Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice

Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series

Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

SAINT JOHN CASSIAN’S VISION ON THE RELATION

BETWEEN GRACE AND LIBERTY

Nicuşor TUCĂ, Dragoş BĂLAN

Received: 9 October 2019 Accepted for publication: 20 November 2019

Abstract: The orthodox doctrine states that the beginning of salvation is made
by divine grace, as uncreated energy, combating Pelagianism and
Semipelagianism. Saint John Cassian, rightly included among the “great teachers
and spiritual masters”, is considered by Owen Chadwick, together with Blessed
Augustine, the personality who dominated the 5th century. Saint John Cassian
highlights in his writings, especially in the second series of “Conferences”
(Conferences XI-XVII) his teaching regarding the relationship between grace and
free will, a teaching he had learned from Scripture, from theologians from the
East and from many of the Western writers before Augustine (West theologian
who supported predestination). The 13th Conference is a broad analysis of the
relationship between grace and will of freedom, not only in the context of
human effort to obtain salvation and perfection, but also in the process of
conversion.
Keywords: Blessed Augustine, freedom, Grace, predestination, Saint John
Cassian

Rezumat: Doctrina ortodoxă afirmă că începutul mântuirii îl face harul divin, ca

energie necreată, combătând pelagianismul şi semipelagianismul. Sfântul Ioan
Cassian, inclus pe bună dreptate în rândul „marilor învăţători şi maeştrii
duhovniceşti”, fiind considerat de Owen Chadwick, alături de Fericitul Augustin,
personalitatea care a dominat veacul al V-lea, evidenţiază în scrierile sale, în special
în a doua serie a „Convorbirilor” (Convorbirile XI-XVII) învăţătura sa privitoare la
raportul dintre har și libera voință, învăţătură pe care o aflase din Scriptură, de la
teologii din Răsărit și de la mulţi din scriitori apuseni dinaintea lui Augustin (teolog
apusean care susţinea predestinaţia). Convorbirea a XIII-a este o analiză amplă a
raportului dintre har şi libertatea de voinţă, nu numai în contextul efortului uman în
vederea dobândirii mântuirii şi desăvârşirii, ci şi în procesul convertirii.
Cuvinte cheie: Fericitul Augustin har, libertate, predestinaţie, Sfântul Ioan
Cassian


Prof., “Ovidius” University of Constanţa, tucanicusor@yahoo.com.

Assoc. Prof., “Ovidius” University of Constanţa, dragos_balan1980@yahoo.com.

7
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

Introduction

T
he doctrines of Pelagianism, Semipelagianism and
predestination1 were some of the most erroneous answers to the
questions related to grace, liberty and the relation between them
– core theological aspects that had been widely debated over the course of time
by Christian theology.
The Orthodox doctrine affirms that the beginning of salvation is made
by divine grace, as uncreated energy, contradicting Pelagianism and
Semipelagianism. Saint John Cassian rightly included among the “great teachers
and spiritual masters” is considered by Owen Chadwick, together with Blessed
Augustine, the personality that dominated the 5th century. Saint John Cassian
highlights in his writings, especially in the second series of the “Conferences”
(Conferences XI-XVII) his teaching regarding the relationship between grace and
free will, a teaching he had learned from Scripture, from theologians from the
East and from many of the Western writers before Augustine (West theologian
who supporting predestination). The 13th Conference (XIII) is a broad analysis of
the relationship between grace and freewill, not only in the context of human
effort to obtain salvation and perfection, but also in the process of conversion.
Where grace and freedom are concerned, the Orthodox, Roman-
Catholic and Protestant theologies provided different understandings of the
relationship between the two. In the Orthodox teaching, grace and freedom, are
not things in opposition - by comparison the Roman-Catholic Church teaching -
claims that liberty must not be hindered by grace; while according to the
Protestant teaching, man is completely subjected to grace, Protestants arguing
that with Adam’s fall, man has become totally enslaved by sin, has completely

1 The doctrine of predestination is one which upholds the choice of some to eternal life only on
the basis of the divine will, without any human explanation, and the rejection of others only on
the basis of the same wills, so without any human judgment. The doctrine of predestination,
though common to all reformers and even to all Protestantism, is regarded as the distinct note
that individualizes Calvin. Here is a brief characterization of Jean Calvin realised by Stefan
Zweig: “From an early youth he always dresses in the black merciless. Black is the beret above
the narrow forehead; half a monk's hat, half a soldier's helmet; black of the long robe, which
goes down in the folds to the feet, the judge's robe, meant to punish people always ...” (Ştefan
Zweig, Lupta în jurul unui rug. Castellio împotriva lui Calvin (Bucureşi: Editura Humanitas, 2016), 32.
The theory of predestination makes God the author of evil, because if God has decreed all
things for ever, and if to sin is ancestral, Adam in breaking the command has done nothing but
fulfill what God has decreed. By giving man the power of choosing between good and evil, the
theory of predestination leads us to conclude that God would nullify man’s dignity as he
annulled his freedom.

8
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

lost his freedom and can no longer regain it, not even by grace.

I. Grace and freedom in man’s salvation – the Orthodox

vision
According to the divine revelation, the fundament of freedom lies in the
notion of “God’s image of man”. In man, God’s image constitutes the point
connecting nature, grace and freedom. Therefore, it is best expressed by man’s
whose essential features are conscience and freedom. Grace and freedom are the
two spiritual ways that the Christian uses in his endeavour to realize the
communion with God, the Christic salvation through the Church. Implicit here
is the renewal or completion of God’s image aimed at realizing God’s likeness.
Freedom is an essential feature of God’s image of man and, so, man
enjoys it only in the plenitude of grace. It takes man from the subjection to
nature, to sinful passions, and makes him a servant of goodness, truth and
beauty. After all, only God’s Spirit (grace) and the truth make man free.
The correct understanding of the relation between nature and grace,
grace and liberty, constitutes the essential point of the Orthodox theology. This
understanding has protected Orthodox theology from a heterodox sliding, into
Pelagianism, Semipelagianism, predestination or pantheism and has permitted
one to always speak realistically about the transfiguration and deification of
matter by grace.
We ought to understand that Christian liberty is a responsible liberty.
The universality of grace does not lead to the annulment of free will, since grace
is the ontological principle of nature. Orthodoxy cannot perceive a graceless
nature and only where there’s God’s Spirit, therefore where grace and the truth
are, there is liberty, too. The content of liberty is always positive. We are free to
get saved and this is why they say we are free to do what we ought to and not
what we want. The abuse of liberty leads to the loss of liberty and has moral and
ontological repercussions.
The perspective of the Eastern Christian theology on this problem has
developed in a different way than the Western one. The result has been rather
the corollary of a gradual and calm experience of the truths of faith, occurring
under the overflowing of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and to a lesser extent of some
passionate and dramatic theological debates, perhaps confident in the powers of
human reason. According to the Orthodox teaching, there is a kinship between
grace and liberty similar to that between medicine and health, or between air and

9
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

respiration. So, after having received man grows in grace, has freedom
consolidated in him and grace works increasingly more through him. So, the life
of the man renewed in Christ is due both to grace but also to man’s freedom.
What characterises the Orthodox teaching, in general and especially as
regarding this problem, is the fact that it tries to see in an organic-unitary,
dialectic-antinomic manner what in other teachings is regarded in an isolated,
dichotomic, categorial manner. The Orthodox teaching does not divide, does
not separate, does not dissect, but discerns and distinguishes, tries to catch the
living becoming, the dynamism and inner dialectics of life’s realities at the same
time.
Collaborating with grace by free will and benefiting from the
communion of love characteristic only to the Church, man can multiply his
skills necessary for his growth as a person capable of dialogue and loving
communion. The Romanian theologian, Ionuț Chircalan shares the same idea,
arguing that it is superfluous to affirm that the divine law of love is an ardent
necessity for our times and that human beings have become far removed from
it. Its summit may be difficult to be touched (impossible without the divine
grace/help), but its results are comparable to an oxygen balloon. We need to
learn compassion and divine love in order to remain human2.
By Christ’s Resurrection, the Holy Easter Light has become the symbol
of liberty in grace and unity in faith for all the people, but the human destiny
culminates in the possibility of each human person to be transfigured by the
light of the God in the Trinity, to arrive at deification by grace. Transfiguration
is possible only in the Church, it constitutes the essential problem of our
ecclesial conscience. In the Church we are not near one another, but by
partaking from the same Spirit of the Truth by grace, we are in one another.
Grace, for man’s life and salvation, is “the bridge thrown over the
dreadful abyss in-between heaven and earth which fills the endless spaces” or as
Father Professor Dumitru Radu says, “grace is for man what the air is for the
lungs”3, and in the afterlife, man’s deification is the exclusive work of the divine
grace, as Saint Maximus the Confessor says «we suffer the deification» by grace,
begun and realized to a certain extent on earth, in the Church4.
The salvific work accomplished by Jesus Christ is continueds in the

2
Ionuţ Chircalan, “The Divine Law of Love – A Historical Fact of God’s Message Authenticity
in Present Times”, in 6th SWS International Scientific Conference on Arts and Humanities 2019, (Albena:
STEF92 Technology Ltd., 2019), 56.
3 Dumitru Radu, „Mântuirea-a doua creaţie a lumii”, Ortodoxia, no. 2 (1986): 49.
4 Ibid., 63.

10
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

Church life and in the world by the Holy Spirit. By His sanctifying work, the
Holy Spirit overflows and shares the Holy Mysteries of the divine grace to the
believers in the Church, by making them partakers to deification. “The
Pentecost – Yannaras says – is the founding and constitutive event of the
Church. It is not the foundation of an institution, but the birth of the new
creation of Grace, the possibility of immortal life, given by God to man”5. The
work of divine grace in the believers’ persons highlights the subjective aspect of
the objective salvation realized through Jesus Christ. The work of grace can be
specific to man to the extent to which man collaborates freely with the divine
grace in the Church.
The Orthodox teaching conceives grace as the uncreated energy
emanating from the divinity and is shared by the Holy Spirit to the Christians in
the Church, by the resurrected and glorified humanity of Jesus Christ. Grace
accomplishes this communion in Christ and with Christ through the Holy Spirit.
So, man’s deification, his communion with God is realised only in the Church.
The Church is the particular environment of the uncreated energies introduced
by the Holy Spirit. The Church is the embodied and active Revelation of God in
the humanity of those who accept it by faith. The great Romanian theologian,
Dumitru Stăniloae notices how it is Christ’s mysterious body, in which the
Revelation bears its fruits6. In this sense, God is communicated by the energies
the divinity holds in common, namely by grace – a teaching specific especially to
Saint Gregory Palamas and to the Orthodox theology in general. “The unity to
which the believers have been called is neither hypostatic 7 where Christ’s human

5 Christos Yannaras, Abecedar al credinţei (Bucureşti: Editura Bizantină, 1996), 160.

6 Dumitru Stăniloae, Rugăciunea lui Iisus şi experienţa Sfântului Duh, (Sibiu: Deisis, 1995), 102.
7 The term "hypostasis" refers to the concrete mode of existence of a being, essence or nature. In

other words, hypostasis is the particular, specific, individual way of existence within an essence
or nature. The hypostasis exists in itself and therefore, the way in which it hypostasizes the
common nature distinguishes it from the other hypostasis. This is explained by St. Basil the
Great: "what is specified in its own image is shown by the word hypostasis." When we say
"man" we do not indicate a concrete individuality. But when we say "Paul", then we indicate
concrete individuality because of nature or essence. This is the hypostasis. By comparison, the
term "person" (prosopon) means rational hypostasis, while "hypostasis" means non-rational
beings. The two terms, ousia (oὐσία) and hypostasis (ὑπόστασις), in their philosophical sense
were synonymous, which explains, to some extent, the theological dispute over their definition.
At the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea the definition of the Father with the Son had been
expressed by the use of the term hypostasis in the meaning of essence (this being the term used
at that time in Alexandria and used by Saint Athanasius the Great). The brilliance of St. Basil the
Great's thinking lies precisely in the fact that, by introducing a distinction between the two
synonyms, he succeeded in expressing the paradox of the Trinity. Vladimir Lossky notes this
glitter of genius as follows: "two synonyms have been used to distinguish in God what is
common - ousia, substance or refinement, and what is particular - hypostasis or person" –

11
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

nature is concerned, nor of essence as for the Three divine Persons, but is a
unity with God by grace, in His deifying energies or in grace”8.
Although absolute liberty belongs to the absolute God, on Whom
everything depends, without He Himself depending on anything, God Himself
restrains His liberty in front of His “absolute” created beings 9. As a being in the
“image and likeness” of the absolute and uncreated God, man is called to be a
partaker of the absolute freedom, which is God’s liberty itself. The only
difference between human and divine freedom is that the first does not exist by
nature, but by participation to the divine liberty. The condition of the
participation to this liberty is the communion with God, realised by upkeeping
the commandments. In the contrary case, by violating the commandments, man
breaks his communion with God and submits himself to corruption and death.
He loses the grace of the Holy Spirit, which made him a partaker of the divine
liberty and makes himself a slave to impersonal authorities. He stops seeing God
as a Father Who loves him and forges for himself gods who rule over him.

I.1. Grace is connatural to the human person

The mystery of man as a person necessarily involves the existence of the
supernatural values. According to Nikolai Berdiaev, “The idea that the personal
value presupposes the existence of the supra-personal value is fundamental”
because “if God does not exist as the source of the supra-personal values, then
the value of the person disappears as well…” 10. The human is truly human to
the extent to which he takes part in the divine. And this is so because both man
and God are persons, not abstractly thought essences. “Grace – Evdokimov
says – is God’s power: «You shall receive great power when the Holy Spirit has
come upon you» (Acts 1: 8)”11.
The fundamental basis of man’s quality as a person lies in the mystery of
the Holy Trinity.
The divine grace as uncreated energy is God’s glory – shekinah – as the
Jewish tradition calls it, overflowing from the Father, through the Son, in the
Holy Spirit. The Father is the source of the essence, the energy proceeds to the

Vladimir Lossky, Teologia mistică a Bisericii de Răsărit (București: Editura Bonifaciu, 1998).
8 Ştefan N. Sandu, „Lucrarea harului în realizarea mântuirii subiective după învăţătura celor trei mari

confesiuni creştine”, Studii Teologice, no. 3-4 (1971), 235.

9 Georgios I. Mantzaridis, Morala creştină (2nd volume) (Bucureşti: Bizantină, 2006), 209.
10 Cf. Nikolai Berdiaev, Despre menirea omului (Oradea: Aion, 2004), 79.
11 Paul Evdokimov, Ortodoxia (Bucureşti: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii

Ortodoxe Române, 1996), 112.

12
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

Son and in the Holy Spirit as the manifestation of their love, because as Saint
Gregory Palamas says: “Light is God’s glory in which Christ shall come and the
just will shine like the Sun”12.
Man cooperates, he gets united in truth with God Thyself, but not with
the divine being or Person. If grace were created, the relation with it would not
constitute a connection with God: “Those who make themselves worthy to get
united with God, make themselves one spirit with Him” (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:
17), but do not get united according to the being. According to the theologians,
one cannot partake of Him in relation to the being; meanwhile the union
according to the hypostasis is specific only to God’s Word. For those who want
to make themselves worthy of getting united with God, it remains to get united
according to the work. So, the spirit by which the one getting united with God is
one with God, is and is called the uncreated work of the Spirit, but not God’s
being, because, even by the prophet, God foretold not that “I will pour My
Spirit”, but “from My Spirit” over the believers (Joel 3: 1) 13. Thus, the relation
with God is neither according to the being (pantheism), nor hypostatic (as in the
Saviour’s case), but energetic, God being totally present in His energies.
In accordance to the theology of the uncreated energies, the Orthodox
teaching defends the very possibility of deification, deification constituting the
essence of theology in general and especially of biblical and patristic
anthropology. This theology leads us to the ultimate mystery of human
existence. Only grace mysteriously creates this very ineffable union. The same
great Holy Father, who systematized the teaching about uncreated energies,
Saint Grigore Palamas underlines that because through grace, God Himself
enters complete in those worthy and the Saints enter completely in the whole of
God, they take within themselves the whole of God and acquire only God, as a
sort of reward for their ascent to Him14.
The divine grace is the one making the connection between created and
Creator, between Heaven and earth, between heaven and hell, we could say
between nothing and absolute, between the Supreme Goodness and the evilness
of hell, which is caricature of the divine. The divine grace is the answer to man’s
primordial contradiction. The answer given by Palamas to religious philosophy
situates the axis of man’s existence in God: the human is truly human to the

12 Sf. Grigorie Palama, „Tomul aghioritic”, in Filocalia (7th volume), ed. Dumitru Stăniloae
(Bucureşti: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1977), 429.
13 Ibid., 476.
14 Sf. Grigorie Palama, „Despre împărtăşirea dumnezeiască şi îndumnezeitoare”, in Ibid., 416.

13
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

extent to which he participates to the divine.

In the Orthodoxy, the work of grace involves three states of spiritual life:
1. calling or preparation of justification (purification);
2. justification (illumination);
3. and salvation or deification and glorification of the eternal life
(perfection), in accordance to the Holy Scripture: “whom He called,
these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified”
(Romans 8: 30).
The Dionysian system is the one that makes this delimitation, and Thomas of
Aquino calls them – via purgativa, via iluminativa and via unitiva, while Evdokimov
speaks of “the preventive, illumining grace, which is given to any man, and the
sanctifying and justifying grace. The latter grace – the Russian theologian
mentions – works through the Holy Mysteries and accomplishes the deified
state”15.
The conscience of grace is the condition of religion and salvation. Who
does not have this conscience has lost grace, has become “an unbeliever, has
fallen in the abyss of perdition”, is dead as a dead body.
The dogma of grace is one of those going beyond any systematisation: “In
the Orthodoxy, grace, namely the power by which we are assimilated in the
divinity, is compared with the preference for the light of the Sun, which, by its
heat, makes the plants grow and develop”, Nichifor Crainic says 16.
Man’s existential evolution is accomplished in the age to come after the
reconstitution of human integrity by the resurrection of the bodies (“The
righteous will shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father” - Matthew
13: 43), yet the condition of eternity can be tasted even now. Human life
becomes “the life in Christ” (Galatians 2: 20): the saint appears as an
accomplishment of the human. The human being returns to the state of grace,
being completely penetrated by grace, transparent to the Spirit. Man, as a whole,
becomes light17, living communion with the Holy Trinity, in which We shall see
God “face to face” – the face of the living and personal God, not the existence
as object of the beatific vision. Grace is consequently an uncreated energy with
effects that, they too, are uncreated. This idea is the theological fundament of
the human person’s deification.

15 Paul Evdokimov, Ortodoxia, 290.

16 Nichifor Crainic, Sfinţenia, împlinirea umanului (Iaşi: Trinitas, 1993), 182.
17 Dumitru Stăniloae, Viaţa şi învăţătura Sfântului Grigorie Palama (Bucureşti: Scripta, 1993), 80.

14
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

These are the general frames of the Orthodox teaching concerning the
theology of grace, but they also reflect the person’s relation with the uncreated
divine grace, which is connatural to man. Opposed to this teaching, the
rationalist scholastic theology affirms the created character of grace. Yet this
theology fails to explain how man, as a person, can partake in the effects of the
divine grace. Here is a short definition in this sense promoted by the scholastic
dogmatist Tanquerei: “Grace is a supernatural quality akin to the soul in an
intrinsic and permanent state by which we participate in the divine nature”18.

II. Divine grace and free will in Saint John Cassian’s

thinking
Saint John Cassian was born in the year 360 A.D. in Scythia Minor and
died in the year 435 A.D. in Marseille (in today France). Saint John Cassian was
one of the most important representatives of the Christian literature and
monasticism of the 4th and 5th centuries, being celebrated as a holy father of the
Christian Church, both in the Orthodox East and in the Roman-Catholic West.
One of his writings, the third conference with father Cheremon, the 13 th
from the cycle of 24, which was translated in the Romanian language in the
collection Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti [Eng. trans.: Church Fathers and Writers]
(volume 57), discusses among other things the issue of acquiring salvation as a
by-product of the relation between the liberty of man’s will and divine grace 19.
Being a contemporary of Blessed Augustine (354-430), Cassian fought
against his teaching which claimed that, after the fall, man has lost the possibility
of salvation, which can be realized only by predestination. Saint John Cassian
shows that after the ancestral sin was commited, a seed of virtues has been keep
in man which makes him turn to goodness through sheer good will 20.

18
Cf. Dumitru Stăniloae, Viaţa şi învăţătura Sfântului Grigorie Palama (Bucureşti: Scripta, 1993),
121.
19 Sf. Ioan Cassian, „Scrieri alese”, in Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti (volume 57) (Bucureşti: Editura

Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1990), 513-551.

20 Blessed Augustine claims that the ancestral sin is a sin of the human nature, multiplied in all

the bearers of this nature. The verse that he founds this theory on is the one from Romans 5: 12,
cited by the Western bishop (speaker of Latin only) from Vetus latina and which was given the
following translation in this variant of the Bible: “For this reason, just as by one man sin has
entered the world and, by sin, death, this is why it has passed to all the people, in who (in quo) all
have sinned”. “Sic per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors; et ita in omnes
homines pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt”. Translated according to this Latin variant, we also find
this verse in many dogmatic manuals in Romanian: “De aceea, după cum printr-un om a intrat

15
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

Rebeca Harden Weaver, in her work, “Divine Grace and Human Agency
– A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy”21 draws a parallel between the
conception of the two great theologians on the relation between grace and
liberty in the acquisition of salvation: “Our author tries to make some general
observations on the differences between the thought of the happy Augustine
and that of Saint John Cassian concerning the interaction between divine grace
and free will. What we found are two different stories of man’s will’s turning
(transformation) to (with) God”22.
The American author considers that for Augustine the key was the
moment in which the will comes to acknowledge the good. This transition takes
place by grace alone because the will cannot force itself to delight in that in
which it does not take delight. In this sense the will is not free. Three elements
clearly have shaped Augustine’s account:
1. a predestination that assures that grace is not given for merit;
2. the radical effects of the fall that account for the will’s inability to
force itself to delight in that in which it clearly ought to delight;
3. perseverance that maintains a continuing delight in the good.23
At the same time, analysing the thought of St. John Cassian, Rebeca
Harden Weaver considers that the key laid in the progress of the will from fear
of God to love of God by monastic discipline. Again, three elements can be
seen to have shaped this account:
1. the universal will for salvation as God offers aid to all involved

păcatul în lume şi prin păcat moartea, aşa şi moartea a trecut la toţi oamenii, pentru că toţi au
păcătuit întru el” (or: “pentru că în acela toţi au păcătuit”). Yet, none of the variants does justice
to the Greek original. In Vetus latina that Augustine cited from, the subject “death”, from which
“has passed to all the people”, leaving Augustine the freedom to infer that “sin” was transmitted
to the followers. The verse in Greek: Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι’ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν
κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος (this word appears in addition to the text in
Latin), καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν, ἐφ’ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον) ends as follows
- έφ ’ώ πάντες ήμαρτον and does not refer to sin, but to death. So, the Greek text would be translated:
“For this reason, just as by one man sin has entered the world and by sin, death, similarly death
has passed to all the people for all have sinned /because all have sinned”. From the beginning we
need to say that ἐφ’ᾧ certainly does not refer to sin, because the term sin (=ἡ ἁμαρτία) is
feminine, while that ᾧ is a masculine or, at the most, a neuter, but not at all a feminine. The
feminine has the form ᾗ. The form ᾧ goes, however, both with ὁ θάνατος (= death), and ὁ εἷς
ἅνθρωπος (= a man; in the text it is in the genitive under the form ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου). The last
variant seems more logical, however: in whom (in which man) all have sinned.
21 Rebeca Harden Weaver, Divine Grace and Human Agency – A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy

(Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996).

22
Ibid., p. 76
23 Ibid.

16
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

in the struggle;
2. self-initiating human agency that is presupposed by the
disciplines of the struggle;
3. the longing for stability as undeviating devotion to God.
Thus, what Augustine located at the moment of transition, was, true
delight in or, undiluted love for, God. For the former, love for God, which was
the gift of the Holy Spirit, was the precondition of the Christian life. For the
latter, love for God, which was the attainment of disciplined struggle, was the
culmination of the monastic life24.
Man has the liberty to choose between doing good or bad, this free will
being an ontological given, because man was created according to God’s image.
When we turn our will to all the goodness (to the perfect good), God, knowing
the depths of our heart, sends His grace by which He consolidates and helps us
to accomplish goodness. Keeping ourselves on this road of goodness, the divine
grace illumines us and multiplies (blesses) our work in order for us to acquire
salvation. This is the collaboration between our free will and the divine grace. In
case we choose evilness, the relation with God is broken, and therefore we lose
our salvation. Howeever, Saint John Cassian shows that, although some choose
to do evil, God “Who does not want the sinner’s death, but wants him to return
and to be alive, determines men to turn from the way of evilness and to work
the virtues for salvation by “the great love of His mercy”, by providence 25. Yet,
not everyone discovers the work of divine providence in their life, but consider
it to be an accident, and therefore keep themselves constantly far from God26.

II.1. Analysis of “The 13th Conference, the 3rd with Fr. Cheremon”
In this section, we analyse the paragraphs from the dialogue between
Saint John Cassian and Fr. Cheremon highlighting the deeply Orthodox
thinking of the monk born in Scythia Minor concerning the relation between
grace and liberty in man’s salvation; We are especially taking into account how
Saint John Cassian’s teaching was condemned as Semipelagian by some 4 th
century Augustinian theologians. The accusation that Saint Cassian is guilty of
Semipelagianism, or even more, of being “the father and most important
representative of this teaching”, is founded on the erroneous interpretation of
his affirmation, about how in man there is a spark of goodwill that gives aids the

24 Ibid., p. 77
25
Ibid.
26 Mihai Iordachescu and Emilian Popescu, Sfântul Ioan Casian – viaţa şi învăţătura lui, (Iaşi:

Trinitas, 2002), 150.

17
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

divine grace. This affirmation, however, either needs to be taken out of the
context of the topic on grace and free will, or needs to be understood as Saint
Cassian understood it, when he declared that freedom itself is a gift of God.
Cassian bases his affirmation about the “spark of goodwill” on the authority of
the great Fathers such as: Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa and
Saint John Chrysostom. His teaching explains how it is possible that, although
God wants all the people to be saved (2 Timothy 2: 4), this general will for the
salvation of all does not get accomplished and why responsible for his state is
not the Creator, but the creature, namely the man27.
At the beginning of the 13th Conference Cassian and Germanos (a
friend since childhood of the Saint whose teaching we are analysing) are
restless, disturbed by the affirmation that Avva Cheremon made in the
previous conference. Cheremon put the accent, repeatedly, on the divine
grace or gift, which for Cassian and Germanos devaluated the significance of
the ascetic effort. Cheremon claimed that a person, even if he does his best to
good fruit, cannot be a master of goodness if he has not received it from the
blessing of the divine grace and not as a result of his endeavours 28. By using
such images and examples, Cheremon clearly states the principle and
concludes that: “the beginning not just of the good actions but also of the
good thoughts is from God, Who inspires in us also the beginning of the holy
endeavour and gives us the power, just as He gives us the opportunity to
obtain and accomplish those things that we justly wish” 29. Thus, God gives
the grace in every moment, yet He leaves the answer to man: he can receive it
or reject it.
The 7th chapter of The 13th Conference begins with the following account:
“He who was sent from Scythia Minor with his sister in Bethlem and with his
friend Germanos to Rome and back to Constantinople to defend the life of
the one who had given him the deaconate – Saint John Chrysostom –, and
who collected the deepest teachings of the hermits from Egypt, to embellish,

27 Ioan Mircea Ielciu, Har şi libertate în viziunea teologică a Sfântului Ioan Cassian, (Bucureşti: Paralela
45, 2002), 364.
28 “Germanos affirms that it is senseless, for example, if a farmer who has dedicated himself

uninterruptedly to the works called for by his piece of land, were not recognized the fruit of his
piece of land, too.... Cheremon (our note: in his answer) uses the same image, showing that
man’s endeavour cannot achieve anything without God’s help... even the farmer who made all
the effort to cultivate his land will not consider the good course of his sowing and the richness
of his fruits only the result of his diligence, of which he knows often that it can be useless if it is
not helped by timely rains and the serene quietness of the sky” – Ibid., 329.
29 Sf. Ioan Cassian, Scrieri alese..., 532.

18
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

like no other, the spiritual life of the great saints of the West, starting with
Saint Leo the Great and Thomas of Aquino”30. In the Forward to Sf. Ioan
Cassian, Scrieri alese…, Nicolae Chițescu explains how the text represents a
clear rejection of Augustine’s teaching, which claimed that God does not
want the salvation of all. Contrary to this teaching, Cassian has the conviction
that God made man not for perdition, but to live eternally and, this aim has
remained unchanged31. The monk Saint claims that those who are on the
road to perdition, go to perdition against God’s will. God’s grace is always at
hand and Christ offers His grace to everyone. Moreover, Christ calls everyone
to Him. If it were not so, then not everyone would be guilty of the original or
present sin and death would not be able to pass to all men. “Consequently,
God brings upon men what is for their own good, sometimes against their
will. At other times, God delays or prevents the most horrible effects of the
human behaviour and attracts the individuals, each one individually, back, to
salvation.”32
Cassian begins the 13th Conference reaffirming the conclusion from
the 12th: “God’s grace always works largely in the company of the liberty of
our will, which it helps in everything, it protects and defends, sometimes
waiting on it for some signs or tests of goodwill, so as not to seem to be
offering His gifts to a lazy-bone sleeping in deep carelessness”33. The chapter
ends with Saint Paul the Apostle’s confession in which he shows that he
obtained the apostleship by God’s grace, yet nevertheless he affirms that he
answered the divine grace: “And God’s grace in me has not been in vain, on
the contrary I have endeavoured more than them all. Yet not me, but God’s
grace which is in me” (1 Corinthians 15: 10). The Saint interprets with much
profoundness and subtlety the confession of the nations’ Apostle: in the
expression “I have endeavoured” he shows the contribution of his own
liberty. The words: “Yet not me, but God’s grace”, underline the power of
divine protection, whereas, when he says: “with me”, he admits that grace
worked in cooperation not with a careless lazy-bone, but with someone who
embraced labor. A clear rejection of Pelagianism is evident in this analysis.
In his examination of this chapter, Ioan Mircea Ielciu observes that
Saint John Cassian cites from 1 Corinthians 10: 12-13, to teach that man can

30 Nicolae Chiţescu, Forward to Sf. Ioan Cassian, Scrieri alese..., 7.

31 Sf. Ioan Cassian, Scrieri alese..., 534.
32 Ielciu, Har și libertate, 331-332.
33 Sf. Ioan Cassian, Scrieri alese..., 543.

19
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

fall by the weakness of his own will and that God will not allow anyone to be
tempted beyond what he can stand, thus demonstrating God’s help or grace 34.
Temptations reveal the freedom of will, and the fight against them beyond
our power proves, at the same time, the intervention of divine grace, which
calms down the assault of temptation. All these scriptural texts, Cassian says,
prove that the divine grace stirs or kindles man’s free will, but does not
protect and defend it so as to make it not to fight with its own powers against
the evil spirits. Being a victor, man may recognize God’s power, and, being
defeated, man may understand his weakness and learn in this way not to set
his hopes on his bravery but on the divine help which he will have the
possibility to request eternally as a protector35.
From Saint John Cassian’s affirmations in this 13th Conference one
can highlight several aspects of the spiritual living of this collaboration
between the divine grace and man’s freedom:
a) man’s will is always weakened and for this reason we need grace,
which translates into action our good intention, namely our
“goodwill”. In this collaboration between man and God, man
comes with the desire to do goodness, and God, by His grace,
makes this be effectively concretized in action;
b)however, Saint John Cassian shows that grace “does not destroy the
power of the free will”, namely does not annul the freedom of will.
God respects our liberty to choose. Grace has the role to turn into
action the holy desires and comes there where it is called by them;
c) at the same time, Saint John Cassian shows that “it depends on
God’s will to persist in the virtues acquired, yet still in such a way
as for freedom not to feel enslaved” 36. In other words, if we want
to remain constant in accomplishing the virtues, God strengthens
us to this by His grace, and if we refuse, He respects our choice.
Finally, the end of this 13th Conference brings with it the sentence
summing up the conception of this great theologian of Dobrogea which frames
the main idea at the core of the collaboration between grace and liberty as
follows: “God’s generosity is according to the extent of the human will.” 37

34
Ielciu, Har și libertate , 331-332.
35 Ibid., p. 332
36
Ibid.
37 According to: Iordachescu and Popescu, Sfântul Ioan Casian – viaţa şi învăţătura lui..., 151.

20
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

Conclusions

The teaching of the great Father from Dobrogea, the monk Saint John
Cassian concerning the relation between grace and liberty where man’s salvation
is concerned, is in total agreement with the Orthodox teaching on this subject.
The teaching avoids the trappings of Pelagius’ exaggerations that affirm the
sufficiency of the human effort in the process of salvation as well as,
Augustine’s exaggerations that, deny man’s liberty and which in turn, leads to
absolute predestination.
The beginning of salvation is made by grace, which rediscovers in man
the inclination towards God, an altered image, yet not destroyed, which it
remakes progressively, until this image gets to “likeness” and, thus brings the
creature in the situation of collaborating with Him, in the true freedom, which is
that of the soul healed by grace.
God is the Master of the entire salvation process. He oversees the will,
while it is at work in the sphere of grace, assuring support and encouragement
whenever necessary. So, God is responsible in the end for each stage of the
process of man’s salvation. Concluding, we affirm that God is the One Who
starts the beginning of salvation, yet the confirmation and cultivation of this
process is expressed in the collaborative activity between grace and man’s will.

REFERENCES:
- Berdiaev, Nikolai. Despre menirea omului. Oradea: Aion, 2004.
- Cassian, Sf. Ioan. „Scrieri alese”. In Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti (volume 57).
Bucureşti: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe
Române, 1990.
- Chircalan, Ionuţ. „The Divine Law of Love – A Historical Fact of God’s
Message Authenticity in Present Times”. In 6th SWS International Scientific
Conference on Arts and Humanities 2019, Albena: STEF92 Technology Ltd.,
2019.
- Crainic, Nichifor. Sfinţenia, împlinirea umanului. Iaşi: Trinitas, 1993.
- Evdokimov, Paul. Ortodoxia. Bucureşti: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de
Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1996.

21
 Analele Universităţii „Ovidius” din Constanţa – Seria Ştiinţe Politice
Annals of the „Ovidius” University of Constanţa – Political Science Series
Volume 8 (2019): 7-22

- Ielciu, Ioan Mircea. Har şi libertate în viziunea teologică a Sfântului Ioan Cassian.
Bucureşti: Paralela 45, 2002.
- Iordachescu, Mihai, and Emilian Popescu. Sfântul Ioan Casian – viaţa şi
învăţătura lui. Iaşi: Trinitas, 2002.
- Mantzaridis, Georgios I. Morala creştină (2nd volume). Bucureşti: Bizantină,
2006.
- Palama, Sf. Grigorie. „Despre împărtăşirea dumnezeiască şi îndumnezeitoare”, In
Filocalia (7th volume), edited by Dumitru Stăniloae, Bucureşti: Editura
Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1977.
- Palama, Sf. Grigorie. „Tomul aghioritic”. In Filocalia (7th volume), edited by
Dumitru Stăniloae, Bucureşti: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al
Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1977.
- Radu, Dumitru. „Mântuirea-a doua creaţie a lumii”. Ortodoxia, no. 2 (1986): 42-
63.
- Sandu, Ştefan N. „Lucrarea harului în realizarea mântuirii subiective după
învăţătura celor trei mari confesiuni creştine”. Studii Teologice, no. 3-4 (1971):
235-247.
- Stăniloae, Dumitru. Rugăciunea lui Iisus şi experienţa Sfântului Duh. Sibiu:
Deisis, 1995.
- Stăniloae, Dumitru. Viaţa şi învăţătura Sfântului Grigorie Palama. Bucureşti:
Scripta, 1993.
- Weaver, Rebeca Harden, Divine Grace and Human Agency – A Study of the
Semi-Pelagian Controversy. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996.
- Yannaras, Christos. Abecedar al credinţei. Bucureşti: Bizantină, 1996.
- Zweig, Ştefan. Lupta în jurul unui rug. Castellio împotriva lui Calvin. Bucureşi:
Editura Humanitas, 2016

22