ACC ~ Romans 9 v18

WHETHER PHAROAH’S HEART WAS HARDENED APART FROM HIS OWN RECALCITRANCE. ORIGEN: Pharaoh’s heart was hardened in the following way: God did not want to punish him immediately and completely. Although Pharaoh’s wickedness was enormous, God in his patience did not withdraw the possibility of conversion from him. Instead he struck him lightly at first and then gradually increased the blows. But although God acted with patience, Pharaoh was hardened by that very thing and became even more angry with God and contemptuous of him. … Therefore it is not that God hardens whom he wills, but rather that whoever is not softened by his patience is thereby automatically hardened. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

APOLLINARIS OF LAODICEA: Someone may object that Pharaoh cannot have been hardened, nor can anyone else who falls into sin, since in that case they would not be guilty of the hardening which has come upon them. But in saying this, O Man, you are going beyond yourself and seeking the secret reason for this inequality in God. There is no injustice here, the apostle said, because the refusal to show mercy on a sinner is due to the foreknowledge of the divine wisdom and not to some judicial reward. In this respect the apostle goes on to say that it is not up to men to sound the hidden depths of God,for the message of salvation is properly administered to all, whether mercy is shown to them or not. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

AMBROSIASTER: Here Paul assumes the role of an objector who makes these assumptions. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

HOW GOD’S MERCY IS RELATED TO ONE’S WILLED FAITH OR UNFAITH. AUGUSTINE: He enables the one on whom he has mercy to do good, and he leaves the one whom he hardens to do evil. But that mercy is the result of the prior merit of faith, and that hardening is the fruit of prior unbelief, so that we do good deeds by the gift of God and evil deeds because of his punishment. Yet in either case free will is not taken away from man, whether it is to believe in God, so that mercy on us might follow, or to disbelieve in him, so that punishment on us might be the result. AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 62.

AUGUSTINE: Why does the Father not teach all people in order that they might come to Christ, unless it is that all those whom he teaches, he teaches because of mercy, but those whom he does not teach, he does not teach because of judgment? PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS 8. 14.

AUGUSTINE: You must believe that the man whom God permits to go astray and to become hardened has deserved this evil, while in the case of the man upon whom he has mercy, you must acknowledge with an unswerving faith that this is a case of the grace of God, who is rendering not evil for evil but good for evil. GRACE AND FREE WILL 23.45.

WHETHER GOD CAUSES WICKEDNESS. PELAGIUS: If this is understood to mean that God has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills because there is enough wickedness, then your argument will be lost, viz., the argument that not you but the will of the Lord, to which there can be no opposition, is the cause of your sins. The very nature of God’s justice opposes this reasoning. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

Rom