Friday, April 28, 2023

Jerome’s Non-Reformed Understanding of the Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart and Predestination

The following comes from:

 

Ali Bonner, The Myth of Pelagianism (British Academy Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 124-28

 

The hardening of Pharoah’s heart and predestination

 

Two biblical episodes in particular became the focus of the debate over the nature of predestination: the stories of Jacob and Esau and the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. Because predestination and prevenient grace were, as Augustine said, two parts of the same process, these episodes touched directly on the free will debate, which was itself tied to to the anthropology of Christianity because it involved the question of whether or not man’s nature was such that he was able to make an autonomous choice to be virtuous without God’s prior causation.32

 

In his Commentary on Eccclesiastes of AD 388–9, Jerome explained the biblical assertion that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart using an analogy with the different effects of the sun’s heat which he borrowed from Origen’s interpretation of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart:

 

On this subject we must take evidence from Psalm 17 where God is addressed: With the pure you will be pure, and with the crooked you will be perverse [Ps. 17:27], as in Leviticus: If they walk contrary to me, I too will walk contrary to them in my fury [Lev. 26:27–8]. That will also be able to explain why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart: just as one and the same working of the sun liquefies wax and dries mud, the wax liquefying and the mud drying according to their own nature, so the single working of God in the signs of Egypt softened the heart of the believers and hardened the unbelievers. They, through their hard‑hearted impenitence, were: Storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath [Rom. 2:5] from the miracles which they did not believe, despite seeing them happen.33

 

Also in his Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Jerome referred implicitly to Rom. 9:20 and explained that it did not mean that human decisions were predetermined:

 

Some think that this passage at that point means that God already knows the name of all those who will exist and are to be clothed in a human body; and that man cannot answer back to his maker about why he was made this way or that. For the more we seek, the more our vanity and superfluous words are displayed; and it is not that free will (liberum arbitrium) is removed by God’s foreknowledge, but that there is an antecedent cause for each and every thing being as it is.34

 

In the light of the previous passage in his exegesis, ‘antecedent cause’ must refer to autonomous human action. This reading of biblical references to the hardening of Pharoah’s heart led Jerome to choose to refer to God’s ‘foreknowledge’ (praescientia) rather than his ‘predestination’ (praedestinatio). In the same commentary, he explained how sin caused anxiety in the sinner, and how God was not the cause of this distress. This passage too should be referred back to his explanation of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and confirms that Jerome’s view was that man brought about his own punishment, which was not caused by divine predetermination of human decisions.35

 

In around AD 406 in his Commentary on Malachi, Jerome discussed Paul’s reading of the story of Jacob and Esau at Rom. 9:11–13. Jerome’s ‘spiritual interpretation’ affirmed dual free will:

 

And the Lord replies that Esau and Jacob were produced from one stock, which is to say: vices and virtues proceed from the one source, the heart, while we go in either direction as we wish because of our free will; but earlier vices are born during infancy, childhood, and youth, which the stronger age that follows reproaches and overthrows. The older brother is rough and bloodthirsty for hunting [cf. Gen. 25:27], he delights in forests and wild beasts. The younger brother is gentle and simple, and dwells at home innocently . … Moreover God’s love and hatred is born either from His foreknowledge of future events, or from their works; besides we know that God loves everything, nor does he hate anything that he has created; but he protects with his love in particular those who are the enemies of sins and who fight against sins. And conversely he hates those who wish to rebuild what God has destroyed.36

 

Jerome’s interpretation of the meaning of the Jacob and Esau story rejected any notion of predestination as being God’s preordaining of events. Instead his explanation of the story was that it propounded effective human free will (‘we go in either direction as we wish’, in utramque partem ut uolumus declinamus).

 

Jerome wrote his Letter to Hedibia (Letter 120) in around AD 406–7, and in it he answered 12 questions Hedibia had put to him. Her tenth question asked for an explanation of Rom. 9:14–29, and in response Jerome gave his longest account of the question of human free will and the related issues of the stories of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and of Jacob and Esau. It is important to study Jerome’s explanation of the passage in detail because of the date when it was composed, and because of its fullness. With regard to the date, it is clear from what Jerome wrote that he was aware of the sensitivity of this question. He described Paul’s letter to the Romans as difficult and mysterious, and mentioned a commentary he had read that made Paul’s response to his own question entangle the matter more rather than resolve it. In a reference to the idea of reincarnation, he asserted that the desire to preserve God’s justice led some into heresy through the suggestion that preceding causes led to God’s choice to love Jacob and hate Esau; he himself, however, only wanted to express the consensus view: ‘But nothing pleases me except what the Church states and what we are not afraid to say in public in church’.37 With this comment Jerome showed, first, that he felt a need for caution in interpreting this subject and, second, that he believed that what he went on to expound was the Church’s view and represented the mainstream.

 

Jerome’s interpretation was that this passage in Romans was, in fact, an assertion of effective free will in humans. According to him, Paul raised an objection in order to then counter it:

 

In his usual way, he proposes a question that comes in from the flank, and discusses it, and when he has resolved it, he returns to the point with which he began the discussion. If Esau and Jacob were not yet born and had not done anything either good or evil such that they either deserved well of God or offended him, and their election and rejection shows not the merits of individuals but the will of the one choosing and rejecting, what then shall we say? Is God unjust? . … If we interpret this, says the Apostle, as saying that God does whatever he wants and either chooses someone or condemns him without merit and works: Then it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy [Rom. 9:16], especially when in the same Scripture the same God says to Pharaoh: I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth [Rom. 9:17, cf. Exod. 9:16]. But if this is so, and if God shows mercy to Israel and hardens Pharaoh’s heart as he pleases, therefore it is in vain that He complains and blames us for not doing what is good or for doing evil, when it lies in His power and will, without reference to good or bad human actions, either to select someone or to cast him aside, especially when human weakness is unable to resist His will. This strong argument, woven from Scriptural authority and almost insoluble, the Apostle in a brief sentence: O man, who are you to answer back to God? [Rom. 9:20]. And this is the meaning: the fact that you answer back to God and accuse Him and make such a search through the Scriptures so that you can speak against God and search for grounds to accuse His will, shows that you have free will and you do what you want, either to be quiet or to speak. For if you think that you were created by God in the likeness of a clay vase and cannot resist His will, consider this, a clay vase does not say to the potter: Why did you make me like this? [Rom. 9:20] For a potter has the power to make from the same clay and: From the same lump of clay one vase for honorable use but another for discredit [Rom. 9:21]. But God made all men with the same condition and he gave them freedom of the will so that each person might do what he wants, whether good or bad; but he gave this power to all mankind to such an extent that the impious speaker argues against his Creator and scrutinises the reasons for his Creator’s will.38

 

So, according to Jerome, Paul’s answer to his own question was that the fact that man answered God back and accused Him of injustice showed that God gave man the free will to be able to show impiety by answering Him back, and Paul’s intention in the passage was to reject the idea that man was moulded by God as a potter shapes clay. Jerome explained that Paul said that God’s patience hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God allowed Pharaoh free will, and Pharaoh chose to abuse His forebearance. This passage therefore showed how particularly just God was:

 

If God’s patience, says the Apostle, hardened Pharoah’s heart and God’s patience put off punishment of Israel for a long time so that he might more justly condemn those whom he had sustained for a long time, God’s patience and infinite mercy should not be criticised, but the stubbornness of those who abused the benevolence of God for their own destruction should be criticised.39

 

Jerome then used once again Origen’s interpretation of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to explain it by analogy with the twofold effects of the sun: hardening mud and melting wax. God’s forbearance caused men who were good to love God more, and men who were bad to be stubborn. Jerome concluded that man had free will and that God’s justice was transparent:

 

He does not save randomly and without true discernment, but on the basis of preceding causes, namely because some did not receive the son of God, and others of their own free will wanted to receive him.40 But this vessel of mercy represents not only the Gentiles but also those of the Jewish people who wanted to believe, and one people of believers was created; from which fact it is demonstrated that it is not races that are chosen, but the wills of men.41

 

In his final paragraphs on the question, Jerome repeated a further three times his assertion that the will to believe was the effective agent of salvation or punishment, referring to ‘those who wanted to believe’. He ended with an injunction to be silent and not to disturb God with this question. Clearly, he thought his explanation of Rom. 9—namely, that Paul’s letter asserted effective human free will—should be the end of the matter. So instead of using this passage to argue that God controlled man, Jerome interpreted it as showing that He did not control man. And he considered this interpretation to be mainstream: the sort of thing he would not be afraid to say in public in church; it was ecclesiasticus.

 

In the same letter to Hedibia, in answer to another of her questions, Jerome repeated his assertion of effective free will. Dealing with the question of how there could still be people who did not believe after all Paul’s work, Jerome replied that this happened because of human free will:

 

Because men are left to their own judgement, for they do not do good by necessity but voluntarily, so that those who believe may receive a crown and the unbelievers are delivered up to punishments. Therefore sometimes the aroma that we spread, though intrinsically good, is transformed into either life or death, depending on the virtue or the vice of those who receive or reject the Gospel.42

 

For Jerome, the story of the hardening of Pharoah’s heart could not signify that God caused Pharoah’s stubborness. Thomas Scheck referred to Jerome’s ‘strong defence of the freedom of the human will in the process of salvation and damnation’, and identified Jerome’s position as ‘reminiscent of Origen and the Greek theological tradition’.43 Commenting on Isa. 63:17: O Lord, why do you make us stray from your ways, and harden our heart so that we do not fear you?, Jerome explained that God did not actually harden any human heart but his patience made it seem that He did so, because he stayed His hand from punishment; those uttering this prayer: ‘Refer to God what is their own fault.’44 As Scheck noted, Jerome always read divine foreknowledge as foreknowledge of autonomous human action, not as a causal agency founded on divine predetermination of events.45

 

Notes for the Above:

 

(32) For Augustine’s statement that prevenient grace and predestination were two parts of the same process, see Chapter 1, n. 42.

 

(33) Jerome, In Ecclesiasten, on Eccles. 7:14 (ed. Adriaen, CCSL 72, pp. 305–6), ‘Sumendum est in hoc loco testimonium de septimo decimo psalmo, in quo ad Dominum dicitur: Cum sancto sanctus eris et cum peruerso peruerteris [Ps. 17:27]. Et dicendum sanctum Dominum esse cum eo, qui sanctus est et peruerti apud eum, qui sua uoluntate fuerit ante peruersus. Iuxta illud quoque, quod in Leuitico scriptum est: Si ambulauerint ad me peruersi et ego ambulabo ad eos in furore meo peruersus [Lev. 26:27–8]. Quod quidem et illud poterit exponere, quare indurauerit Deus cor Pharaonis. Quomodo enim una atque eadem solis operatio liquefacit ceram et siccat lutum, et pro substantia sua et liquescit cera, et siccatur lutum; sic una Dei in Aegypto signorum operatio molliebat cor credentium et incredulos indurabat, qui iuxta duritiam suam, et impaenitens cor: Thesaurizabant sibi iram in die irae [Rom. 2:5] ex his mirabilibus, quae cum uiderent fieri, non credebant.’

 

(34) Jerome, In Ecclesiasten, on Eccles. 6:10 (ed. Adriaen, CCSL 72, p. 300), ‘Nonnulli illud in hoc loco significari putant, quod omnium, qui futuri sunt, et hominum corpore circumdandi, iam Deus uocabulum nouerit; nec possit homo respondere contra artificem suum, quare ita uel ita factus sit. Quanto enim amplius quaesierimus, tanto magis ostendi uanitatem nostram et uerba superflua; et non ex praescientia Dei liberum tolli arbitrium, sed causas ante praecedere, quare unumquodque sic factum sit.’

 

(35) Jerome, In Ecclesiasten, on Eccles. 2:24–6 (ed. Adriaen, CCSL 72, p. 272), ‘It is not to be wondered at that he said: To the sinner he has given anxiety, etc; this is to be referred to the sense that I have repeatedly discussed: the reason anxiety or distress has been given to him is that he was a sinner, and the cause of the distress is not God, but the man who, of his own volition, sinned beforehand’; ‘Nec mirandum, quod dixerit: Peccatori dedit sollicitudinem, et cetera. Ad illum enim sensum de quo saepe tractaui, hoc referendum est: Propterea datam ei esse sollicitudinem siue distentionem, quia peccator fuerit, et non esse causam distentionis in Deo, sed in illo qui sponte sua ante peccauerit.’

 

(36) Jerome, In Malachiam, on Mal. 1: 2–5 (ed. Adriaen, CCSL 76A, pp. 905–6), ‘Dominusque respondit, Esau et Iacob de una stirpe generatos, hoc est uitia atque uirtutes ex uno cordis fonte procedere; dum ex arbitrii libertate in utramque partem ut uolumus, declinamus; sed priora nascuntur uitia per infantiam, pueritiam, iuuentutem, quae postea aetas firmior corripit atque supplantat. Maior frater hispidus est et sanguinarius uenationibus [cf. Gen. 25:27], siluis et bestiis delectatur. Minor leuis et simplex, et innocenter habitans domum . … Porro dilectio et odium Dei uel ex praescientia nascitur futurorum, uel ex operibus; alioquin nouimus quod omnia Deus diligat, nec quicquam eorum oderit quae creauit; sed proprie eos suae uindicet caritati, qui uitiorum hostes sunt et rebelles. Et econtrario illos odit, qui a Deo destructa cupiunt rursum exstruere.’

 

(37) Jerome, Ep. 120.10.2 (ed. Hilberg, CSEL 55, p. 500), ‘Nobis autem nihil placet, nisi quod ecclesiasticum est et publice in ecclesia dicere non timemus’. In his Letter 124 To Avitus, Jerome explained how in order to preserve God’s justice, Origen hypothesised that ‘preceding causes’ for God’s love of Jacob and hatred of Esau lay in their actions in previous lives. Jerome translated Origen’s On First Principles, and borrowed from Origen frequently.

 

(38) Jerome, Ep. 120.10.6–11 (ed. Hilberg, CSEL 55, pp. 502–3), ‘Venientem e latere quaestionem more suo proponit et disserit, et hac soluta reuertitur ad id, de quo coeperat disputare. Si Esau et Iacob necdum nati erant, nec aliquid egerant boni aut mali, ut uel promererentur Deum uel ofenderent; et electio eorum atque abiectio non merita singulorum, sed uoluntatem eligentis et abicientis ostendit, quid ergo dicimus? Iniquus est Deus? . … Si hoc, inquit, recipimus, ut faciat Deus quodcumque uoluerit, et absque merito et operibus uel eligat aliquem uel condemnet: Ergo non est uolentis neque currentis, sed miserentis Dei [Rom. 9:16], maxime cum eadem Scriptura, hoc est idem Deus loquatur ad Pharaonem: In hoc ipsum excitaui te, ut ostendam in te uirtutem meam, et adnuntietur nomen meum in uniuersa terra [Rom. 9:17, cf. Exod. 9:16]. Si hoc ita est, et pro uoluntate sua miseretur Israheli et indurat Pharaonem, ergo frustra queritur atque causatur nos uel bona non fecisse, uel fecisse mala, cum in potestate illius sit et uoluntate, absque bonis et malis operibus, uel eligere aliquem uel abicere, praesertim cum uoluntati illius humana fragilitas resistere nequeat. Quam ualidam quaestionem Scripturarum ratione contextam, et paene insolubilem, breui Apostolus sermone dissoluit, dicens: O homo! Tu quis es qui respondeas Deo? [Rom. 9:20]. Et est sensus: ex eo quod respondes Deo et calumniam facis et de Scripturis tanta perquiris, ut loquaris contra Deum et iustitiam uoluntatis eius inquiras, ostendis te liberi arbitrii, et facere quod uis, uel tacere uel loqui. Si enim in similitudinem uasis fictilis te a Deo creatum putas, et illius non posse resistere uoluntati, hoc considera: quia uas fictile non dicit figulo: Quare me sic fecisti? [Rom. 9:20] Figulus enim habet potestatem de eodem luto et: De eadem massa, aliud uas facere in honorem, aliud uero in contumeliam [Rom. 9:21]. Deus autem aequali cunctos sorte generauit, et dedit arbitrii libertatem, ut faciat unusquisque quod uult, siue bonum siue malum. In tantum autem dedit omnibus potestatem, ut uox impia disputet contra Creatorem suum, et causas uoluntatis illius perscrutetur.’

 

(39) Jerome, Ep. 120.10.12 (ed. Hilberg, CSEL 55, p. 504), ‘Si, inquit, patientia Dei indurauit Pharaonem et multo tempore poenas distulit Israhelis, ut iustius condemnaret, quos tanto tempore sustinuerat, non Dei accusanda patientia est et infinita clementia, sed eorum duritia, qui bonitatem Dei in perditionem suam abusi sunt.’

 

(40) That is, ‘preceding causes’ that were not reincarnation but were instead autonomous human decisions.

 

(41) Jerome, Ep. 120.10.13–14 (ed. Hilberg, CSEL 55, p. 504), ‘Non saluat inrationabiliter et absque iudicii ueritate, sed causis praecedentibus, quia alii non susceperunt Filium Dei, alii recipere sua sponte uoluerunt. Haec autem uasa misericordiae non solum populus gentium est, sed et hi qui ex Iudaeis credere uoluerunt, et unus credentium effectus est populus. Ex quo ostenditur non gentes eligi, sed hominum uoluntates’.

 

(42) Jerome, Ep. 120.11.10 (ed. Hilberg, CSEL 55, p. 509), ‘Quia homines suo arbitrio derelicti sunt, neque enim bonum necessitate faciunt sed uoluntate, ut credentes coronam accipiant, increduli suppliciis mancipentur. Ideo odor noster, qui per se bonus est, uirtute eorum et uitio, qui suscipiunt siue non suscipiunt, in uitam transit aut mortem.’

 

(43) Scheck, St Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, pp. 41–2.

 

(44) Jerome, In Esaiam 17.32, on Isa. 63:17–9 (ed. Gryson et al., p. 1798), ‘It is not that God is the cause of human straying and obstinacy, but that his patience, which waits for our salvation, while he does not correct those who transgress, appears to be the cause of error and obstinacy’; ‘Non quo Deus erroris causa sit et duritiae, sed quo illius patientia, nostram exspectantis salutem, dum non corripit delinquentes, causa erroris duritiaeque uideatur’; ‘Suam culpam referre in Deum.’

 

(45) For example, Jerome, In Esaiam 5.74, on Isa. 16:13 (ed. Gryson et al., p. 597), ‘It is not that the foreknowledge of God offered the cause of the devastation, but that the coming devastation was foreknown by the majesty of God’; ‘Non quo praescientia Dei causam uastitatis attulerit, sed quo futura uastitas Dei maiestati praenota sit.’