Augustine: Earlier Writings
TO SIMPLIGIAN—ON VARIOUS QUESTIONS 399 carnal ... for ye were not yet able to bear it, nay not even now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal" (I Cor. 3:1-3). And again, "The animal (natural) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" (I Cor. 2:14). So the apostle continues in our present passage. "O man who art thou that repliest against God? Does the thing formed say to him that formed it. Why didst thou make me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?" Possibly he shows clearly enough that he is speaking to the carnal man because he refers to the clay from which the first man was formed; and because, as I have recalled, according to the same apostle all die in Adam, he speaks as if all formed one mass. Though one vessel is made unto honour and another unto dishonour, nevertheless that which is made unto honour must begin as carnal and rise to the spiritual state. Though they were made unto honour and were already born in Christ, yet because he was addressing them still as children he even calls them carnal, saying, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As babes in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat, for ye were not able to bear it, nay not even now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal." He says they are carnal though they have been born in Christ and are babes in Christ and must be fed with milk. In adding "Nor are ye yet able" he shows that those who make progress will one day be able, because, seeing that they have already been spiritually re-born, grace has begun its work in them. These people were, therefore, already "vessels made unto honour," to whom it could nevertheless be rightly said, "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" If that can be rightly said to such people, much more can it be said to those who either are not yet so regenerated, or even have been made unto dishonour. Only let us hold fast with unshakable faith the fact that there is no unrighteousness with God; so that, whether he remits or exacts the debt, he cannot righdy be charged with unrighteousness by him from whom he exacts it; and he who receives remission ought not to glory in his own merits. The former pays back nothing but what he owes, and the latter has nothing that he has not received.
18. At this point we must try, if the Lord will help us, to see how both of these Scripture passages can be true: "Thou hatcst nothing that thou hast made" and "Jacob I have loved, but Esau have I hated." The potter, remember, made one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour. Now, if he hated
Esau because he was a vessel made unto dishonour, how could it be true that *'Thou hatest nothing which thou hast made." For in that case God hated Esau though he had himself made him a vessel unto dishonour. This knotty problem is solved ifwe understand God to be the artificer of all creatures. Every creature of God is good. Every man is a creature as man but not as sinner. God is the creator both of the body and of the soul of man. Neither of these is evil, and God hates neither. He hates nothing which he has made. But the soul is more excellent than the body, and God is more excellent than both soul and body, being the maker and fashioner of both. In man he hates nothing but sin. Sin in man is perversity and lack of order, that is, a turning away from the Creator who is more excellent, and a turning to the creatures which are inferior to him. God does not hate Esau the man, but hates Esau the sinner. As it is said of the Lord, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not'* (John i:ii). To them also he said himself, "For this cause ye hear not, because ye are not of God" (John 8:47). How can they be "his own" and yet be "not of God"? The first statement must be taken as regarding them as men whom the Lord himself had made, the second as regarding them as sinners whom the Lord rebuked. They are both men and sinners, men as fashioned by God, sinners by their own wills. Was not Jacob a sinner, then, seeing that God loved him? But God loved in him, not the sin which he had blotted out, but the grace which he had freely given him. Christ died for the ungodly not that they should remain ungodly, but that they should be justified and converted from their impiety, believing in him who justifies the ungodly. For God hates impiety. In some he punishes it with damnation, in others he removes it by justification, doing what he judges right in his inscrutable judgments. Those of the number of the godless whom he does not justify he makes "vessels unto dishonour"; but he does not hate that in them which he has made, though of course they are hateful in so far as they are godless. In so far as he has made them vessels, he made them for some use, that "vessels made unto honour" may learn from the penalties duly ordained for the evil. Accordingly, God does not hate them as men or as vessels, that is, not in so far as he created them and ordained their punishment. He hates nothing which he has made. In making them vessels of perdition he makes them for the correction of others. He hates their impiety which he did not make. A judge hates theft, but he does not hate sending the thief to the mines. The thief is responsible for the crime.
TO SIMPLICIAN— ON VARIOUS QUESTIONS 40I the judge for the sentence. So God, in making vessels of perdition from the lump of the impious, does not hate what he does, i.e., his work of ordaining due penalty for those who perish; for thereby those on whom he has mercy may find an opportunity of salvation. So it was said to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth." This demonstration of the power of God and proclamation of his name in all the earth is of advantage to those to whom it is a calling perfectly suited to their condition, so that they may learn from it to fear and to correct their ways. So the apostle goes on: "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction. . . ?" Through all this you can hear as an undertone, "Who art thou that repliest against God?" That must be understood as a recurring refrain—if God, willing to show his wrath, endured vessels of wrath, who art thou that repliest against God? But not only is it to be understood with the words just quoted, but also with the words that follow, "That he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels ofmercy." There is no advantage for vessels fitted unto destruction that God patiently endures them, to destroy them in due order and to use them as a means of salvation for those on whom he has mercy. But there is advantage for those for whose salvation God uses this means. As it is written, "The just shall wash his hands in the blood of the wicked" (Ps. 58:10), i.e., he shall be cleansed from evil works by the fear of God when he sees the punishment of sinners. That God shows his wrath in bearing with vessels of wTath avails to set a useful example to others, but also to "make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy which he prepared unto glory." The hardening of the ungodly demonstrates two things—that a man should fear and turn to God in piety, and that thanks should be given for his mercy to God who shows by the penalty inflicted on some the greatness of his gift to others. If the penalty he exacts from the former is not just, he makes no gift to those from whom he does not exact it. But because it is just, and there is no unrighteousness with God who punishes, who is sufficient to give thanks to him? For he remits a debt which, if God wanted to exact it, no man could deny was justly due.
19. "Us he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles." That is to say, we also are vessels of mercy which he has prepared unto glory. He did not call all the Jews, but A.E.W.—26 some of them. Nor did he call all the Gentiles but some of them. From Adam has sprung one mass of sinners and godless men, in which both Jews and Gentiles belong to one lump, apart from the grace of God. If the potter out of one lump of clay makes one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour, it is manifest that God has made of the Jews some vessels unto honour and others unto dishonour, and similarly of the Gentiles. It follows that all must be understood to belong to one lump. Then the apostle begins to bring forward prophetic attestation to both of these classes, but he reverses the order. For he had spoken first of the Jews and then of the Gentiles, but he first brings forward testimony concerning the Gentiles and then concerning the Jews. "As Hosea says, I will call that my people which was not my people, and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall be, that in the place where it was said, Ye are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God." This must be understood as spoken of the Gentiles because they had no one fixed place of sacrifices as the Jews had at Jerusalem. The apostles were sent to the Gentiles that all who believed, wherever they believed, might in that place offer a sacrifice of praise, because God had given them the power to become sons of God. "And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel." Lest it should be believed that all Israelites had gone to perdition, he teaches that from among them, too, some were made vessels unto honour, others unto dishonour. "If," he says, "the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." The multitude of the others are vessels fitted for destruction. "The Lord will consummate his Word upon earth and cut it short" that is, he will save by grace those who believe, using the short way of faith and not the innumerable observances which like a servile yoke pressed hard upon the Jewish multitude. By grace he consummated his Word to us and cut it short upon earth, saying "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt. 1 1 130) . A little later the apostle writes, "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is the word of faith which we preach, because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:8 ff.). This is the finished and short Word that God has done upon earth. By its perfection and brevity the thief was justified who, when all his limbs were nailed to the cross, had these two free; with the