an early Christian defense of the biblical notions of human freedom, moral responsibility and the goodness of God against the competing perspectives of astrology/fatalism, stoicism and Gnosticism.14 While concern with Paul broadly, and justification by faith specifically, can be found in the early church, we cannot thereby conclude that they meant by these statements what the later Reformers would mean.15 What does seem clear is that when the pre-Augustinian fathers wrote of the gracious, works-free