. Once their self-consciousness has been reformed, all punishments shall stop. The few hints Theodore gives us about the concrete form of these punishments have to do solely with teaching: The punishments shall convey to humans an insight into their own sinfulness and into God’s loving goodness.60 Thus it is thoroughly plausible to assume that Theodore, when asserting that mortality (and with it, human existence in this present world) is a punishment for sin, gives to the word “punishment” this specific meaning of a sometimes painful process of education. Mortality is but a pedagogical measure, introduced by God with a double aim: firstly, to save humans from living eternally in sin, and, secondly, to allow human freedom of will to be exercised and brought up through the confrontation with the temptations stemming from mortality, so that it may be finally transformed into the new world’s freedom.61 Thus mortality is neither a consequence of nor a punishment for sin but a pedagogical measure taken by God in view of the exigencies of human rational nature and, at the same time, in view of sin. 59. See In ep. ad Gal. 2:15–16, 1: 26.9–29.14. 60. See note 40. 61. In ep. ad Gal. 2:15–16, 1: 25–29; cf. note 54.

290  NESTOR KAVVADAS

Thus one could partially explain Theodore’s apparent self-contradiction by supposing that he is inconsistent in using the notion of punishment. When denying, like in C.Def., that death could be a punishment for sin, he gives to “punishment” the meaning of mere retribution, of a “poena sine correctione.” 62 Such retribution is determined in a mechanistic manner only from the crime that it pays back. On the other hand, when Theodore asserts that mortality is a punishment for sin, he understands “punishment” exclusively as an educational measure, a sometimes painful teaching similar to that of his “temporary hell,” freely defined by the Teacher according to his didactical aims and to the exigencies of his pupils (or, of the “punished”), and not determined by the trespassing to be punished.63 Of course, these two meanings of “punishment” are not always easy to discern, since from the immature point of view of the pupil pedagogical measures may look like mere retribution. So, when Theodore in C.Def. maintains that God did not “really” punish Adam and Eve for their sin with death, but simulated this (σχηματίσαι)64 in order to demonstrate to them how evil sin is and to inspire in them hatred against it, he does not claim that God should have lied to the protoplasts, but rather that He showed them only a superficial aspect of His pedagogical measures, hiding its deeper intention—perhaps because Adam and Eve were, in any case, unable to understand them. Let us now attempt to set anew the question concerning Theodore’s view of the relationship between sin and mortality, this time taking into account these characteristic interpretations he gives on the biblical narration together with his fundamental division of salvation history in two, instead of three, stages. One can plausibly suggest that for Theodore, mortality and sin are simultaneous, 62. See ACO I.5.1.176. 63. For this distinction, see Plato, Protagoras 324a6–b5. 64. About this “arrangement” Theodore says: “It is usual for the Holy Scripture that the formulation seems, at first sight, to mean something else, [different] from what it [really] wants to say” (In Ep. ad Rom. 8:26, 140: “σύνηθες τῇ θείᾳ γραφῇ τὸ εἰρημένον ὡς ἕτερον φαίνεσθαι τῷ προχείρῳ μᾶλλον ἢ ὃ βούλεται λέγειν”).

AN EASTERN VIEW  291

interrelated, equally fundamental structural elements of this present world. But more important for him is that there is no causal dependence of mortality from sin, since sin is a human deed, an application of Man’s freedom of choice inherent in his rational nature, while mortality is imposed by God—who gave humans this kind of a rational nature. Sin could be considered as a “cause” of mortality only in the very superficial sense of an external occasion, namely, inasmuch as God imposed mortality as a pedagogical measure in view of the “problem” of sin. On the other hand, mortality is, for Theodore, a partial cause of sin; but he never reduces the protoplasts’ sin (nor sin in general) to a consequence of mortality since this would indirectly make God responsible for all human sinfulness. Perhaps one could say that the difference between the protoplasts’ sin and all other sin is that in this first case, sin and mortality appear simultaneously, while subsequently mortality is prior to sin. But, this is not clear, since Theodore claims in many places that the protoplasts were created mortal from the very beginning. In any case, according to Theodore, sin is not the cause of mortality; human history begins “in this world” and is marked by sin and mortality from its very beginning. The part of the Genesis narration prior to the protoplasts’ sin appears, in Theodore’s understanding, as an extremely short prelude to human history: he estimates its duration at six hours! 65 This prelude has an exclusively pedagogical function, since God uses it in order to teach to the protoplasts the negativity of sin and thus the negativity of death, or, in other words, to show them that this present world is not what humans have been destined for, but a stage of hard upbringing intended to prepare humans for the world-to-come, in which God’s will for them shall be fulfilled. If this is really the case, then Theodore’s self-contradiction under discussion could be explained by the fact that he sometimes simply reproduces God’s pedagogical “arrangement” or “simulation” 65. ACO I.5.1.176.

292  NESTOR KAVVADAS

(σχηματισμός), while in some other cases he brings forth his own interpretation of the deeper purposes behind this “arrangement.” Against this background, it becomes clear that this “set of interpretations” is the backbone of the treatise C.Def.

The Two-fold Absolution of Sins Regarding Theodore’s argument against the anti-Pelagian connection of the original-sin-doctrine with the baptism of infants, and specifically his distinction between two forms of absolution of sins, which is exposed and criticized by Photius, the interpreter explains this distinction on the basis of his doctrine of the two worlds in the following passage of his Catechetical Homilies: In order to show the utility that accrues from this profession of faith they [our blessed Fathers] said: For the remission of sins. In these words they did not mean a simple remission of sin but its complete abolition . . . because a true remission consists in the remission not of some sins but of all of them. . . . This, however, will take place fully in the next world when after the resurrection we shall be immortal and when all the impulses of sin will cease. . . . In the future resurrection from the dead we are expecting complete abolition of sin.66

Some Final Observations This discussion of some aspects of Theodore’s argumentation against the “champions of the original sin” suffices to show that his soteriological doctrine is quite consistent in its own way and definitely original. Furthermore, it is very different on its whole from the various soteriological concepts clashing during the controversies between Augustine and the Pelagians and, later, the doctores Gallicani. A rough comparison between these “Western” concepts 66. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Nicene Creed (first part of the “Catechetical Homilies”), Woodbrooke Studies V, ed. and trans. A. Mingana (Cambridge: Heffers, 1932), 114–15.

AN EASTERN VIEW  293

and isolated elements of his soteriology could show that his teaching of the protoplasts having been created mortal corresponds quite clearly to one of Caelestius’s theses which were condemned, according to Marius Mercator, at the Council of Carthage.67 Equally cognate to Pelagianism is his rejection of a vilification of human nature as a consequence of the protoplasts’ sin as well as of a transfer of Adam’s guilt and punishment to his offspring of all generations. On the other hand, Theodore’s absolute subordination of the human free will under divine providence, or predestination, is reminiscent of Augustine—whereby his teaching of the salvation of all allows him implicitly to maintain absolute predestination without having to also accept predestination to eternal damnation and enables Theodore to avoid all misunderstandings of grace as a human merit. His teaching that in the world-to-come divine grace shall restore the free will of all sinners also reminds one of Augustine’s doctrine of “irresistible grace.” Finally, his emphasis on the role of human free will in the present world’s fight for Christian virtue is surely cognate with the ascetical position of the doctores Gallicani on the same issue. It is characteristic that Theodore illustrates the role of free will with the very same “parable” of the farmer toiling the earth,68 which is put in the mouth of Abba Chaeremon in John Cassian’s Conference 13. In conclusion, one could say that Theodore was not just the only Eastern father to interfere in these typically Western conflicts but was also perhaps the only Eastern father to grasp the inadequacies of a synergistic soteriology and to consistently maintain a radical subordination of human free will, notwithstanding its central role in this present world, under divine providence—that is, under God’s grace and love. 67. Cf. Marrou, “Les attaches orientales du Pélagianisme,” 332. 68. See Theodore of Mopsuestia, In Ep. ad Gal. 5:23–24, 1: 101.

CONTR I BUTORS

Augustine Casiday Cardiff University Jérémy Delmulle Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)

Ralph W. Mathisen University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign Brian J. Matz Carroll College

Francis X. Gumerlock Providence Theological Seminary

Matthew J. Pereira Loyola Marymount University

Thomas L. Humphries Jr. Saint Leo University

Boniface Ramsey Saint Joseph’s Church, Yorkville, New York

Alexander Y. Hwang Saint Leo University Nestor Kavvadas University of Tübingen Raúl Villegas Marín University of Barcelona

Eugene Teselle Vanderbilt University (emeritus) Roland Teske, SJ Marquette University (emeritus) Rebecca Harden Weaver Union Presbyterian Seminary (emerita)

. 

295

I NDEX

Acts of the Apostles: 1:15, 169; 2:3, 169; 2:17, 169; 2:38–39, 168; 10:45, 106n15; 13:48, 26; 16:6, 106n15; 16:7, 27; 16:14, 26 Adam: Augustine, xvii, 9, 27, 28; Council of Orange II, 215, 226; double-predestinarians, 243; effect of sin (aliena peccata), xvii, 1, 9n24; Fulgentius, 171; John Cassian, 108n19; mortality of, 2; Pelagius, xvii, 1, 67; Prosper, 28, 67–68, 88, 108n19; Theodore of Mopsuestia, xxvi, 276, 277–78, 283–86, 293 Africa, Church of: Augustine, xi, xii, 5, 23, 36, 103, 105; Fulgentius, 156, 162–63, 167, 173, 179; Hadrumetum, xii, 22–24, 103, 105; Roman Church, 5–6, 62n39, 167n43; teachings, xi, xxiv, 2, 9, 36, 175, 268–69 Ambrose of Milan, 115, 136, 234, 264n40 Amolo, 262–63 Aristocracy, Gallo-Roman, xx, 70, 221 Arles: Helladius, 58n23; Hilary, 28n46, 35n1, 182n6. See also Caesarius of Arles; Councils

Asceticism, xxiii, 24, 59, 70, 112, 119, 141–42nn24–25, 180, 182n5, 184–85, 187, 195, 198–99, 293 Athanasius, xxii, 65n44, 115, 126, 129, 136, 283 Augustine: Adam, xvii, 9, 27, 28; African Church, xi, xii, 5, 23, 36, 103, 105; Confessions, 4, 10, 117, 118; 1 Cor. 15:10, 196; De baptismo, 17n8; De dono perseverantiae, 30, 34, 43, 44, 61, 70; De Gratia, 186–88; De natura et gratia, 33, 127; De praedestinatione sanctorum, 28n46, 30, 34, 43–44, 61, 70; doctores Gallicani, 35, 36–40, 44, 49, 186, 271; education, 174; original sin, 9–10, 91n57, 142, 161, 190; Pelagius, 12, 33,89, 95, 131, 139, 142, 186–88, 203, 256; Prosper, xix–xx, 35–50, 60–63, 70; 1 Tim 2:4, 19–20, 26, 28, 127, 143, 155; Vincent, 135 Baptism: and grace, 92, 111, 164n37, 215, 218, 249–50, 255–56, 258n23, 262; infant, 3, 62n39, 112n27, 127, 164n37, 246–47, 276–77, 292; salvation and, 3, 29, 127, 171, 246, 255, 257, 262 297

298  INDEX Barbarians: 33, 36, 53, 70, 79, 98, 233n84 Caelestius, xviii, 2–3, 5–6, 7, 18, 33, 54, 64, 92, 293 Caesarius of Arles: Council of Orange II, xiv, xxiv, 201n5, 211–15, 219, 220–23, 226, 232, 258, 263; Council of Valence, xxiv–xxv, 210, 224, 225; education, xiv; On Grace, xxiv, 166, 229, 230; opposition, 209–10, 221, 225, 228; prevenient grace, 210–11, 219, 226, 228; Rome, 209–10, 221, 225, 228–29, 231 Capitula sancti Augustini in urbem Romam transmissa, 48n51 Carmen de Ingratis: 57, 59n25, 73, 79, 82, 85, 91, 93, 95 Cassian, John: Augustine, xii, xxii, 114–30; Conferences, xii, xviii–xix, 117, 293; influence of, 24, 26n38, 33, 83, 176, 274; life, 36, 47; opposition, 15, 17, 46, 94, 100, 108n19, 109–10, 113, 140, 183–85; 1 Tim 2:4, 30–32, 126 Charles the Bald, 178n80, 238n9, 239n13, 240n24, 254–55 Chrysostom, John, xxii, 2, 3, 36, 114, 115, 126, 155n1, 283 1 Corinthians: 3:7, 82n30; 4:7, 13; 7, 267; 15:10, 193, 196; 15:21–22, 174; 29:14, 215 Councils: Arles (473), xiii, xxiii, 70n62, 183, 208, 213n15, 222; Arles (524), 220n50, 228; Aquileia, 220; Carthage (407), 269; Carthage (411), 220; Chalcedon, 220; Ephesus, 220; Lyons, xiii, 70n62, 208; Marseilles, 225; Nicaea, 220; Nimes, 225; Orange II, xi, xxiv,

16, 57, 208–9, 211–30, 258; Vaison (442), 225; Vaison (529), 220n50, 228 Cyprian of Carthage, xviii, 1–2, 9, 16, 118 Cyprianus, bishop of Toulon, 210, 211, 223–25, 229, 232 de auxiliis controversy, xiv De gratia: Augustinians, 186–88; content, 192–99; context, 181–82; reception, 199–204; influence, 207, 230 Demetrias, Letter to, 4n11, 142 doctores Gallicani: Augustine, 35, 35n2, 36–40, 44, 49, 186, 271; Pelagianism, 45–46, 187; predestination, 184, 186; Prosper, 36–40, 43, 45, 49–50 Ecclesiastes 3:22, 168 Election, 195, 265 Ephesians: 2:3, 171; 2:8–9, 197; 3:5, 106n15; 4:8, 216; 5:27, 10 Epigrammata in obtretractorem Augustini, 89 Epistulae ad Augustinum (Epp. 225–26), 35, 38–43, 86, 106, 186 Epistula ad Rufinum, 25n35, 28n46, 74, 100, 106, 108, 181n3, 186n19 Epistulae Arelatenses, 223, 224 Epistula Tractoria, 6 Epitaphium Nestorianae et Pelagianae haereseon, 224n65 Eriugena, 240n22, 244n10, 248, 253–54 Eve. See Adam Evodius, bishop of Uzalis, 22 Expositio epistulae ad Galatas, 18n14 Ezekiel: 18:2–4, 278; 33:11, 121

INDEX  299 Faustus, bishop of Riez: Augustine, 11, 70n62, 176, 188–92, 208–9, 218; De gratia, xiii, 165, 180, 182–86, 192–99, 207, 230; influence, 56, 163n30, 163n33, 165n41, 206, 225; life, 56, 182n4, 199; teachings, 70n62, 160n13, 163n30, 164n33, 165, 176, 180, 182–86 Foreknowledge, 9, 48, 49, 247, 254–55, 260–62, 265, 287 Fulgentius of Ruspe: Adam, 178; African Church, 156, 162–63, 167, 173, 179; Augustine, 209; influence, 202, 231–32, 235–36, 247, 259–61, 270; life, 179, 204n74; 1 Tim 2:4, 156, 158, 166, 168, 172, 177, 179 Galatians: 2:21, 216; 3:6, 197; 3:11, 12; 3:28, 54n7; 4:4, 11; 4:6, 99, 105, 108; 5:6, 12; 5:17, 3n7 Gottschalk: baptism, 246n13; controversy, 177n80, 233, 237, 243–47, 257n33; Council of Orange II, 257, 258, 262; opposition, 178, 241–42, 259, 269; predestination, 177, 238, 239, 242, 247–54, 258–60, 267 Hadrumetum, monks of, xii, xvi– xvii, 7, 21, 22–24, 34, 40n13, 103, 141, 174, 183 Hebrews: 2:4, 12; 10:38, 197–98; 11:6, 197; 11:38, 278 Helladius, bishop of Arles, 58n23 Hilary, bishop of Arles, 28n46, 35n1, 115, 182n6 Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, 164n35 Hilary of Marseille, xii, xviii–xix, 22, 24, 27–28, 33, 35, 37, 39–46, 41n17, 42n22, 50, 74, 203, 260

Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, 178, 237, 241–43, 248n16, 249, 251, 254, 257, 263, 266–70 Hypomnesticon, 48–50 Infants/children: death of, 10, 127, 171. See also Baptism initium fidei, 83, 141n24, 214n20 Isaiah: 7:9, 124; 46:10, 31; 49:15, 123 Jerome, xxv, 2, 5, 86n43, 115, 140, 164n35, 199n59, 234, 272, 275, 284, 286 John, Gospel of: 1:9, 19n17; 1:16, 12n36; 6:44, 11n31, 170, 185n14; 8:6, 101; 8:56, 215; 12:32, 170; 15:5, 106n15 1 John 4:7, 109 Julian, bishop of Eclanum, 3, 4, 6–7, 11, 18, 33, 56n17, 92, 273–74 Julianus, bishop of Vienne, 210–11, 223 Julianus Pomerius, xiv, 231 Leontius, a deacon, 37, 39, 41, 44, 46, 50, 188 Lérins, monastic community of, xiii, xiv, xxii–xxiii, 24, 36, 47, 141, 182, 231 Liber epigrammatum, 96, 96n69 Liber sententiarum ex operibus sancti Augustini delibatarum, 57 Lucidus, xii, xxiii, 70n62, 182–83, 189, 193, 196, 208, 220 Luke, Gospel of: 10:13, 21n21; 10:22, 106n15; 11:42, 20 Matthew, Gospel of: 5:10, 31; 10:20, 108; 11:21, 21n21; 11:28, 32, 121; 13:24–30, 10; 18:14, 31, 120, 126,

300  INDEX Matthew, Gospel of (cont.) 127; 22:14, 10; 23:5, 242n5; 25:41, 171 Maxentius, John, xxiii–xxiv, 158, 160–62, 164–65, 179, 200–204, 205–6 Monasticism, 24, 126, 129, 141n24, 182n5, 184, 187 opera geminate, 74 Orientius, 93 Origen/Origenist, xviii, 2-3, 5n14, 16, 16n7, 133, 276 Original sin: Augustine, 9, 10, 91n57, 142, 161, 190; doctrine, 2, 6; Faustus, 188, 190, 209; Fulgentius, 171; Gottschalk, 246; Theodore of Mopsuestia, 277, 284, 287, 292 Paulinus of Nola, 80 Pelagius/Pelagians: Augustine, 12, 33, 89, 95, 131, 139, 142, 186–88, 203, 256; controversy/opposition, xv, xvii–xviii, 1n1, 5–6, 18, 33, 131, 139, 140, 176, 184, 196; De natura, 4, 33; influence, xxiii, 63, 83, 208, 214, 269, 273; Letter to Demetrias, 142; On Free Choice, 4; teachings, xv, xviii, 3, 4–5, 54, 64, 175–76 Perseverance, xi, 41, 48, 105, 123 Petrus Marcellinus Felix Liberius, prefect of Gaul, 211, 221 Photius, 273, 275–77, 279–81 Poema coniugis ad uxorem, 93 Popes: Agapetus, 262–63; Anastasius, 225; Boniface, 264n40; Celestine, xii, 45–46, 264n40, 268, 281n40; Felix IV, 211; Gelasius, 264n40; Gregory the Great,

264n40; Hormisdas, xiii, 161–63, 201, 202n69, 209; Innocent, 5, 23, 264n40; John II, 162; Leo, xiii, 50, 91n57, 160, 262–63, 264n40; Nicholas I, 237n2, 241; Sixtus III, xii, 7, 22–23, 46–47, 135, 264n40; Symmachus, 209; Zosimus, xi, 5–6, 23, 23n30, 223, 225, 264n40, 269 Praeteritorum episcoporum sedis apostolicae auctoritates, 50n53 Pride, 8, 12, 59, 80, 94, 149 Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum calumniantium, 48 Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentiarum, 47n45, 48 Pro Augustino responsiones ad exerpta Genuensium, 44 Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles, 36n4 Prosper: Augustine/Augustinian, xix–xx, 35–50, 60–63, 70; Carmen de Providentia Dei, 36–37, 51–59, 65, 280n36; De ingratis, 58, 62, 64, 67–69, 73–74; education, 60; Epistula ad Rufinum, 100, 106, 108, 181; life, xii–xiii, 60 Proverbs 8:35, 11, 107 Ratramnus of Corbie: condemnation of 242n4; Council of Orange II, 25; double-predestinarian texts, 237, 239; Gottschalk and, 247; grace and the election, 255n30; influence of Fulgentius, 260–61 Responsio adversus Epistutulam, 180n2, 203 Revelation: 2:11, 171; 20:6, 171

INDEX  301 Romans: 1:17, 12; 3:4, 176; 3:10–12, xxv; 3:20, 8; 3:23, 32; 3:28, 8; 5:5, 11, 98–99, 105, 108–9; 5:12, 3n7, 8; 5:18, 8, 170, 175; 7:7–11, 8; 7:18, 164n35; 8:14, 98, 104, 111; 8:15, 98, 107–8; 8:28, 168; 8:29–30, 9; 9:11, 10; 9:16, 86, 127–29; 9:18, 55; 9:20, 247; 9:21–23, 21n22, 167; 11:32, 170; 11:33–34, 123; 14:23, 12 Rufinus, a layman, 17, 24–25, 32–33, 35, 40, 84, 89 Rufinus of Syria, 2–3, 115, 273, 274n12 Saint Victor, monastery of, 15 Scripture, use of, xxiii, xxv, 14, 20, 27n41, 37, 75, 106, 117, 124–25, 150, 169, 172, 180, 186, 194, 206 Semi-Pelagian/Pelagianism: misnomer, ix, xiv–xv; Fulgentius, 260; Gottschalk, 259; Prosper, 260n37; Theodore of Mopsuestia, 274; Vincent, 138, 270 Sixtus III. See Popes Theodore of Mopsuestia: Against the Defenders of Original Sin, 277, 279,

281–82, 292; Pelagian controversy, 272–74, 281; teachings, xxv–xxvi, 7, 146n36, 284–91 Theopaschitism, 160–61 1 Timothy 2:4, xvii, xxiv, xxv, 14–16, 18, 26, 28–29, 120, 126–27, 143, 155–56, 158, 166, 168, 172, 174, 176–79 Valentine, abbot of Hadrumetum, 104 Venerius, bishop of Marseilles, 268 Vincent of Lérins: teachings, xii–xiii, xxii–xxiii, 59, 111n24, 131; Commonitorium, xiii, xxiii, 47, 61n36, 132–34, 136–38, 147, 150–52; Excerpta, 132, 135–38, 140, 147–48, 150, 152; Objectiones Vincentianae, xxiii, 132, 134, 137–39, 151–52; Quicumque Vult, 132, 136 Visigoths. See Barbarians Vitalis, a layman of Carthage, 18 Zosimus. See Popes

Grace for Grace: The Debates after Augustine and Pelagius was designed in Garamond and composed by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 55-pound Natures Natural and bound by Sheridan Books of Ann Arbor, Michigan.