Friday, April 28, 2023

Jerome’s Non-Reformed Interpretation of Ephesians 1:11

The following comes from:

 

Ali Bonner, The Myth of Pelagianism (British Academy Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 155-56

 

Predestination

 

In his Commentary on Ephesians of around AD 387, Jerome discussed the issue of predestination and specifically interpreted it so as to keep human free will intact:

 

Eph. 1:11: Of Him who brings all things to pass according to the counsel of His will. We must give attention to the fact also that προορισμός and πρόθεσις, that is predestination and purpose, are placed together, according to which God works all things according to the counsel of His will. It is not that all things that come about in this world are accomplished by the will and counsel of God, otherwise evil things too could be imputed to God, but that everything which He does He does by His counsel and will since, of course, they are also full of the reason and power of the maker . … No one, however, can resist Him [Ps. 75:8] but He does everything which He wills. Moreoever He wills that all those things which are full of reason and counsel: Be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth [1 Tim. 2:4]. But because no one is saved except by his own will, for we have free will, He wants us to want what is good, so that when we have willed it, He himself may also wish to fulfil His counsel in us.144

 

This passage suggests that Jerome was aware of difficulty surrounding the interpretation of God’s omnipotence in relation to human free will. Already he saw the potential for contradiction between predestination, defined as the preordaining of decisions, and human free will; and the allied potential for contradiction between God’s omnipotence and the principle of 1 Tim. 2:4: God who wants all men to be saved. But Jerome consistently explained predestination as foreknowledge:

 

The fact that he has declared that we were chosen before the creation of the world: That we should be holy and unstained before him, that is, before God, pertains to God’s foreknowledge, for whom: All future things have already been done [Eccles. 3:15] and: All things are known before they come to pass [Dan. 13:42].145

 

Jerome composed Book 1 of his Commentary on Ezekiel in AD 410, and in it he made a pointed denial of the interpretation of predestination that limited effective free will. Instead he propounded the explanation of predestination that it was divine foreknowledge of autonomous human decisions:

 

But God says these things with a state of mind that is undecided, so that these words should demonstrate man’s free will, lest foreknowledge of good or bad in the future might make unchangeable what God knows will happen: for it is not necessary that, because He knows what is going to happen, we must do what he knows in advance; but what we are going to do by our own will, He knows will happen, through His divine nature.146

 

In Jerome’s account, God’s ‘state of mind’ (affectus) was described as ‘undecided’ (ambigens) and waiting on man’s autonomous freely willed choices. It is noticeable that in this passage he did not use the word ‘predestination’ and opted instead for ‘foreknowledge’.

 

Notes to the Above:

 

(144) Jerome, Commentarii ad Ephesios 1, on Eph. 1:11 (ed. Migne, PL 26.455A–B), ‘Considerandum quod et hic προορισμός et πρόθεσις, id est, praedestinatio et propositum, simul posita sint, iuxta quae operatur omnia Deus secundum consilium uoluntatis suae. Non quo omnia quae in mundo fiant, Dei uoluntate et consilio peragantur: alioquin et mala Deo poterunt imputari; sed quo uniuersa quae facit, consilio faciat et uoluntate, quod scilicet et ratione plena sint et potestate facientis. Nos homines pleraque uolumus facere consilio: sed nequaquam uoluntatem sequitur effectus. Illi autem nullus resistere potest, quin omnia quae uoluerit, faciat. Vult autem ea quaecumque sunt plena rationis atque consilii, uult saluari omnes, et in agnitionem ueritatis uenire [1 Tim. 2:4]. Sed, quia nullus absque propria uoluntate saluatur (liberi enim arbitrii sumus), uult nos bonum uelle, ut cum uoluerimus, uelit in nobis et ipse suum implere consilium.’

 

(145) Jerome, Commentarii ad Ephesios 1, on Eph. 1:4 (ed. Migne, PL 26.446C), ‘Quod autem electos nos: Vt essemus sancti et immaculati coram ipso, hoc est, Deo, ante fabricam mundi testatus est, ad praescientiam Dei pertinet, cui: Omnia futura iam facta sunt [Eccles. 3:15], et: Antequam fiant uniuersa sunt nota [Dan. 13:42].’

 

(146) Jerome, In Hiezechielem 1, on Ezek. 2:4–5 (ed. Glorie, CCSL 75, p. 28), ‘Loquitur autem haec Deus ambigentis afectu, ut liberum hominis monstrent arbitrium, ne praescientia futurorum mali uel boni immutabile faciat quod Deus futurum nouerit: non enim quia ille uentura cognoscit, necesse est nos facere quod ille praesciuit, sed quod nos propria sumus uoluntate facturi, ille nouit futurum quasi Deus.’