Chapter 67.—The Most Eminent Instance of Predestination is Christ Jesus.

But there is no more illustrious instance of predestination than Jesus Himself, concerning which also I have already argued in the former treatise;155    On the Predestination of the Saints, Book i. ch. 30. and in the end of this I have chosen to insist upon it. There is no more eminent instance, I say, of predestination than the Mediator Himself. If any believer wishes thoroughly to understand this doctrine, let him consider Him, and in Him he will find himself also. The believer, I say; who in Him believes and confesses the true human nature that is our own, however singularly elevated by assumption by God the Word into the only Son of God, so that He who assumed, and what He assumed, should be one person in Trinity. For it was not a Quaternity that resulted from the assumption of man, but it remained a Trinity, inasmuch as that assumption ineffably made the truth of one person in God and man. Because we say that Christ was not only God, as the Manichean heretics contend; nor only man, as the Photinian heretics assert; nor in such wise man as to have less of anything which of a certainty pertains to human nature,—whether a soul, or in the soul itself a rational mind, or flesh not taken of the woman, but made from the Word converted and changed into flesh,—all which three false and empty notions have made the three various and diverse parties of the Apollinarian heretics; but we say that Christ was true God, born of God the Father without any beginning of time; and that He was also true or very man, born of human mother in the certain fulness of time; and that His humanity, whereby He is less than the Father, does not diminish aught from His divinity, whereby He is equal to the Father. For both of them are One Christ—who, moreover, most truly said in respect of the God, “I and the Father are one;”156    John x. 30. and most truly said in respect of the man, “My Father is greater than I.”157    John xiv. 28. He, therefore, who made of the seed of David this righteous man, who never should be unrighteous, without any merit of His preceding will, is the same who also makes righteous men of unrighteous, without any merit of their will preceding; that He might be the head, and they His members. He, therefore, who made that man with no precedent merits of His, neither to deduce from His origin nor to commit by His will any sin which should be remitted to Him, the same makes believers on Him with no preceding merits of theirs, to whom He forgives all sin. He who made Him such that He never had or should have an evil will, the same makes in His members a good will out of an evil one. Therefore He predestinated both Him and us, because both in Him that He might be our head, and in us that we should be His body, He foreknew that our merits would not precede, but that His doings should.

67. Nullum autem est illustrius praedestinationis exemplum quam ipse Jesus: unde et in primo libro jam disputavi (De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, nn. 30, 31), et in hujus fine commendare delegi: nullum est, inquam, illustrius praedestinationis exemplum quam ipse Mediator. Quisquis fidelis vult eam bene intelligere, attendat ipsum, atque in illo inveniat et se ipsum: fidelis, inquam, qui in eo veram naturam credit et confitetur humanam, id est nostram, quamvis singulariter suscipiente Deo Verbo, in unicum Filium Dei sublimatam, ita ut qui suscepit et quod suscepit una esset in Trinitate persona. Neque enim homine assumpto quaternitas facta est, sed Trinitas mansit, assumptione illa ineffabiliter faciente personae unius in Deo et homine veritatem. Quoniam non 1034 Deum tantum dicimus Christum, sicut haeretici Manichaei; nec hominem tantum, sicut haeretici Photiniani; nec ita hominem, ut aliquid minus habeat quod ad humanam certum est pertinere naturam, sive animam sive in ipsa anima mentem rationalem, sive carnem, non de femina sumptam, sed factam de Verbo in carnem converso atque mutato; quae omnia tria falsa et vana, haereticorum Apollinaristarum tres partes varias diversasque fecerunt: sed dicimus Christum Deum verum, natum de Deo Patre sine ullo initio temporis; eumdemque hominem verum, natum de homine matre certa plenitudine temporis; nec ejus humanitatem, qua minor est Patre , minuere aliquid ejus divinitati , qua aequalis est Patri. Hoc autem utrumque unus est Christus, qui et secundum Deum verissime dixit, Ego et Pater unum sumus (Joan. X, 30): et secundum hominem verissime dixit, Pater major me est (Id. XIV, 28). Qui ergo hunc fecit ex semine David hominem justum, qui nunquam esset injustus sine ullo merito praecedentis voluntatis ejus; ipse ex injustis facit justos, sine ullo merito praecedentis voluntatis ipsorum, ut ille caput, hi membra sint ejus. Qui ergo fecit illum hominem, sine ullis ejus praecedentibus meritis, nullum quod ei dimitteretur, vel origine trahere, vel voluntate perpetrare peccatum; ipse nullis eorum praecedentibus meritis facit credentes in eum, quibus dimittat omne peccatum: qui fecit illum talem, ut nunquam habuerit habiturusque sit voluntatem malam; ipse facit in membris ejus ex mala voluntate bonam. Et illum ergo et nos praedestinavit; quia et in illo ut esset caput nostrum, et in nobis ut ejus corpus essemus, non praecessura merita nostra, sed opera sua futura praescivit.