Chapter 574
It was especially this testimony of the Apostle by which I myself was convinced when I thought otherwise about this matter. God revealed this to me, as I have said, when I was writing to Bishop Simplicianus, trying to resolve this question. Therefore, this testimony of the Apostle, when, in order to suppress human conceit, he said, "What do you have that you have not received?" does not permit any believer to say, "I have faith which I did not receive" [as a gift of God]. These words of the Apostle completely suppress all the pride of such a reply. Nor can even this be said: "Although I have not a perfected faith, yet I have its beginning, by which I first believed in Christ." For here also the reply is "But what do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor 4:7)106
106. De praedestinatione sanctorum 3.7–4.8 (BA 24:484–88); trans. Mourant and Collinge, FOTC 86:224– 28. On this, see Wetzel, Augustine and the Limits of Virtue, 161–81.