Faustus, Dr. See Faust, Dr.
Faustus Reiensis or Rhegiensis (of Ehe- gium, or Eeii, in Provence), so called from the diocese over which he presided, a pious and self-sacrificing prelate, although doctrinally he favored Semi-Pela- gianism. He was born in Britain about the liegin- ning of the fifth centurj', and became a monk (f Le- rins. When Maximus was made bijhnp of Khegium, Faustus succeeded him in his abbacj' of Lerins, and succeeded him again as bishop on his death, A.D. 454. He Avas present at the council held under Hilarj- at Rome, 462, and returned in 484 to his diocese, where he died about 485. He wrote (1) De Gratia Dti et hii' miince mentis libera ai-bitrio (On Grace and Free-will) {Bib. Max. Pair. viii). In this treatise he opposes ab- ! solute predestination, but admits original sin and the necessity of grace to assist man's nature, but denies that grace is confined in its saving iufiuences to a few, or that original sin is entirely destructive of every good, so as to leave man "a mass of corruption." He also shows that God's foreknowledge does not afl'ect the salvation or condemnation of any, and interprets the various texts of Scripture which refer to the mat- ter. (2) Professio Fidti (A Confession of Faith) {Bib. Max. Pair, viii), directed against the doctrines of pre- destination and fate, addressed to Leontius, Li>liop of [ Aries. This is a recapitulation of his treatise De Gra- ! till. (3) Epistola ad Lucidum Pre.<byt<rum, against i the Predestinarians of the monastery of Adrumetum. I Lucidus was convinced by this letter, and subscribed j to the points condemned in it (Jlansi, Concil. vii, 1007). This and other Ejnstola\ to Ruricius and others, are in I Cariidi Lect. Antiq. i, 352 (Antw. 1725, fol.), and in the Biblioth. Max. Pair, viii ; also several Sermons. The j treatise De Gratia is also in Jligne, Patrol. Lai. Iviii, I 775 sq., together with the EplstoUe and Sermoncs. An- j gelo Mai, in his Spicilegii;m Romanvtm, gives three dis- I courses of Faustus never before printed. Neander gives the following judicious statement of the doc- I trines of Faustus: "Although Faustus ado])ted the I Semi-Pelagian mode of exposition with regard to the I relation of the free-will to grace, yet he unfolded this scheme in a way peculiar to himself. If he did not express himself so distincth' as to satisfy the acute and clear-headed theologian, yet we see presented in him, in a beautiful manner, such a harmonious ten- dencj- of Christian feeling, keeping aloof from all par- tial and exaggerated views, as prevented him from giving undue prominence either to the work of re- demption, so as to infringe on that of the creation, or to the work of creation, so as to infringe on that cf the redemption. 'As the same Being,' says he, 'is both Creator and Redeemer, so one and the ssmc Being is to be adored both in the work of creation and of re- demption.' Among the attributes which, as express- ing the image of God. could not be destroyed in luinian nature, he reckons pre-eminently the free-will. But even before the fall the free-will was insufficient with- out the aid of grace, and still less can it at present,
FAUSTUS REIENSIS
509
FAUSTUS
since sin has entered, suffice by its own strengtli for tlie attainment of salvation. It lias now lost its orig- inal power, j-et it is not in itself destroj-eil ; it is not altogether shut out from the divine gifts, but only it must strive once more to obtain them by intense ef- forts and the divine assistance. Like the author of the work De vocatione genliuvi, he makes a distinction between general grace (^ynUia generalis), a term by ■which he designates the religioso-moral capabilitj' ■which God has furnished to man's nature, and which, too, has not been wholly supplanted bj' sin, as well as the universal inward revelation of God by means of this universal religioso-moral sense ; between general grace so understood, and special grace, l>y which he means all that was first bestowed on mankind through Christianity. But the relation of these two kinds of grace to each other is defined b}^ hiin quite otherwise than it is in the work above mentioned. Although, as a general thing, the grace of redemption, and in many cases, also, the calling, is antecedent to all humi:n merit, still the operation of that special grace in man is dependent on the manner in which he has used that general grace ; and in many cases the striving and seeking of the man which proceeds from the former, the self-active bent of the free-will, is antecedent to that which is imparted to the man hj this special gi'ace ; a thing which Faustus endeavors to show by examples similar to those which the Semi-Pelagians had been accustomed to adduce since the time of Cas- sian. He denominates the imperishable germ of good in human nature a spark of fire implanted witliin hj;- the divine hand, which, cherished bj' man, with the assistance of divine grace, would become operative. He recognises, therefore, a preparatory development of the religious and moral nature even among the hea- then, and controverts tiiose who are unwilling to allow that, liy a faithful use of that general grace, the hea- then might have attained to the true service of God. From this it might also be inferred that Faustus was an opponent of the doctrine which taught that all the heathen would he, unconditionally condemned ; and that it was his opinion that the wortliy among them would still l)e led, after the present life, to faith in the Saviour, and thereby to salvation; but on these points he does not express himself more distinctly. There is much good sense in the remarks of Faustus where he compares the two extremes in the mode of appre- hending the relation of grace to free-will with the two extremes in the mode of apprehending tlie doctrine concerning the person of Christ. As in the doctrine concerning Christ's person some gave undue promi- nence to the divine, others to the human element, and, as the result of so doing, were led into errors which, on opposite sides, injured the doctrine of redemption, so he says it was also with the doctrine concerning human nature. Faustus deserves notice also on ac- count of his dispute concerning the corporeality of the soul. He affirmed, as others before him had al- ready done (e. g. Hilary of Poitiers, On Matt, v, 8, and even Didymus, in his work De Trinitate, bk. ii, ch. 4 : 'Oi dyytXoi TTvcvuaTa, Ka^o ttquq y/xciQ dadjfiaToi, atojiara tTTovpavia Sid to c'tTrsioMQ OTrixeiv rov dic- TtdTov TrvivnciToc), that God alone is a pure spirit ; in the essential nature of finitude is grounded limitation as by timi (a beginning of existence), so also by space ; and hence all creatures are corporeal beings, the higher spirits as well as souls. He was led by his controversies with the Arians of tlie German tribes, who were then spreading themselves in these coun- tries, to unfold these views still farther; for he sup- posed he could demonstrate that if equality of essence with the Father was not ascribed to the Logos, it would be necessary to regard him as a corporeal being. He found an opponent who surpassed him in philo- sophical spirit in the presbyter Claudianus Mainertus of Vienna, a man on whom the speculative spirit of Augustine had exerted a great influence. He ■wrote