On the Gift of Perseverance 1–7

Now we must discuss perseverance more carefully; for in the former book too, when we were dealing with the beginning of faith, we said something about it as well. We assert, then, that the perseverance by which one perseveres in Christ to the end is the gift of God. And by “the end” I mean that by which this life is ended, in which alone there is danger of falling. Therefore, whether anyone has received this gift is uncertain as long as he is living this life. For if he falls before he dies, he is certainly said not to have persevered, and it is said most truly. How, then, is one who has not persevered to be said to have received or had perseverance? For if someone has continence and falls from it and becomes incontinent, or likewise righteousness, or patience, or faith itself, he is rightly said to have had it and not to have it; for he was continent, or righteous, or patient, or faithful, as long as he was; but when he ceased to be so, he is not what he was. But he who has not persevered, how was he persevering, since each one shows himself persevering by persevering, which this man did not do? But lest anyone object and say, “If someone, from the time he became a believer, lived, say, ten years, and in the middle of that time fell from the faith, did he not persevere for five years?” I do not contend about words, if that too is thought should be called perseverance, as of its own time; but this perseverance which we are now dealing with, by which one perseveres in Christ to the end, he must in no way be said to have had who has not persevered to the end; and a believer of one year, or as much less as can be imagined, has had it rather, if he lived faithfully until he died, than a believer of many years, if he fell from the stability of faith a short time before death.

This being established, let us see whether this perseverance, of which it is said, “He who perseveres to the end will be saved,” is the gift of God. If it is not, how is what the Apostle says true: “To you it has been given for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him”? For of these one belongs to the beginning, the other to the end; yet both are the gift of God, because both are said to have been given, as we have also said above. For what is more truly the beginning for a Christian than to believe in Christ? What end is better than to suffer for Christ? But as regards believing in Christ, some kind of objection was found, so that not the beginning but the increase of faith was said to be the gift of God; to which opinion, by the Lord's gift, we have answered more than enough. But what can be said, why perseverance to the end should not be given in Christ to one to whom it is given to suffer for Christ, or, to speak more expressly, to whom it is given to die for Christ? For the apostle Peter too, showing that this is the gift of God, says, “It is better, if the will of God should will it, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” When he says, “if the will of God should will it,” he shows that this is given by God, and not to all the saints, that they suffer for Christ. For those whom the will of God does not will to come to the experience and glory of suffering do not fail to come to the kingdom of God, if they persevere in Christ to the end. But who would say that this perseverance is not given to those who die in Christ by bodily sickness or by any other mishap, when a far more difficult one is given to those by whom death itself is undergone for Christ? For it is much more difficult to persevere where the persecutor is acting to prevent perseverance, and therefore one endures even to death in order to persevere. That perseverance, then, is more difficult to have, and this one easier; but for him to whom nothing is difficult it is easy to give either. For God promised this, saying, “I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.” What else is this but, “Such and so great will be my fear, which I will put in their heart, that they will cleave to me perseveringly”? And why is this perseverance asked of God, if it is not given by God? Or is this too a mocking petition, when that is asked of him which it is known he does not give, but which, without his giving, is in man's power? Just as that thanksgiving too is a mockery, if thanks are given to God for what he himself did not give or do. But what I said there, I say here too: “Do not be deceived,” says the Apostle; “God is not mocked.” O man, God is witness not only of your words but also of your thoughts: if you ask anything truly and faithfully of one so rich, believe that you receive from him from whom you ask it what you ask. Do not honour him with your lips and exalt yourself above him in your heart, believing that you have from yourself what you pretend to ask of him. Or perhaps this perseverance is not asked of him? Whoever says this is not to be refuted by my arguments but overwhelmed by the prayers of the saints. Is there any of them who does not ask of God for himself that he may persevere in him, when in the very prayer which is called the Lord's, because the Lord taught it, when it is prayed by the saints, scarcely anything else is understood to be asked but perseverance? Read somewhat more attentively its exposition in the book of the blessed martyr Cyprian which he composed on this subject, whose title is On the Lord's Prayer; and see how many years beforehand an antidote was prepared against the poisons of the Pelagians that were to come. For there are three things, as you know, which the Catholic Church chiefly defends against them. One of them is that the grace of God is not given according to our merits; since even all the merits of the righteous are gifts of God and are conferred by the grace of God. The second is that no one lives in this corruptible body, in however great righteousness, without sins of some kind. The third is that man is born liable to the sin of the first man and bound by the chain of condemnation, unless the guilt which is contracted by generation is loosed by regeneration. Of these three, only the one I put last is not treated in the above-mentioned book of the glorious martyr; but of the other two it is argued there with such clarity that the above-mentioned heretics, new enemies of the grace of Christ, are found to have been refuted long before they were born. Among these merits of the saints, then, which are nothing but gifts of God, he speaks thus of perseverance too as the gift of God: “We say,” he says, “‘Hallowed be your name,’ not because we wish for God that he be hallowed by our prayers, but because we ask of him that his name be hallowed in us. Besides, by whom is God hallowed, who himself hallows? But because he himself said, ‘Be holy, for I am holy,’ we ask and beseech this, that we who have been hallowed in baptism may persevere in what we have begun to be.” And a little later, still discussing this very matter and teaching us to ask perseverance of the Lord, which he would in no way do rightly and truly unless this too were his gift: “We pray,” he says, “that this hallowing may remain in us; and since our Lord and judge warns the one healed and made alive by him to sin no more, lest something worse happen to him, we make this request in continual prayers, we ask this day and night, that the hallowing and quickening which is received from the grace of God may be preserved by his protection.” This teacher, then, understands that we ask of him perseverance in hallowing, that is, that we may persevere in hallowing, when, already hallowed, we say, “Hallowed be your name.” For what else is it to ask for what we have received but that this too may be granted us, that we may not cease to have it? Just as, then, a holy man, when he asks God that he may be holy, certainly asks that he may remain holy, so certainly the chaste man too, when he asks that he may be chaste; the continent, that he may be continent; the righteous, that he may be righteous; the godly, that he may be godly; and the rest, which we defend against the Pelagians as gifts of God: without doubt they ask this, that they may persevere in those goods which they know they have received. And if they receive this, they certainly receive perseverance itself too, the great gift of God by which his other gifts are preserved. What? When we say, “Your kingdom come,” do we ask anything else than that it may come to us too, which we do not doubt will come to all the saints? Here too, then, what do those who are already holy pray for, if not that they may persevere in that holiness which has been given them? For in no other way will the kingdom of God come to them, which it is certain will come not to others but to those who persevere to the end.

…or, as is read in most manuscripts and is more frequently used by those who pray, “as in heaven, so on earth”; which most understand as, “As the holy angels, so may we too do your will.” But that teacher and martyr wants heaven and earth to be understood as spirit and flesh, and that we pray this, that we may do the will of God with both in agreement. He saw in these words another sense too, in keeping with the soundest faith, of which we have already spoken above: namely, that the faithful, who, clothed with the heavenly man, are not undeservedly called by the name of heaven, are understood to pray for unbelievers, who are still earth, bearing only the earthly man from their first birth. Here he plainly shows that the beginning of faith too is the gift of God, when the holy church prays not only for the faithful, that faith may be increased in them or persevere, but also for unbelievers, that they may begin to have the faith which they did not have at all, and against which they even bore hostile hearts. But now we are discussing not the beginning of faith, of which we have already said much in the former book, but that perseverance which must be had to the end, which certainly even the saints who do the will of God ask for when they say in the Prayer, “Your will be done.” For since it has already been done in them, why do they still ask that it be done, unless that they may persevere in what they have begun to be? Although it could be said here that the saints do not ask that God's will be done in heaven, but that it be done on earth as in heaven: that is, that earth may imitate heaven, that is, man the angel, or the unbeliever the believer; and therefore that the holy man asks that what is not yet may be, not that what is may persevere. For however much men excel in holiness, they are not yet equal to the angels of God; the will of God is not yet done in them, then, as in heaven. If this is so, in the part in which we wish that men may become believers from unbelievers, it is not perseverance but the beginning that seems to be wished for; but in the part in which we wish that men may be made equal to the angels of God in doing the will of God, when the saints pray this they are shown to pray for perseverance; since no one reaches that highest blessedness which is in the kingdom unless he has persevered to the end in that holiness which he received on earth.

Here the blessed Cyprian shows how perseverance is understood to be asked for in this petition too. For he says among other things: “We ask that this bread be given us daily, lest we who are in Christ and receive the Eucharist daily as the food of salvation, through the intervention of some graver offence, while we are kept away and not communicating and are prevented from the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ.” These words of the holy man of God show that the saints ask the Lord for nothing other than perseverance, when they say with this intention, “Give us this day our daily bread”: that they may not be separated from the body of Christ, but may remain in that holiness in which they commit no crime by which they would deserve to be separated from it.

In the fifth place of the prayer we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” In this petition alone perseverance is not found to be asked for. For the sins which we pray may be forgiven us are past; but perseverance, which saves for ever, is necessary for the time of this life, not, however, the time already spent, but that which remains until its end. Yet it is worth while to consider for a little how in this petition too the heretics, who would come long afterwards, were already then confounded by the tongue of Cyprian, as by a most invincible weapon of truth. For the Pelagians dare to say this too, that the righteous man in this life has no sin at all, and that in such men there is already in the present time the church that has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, which is the one and only bride of Christ; as if she were not his bride who throughout the whole earth says what she has learned from him, “Forgive us our debts.” But see how the most glorious Cyprian slays them. For when he was expounding this place of the Lord's prayer, he says among other things: “How necessarily, how providently and wholesomely we are reminded that we are sinners, who are compelled to pray for our sins; so that while pardon is sought from God, the mind recalls its own conscience. Lest anyone please himself as if innocent, and perish the more by exalting himself, he is instructed and taught that he sins daily, since he is commanded to pray daily for his sins. So finally John too in his Epistle says, ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’”; and the rest, which it would take long to insert here. Now when the saints say, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” what do they pray for but that they may persevere in holiness? For certainly, this gift of God being granted them (which, when it is asked of him, is shown clearly and openly enough to be the gift of God), this gift of God, then, being granted them, that they are not led into temptation, no one of the saints fails to hold perseverance in holiness to the end. For no one ceases to persevere in the Christian purpose unless he is first led into temptation. If, then, what he prays for is granted him, that he be not led in, he certainly persists, by God's gift, in the sanctification which he received by God's gift.

“But these brothers,” as you write, “do not want this perseverance to be preached in such a way that it cannot either be merited by supplication or lost by obstinacy.” In this they pay too little attention to what they are saying. For we are speaking of that perseverance by which one perseveres to the end; which, if it has been given, one has persevered to the end; but if one has not persevered to the end, it has not been given; this we have already dealt with sufficiently above. So let men not say that perseverance to the end has been given to anyone, unless the end itself has come, and he to whom it was given has been found to have persevered to the end. For we call chaste one whom we know to be chaste, whether or not he will remain in that same chastity; and if he has any other divine gift that can be held and lost, we say he has it as long as he has it; and if he loses it, we say he had it. But perseverance to the end, since no one has it except one who perseveres to the end, many can have, but no one can lose. For there is no fear that, when a man has persevered to the end, some evil will may arise in him so that he does not persevere to the end. This gift of God, then, can be merited by supplication; but once it has been given, it cannot be lost by obstinacy. For when anyone has persevered to the end, he can neither lose this gift nor the others which he could lose before the end. How, then, can that be lost through which it comes about that even what could be lost is not lost? But lest perhaps it be said that perseverance to the end is indeed not lost once it has been given, that is, once one has persevered to the end, but that it is in a way lost when a man acts by obstinacy so that he cannot attain to it; just as we say that a man who has not persevered to the end has lost eternal life or the kingdom of God, not what he had already received and had, but what he would have received and had if he had persevered: let us set aside disputes about words, and say that some things too that are not had, but are hoped to be had, can be lost. Let anyone who dares tell me whether God cannot give what he has commanded to be asked of him. Whoever thinks this, I do not say is foolish, but mad. Now God has commanded that his saints say in prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.” Whoever, then, is heard asking this is not led into the temptation of obstinacy, by which he could or would deserve to lose perseverance in holiness. “But each one forsakes God by his own will, so that he is rightly forsaken by God.” Who would deny it? But we ask not to be led into temptation precisely so that this may not happen. And if we are heard, it certainly does not happen, because God does not permit it to happen. For nothing happens except what he either does himself or himself permits to happen. He is powerful, then, both to bend wills from evil to good, and to turn those prone to fall and direct them in a path pleasing to himself. To him it is not said in vain, “O God, you will turn and give us life”; it is not said in vain, “Do not give my foot to be moved”; it is not said in vain, “Do not hand me over, O Lord, from my desire to the sinner”; finally, not to mention many, since perhaps more occur to you, it is not said in vain, “Lead us not into temptation.” For whoever is not led into temptation is certainly not led into the temptation of his own evil will; and whoever is not led into the temptation of his own evil will is led into none at all. For “each one,” as it is written, “is tempted by his own desire, drawn away and enticed”; but “God tempts no one,” that is, with harmful temptation. For there is also a useful one, by which we are not deceived or overwhelmed, but proved, according to what is said, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me.” With that harmful temptation, then, which the Apostle signifies when he says, “lest perhaps the tempter has tempted you, and our labour be in vain,” God, as I said, tempts no one, that is, leads or brings no one into temptation. For to be tempted and not to be led into temptation is not evil, indeed it is even good; for this is to be proved. So when we say to God, “Lead us not into temptation,” what do we say but, “Do not let us be led in”? Hence some pray thus, and it is read in many manuscripts, and the most blessed Cyprian set it down thus: “Do not let us be led into temptation.” Yet in the Greek Gospel I have never found anything but, “Lead us not into temptation.” We live more safely, then, if we give all to God, and do not entrust ourselves partly to him and partly to ourselves; which this venerable martyr saw. For when he was expounding the same place of the Prayer, he says after other things: “But when we ask that we may not come into temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and weakness, while we ask thus, lest anyone exalt himself insolently, lest anyone take anything to himself proudly and arrogantly, lest anyone count either the glory of confession or of suffering as his own; since the Lord himself, teaching humility, said, ‘Watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’; so that, while a humble and submissive confession goes before and all is given to God, whatever is asked humbly with the fear of God may be granted by his own kindness.”

If, then, there were no other proofs, this Lord's Prayer alone would suffice us for the cause of grace which we defend; because it has left us nothing in which we might glory as though in our own. For it shows that even not departing from God is to be given by none but God, when it shows that it is to be asked of God. For he who is not led into temptation does not depart from God. This is not at all within the powers of free choice such as they now are; it had been in man before he fell. Yet how much this freedom of the will availed in the excellence of that first condition appeared in the angels, who, when the devil fell with his followers, stood in the truth and deserved to come to that perpetual security of not falling in which we are most certain they now are. But after the fall of man, God willed that it should belong only to his grace that man approaches him, and willed that it should belong only to his grace that man does not withdraw from him. This grace he placed in him in whom we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. And therefore, as he works that we approach, so he works that we do not depart. That is why it was said to him through the prophet, “Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, and upon the son of man whom you have strengthened for yourself; and we will not depart from you.” This is certainly not the first Adam, in whom we departed from him, but the last Adam, upon whom his hand is, so that we do not depart from him. For Christ is whole with his members, on account of the church, which is his body, his fullness. When, then, the hand of God is upon him so that we do not depart from God, the work of God certainly reaches us (for this is the hand of God); by which work of God it comes about that we are in Christ, remaining with God, not, as in Adam, departing from God. For in Christ we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. This, then, is God's hand, not ours, that we do not depart from God. It is his hand, I say, who said, “I will put my fear in their heart, that they may not withdraw from me.” For this reason too he willed that it be asked of him that we be not led into temptation; because if we are not led in, we in no way depart from him. This could have been given us even without our praying; but he willed that by our prayer we should be reminded from whom we receive these benefits. For from whom do we receive them but from him of whom we have been commanded to ask? In this matter, then, let the church not wait for laborious disputations, but attend to its own daily prayers. It prays that unbelievers may believe: God, then, converts them to faith. It prays that believers may persevere: God, then, gives perseverance to the end. That he would do these things God foreknew. This is the very predestination of the saints, whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they might be holy and without blemish before him in love; predestining them to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he has graced them in his beloved Son, in whom they have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which has abounded toward them in all wisdom and prudence; so that he might make known to them the mystery of his will according to his good will, which he purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to restore all things in Christ, which are in heaven and which are on earth, in him; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. Against so clear a trumpet of truth, what man of sober and watchful faith would admit any human voices?