The following comes from:
Ali Bonner, The Myth of Pelagianism (British
Academy Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 158-59
Jerome regularly referred to the grace of Christ’s advent as
unmerited.155 When he contrasted grace with works, it was always this
generalised grace that could not be merited.156 Specific gifts of grace, by
contrast, were given to the virtuous and to those who were already believers.
In his Commentary on Titus, written in around AD 387, Jerome discussed
the use of the word ‘grace’ at Titus 2:11–14:
For the grace of God our Saviour has dawned upon all men. For there
is no difference between free and slave, Greek and barbarian, circumcised and
uncircumcised, woman and man, but we are all one in Christ. We are all called
to the kingdom of God, we are all to be reconciled to our Father after
stumbling, not through our merits but through the grace of the Saviour. This is
either because Christ himself is the grace, living and subsisting from God the
Father, or because this is the grace of Christ, God and Saviour; and we are
saved not by our merit according to what is said in another place: You will
save them for nothing [Ps. 56:7]. This grace, then: Has dawned on all
men to teach us to renounce impiety and worldly desires, to live chastely and
justly and piously in this world.157
Jerome here asserted once again the
universality of God’s salvific will, and characterised grace as universal and
as referring to Christ’s incarnation and teaching.
Notes for the Above:
(155) Jerome, In Esaiam 18.7, on Isa. 65:8 (ed. Gryson et
al., pp. 1838–9), ‘It should be known that in Hebrew, for heat, thoda is
written, which means grace, which of course refers to the fact that Israel
is saved by the grace of God, and not by the merit of their own works’; ‘Et
tamen sciendum in hebraico pro calore scriptum esse THODA, quod interpretatur
“gratia”, quod scilicet gratia Dei, et non merito operum suorum, saluatus sit
Israhel.’ Christ’s advent unmerited: 16.31, on Isa. 59:15c–18 (ed. Gryson et
al., p. 1709), ‘So that those who have willed to be converted from error are
saved not by their own merit, but by the mercy of God’; ‘Vt qui uoluerint ab
errore conuerti, non suo merito, sed Dei clementia conseruentur.’
(156) Jerome, Commentarii ad Ephesios 1, on Eph. 2:5 (ed.
Migne, PL 26.468B), ‘You have been saved by grace. If the sufferings of
this time are not worthy of the future glory which will be revealed in us [cf.
Rom. 8:18], we have been saved by grace rather than by work. For we can give
nothing back to the Lord for all the things which he has given us’; ‘Gratia
saluati estis. Si non sunt dignae passiones huius temporis ad futuram
gloriam quae reuelabitur in nobis [cf. Rom. 8:18], gratia magis sumus quam
opere saluati. Nihil enim possumus Domino retribuere pro omnibus quae retribuit
nobis.’
(157) Jerome, In epistolam ad Titum 2, on Titus 2:11–14
(ed. Bucchi, CCSL 77C, pp. 52–3), ‘Illuxit enim gratia Dei Saluatoris
omnibus hominibus. Non est enim aliqua differentia liberi et serui, Graeci
et Barbari, circumcisi et habentis praeputium, mulieris et uiri, sed cuncti in
Christo unum sumus, uniuersi ad Dei regnum uocamur, omnes post offensam Patri
nostro reconciliandi sumus non per merita nostra, sed per gratiam Saluatoris.
Vel quod Dei Patris uiuens et subsistens gratia ipse sit Christus, uel quod Christi
Dei Saluatoris haec sit gratia, et non nostro merito saluati sumus, secundum
illud quod in alio loco dicitur: Pro nihilo saluabis eos [Ps. 56:7].
Quae gratia omnibus hominibus ideo illuxit, ut erudiret nos,
abnegantes impietatem et saecularia desideria, pudice et iuste et pie uiuere
in hoc saeculo.’