My last post mentioned that Augustine wrote against some advocates of eternal security in his day. See, for example, section 21:17-27 in The City Of God. He describes a few different forms of eternal security that existed in his day, involving anything from no discipline or punishment in the afterlife to a large amount of it, though all of the individuals in question would eventually go to heaven: "he shall either quite escape condemnation, or shall be liberated from his doom after some time shorter or longer" (21:22). It should be noted that Augustine opens his comments about these individuals by saying, "I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin." (21:17) He refers to these opponents as Christians. He does the same elsewhere, commenting that "those who believe this, and yet are Catholics, seem to me to be led astray by a kind of benevolent feeling natural to humanity" (The Enchiridion, 67). As he mentions in the passage just cited, he wrote an entire work responding to a particular group who held such views. It's titled On Faith And Works, and you can get a twentieth-century English translation of it by Gregory Lombardo (Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 1988). In that translation, Lombardo, a Roman Catholic scholar, tells us:
"These writings [of Augustine's opponents] taught that good works were not necessary to obtain eternal life, that faith alone was sufficient for salvation. If a man had the faith and was baptized, he would be saved. Consequently, every man without exception should be admitted to baptism, no matter how evil his life, and even though he had no intention of changing for the better. Moreover, the instructions given to candidates for baptism should consist only in dogmatic truths, that is, only in those truths which one must believe as distinguished from those which one must put into practice." (1)
Their view deserved to be criticized, and I largely agree with Augustine's response to them, though I also disagree with Augustine on some of the issues involved. But, as I explained in my last post, the point here is that some extrabiblical sources prior to the Reformation did hold views like the ones held by this group Augustine was writing against. And the views of that group have some overlap with the beliefs of modern proponents of eternal security, even though that overlap is accompanied by differences in other contexts.
It's noteworthy that Augustine thought that people who held such views existed as early as the first century and were among those the apostles wrote against (sections 14:21-22 in the document, pp. 28-29 in Lombardo's translation). He interacts with more than one group in the document, though it's focused on the group mentioned above.
Among the sins some of Augustine's opponents apparently thought wouldn't cause a loss of justification were idolatry, adultery, and heresies (section 15:25 in the document, pp. 31-32 in Lombardo's translation). Lombardo comments that some of Augustine's opponents even thought there would be no loss of justification in situations involving "apostasy" (n. 4 on p. 68). Augustine summarizes his opponents' position by saying that they allowed for "evil lives" after baptism (section 12:18 in the document, p. 26 in Lombardo's translation).
He makes some good points against his opponents, and I largely agree with him, but the document also reflects some weaknesses in Augustine's position and the positions of some modern critics of eternal security. Augustine refers to some changes in opinion among Christians over time about what constitutes sin and what doesn't, such as a change from Cyprian's day to the time of Augustine regarding marriage (section 19:35 in the document, pp. 42-43 in Lombardo's translation). In a note, Lombardo comments that the distinction between venial and mortal sins was "vague" before Augustine's time (n. 59 on p. 80). He remarks that it's "very hard to say" which sins were considered mortal in the ancient church (n. 185 on p. 94). And "Augustine explicitly rejects the opinion that there are only three sins which are mortally sinful. Among those who were of this opinion [that Augustine opposes] was St. Pacian of Barcelona." (n. 188 on p. 96)
Though the documentary I'm responding to makes Augustine out to be the primary influence behind later belief in eternal security, the groups I've been discussing in this post were his opponents. They're unlikely to have gotten their views from him. And given the number and variety of the groups Augustine mentioned who held such views, it's likely that one or more of the beliefs in question predate Augustine's conversion. An earlier date makes more sense of the number and variety of groups that existed when Augustine wrote against them in the early fifth century. As I argued in my last post, such views probably existed in Origen's day and earlier, long before Augustine was born.
It's also unlikely that these eternal security beliefs originated in Gnosticism. For one thing, there's no justification for the hypothesis that the beliefs have Gnostic origins. Appealing to a possibility that the beliefs came from Gnosticism gives us no reason to think such a scenario has a 50/50 chance of being correct or is likely. Secondly, a large number and variety of groups held the views in question, so proposing that such a large number and variety of groups of otherwise non-Gnostic Christians were borrowing from Gnosticism is problematic. Third, Augustine tells us where he thinks these people got their ideas, and his suggestions have some merit ("a kind of benevolent feeling natural to humanity", as quoted above; how they understood certain passages of scripture). He says a lot about their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, for example, a passage that Augustine acknowledges he finds difficult to explain:
"It is necessary, therefore, that we examine carefully and that we try to understand what St. Paul means in that difficult passage [1 Corinthians 3:11-15]…we must admit that there are in the writings of St. Paul, as St. Peter says, some things hard to understand, and that this statement is one of them….Let me say that I would rather hear others more intelligent and more learned than myself explain this passage" (sections 15:24, 15:26, 16:27 in the document, pp. 30, 33-34 in Lombardo's translation)
He offers his own explanation and argues that other passages make his opponents' view of 1 Corinthians 3 unlikely, but he acknowledges that he has some difficulty explaining the 1 Corinthians passage. He doesn't seem to think his opponents' views came from Gnosticism or that bringing up Gnosticism has much merit as a response to their views. I don't recall anything Augustine said about any connection with the Gnostics. To the contrary, his view that beliefs like the ones he's responding to existed during the time of the apostles, as discussed earlier, goes against the idea that the beliefs originated in later Gnosticism.
Though Augustine named Origen when writing against his universalism, most of Augustine's opponents I've been addressing aren't named by him. We have some evidence suggesting who some of them were, though, which I'll discuss in my next post.
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