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TRACTATE 82 On John 15.8–10 he savior, in speaking to his disciples, more and more commending the grace by which we are saved, says, “In this my Father has been honored, that you bring forth very much fruit, and are made my disciples.” Whether one should say “has been honored” or “has been glorified,”1 both have been translated from one Greek word, which is doxavzein; for that which in Greek is dovxa is in Latin gloria.2 And I thought that this ought to be mentioned precisely because the Apostle says, “If Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not in God’s eyes.”3 This is glory in God’s eyes—[that] whereby not man, but God, is glorified if he is justified, not by works, but by faith so that he has from God even the work that he does well. For, as I have already said above, a branch cannot bear fruit of itself.4 (2) If God the Father has been honored in this, that we bring forth very much fruit and are made disciples of Christ, we should not attribute this to our own glory, as though we have this from our very own selves. For this grace belongs to him and therefore in this lies, not our glory, but his. In regard to this also elsewhere, when he had said, “So let your 1. clarificatus or glorificatus. See A.-M. La Bonnardière, Recherches de chronologie augustinienne, 75. 2. The Latin word gloria is defined in the OLD, 767, as “praise or honor accorded to persons or other recipients by general consent, glory.” Obviously , then, gloria means either honor or glory. The noun claritas, cognate to clarificatus and derived from the adjective clarus, has as one of its meanings , “fame,” that is, public acclaim, and is consequently synonymous with gloria. The Greek noun dovxa includes both connotations in its range of meaning. 3. Rom 4.2. 4. Cf. Tractate 81.2 on Jn 15.4. 124 TRACTATE 82 125 light shine before men that they may see your good works,” that they might not think that their good works were of themselves, he thereupon added, “and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”5 For in this the Father is glorified, that we bring forth very much fruit and are made disciples of Christ. By whom are we made [so] but by that one whose mercy anticipated6 us? For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus in good works.7 2. “As the Father has loved me,” he says, “I also have loved you. Abide in my love.” See from what source we have our good works. For from what source would we have them except that faith works by love?8 But from what source would we love unless we were loved first? Most clearly did this same Evangelist say this in his epistle: “Let us love God because he first loved us.”9 But in his words, “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you,” he does not show an equality of our nature and his, as there is of the Father’s and his, but grace whereby the mediator of God and men is the man 5. Mt 5.16. 6. The Latin verb is praevenit and the clause is adapted from Ps 58.11. This verb and this verse gave rise to the term prevenient grace, the concept that the human person can do nothing, indeed cannot even exist, without the free gift and assistance of God. In Sermo 176.5 (PL 38.952–53), after quoting Ps 58.11, Augustine says: “That you might exist, that you might perceive by the senses, that you might listen, that you might give assent, his mercy has anticipated you. It has anticipated you in all things.” Cf. also Tractate 86.2 and Enchiridion 9.32 (CCL 46.67, FOTC 5.396–98). This particular view of prevenient grace was developed especially in response to Pelagianism. In En in Ps 58.1.19 (CCL 39.743), quoting Ps 58.11, Augustine asks, “What will the unhappy Pelagius respond here?” In a very thorough and scholarly examination of the development of Augustine’s doctrine of grace throughout his lifetime, J. Patout Burns, The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris, 1980), argues convincingly that this concept grew out of Augustine’s earlier conflict with the Donatists as well as that with the Pelagians...

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