Collection
On the Predestination of the Saints (De Praedestinatione Sanctorum)
Near the end of his life, Augustine received word from monks in Marseilles and Hadrumetum who accepted his teaching on grace but balked at its furthest implication: that the very first stirring of faith, and the perseverance that carries a believer to the end, are themselves God's unearned gifts. The reply presses Paul's question — "What have you that you did not receive?" — against every remaining foothold of human initiative, retracting positions Augustine himself had held before his episcopate and answering the pastoral worry that such a doctrine would empty preaching, exhortation, and rebuke of their point. Out of this exchange comes the formula that would organize Western argument for a thousand years: predestination as God's foreknowledge and preparation of His own benefits. The tone is that of an old bishop working carefully through Scripture and Cyprian with correspondents he considers friends, convinced the teaching consoles those it is offered to.