Chapter 26 [X.]—Whether Adam Received the Gift of Perseverance.

Here arises another question, not reasonably to be slighted, but to be approached and solved in the help of the Lord in whose hand are both we and our discourses.105    Wisd. vii. 16. For I am asked, in respect of this gift of God which is to persevere in good to the end, what I think of the first man himself, who assuredly was made upright without any fault. And I do not say: If he had not perseverance, how was he without fault, seeing that he was in want of so needful a gift of God? For to this interrogatory the answer is easy, that he had not perseverance, because he did not persevere in that goodness in which he was without sin; for he began to have sin from the point at which he fell; and if he began, certainly he was without sin before he had begun. For it is one thing not to have sin, and it is another not to abide in that goodness in which there is no sin. Because in that very fact, that he is not said never to have been without sin, but he is said not to have continued without sin, beyond all doubt it is demonstrated that he was without sin, seeing that he is blamed for not having continued in that goodness. But it should rather be asked and discussed with greater pains in what way we can answer those who say, “If in that uprightness in which he was made without sin he had perseverance, beyond all doubt he persevered in it; and if he persevered, he certainly did not sin, and did not forsake that his uprightness. But that he did sin, and was a forsaker of goodness, the Truth declares. Therefore he had not perseverance in that goodness; and if he had it not, he certainly received it not. For how should he have both received perseverance, and not have persevered? Further, if he had it not because he did not receive it, what sin did he commit by not persevering, if he did not receive perseverance? For it cannot be said that he did not receive it, for the reason that he was not separated by the bestowal of grace from the mass of perdition. Because that mass of perdition did not as yet exist in the human race before he had sinned from whom the corrupted source was derived.”

CAPUT X.

26. Hic exoritur alia quaestio, non sane contemnenda, sed in adjutorio Domini, in cujus manu sunt et nos et sermones nostri (Sap. VII, 16), aggredienda atque solvenda. Quaeritur enim a nobis, 0932 quantum attinet ad hoc donum Dei, quod est in bono perseverare usque in finem, quid de ipso primo homine sentiamus, qui certe sine ullo vitio factus est rectus. Nec dico: Si perseverantiam non habuit, quomodo sine vitio fuit, cui tam necessarium Dei donum defuit ? Huic namque interrogationi facile respondetur, eum perseverantiam non habuisse, quia in eo bono, quo sine vitio fuit, non perseveravit: coepit enim habere vitium ex quo cecidit; et si coepit, antequam coepisset, utique sine vitio fuit. Aliud est enim non habere vitium; et aliud est in ea bonitate, in qua nullum vitium est, non manere. Eo quippe ipso quod non dicitur nunquam sine vitio fuisse, sed dicitur sine vitio non permansisse, procul dubio demonstratur sine vitio fuisse, in quo bono non permansisse culpatur. Sed illud magis quaerendum operosiusque tractandum est, quomodo respondeamus eis qui dicunt, «Si in illa rectitudine in qua sine vitio factus est, habuit perseverantiam, procul dubio perseveravit in ea: et si perseveravit, utique non peccavit, nec illam suam rectitudinem Deumque deseruit. Eum autem peccasse, et desertorem boni fuisse, veritas clamat. Non ergo habuit in illo bono perseverantiam: et si non habuit, non utique accepit. Quomodo enim et accepisset perseverantiam, et non perseverasset? Porro, si propterea non habuit, quia non accepit; quid ipse non perseverando peccavit, qui perseverantiam non accepit? Neque enim dici potest, ideo non accepisse, quia non est discretus a massa perditionis gratiae largitate. Nondum quippe erat illa in genere humano perditionis massa antequam peccasset, ex quo tracta est origo vitiata.»