Book I, Chapter 31

CHAPTER XXXI. That voluntary actions are subject to divine providence.

Someone, however, could still go on in his insolence, saying that voluntary things themselves are contained under providence, but not voluntary actions themselves. It therefore seems expedient to curb that insolence, which can plainly be done by means of the preceding chapters and their proofs. Again, by the reasons and authorities of the preceding chapter, voluntary things are subject to divine providence, and this in a special way, beyond the rest;1 therefore, according to the ‖E1 mind of the authors, that is, insofar as they are voluntary (or as things that are voluntary), namely according to their voluntary actions. For the power of willing itself, and whatever else there is besides voluntary actions, is purely natural and necessary. In the providence of such things, then,2 discerning men need not make so great a distinction from the providence of the other natural things; rather it could more truly be said: "You will make man like the fish of the sea, and like a creeping thing that has no ruler," Habakkuk 1,3 unless God also provided for voluntary actions.

Again, by the ninth chapter, A1 the will of God is the motive cause of every motion, and it acts not wrongly but with a disposing wisdom, and neither of these is new, but eternal, as the preceding chapters taught: so the proposition is plain from the definition of providence given above. Again, all natural actions, of animate and inanimate things alike, are from providence, because they are produced by his will and knowledge, as is clear enough from the earlier chapters, and because they happen naturally and necessarily; therefore they are traced back to the first necessary being, from which they flow and on which they depend. That this holds also of the actions of irrational creatures, about which it seems less evident, is plain from Augustine, in On Faith, to Peter,4 A2 the thirty-first chapter, who says: "Those irrational animals carry out the course and adornment of the present age according to the incomprehensible will of the Creator; they will render no account of their deeds, because they are not rational beings." But voluntary actions are better and more acceptable to God. For it is for these, not for those, that he has prepared a fitting retribution, as both Philosophers and Theologians say, agreeing with one voice.

Hence they are also ordered by a more careful providence, as the preceding chapter argued; B1 and this is plain enough from the Apostle to the Ephesians 1 and 2, where he sets down a twofold preordination, or predestination: the first of justice and of just works in the present; the second of glory and of rewards in the future. Hence for the preordination of justice, in chapter 1, he says: "He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and without blemish"; and for the preordination of just works, in chapter 2, he says: "We are his workmanship, created in good works, that we may walk in them." All this is plain there from the Gloss, B2 which pursues this twofold preordination or predestination more fully, and cites these words of Jerome: "He distinguishes two preordinations of God and their effects, of which one is from the present toward justice, the other from the future toward the crown." Augustine too, in On Grace and Free Choice, the twenty-first chapter, B3 expounding the authority cited from the second chapter, says: "What is this that he said: 'Not from works, lest anyone be exalted'? Hear and understand: not from works of yours, existing from yourself for yourself, but as from those in which God has fashioned you, that is, formed and created you. For this is what he says: 'We are his fashioned work, created in good works,' not by that creation by which we were made men, but by that of which he spoke who was, of course, a man: 'Create a clean heart in me, O God.'" The same, in On Faith, to Peter, the thirty-second chapter, says: "They will reign with Christ whom God has predestined to the kingdom by his gratuitous goodness. For in predestining them as such he prepared them; he prepared them, that is, according to his purpose: to be called, that they may obey; to be justified, that having received grace they may believe rightly and live well." Hence it is most clearly evident that God prepared for the predestined to obey, to believe rightly, and to live well, which are acting voluntarily, that is, voluntary actions. These, therefore, are traced back to divine providence.

C1 Again, Augustine, in book 8 On Genesis according to the letter, chapter 11 and after it at length, shows that God presides over the whole creature, rational and irrational, even over all wills whatever, by the twofold work of providence, namely of creation and of administration: of creation, as to the production of any creature whatever; of administration, as to its actions and passions and its other motions. In the thirteenth chapter he shows this by a topic from likeness, thus: "As the motion of any limb of an animal is from the soul, and also rests on something fixed in moving, so the motion of any creature is from God, and rests on him as on something fixed, while it is moved."

The same, in book 1 of the Confessions, the sixth chapter: "The consolations of human milk received me; neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own breasts, but you, Lord, gave me the nourishment of infancy, according to your righteous ordinance,5 and the riches laid out to the very foundation of things." And further on, in the same book, chapter 12: "I was pressed to learn letters, and it was good for me; yet those who pressed me were not doing good, but the good that came to me came from you, my God. For they were not looking to the end to which I might put what they forced me to learn, other than the satisfying of the insatiable desires of abounding want6 and shameful glory. But you, by whom the hairs of our head are numbered, used the error of all who pressed me to learn for my benefit." And in book 7, chapter 6, on those who consult the mathematicians7 and on the consulted themselves, he says: "You, most just Governor of the universe, work by a hidden impulse on those who consult and those who are consulted, though they do not know it, so that when anyone consults, he hears what he ought to hear, according to the hidden merits of souls, from the abyss of your just judgment."

Again, all voluntary actions are from divine fate, and nothing at all in voluntary acts is simply casual or fortuitous, as the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth teach; therefore all voluntary actions are derived from divine providence. Again, all prosperous or adverse things that befall men through voluntary actions are provided for by God; hence so are all such voluntary actions. For if they were casual with respect to God, whatever came from them would likewise be casual. For Aristotle, in On Good Fortune, 2,8 proves E1 that fortune is not the cause of understanding and counsel, because then all things would be from fortune. For all our works are caused by intention and counsel, or at least the argument is understood of such works. Hence also Averroes, on Physics 2, 44, refutes those who suppose that the motion of the heaven is from chance, A1 because, since it itself bestows order on other beings, all other causes would be found to come from Chance. For what is found from that which is from chance is found from Chance.

Reason persuades of the same: for if God rationally intends some end that comes about through voluntary actions, either he intends to bring it about immediately by himself alone, or through other means, or in neither way. Not in the first way, because he does not so act. If in the second way, then either through the same means through which it is produced, and so we have the proposition, or through others, and so his will is frustrated in something, or is changed, contrary to what was said earlier. If in neither way, he does not intend that end rationally. For whoever rationally intends any end likewise intends the means through which such an end may come about, A2 unless he wishes to bring it about immediately by himself, as is plain in Ethics 3, 8, where it is said: "Those who set up some end intend how and through what means it will come about,"9 and the whole of that chapter is directed to this. That all prosperous things are derived from divine providence is clear enough from the preceding; and it can be shown, over and above that, in another way, as follows.

Otherwise, one who receives such things would not be bound to give thanks to God for them. No one will presume to affirm this unless he is an enemy of grace,10 a subverter of both Testaments, a mocker of the holy Fathers, and a most unlearned censurer of all the Catholic Doctors, who teach that we are always to give thanks to the Lord our God for all things, not feigned or foolish thanks, but true and discerning. B1 For the thanks of fools are poured out, Ecclesiasticus 20,11 and according to Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 26: "If anyone gave thanks to a man for something that he either thought, or knew, that the man had not foreknown, it would be called flattery or mockery rather than the giving of thanks; but do not be deceived, says the Apostle: God is not mocked." And according to the same, On the Gift of Perseverance 2: "That giving of thanks is a mockery if thanks are given to God for what he himself did not give and did not make." Again, otherwise such prosperous things would not be gifts of God; and this no believer will grant, and scarcely any unbeliever, because it destroys the sequence of both Testaments, and destroys faith (which is, as it were, a common notion of the mind, innate in all), or rather is itself destroyed by them. Again, this is plain of Powers, Dignities, and all Prelates.

To begin with the more exalted and worthy: if someone could be Pope without the Lord providing him, we could not be sure that the Lord provided the Pope; hence we ought not even to write "by divine providence" to such a supreme Pontiff, a style that is nevertheless customary with everyone, admitted by the curia, and approved up to now. Nor should other prelates or kings be so addressed in writing. Nor should we use of them the phrase "Bishop" or "King by the grace of God,"12 lest perhaps we be found false witnesses of God, giving testimony against God that he provided one whom he did not provide; and this is no small danger, as is plain in 1 Corinthians 15, because, according to Augustine (and the Gloss cites him), falsehood is perhaps praised in God with a crime not less but greater C1 than truth is reviled.

Again, this is true of secular kings, hence also of ecclesiastics of every kind; which is to be shown first of the kings of England. William of Malmesbury, indeed, reports, in the Deeds of the Kings and Bishops of the English, book 2, chapter 106, C2 concerning the most holy Edward the Confessor, in these words: "Brithwold, Bishop of Winchester, had once seen, through the revelation of a dream, the happiness of that age; he had seen it and announced it. For while, in the time of King Cnut,13 he was keeping heavenly night-watches at Glastonbury, a thought that often distressed him had come upon him, about the royal stock of the English being almost wiped out. As he meditated on this, sleep crept over him, and behold, caught up on high, he sees Peter, the prince of the Apostles, consecrating as king Edward himself, who was then an exile in Normandy, a celibate life being indicated for him, and the number of twenty-four years of his reign being reckoned with certainty; and when Edward complained about posterity, Peter replied to him: The kingdom of the English is God's; after you he has provided for himself a king according to his good pleasure." All the kings of the English, therefore, are raised up by divine providence; hence also all others. "For the earth is the Lord's, and its fullness."

The same is plain concerning the setting up and deposing of kings, and the division and transfer of kingdoms, in the books of Kings and Paralipomenon, in many places:14 first, of the setting up of Saul, 1 Kings 9, D1 and of his deposition, 1 Kings 15; of the setting up of David, 1 Kings 16; of the division of the kingdom, foretold in the time of Solomon but, for David's merits, postponed to the time of Rehoboam, and then accomplished; of the setting up of Jeroboam over the ten tribes, and of Rehoboam and his sons over the remainder, so that a lamp might remain for David, 3 Kings 11 and 12. And so, when Rehoboam, with the tribe of Judah and the house of Benjamin, wished to fight against Jeroboam E1 and the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom, the Lord said to them through the Prophet: "Do not go up, and do not fight; for this thing has been done by me," 3 Kings 12 and 2 Paralipomenon 11. E2 "Let each man return to his house, for this has been done by my will." Hence Paral. 28: "Because of the sins of the land, many are its princes."15 And Ecclesiasticus 10: "In the hand of God is the power of the earth; in due time he will raise up over it a useful ruler"; "A kingdom is transferred from nation to nation because of injustice, and wrongs, and insults, and various deceits." God willed to make these things manifest in his own peculiar kingdom, namely that of the Hebrews, so that by a few, or by one, he might teach that it is so in many, and universally in all.

Hence the Apostle to the Romans 13: A1 "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power except from God, and those that exist have been ordained by God. Therefore he who resists the power resists the ordinance of God." Again, 1 Peter 2: "Be subject to every human creature for God's sake, whether to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, but for the praise of the good. Servants, be subject to your masters in all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh." And this is true even of kingdoms in which it seems less evident, namely of unbelievers and of the wicked, hence also universally of any whatever. Hence Amos 9: A2 "Are you not to me, sons of Israel, like the sons of the Ethiopians? says God. Did I not make Israel go up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Cappadocia, and the Syrians from Cyrene? Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth." With this the Apostle agrees in Romans 3: "Is God the God of the Jews only, A3 and not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also." And further on, 10: "There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all."

To show this, Augustine, in City of God 5, and elsewhere very much at length, B1 shows that the Roman kingdom was from God. Hence also in 5, 11, he says thus: "God Most High, who orders each part of the world, great and small, is in no way to be believed to have willed that the kingdoms of men, and their dominions and servitudes, be alien to the laws of his providence"; and he speaks there chiefly of the Kingdom and Empire of the Romans, for the time of their unbelief. The same above, in 1 of the same: "The cause of the greatness and long duration of the Roman Empire is neither fortuitous nor fatal," according to the opinion of those who say that fortuitous things are those that have no causes, or that do not come from any rational order, and fatal things those that happen by some necessity apart from the will of God and of men; "but it is wholly by divine providence that human kingdoms are established."16 And the same is manifestly plain in 4, 33.

Again, Jerome, book 5 on Isaiah, which he composed in a loving, properly historical exposition, on the ten visions of Isaiah 8,17 B2 namely of Babylon, the Philistines, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, the desert of the sea, Idumea, Arabia, the valley of vision, and Tyre, which according to him are there better called ten burdens (for the Hebrew word (Messa) is understood as burden or weight, for which the Septuagint translated "vision"), treats this matter at length. And on that text of Isaiah 22, "The burden of the valley of vision," he says thus: "The Septuagint translated more clearly, 'the valley of Sion.' For this city is the nursery of the Prophets, in which the temple was built and the visions of the Lord were multiplied; and although it is founded on a mountain, it is by no means called a mountain, but a valley, because it has been humbled. Jeremiah speaks of this too, when he takes the cup full of wine and gives it to all nations, and last of all hands it to Jerusalem, that it may drink, and vomit, and fall, and go mad, signifying that it was to be laid waste by the Babylonians. From this we understand that the Creator of all is equally God, and manages all things by the same judgment, according to what he himself says through Amos, 'Are you not like the sons of the Ethiopians?' etc., cited above, lest the Jews should think they had a privilege of merits because they had been led out of Egypt." He says also that the other nations were moved to other lands by his command.

Again, this is plain specially of the four great kingdoms, known to everyone: first, of the Chaldeans or Babylonians, second, of the Medes and Persians, third, of the Greeks, fourth, of the Romans. These are treated here and there in Scripture, frequently and together, in Daniel 2, D1 under the metaphor of the four parts of the statue revealed to Nebuchadnezzar himself in a dream; and further on, in 7, under the likeness of the four great beasts seen by Daniel in a dream. Hence Daniel himself says thus: "The Lord himself changes times and ages, transfers kingdoms and establishes them"; on which the Gloss: "Let us not wonder, then, if we sometimes see kings succeeded by kings, and kingdoms by kingdoms. All things happen by the decision of him who knows the causes of all, who has founded all things, and who allows wicked kings to be raised up, that they may punish the wicked and cleanse the good." And further on, Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, first Monarch of the Chaldeans, specially in this way: "You, O king, are king of kings, and the God of heaven has given you kingdom, and strength, and empire, and glory, and all places in which the sons of men dwell, and the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air he has given into your hand, and has put all things under your rule." With this the most holy Jeremiah agrees, in chapter 27, speaking thus in the person of the Lord: "I made the earth, D2 and man, and the beasts that are upon the face of the whole earth, by my great strength and by my outstretched arm, and I gave it to whom it pleased in my eyes. And now, therefore, I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant; moreover I have given him also the beasts of the field, that they may serve him; and all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his land and of himself comes."

And further on, 43: "Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and I will set his throne upon these stones, and he shall set his seat over them, and coming he shall strike the land of Egypt." The same is attested by the voice rushing down from heaven, in these words: "To you it is said, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your kingdom has passed from you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will," Daniel 4. And further on, in 5, there is an express account of the destruction of this first kingdom and the establishment of the second, through the Scripture, Mane, Thechel, Phares, and its interpretation, said to Belshazzar the last king: "God has numbered your kingdom and finished it; your kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians"; which was fulfilled at once, Babylon being taken by Darius and Cyrus, kings of the Medes and Persians, and Belshazzar being killed.

Of Cyrus too, the successor of Darius, it is said, A1 in Isaiah 45: "Thus says the Lord to my Christ, Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken, that I may subdue nations before his face, and turn the backs of kings," etc. Hence the same Cyrus, in 2 Paralipomenon, last chapter, and 1 Esdras 1, says thus: "The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth." Of the third kingdom too, or third Monarchy, that of the Greeks, over which Alexander presided, the same appears specially from what was set out earlier in the demonstration of the thirty-second part of the first Corollary of this book. Of the fourth monarchic kingdom, namely that of the Romans, Augustine, in City of God 5, teaches the same at length. As to these great kingdoms, even those of unbelievers, let this suffice for now. By these, although the proposition appears sufficiently from the kingdoms of the wicked, A2 it can nevertheless be shown over and above, briefly, as follows. Job 34: "He makes a hypocrite reign because of the sins of the people." On which Gregory says, in 25.18

Moral. 15: "No one who suffers such a ruler should accuse the one he suffers, since it was assuredly his own desert to lie under the dominion of a perverse ruler." And further on, in 16: "The persons of rulers are assigned according to the merits of their subjects." B1 Augustine also shows this at length in City of God 5. Hence in 20, on Nero, he says: "Such was his debauchery that nothing manly was thought to be feared from him, and such his cruelty that he would have been believed to have nothing soft in him, were it not known. Yet even to such men the power of ruling is not given except by the providence of the most high God, when he judges human affairs worthy of such masters." The divine voice is plain on this matter, as the Wisdom of God speaks: "By me kings reign, and tyrants hold the earth through me." But lest "tyrants" be taken to mean not the worst and wicked kings, but, by the old name, "strong men" (hence Virgil says, Part of my peace shall be to have touched the right hand of the tyrant), it is said most plainly of him in another place: "Who makes a hypocrite reign on account of the perversity of the people." And further on, in 22, Augustine says that the true God, when he willed and as far as he willed, gave kingship to the Romans, the Assyrians and the Persians; so too to Nero and to the most cruel Domitian, and to Julian the Apostate. These things the true God plainly rules and governs as he pleases. Let it suffice, then, to have introduced these things about kingdoms and kings.

Nor can anyone pretend that God provides for these great things and does not care for the smaller. For Wisdom 6 refutes this folly, saying: "The Lord will not make exception for anyone's person, C1 nor will he stand in awe of anyone's person, since he himself made the small and the great, and he cares equally for all." C2 And Job 34: "He does not accept the persons of princes." Reason also persuades of this. For if God provides for popes and emperors or kings, why not for cardinals and dukes? And if for these, why not for archbishops and counts; and if for these, why not for bishops and barons, C3 and so descending step by step from the greatest to the least? Hence Proverbs 29: "From the Lord goes forth the judgment of each one"; and Job 34: "over a nation, and over all men," etc. On which Gregory, Moral. 25, 15, speaks thus: "What we see done in the greatest matters, let us also carefully fear in each one of ourselves. For divine judgments are directed upon one soul just as upon one city; so upon one city as upon one nation; so upon one nation as upon the whole multitude of the human race. For the Lord so attends to individuals as if he had leisure from all others, and so attends to all together as if he had leisure from individuals. He who fills all things by administering them rules them by filling them; he is not lacking to all when he disposes one, nor to one when he disposes all; he works all things at rest by the power of his nature." The victories of wars, too, are disposed by the laws of this providence. This follows from what has gone before and can be proved as the earlier points were. For through victories many kingdoms and dominions are acquired, and these are given through the providence of God. Again, this is clear in the battle of Israel against Amalek; in it, when Moses raised his hands, Israel prevailed, but if he lowered them a little, Amalek had the upper hand: Exodus 17. D1 Again, it is clear from Joshua 7, about those three thousand fighters among those going up against Ai, who at once turned their backs and fell, fleeing down the slope; and the Lord said to Joshua: "Israel will not be able to stand before its enemies, and will flee from them, because it is polluted with anathema; I will no longer be with you." Behold the cause of their flight and of the victory of their enemies: "I will no longer be with you until you crush the one who is guilty of this crime." Does not the history that follows, and in particular chapter 11, teach the same plainly? Is it not written in 11: "For it was the Lord's decree that their hearts be hardened, and that they fight against the sons of Israel and fall, and not deserve any clemency, and perish"? Does not that most vigorous David say as well: "Let this whole assembly 19 know that the Lord does not save by sword or by spear; for the battle is his" (1 Kings 17) 20? And to Amaziah, king of Judah, who had only 30,000 fighters of his own and therefore hired a hundred thousand stout men from Israel to fight against Edom, did not the man of God speak thus: "O king, let not the army of Israel go out with you; for God is not with Israel. But if you think that wars stand by the strength of an army, the Lord will make you be overcome by your enemies. For it belongs to God to help and to put to flight": second book of Paralipomenon 25.

Did not Jonathan, too, with his armor-bearer alone, A1 when about to attack the Philistines' outpost most boldly and most happily, say beforehand that it is not hard for the Lord to save, whether by many or by few (1 Kings 14)? And the most vigorous of soldiers, Maccabeus, understood this well, when he armed his few men, wearied by fasting, against an enormous multitude with these words: "It is easy for many to be shut up in the hand of a few, and there is no difference in the sight of the God of heaven between delivering by many and by few, because the victory of battle does not lie in the multitude of an army, but strength is from heaven. The Lord himself will crush them before our face." A2 1 Maccabees 3. And further on in the same: "As the will shall be in heaven, so let it be done." And 2 Maccabees, last chapter: "The Lord gives victory to the worthy, not according to the power of arms, but as it pleases him." Do they not bear witness to this truth: that horse with its terrible rider, the two young men, splendid in power, of finest glory, beautiful in attire (1 Maccabees 3) 21; those five men also, from heaven, splendid with golden bridles, giving the Jews leadership (2 Maccabees 10); holy Jeremiah also, dead to the world, living to heaven, B1 giving Judas a golden sword, a gift from God (below, in the last chapter); that angel of the Lord too, who in one night struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians (4 Kings 19)? Let that truthful witness also come forward, most eminent of the prophets and most illustrious of kings, holy David, adducing the whole of Psalm 43 as testimony to the truth: "O God, we have heard with our ears," etc.; "the work that you worked," etc.; "your hand destroyed the nations," etc.; "nor did they possess the land by their sword, and their arm did not save them, but your right hand," etc.; and each of the verses that follow. And above, Psalm 32: "A king is not saved by great strength, and the giant will not be saved by the greatness of his strength. The horse is a false hope for safety; in the abundance of his strength he will not be saved. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him," etc., "to deliver their souls from death." And since he himself was most harassed by his enemies, and won the greatest victories, he attributes them, as it were in all the Psalms, not to himself but to the Lord, with a most humble thanksgiving. What else is this: "A man will not be strengthened by his own strength"? And: "Do not say, My strength and the might of my hand have supplied me with all these things; but remember the Lord, because he himself gave you strength." Deuteronomy 8. And further on, in the thirty-second chapter: C1 "Because of the wrath of my enemies I have delayed, lest their enemies perhaps grow proud and say: Our hand is exalted, and it was not the Lord who did all this." And Jeremiah 46: "The swift will not flee, nor let the strong think himself saved." What else does it mean, that it occurs so often in Scripture that the Lord will send his fear upon the enemies, that he himself will be the Leader of the war; that he will be with his own in battle; will fight for his own; will go before them; will shut up their enemies in the hands of his own; will turn them to flight; will overthrow the enemy; will cast down, humble, kill, crush and shatter, along with infinitely many similar expressions? And to sum up much in few words: the whole sequence of both Testaments bears upon this, wherever mention is made of bodily or even of spiritual battle. But, as I think, the Lord deigned to show this by manifest power in his chosen people and in bodily battle, so that, since the way is greater in the fewer 22 and spiritual things are known through bodily ones, he might show at least that by his hidden power it is so generally in all things, and especially in spiritual battle, and thus teach the powerless and wretched where to hope and to seek strength, victory and salvation. "For all these things happened to them in figure; and they were written for our correction," first to the Corinthians 10. But let him to whom these things are displeasing hope in princes, trust in man, make flesh his arm, and let his heart depart from the Lord; let him hope in his bow, let his sword save him; and if victory ever befall him, let him give no thanks, nor bless the Lord in hymns and confessions, because he has not done great things for him, nor given him victory. And I do not doubt, if he be a Christian at least in name, that he will be more ungrateful to the true God than any unbeliever is to a false god, or false gods, to whose grace and power he ascribes victory and honor; and, giving thanks to him or to them according to his own rite, he slays victims and offers fat and solemn sacrifices. Let such men hope as they will; but for me, in every battle of mine, it is good to cling to God, to put my hope in the Lord my God. For the name of the Lord is a most strong tower; the just man runs to it and will be exalted. Let him set me beside himself, and let the hand of anyone at all fight against me: for I can do all things in him who strengthens me, but in myself nothing, since I cannot think even the least thing. 277E·1 All this Justinian, exalted Emperor of the Romans, humbly professes, in the Code, in the title on clarifying the old law, when he says: "With God governing our empire, which has been handed on to us by the heavenly Majesty, we both wage wars successfully and adorn peace and sustain the condition of the Republic; and so we raise our minds to the help of almighty God, that we may trust neither in arms, nor in our soldiers, nor in the leaders of wars, nor in our own ingenuity, but refer all hope to the providence of the supreme Trinity alone." The universal Church also confesses this: when it prays the Lord for peace, it puts forward truthfully, not deceitfully, this cause 23, "because there is no other who fights for us, but you, our God." 278E·124 The proposition is also proved by Augustine, City of God 19, 15, who says:

"Every victory, even when it comes to the wicked, humbles the vanquished by divine judgment, either amending their sins, A1 or punishing them." The man of God Daniel is also a witness: placed in captivity, he confesses to the Lord his own sins, or the sins of the people, and attests with pious sorrow that this is the cause of that captivity. And although it is clear from what has gone before that wisdom, riches and the other prosperities are bestowed by divine providence, A2 it can nevertheless be confirmed by a few testimonies. For in 3 Kings 3 the Lord says to Solomon: "I have given you a wise and understanding heart, riches and glory." And in Ecclesiasticus 1: A3 "All wisdom is from the Lord God." King David, full of the Spirit of God, bears most ample witness to this too, in 1 Paralipomenon, last chapter, in these words: A4 "Yours, O Lord, are magnificence, and power, and glory, and victory; for all things that are in heaven and on earth are yours; yours are the riches, and yours the glory. You rule over all; in your hand are strength and power, greatness and dominion. Who am I, and who is my people, that we should be able to promise you all these things? All things are yours, and what we have received from your hand we have given you." And since the whole of Scripture is full of suitable testimonies of this kind, let it suffice to have touched on these briefly. This is clear also from Augustine, in the second treatise on that verse of the thirty-second Psalm, B1 "Give praise to the Lord on the cithara, sing to him on the psaltery of ten strings." He says: "The cithara has its sounding part in the lower portion, the psaltery in the upper; so the cithara signifies earthly life, the psaltery heavenly life, which consists in the ten commandments, and in both God is to be praised. In earthly life there is prosperity and adversity; for all prosperity God is to be praised, and whoever does not praise him for these is ungrateful, since they are God's and are given by no other. Adversities are in pains, sicknesses, afflictions, temptations, tribulations; in all of them let the one who plays the cithara praise God. Let him not consider that they are lower things, but that they cannot be ruled and governed except by that Wisdom which reaches from end to end mightily and disposes all things sweetly. For he does not rule heavenly things and forsake earthly ones; or is it not said to him: 'Where shall I go from your spirit? And where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present'? Where, then, is he absent who is nowhere not present? In all things, therefore, prosperous or adverse, give praise to the Lord on the cithara; if you have abundance, give thanks to the giver; if you lack, or it is taken from you by loss, play the cithara without fear, and say: 'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done; blessed be the name of the Lord.'" Likewise this is true of that prosperity of which it seems less so, namely the prosperity of the wicked, which many nevertheless bear grudgingly; C1 indeed even some saints do, as it seems. Hence Jeremiah 12: "You are just, O Lord, if I should argue with you; yet I will speak just things to you: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? It is well with all who deal treacherously and act unjustly; you planted them, and they have put down root." Behold, that he ascribes these things to God. C2 Holy Job also, greatly wondering at this, and disputing not against man but against God, makes his hearers attentive thus: "Attend to me and be astonished, and lay your finger on your mouth; and when I remember, I am afraid, and trembling shakes my flesh." Then he poses this question: "Why are the wicked lifted up and strengthened with riches? Their seed remains before them, a crowd of kinsmen and of grandchildren; their houses are secure, and the rod of God is not upon them; their ox has conceived and has not miscarried, their cow has calved and is not deprived of her offspring; their little ones go out like kings 25, and their infants exult in play; they hold the timbrel and the cithara; they who said to God, Depart from us, we do not want the way of your knowledge. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?" And he answers: "Nevertheless, because their goods are not in their hand" — supply: but in the hand of the Lord, as he said above, "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away" — "let the counsel of the wicked be far from me." Job 21. The Psalmist treats this question likewise at length in the seventy-second Psalm, first setting out the danger of seeing the prosperity of the wicked. For he was nearly cast down, as very many are cast down: "My feet," he says, "were almost moved," etc.; "because I was zealous against the wicked," etc.; "because there is no regard for their death," etc.; "they are not in the labor of men," etc. "Therefore pride has held them; their iniquity has come forth as if from fat; they have set their mouth against Heaven," etc., and they said: "How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?" "Behold, these very sinners, abounding in the world, have obtained riches." It is as if he were arguing: therefore God does not know or care, nor does he distribute human affairs providently. At one time this argument was conclusive for the Psalmist, or perhaps for someone else, in whose person he concludes from what he has already put forward, when he says: "And I said, Then have I justified my heart in vain," etc., "and I was scourged," etc. But he at once rejects this conclusion, deducing from it a manifest impossibility, and adding: "If I said, I will speak thus" — that is, as that conclusion says — "behold, I have rejected the nation of your children" 26, that is, I have shown it to be deserving of rejection, E2 which is a manifest impossibility. Here Augustine says: "If I said, I will speak thus, namely, that God does not care for human affairs, behold, I have rejected the generation of your children," namely Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Prophets, who all said that God cares for human affairs.

Although this same point is evident from what has been said, it can nevertheless be shown specifically of all adversities and scourges, which befall bad and good alike without distinction. For all of these are punishments of those who suffer them; but every punishment is in some way a punishment of sin, and just, and from God, A1 as is clear from Augustine, Retractations 1, 9, on the concupiscence of the flesh against the spirit, who says: "Every punishment, if it is just, is a punishment of sin; but if it is unjust, and that it is a punishment no one doubts, it has been imposed on a man by some unjust ruler. Moreover, since it is the mark of a madman to doubt the omnipotence and justice of God, this punishment is just, and is inflicted for some sin." But everything just is just from the first Justice, which is God, as is sufficiently clear from the second chapter. The same Augustine, in book 5 Against Julian, says to Julian: "If this is not a punishment of sin, it is surely an unjust punishment, and you make God unjust, at whose bidding or permission it is inflicted; or else weak, since it is inflicted on an innocent person without his averting it." And in the 83 Questions, question 24 27: "God, being just and governing all things, allows no punishment to be inflicted undeservedly." Again, otherwise a great cause of patience, hope, consolation and joy would be taken from the afflicted when they fall into various tribulations.

For who will bear such things so patiently, hopefully, consolingly and joyfully, if he believes that they happen to him only from an enemy, or by chance, and that by them sins are not purged, nor virtues exercised, nor rewards heaped up, as he would if he believed that these things were sent to him by God for some such good? Hence Seneca, in the little book which he wrote specially on this subject, entitled Seneca to Lucilius 28: "Since the world is ruled by providence, why do many evils befall good men? The good man is God's pupil, imitator and true offspring, whom that magnificent parent, a not lenient exactor of virtues, brings up rather harshly, as strict fathers do. And so when you see good men, accepted by the gods, laboring, sweating, pressing on through the steep, and the wicked running riot and flowing with pleasures, consider that it is not for sons to be delighted by the licence of home-born slaves; the former are held in by a sterner discipline, while the boldness of the latter is fed. Let the same be clear to you about God: he does not keep the good man in delights; he tests him, hardens him, prepares him for himself. Are you surprised, if that God, the greatest lover of the good, who wishes them to be the best and most excellent they can be, assigns them a fortune with which they may be exercised? For my part I am not surprised if the gods sometimes conceive ‖C1 an impulse, while they watch great men wrestling with some calamity. To us it is sometimes a pleasure if a youth of steady spirit receives a charging beast on a hunting spear, if he endured without fear the onrush of a lion; and the spectacle is so much the more pleasing as the one who performed it was the more honorable. These are not things that can turn the face of the gods upon themselves; they are childish things, the amusements of human frivolity. Behold a spectacle worthy for God to look on, intent upon his work; behold a pair worthy of God, a brave man matched with evil fortune, especially if he has also ‖C2 challenged it. I do not see, I say, what more beautiful thing Jupiter has on earth, if he should wish to turn his mind to it, than to behold Cato, his party already shattered more than once, standing nonetheless amid the public ruins: you may recognize in him an upright helmsman in the tempest, a soldier in the line of battle. Fire proves gold, misery brave men. For nothing seems more unhappy than the man to whom nothing adverse has ever happened; for he was not allowed to test himself, though all things may have flowed to him as he wished, even before he wished. Yet the gods judged badly of him. He was thought unworthy to be conquered by fortune at any time, fortune who shuns every utter coward," as if she were to say: "Why then? Shall I take this man for my adversary? He will at once lay down his arms. There is no need to use all my power against him; he will be driven off by a light threat; he cannot endure my countenance. Let another be looked for, with whom we can join battle; I am ashamed to engage with a man prepared to be beaten." The gladiator judges it disgrace to be matched with an inferior. And further on: "Let us come to Regulus: how did fortune harm him? That she made him an example of faith, an example of patience? Nails pierce his skin, and whichever way his wearied body leans, it presses on a wound; his eyes are propped open for perpetual wakefulness; the more torment, the more glory there will be. Do you judge Socrates ill-treated because he drained that cup, publicly mixed, no differently than a medicine of immortality?" as if he were saying: It is not so. There he also shows in general that the evils which seem to befall good men are not evils for them, but goods, and useful, both for themselves and for all others, of whom the gods have greater care 29. Is not this also what the Lord himself says: "I will not destroy the nations which Joshua left, that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it, or not"? Judges 2. And it follows: "These are the nations which the Lord left, that he might train Israel in them, and all who had not known the wars of the Canaanites, and that afterwards their sons might learn to fight with enemies and have the habit of battle: the five satraps of the Philistines," etc. Judges 3. Hence blessed James also exhorts, saying: 279E·1 "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the proving of your faith produces patience; but patience has a perfect work." James 1. Hence also the Apostles went rejoicing from the presence of the council, because they were counted worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Jesus, Acts 5; and Romans 5: 280E·130 "We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation

produces patience, and patience proof, and proof hope, and hope does not confound." And 1 Peter 1: "In which you will rejoice a little now, if need be, saddened by various temptations, that the proving of your faith may be much more precious than gold, which is tried by fire." The various tribulations of Job show the same thing as regards the good, when Job himself says in the first chapter, A1 "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done." Hence Augustine, on that verse of Psalm 32, "For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created": "The devil could not harm Job unless he had received power from God; when God permitted, he was able; so it was not he who was able, but the one who permitted. And therefore Job, well instructed, does not say, The Lord gave, the devil has taken away; but, The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done, not as it pleased the devil; and all this for the merit and glory of his saint." For this the same Augustine speaks on that verse of Psalm 34, "Let them be confounded and turn back": "The devil had no power to take away the goods of holy Job, except when he received it from the supreme Power; therefore also Job said, Send forth your hand, that is, give power. But God, who had permitted the devil to take those things away, did not desert his servant within, but made the soul of his servant a spear against the devil, to overcome him." B1 The tribulation of holy Tobit proves the same, with Raphael as witness: "Because you were acceptable to God," he says, "it was necessary that temptation should test you." For this Augustine speaks in Prosper's Sentences, proposition 221: "The progress of the faithful does not come without temptation, nor does anyone become known to himself except by the test of proving, nor will he be crowned unless he has conquered, nor will he conquer unless he has *B2 fought; but who fights unless he has an enemy and resists temptation?" The same, too, on that verse of Psalm 148, "Fire, hail, snow," etc., "which do his word," concerning the killing of an innocent man by lightning, or any other kind of death, speaks thus: "Whatever happens here against our will, know that it does not happen except by the will of God, by his providence, order, nod and laws. And if we have not understood what is done and why, let us give it to his providence, since it is not done without cause, and let us not blaspheme. For all things which to the foolish seem to happen at random in the nature of things do not happen except at his command." C1 The same, on that verse of Psalm 57, "Like melted wax they shall be taken away": "Here there are punishments, prisons, exiles, torments, deaths, various kinds of pains and tribulations, and these are dispensed by God's judgment; but for many they are for probation, for many for damnation." The same, on that verse of Psalm 31, "Glory, all you upright of heart." "What is it to be upright of heart? Not to resist God. Whoever suffers anything against his will — afflictions, griefs, labors and humiliations — and attributes it to nothing but the just will of God, he is upright of heart. But the perverse of heart are crooked and twisted, who say they suffer unjustly the evils which they suffer, ascribing injustice to him by whose will they suffer; or, because they do not dare to ascribe injustice to him, they take away his governance. And these twisted of heart hold three opinions: either that there is no God, as the fool said in his heart; or that God is unjust, who does not distribute worse things to the worse; C2 or that God does not govern human affairs." Again, Jerome, in book 4 on Isaiah, treating that verse of chapter 28, "Will the ploughman plough all day?" etc., speaks thus: "God variously deals with the human race: now he punishes, now he has mercy; now he rebukes, now he defends; now he ploughs, now he sows, now he reaps the ripe crops, and threshes the harvested in the threshing floors, and governs his world as he wills." D1 With this Boethius agrees, in the Consolation of Philosophy, fourth prose, when he says: "On this point, what you think most just seems different to providence, which knows all things, that is, contrary; hence a certain cause, victorious in war, pleased the gods as just, but not Cato; and the defeated cause pleased Cato, not the gods, as Lucan testifies 31." But he at once rejects Cato's opinion, saying: "Therefore whatever you see done contrary to hope, in the things themselves there is right order, but for your perverse opinion there is confusion." And further on, in the same prose, he shows: "Hence, by divine providence, adversities do not befall some good men, but do befall others; and so too with the wicked. To some good men adversities do not befall because they are weak, and would not be able to endure them, but might perhaps cease to cultivate the innocence by which they could not retain fortune. There is another so perfect that

providence judges it wrong that he be touched by any adversities. There are some good men who are at times placed at the very summit, so that through them the wickedness of the evil may be driven back; to others of the good he distributes mixed lots according to the quality of their souls. So some good men, though inclined to wantonness, he bites back with another adversity, lest they run riot through long happiness; others he harries with hardships, that they may strengthen the virtues of the soul by the practice of patience and by exercise. Some, faint-hearted, fear more than they should, and yet could bear harsh things; others, *E2 presumptuous, despise adversities beyond what is fair, as if they were very easy for them, though they cannot bear them. These God's providence leads to knowledge of themselves through the experience of sad things. Certain good men, however, impregnable to every torture, have given others an example that virtue is unconquered." And he adds how rightly and in good order 32 these things happen, and for the good of those to whom they seem to befall, there is no doubt; for "all things work together for good to those who love God," Romans 8. And at once he shows that prosperity and adversity befall the wicked from similar causes: adversity indeed from three causes; first, because they have deserved such things; second, that their punishments may deter others from sin; third, that the wicked themselves may be amended by such things. But prosperity befalls them from many causes. The first, that the good, seeing this, may draw an argument as to what they ought to judge about such happiness, namely of riches and the like, which serves even the wicked. The second, because some of the wicked would become worse if they suffered want of household means, a sickness which divine providence cures by the gathering of money. The third, that one who has a foul conscience, while in fear of losing, as the penalty worthy of sin, the goods of fortune which he has, may change his ways; and while he fears to lose fortune, may abandon wickedness. The fourth, that the more such happiness is heaped up for some of the wicked, the deeper it may cast them into unhappiness when it has been taken from them. For according to the same author, above in the same work, book 2, prose 4: "In every adversity of fortune the most unhappy kind of misfortune is to have been happy." Then he shows in consequence why the wicked are permitted the right of punishing, and says that this is done in order that there might be a cause of exercise for the good, and of punishment for the wicked; and from this that highest providence has often brought forth a striking miracle, that wicked men should make wicked men good. To this likewise bears what Jacques de Vitry tells B1 of a certain hermit assailed by a spirit of blasphemy, to such a degree that he had begun to think that God's judgments were not just, because he permits the wicked to prosper and the good to be afflicted. An angel in human form, sent to him by the Lord, said: "Follow me, and you will see the hidden judgments of God." When he had followed him to the house of a certain good man, and they had been shown all night the services of joyful hospitality, he stole the host's cup, which the host loved most, and gave it to a certain spiteful man, who had received them the second night. On the third night they were entertained more kindly by a kindly host, whose servant, in the morning, he threw from a certain bridge and drowned; and on the fourth night, likewise well received by a good man, his little son, crying out and not letting them sleep,

He killed him. When the hermit saw these things and wished to dismiss him, the angel said: "I have been sent to you by the Lord to reveal his hidden judgments to you. Our first host had loved that cup too much, and so, for his own good, I took the cup from him and gave it to our wicked host, so that he might receive his reward in the present. The servant of the third host I drowned because he had resolved in his heart to kill his master the next day; thus I saved the good master from death, and the wicked servant from the deed of murder, so that he would be punished more mildly in hell. As for the fourth, that host used to give generous alms before he had a son and heir; but once a son and heir was born to him, he drew back his hand. So I took from him the cause of avarice, and carried the soul of an innocent into paradise." For this deed, or others like it, the Wise Man assigns another cause, saying: "He was taken away, lest wickedness change his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul" C1 (Wis 4). God wished to show plainly that these things happened to the holy men Job and Tobit through him, so that he might teach us the same lesson in all like cases generally, and so arm us with patience against all adversities.

Hence Tobit 2: "God permitted this trial to befall him for this reason: D1 that an example of his patience might be given to those who came after, as also of holy Job." "For whatever things have been written, have been written for our instruction, that through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope" (Romans 15). That the tribulations which evil men bring on both the wicked and the good are also sent by God is proved by Psalm 77 [78]: D2 the Psalmist says, "He sent upon them the wrath of his indignation; indignation, and wrath, and tribulation, sendings by evil angels." And to conclude so long a series in a short discourse: as is scattered through the canonical Scripture and the various writings of the Fathers, scourges befall for five reasons, as is also recounted in Lombard's Sentences 4, distinction 15. First, that the merits of the just may be increased through patience, as with Job. Second, as a safeguard of the virtues against pride, as with Paul, as is plain in 2 Corinthians 12. Third, to correct sins, as with the leprosy of Miriam, D3 as is plain in Numbers 12. Fourth, to manifest the works of God, as is plain of the man born blind, John 9. Fifth, as the beginning of punishment in the present, so that it may be seen here what follows in hell, as in that text of Deuteronomy 32: "A fire has been kindled in my fury, and it shall burn even to the lowest parts of hell." So too Jeremiah 17: "Crush them with a double crushing" 33; as was the case with Herod, as is plain in Acts 2 34, and in many similar texts in many places. This too is true, not only of adults but of little children, in whose case it seems less so. Hence Augustine, in On the Gift of Perseverance, 35 35, says this: "For God is not compelled by fate to come to the aid of those infants and not of those, when the cause of both is common. Otherwise we shall suppose that human affairs in the case of little children are driven not by divine providence but by chance happenings, although their souls are rational and either to be damned or to be freed, since indeed not even a sparrow falls to the earth without the will of our Father who is in heaven; or else it must be attributed to the negligence of the parents that little children die without baptism, as though divine judgments did nothing there. What shall I say of the fact that a little child sometimes dies before baptism, even though the parents are hurrying and the ministers are ready that the child may be baptized, and yet baptism is not given, since God is unwilling, who did not keep him a little while in this life so that it might be given? What is

it also that sometimes it was possible to save the little children of unbelievers from going to perdition, and yet it was not possible to help the children of believers by baptism? Here it is certainly shown that there is no respect of persons with God; otherwise he would free the children of his worshippers rather than of his enemies." The same author, in On Rebuke and Grace 27: A1 "It is a marvel, and yet true, that some sons of his friends, *A2 that is, of the regenerate good, because they are believers, who depart from here as little children without baptism (though, were he willing, he would surely procure for them the grace of this washing, in whose power are all things), he estranges from his kingdom, into which he sends their parents; and he causes some sons of his enemies to come into the hands of Christians and to be brought through the washing into the kingdom from which their parents are estranged, although in the little children there is no evil merit in the former case and no good merit in the latter, arising from their own will. Surely these judgments of God, since they are just and deep, can neither be censured nor fathomed" 37. The same author, On Grace and Free Choice 50: "Sometimes this grace is presented to the children of unbelievers, when by God's hidden providence they come, however it may be, into the hands of the pious; sometimes the children of believers do not obtain it; sometimes, when some obstacle exists, those in danger cannot be helped. But these things come about through God's hidden providence, whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out." The whole universal Church also professes all this in its prayers 38, saying, "Direct our acts according to your good pleasure," etc. And again, "May the power of the Holy Spirit be present to us, by whose wisdom we were made and by whose providence we are governed." And again, "O God, whose providence is not deceived in its ordering, we humbly entreat you to remove all that is harmful and to grant us all that will profit us" — plainly supposing that all things harmful, and likewise all that will profit, are ordained by divine providence.