Commenting on the lack of exegetically-sound patristic evidence for Sola Fide, Robert C. Koons, a convert to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism, wrote:
Many Lutherans have
disputed this charge of innovation. This raises an issue of fundamental
importance: can the Lutheran doctrine of justification be found in the Fathers?
Here we must resist the temptation to engage in what scientists call “cherry-picking”
the data—citing proof texts in which Church Fathers insist that we are saved through
faith and by the merits of Christ. These points aren’t the ones in dispute. The
crucial issue is this: is the righteousness by which the justified are
justified an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ outside of us (extra
nos) and apart from regeneration and the new kind of life that results?
This I can’t find anywhere before Luther. If we look at the corpus of Fathers
who are typically cited by Lutherans—Clement of Rome, Ambrose, Basil, John
Chrysostom, Augustine—we find that they all give to regeneration and to the
fruits of the Spirit a role to play in our justification. In short, we find
the Fathers affirming what Lutherans affirm, but not denying what Lutherans
deny, and it is the denials rather than the affirmations that are in dispute in
the conflict between Rome and the Lutherans.
Some examples:
Those who were
perfected in love by the grace of God have a place among the pious who shall be
made manifest at the visitation of the kingdom of Christ . . . [I]f we perform
the commandments of God in the concord of love, that through love our sins may
be forgiven. (Clement, First letter to Corinth, chapter 50)
Repentance without
almsgiving is a corpse and is without wings. (John Chrysostom, On Repentance
and Almsgiving, Homily 7)
“For in Jesus Christ
neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith working
through love.” What is the meaning of “working through love”? Here he gives
them a hard blow, by showing that this error had crept in because the love of
Christ had not been rooted within them. For to believe is not all that is
required, but also to abide in love. (John Chrysostom, Commentary on Galatians,
Homily 5)
The faith that saves
is faith working in charity . . . Faith without works is not sufficient for
salvation . . . Mortal sins are forgiven through repentance, prayer, and
almsgiving . . . Even eternal life itself, which is surely a reward of good
works, is called by the apostle “a gift of God.” But a gift is not a gift at
all if it is not made gratuitously. Consequently, we are to understand that
even man’s good deserts are themselves gifts of God. When, therefore, eternal
life is bestowed because of them, what else is this but a return of grace for
grace? (Augustine, Enchiridion, chapters 67, 69, 107).
This point is
admitted by both Martin Chemnitz (a second-generation Lutheran reformer and
theologian, 1522-1586) and by Robert Preus, in his more recent book, Justification
and Rome. (Robert C. Koons, A Lutheran's Case for Roman Catholicism [Eugene,
Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2020], 1-3, emphasis in bold added)
In the footnote for the above, we read:
Chemnitz argues that
one can find passages in the devotional and meditative writings of some of the
Fathers that supports justification by faith, but he admits that, in every
case, when one turns to the Fathers’ more polemical and theological works, one
fins many “unfortunate statements” that contradict the Lutheran position.
Chemnitz, Justification, 53. According to Robert Preus, Luther’s
emphasis in justification was “new since apostolic times” (Justification and
Rome, 121n8). In the same book, Preus also admits that it was “unknown to
scholastic theology preceding the Reformation” (65), which scholastic theology
was based on the writings of Augustine (45). (Ibid., 3 n. 5)