De causa Dei: Book I, Chapter 47
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618, 436A–441C; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/1/47/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[436A–436B]
CHAPTER 47. He objects, and replies.

The Pelagians, however, object against what has been set out above on Predestination and Reprobation. They try either to destroy these altogether, or at least to show that they are according to the merits of persons. God, they say, does nothing irrationally; and there is no reason why He should predestine or reprobate one rather than another. He therefore predestines or reprobates everyone or no one. Not everyone, as all say with one accord; therefore no one. Or if there is some reason why He predestines or reprobates this one and not that one, it can be grounded only in merits, and in the difference of merits. Hence Joachim, Abbot of Fiore, in his work on God's foreknowledge and the predestination of the elect, writes as a dialogue between Benedict, who asks, and himself, who answers. He assigns a twofold reason and cause of Election, Predestination, and God's mercy. The first is aptitude for mercy, salvation, and the good; the second is the good action itself. For contraries he posits contrary causes and contrary reasons. Again: "He gave them power to become sons of God" (John 1). Therefore that men become sons of God according to Predestination and grace lies in their free power, and comes only through merits pleasing to God. The Prophet agrees with this in Psalm 68 [69], where after recounting the sins of certain persons he adds: "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the just." So too that passage of Apocalypse 3: "Hold what you have, lest another take your crown," which God has promised to His chosen ones [n1]. Again, if Adam had not sinned, no one would have been reprobated, but everyone predestined; each of these, therefore, is on account of a corresponding merit. Again, it would be unjust and cruel

[436C]
for a man or an angel to harm another without any preceding fault, nor could he do this without fault. How much less, then, does this befit God, most just and most pious! Hence it does not befit Him to reprobate anyone, and to predestine him to eternal fire for that, except on account of some preceding fault. But the first of these irrational arguments can be lucidly refuted by what has been premised, in the 21st and 35th and the following chapters. As for what is adduced in confirmation from Joachim: though he was a great Doctor, he has no great authority. In the matter of the Trinity he was an Arian, as is evident in the little book he published against Peter Lombard, On the Trinity, or On the essence of the Trinity; and he was condemned by Innocent the Third and the General Council, as is recounted in the Extra, De summa Trinitate et fide catholica, "Damnamus" [n2]. So in this matter he was a Pelagian, positing the original cause of Predestination and Reprobation not on the part of God who predestines and reprobates, but on the part of the predestined and the reprobate: namely aptitude and act, as is recounted above. Yet he labors to steer clear of the perilous sea of the Pelagians,

[436D–436E]
by saying that the cause of divine Election and Reprobation is aptitude for mercy, or for wrath, but not for works or acts. And to Benedict, who asks what that aptitude for good or for evil is, if it is not good or evil works, as the Apostle says of Jacob and Esau, he replies that it is not a work but a receptacle of grace or of wrath, from the first of which good works arise, from the second evil. And below: when God chose these or those, He did not seek in them the justice that He Himself was going to give, but only the matter of humility and wretchedness, that is, that they might be fit for mercy. But because he came too near the shore of the Pelagian sea [n3], he suffered the precipice and was swallowed in its whirlpool, so that he even said that the cause of Predestination and Reprobation is the merits of persons. And to gather briefly his diffuse argument: he holds that the cause of Predestination is humility, of Reprobation, pride. For he says: "Abjection and misery is properly the cause of divine election. Hence the Apostle: 'See your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, but God has chosen the things that are foolish in the world.'" And below: "It is clearer than light that someone is taken up by God not for justice but for misery, not for works but for meagerness, not for strength but for weakness, not for wisdom but for folly, not for nobility but for lowliness. So that Pharisee was rejected for his justice, while the publican was taken up for his sins; not because God loves injustice and hates the purity of innocence, but because He repels the one who is proud of his justice, and spares the humble who repent of their sins." And below: "The cause of election is abjection and affliction, not because these simply please God, but because they beget humility, which alone God requires as virtue in angels and in men." And below: "Because the Lord foreknew that the Jewish people would be proud, He hated and rejected them." From these things it appears evidently that he is contrary to himself.

[437A–437B]
How, moreover, can it stand that aptitude is the cause of predestination or reprobation, when of equally apt persons one is sometimes taken and another left? Indeed sometimes the less apt is taken and the more apt left. How, too, are abjection and misery the cause of divine predestination, when many who are abject, miserable, and beggars here are, I fear, finally reprobated, and many who are always here noble, happy, and rich are predestined to life? In the holy angels, too, predestined and finally confirmed, there was never any abjection, nor misery of any kind, since it was neither of fault nor of penalty. That abjection or misery, moreover, was the cause why Christ was predestined Son of God in power, Romans 1 [n4]. This could also be refuted [n5] by many other arguments. But since not many cling to it, let these few suffice. When they allege John saying, "He gave them power to become sons of God," they seem to want to assert that some become, or can become, sons of God anew according to predestination. That is, from non-predestined, and so from reprobate, they become newly and temporally predestined, and likewise cease to be reprobate. This is contrary to what was shown earlier in the 23rd and 45th of this book, and it also evidently involves a contradiction, as can be clearly demonstrated from the same places. John's saying, moreover, seems to prove rather the contrary. For he does not say "He gave them power to make themselves sons of God," but "to become sons of God." But by whom? From themselves? From their own will? Who ever begets himself? Who is ever born of himself? What son of the Devil can beget himself and bear a son of God? Hear what follows: "Not," he says, "of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God they were born." It is therefore not they who make themselves, but God who makes sons of God. Hence the Philosopher too, in Metaphysics 5, 17 and Metaphysics 9, 2 [n6], shows that power and potency are twofold, namely active and passive. What is said here, "He gave them power to become sons of God," is therefore of the same kind as what is said in Romans 8: "All who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." God gave men the power to become sons of God: namely a rational soul and free choice, freely and voluntarily receptive of grace in the present and of glory in the future. In this way they become sons of God both here and there. In the present, however, when they have been made sons of God through faith and through prevenient grace adopting them as sons of God,

[437C]
they are to do freely the pleasing works of sons, so that as pleasing sons they may freely persevere, to the point that nothing can snatch this sonship from them unless they wish it. Hence Chrysostom too says there, as is cited in the Gloss [n7]: "He gave them power to become sons of God," showing that much zeal is needed, that we may keep always undefiled the image that was formed in the baptism of adoption. He shows at the same time that no one will be able to take this power from us unless we ourselves take it away. At the same time he also wants to show that this grace comes to those who will it and strive for it. "For it is in the power of free choice, and of grace, by its working, to become sons of God." And Augustine, Homily 3 on John: "Why," he says, "are all born in sin? Because no one was born except of Adam. But that they should be born of Adam was a matter of necessity, from condemnation; to be born through Christ is a matter of will and of grace. Men are not compelled to be born through Christ; they were not born of Adam because they willed it, yet all who are of Adam are sinners with sin; all

[437D–437E]
who are justified and just through Christ are so not in themselves but in Him." Nor by saying "He gave them power to become sons of God" does he exclude God from that making and include man alone. Nor, if that making is common to both, does he put man first there and God after, in the natural order. Hence he says: "He gave them power to become sons of God," not "to make themselves." And again: "Not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God they were born," who is the principle and author of this divine generation. Hence Bede too, as is cited in the Gloss: "Carnal," he says, "generation of individuals took its origin from the embrace of marriage; but spiritual generation is ministered by the grace of the Holy Spirit." And Chrysostom: "The Evangelist narrates these things so that, learning the lowliness and humility of the first birth, which is through blood and the will of the flesh, and recognizing the loftiness of the second, which is through grace and nobility, we may take up here a great understanding, worthy of the gift of him who begot, and show much zeal thereafter." And Augustine says in the third homily on John: "As many as received Him, He gave them power to become sons of God. If they become sons, they are born; if they are born, how are they born? Not of flesh, not of bloods, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God they were born. Let them rejoice, then, that they were born of God, let them presume that they belong to God, let them take proof that they are born of God; for the Word was made flesh and dwelt in us. If the Word was not ashamed to be born of man, will men be ashamed to be born of God?" Nor by saying "He gave them power to become sons of God" does he say that He gave them this power through preceding works of merit, as Pelagius dreams. Far be it that the Evangelist contradict his Lord, since, as he himself relates below in chapter 6, He says: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him"; and, "No one can come to me unless it has been given him by my Father." Far be it also that he contradict himself in so brief a series. For straightaway after these words of his cited above he says that the Word was full of grace and truth, and adds, "And of His fullness we have all received, and grace

[438A–438B]
for grace." We have received, I say, first grace freely given and truth, because grace was promised beforehand; and so grace for grace: that is, grace freely given for the pleasing promise of gratuitous grace made earlier by prophecy. Or else we have received in certain hope, secondly, the grace of beatitude in the future, for grace in fact and for pleasing works [n8] in the present. Hence Augustine too, in the third homily on John, writes thus. He does not say, "And of His fullness we have all received, grace for grace"; but he says, "And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace," where I do not know what he wanted us to understand that we have received of His fullness, and besides, grace for grace. "For we have received of His fullness first grace, and again we have received grace for grace. Which grace did we receive first? Faith; walking in faith we walk in grace. For whence have we deserved this? By what preceding merits of ours? Grace has been given you, not a wage paid. Hence it is called grace, because it is given gratis: for it was not by preceding merits that you bought what you received. This first grace, then, the sinner received, that his sins might be forgiven; what did he deserve? Let him ask justice, he will find punishment; let him ask mercy, he will find grace. But God had also promised this through the Prophets. So when He came to give what He had promised, He gave not only grace but also truth. How was truth displayed? Because what was promised was done. What then is 'grace for grace'? By faith we win God's favor, you receive as reward immortality and eternal life, and that is grace; for by what merit do you receive eternal life? By grace. God crowns His own gifts, not your merits." It can also be very fittingly understood and expounded literally of those who have actually been made sons of God in the present by faith and grace: He gave them power, namely grace helping free choice, to become sons of God in the future, in the kingdom of heaven. Hence He also puts first, "But as many as received Him," namely through formed faith, by believing in Him, "He gave them," etc. Hence Theophilus too, as is cited in the Gloss: "Because," he says, "in the resurrection we shall attain the most perfect sonship, according to what the Apostle says, 'awaiting the adoption

[438C–438E]
of the sons of God, the redemption of our body,' He gave power to become sons of God," that is, to attain this grace in the grace to come. But when they object that Psalm, "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living": if they understand it according to its literal surface, they must concede this, that predestination and reprobation are temporal. That is, someone was previously predestined and not reprobate, and now is not predestined but reprobate. For if someone is temporally blotted out of the book of the living, then it is so, against what was shown earlier. Therefore it must have another sense. It can therefore be understood of deletion according to present justice, according to the distinction premised in the 25th. Or "let them be deleted" means "let them be held as deleted," that is, as not written, or "let them be shown" so, as is added: "And let them not be written with the just." Or again, "let them be deleted" according to their own hope, as God too is said to repent, as the seventh recounted [n9]. Hence Augustine too, on that Psalm, tractate 2: "Brothers," he says, "we must not take it that God writes anyone in the book of life and deletes him. If a man said, 'What I have written, I have written,' of the title where it was written King of the Jews, does God write anyone and delete him? He is foreknowing; He predestined all, before the foundation of the world, who are to reign with His Son into eternal life; these He wrote down; these the book of life contains. How then are they deleted from where they were never written? This is said according to their hope, because they themselves thought they were written. What is 'let them be deleted from the book of life'? That it may be evident even to them that [they] are not there." So those who hoped that they were written in God's book as though by the merit of their justice, when their damnation has been carried through even to their knowledge, will be deleted from the book of the living; that is, they will recognize that they are not there. For the verse that follows explains what was said, "and let them not be written with the just": "I said therefore, 'let them be deleted' according to their hope; but according to your equity, what do I say? Let them not be written." Understanding that passage of the Apocalypse literally, "Hold what you have, that no other"—or, "that no one—take your crown," they must likewise say that someone can temporally and newly lose the crown of predestination and another be admitted to it. Consequently this one would temporally and newly cease to be predestined and begin to be reprobate, and that one the converse. The foregoing does not permit this. Nor does John, nor indeed the spirit in John, say or intimate that anyone by himself and by his own strength, without God's help, holds or can hold his crown, that is, persevere to the end in good life and good works. Nor does he say that anyone can by himself and by his own strength alone, without God specially working, receive the crown of predestination or of grace in the present, or of glory in the future, as the second, the ninth, and the thirty-fifth, and the following with the forty-fifth, prove. The same is also most faithfully attested by the most faithful words of the same passage: "These things says the holy one and true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one closes, who closes and no one opens: Behold, I have set before you

[439A–439B]
an open door, which no one can close, because you have little strength, and have kept my word, and I will keep you from the hour of trial. Behold, I come quickly; hold what you have," etc. Here it is plainly taught that perseverance in the good comes first from divine preservation, second from human cooperation. How much more, then, is the beginning and attainment of the good life not from man by himself alone! When it is said, therefore, "Hold what you have," etc., a good man is prevented and aroused, so that he may finally persevere in the good. For perhaps he was predestined in such a way that by such exhortation of God or of man he would finally persevere and would acquire and hold the crown, according to what was premised in the 23rd of this book. Hence Augustine too, On the Gift of Perseverance [n10], 64: "For those who have not yet been called, let us pray that they may be called; for perhaps they are so predestined that they will be granted to our prayers, and receive grace by which they will will and be made elect. For God, who predestined all things, will fulfill it." That passage of the Apocalypse can also be expounded as the Psalm above was. For someone can lose, or receive, the crown of life according to present justice, or according to manifestation, or according to firm hope. Hence Augustine too, On the Gift of Perseverance 7, proving that final perseverance cannot be lost, and hinting at a distinction about "being lost," says: "Perseverance to the end, since no one has it except the one who has persevered to the end, many can have it, none can lose it. But lest perhaps it be said that perseverance to the end is indeed not lost when it has been given, that is, when one has persevered to the end, but is lost in a way when a man acts through contumacy so that he cannot attain it (as we say that a man who has not persevered to the end has lost eternal life or the kingdom of God, not that he had already received and had it, but that he would have received it had he persevered), let us do away with disputes about words, and let us say that even certain things which are not held, but are hoped to be held, can be lost." As for the argument, "If Adam had not sinned, no one would have been reprobated, but everyone predestined," it does not prove that these things depend on merits. For as regards the form of the inference, the opposite manifestly holds. For if, as appears from the 45th, God does not predestine

[439C–439D]
a certain end for a man, or a man to a certain end, say life, on account of his future works, but the converse, the argument in no way concludes. It reasons from the posterior to the prior: if the man had acted otherwise, God would have predestined otherwise. For the man's having acted otherwise would not have been the cause, nor prior causally or naturally, why God would have predestined otherwise; it is the other way round. An example: "If Christ had not done good works, he would not have been predestined Son of God; therefore Christ was predestined Son of God on account of his good works." It fails. "If Paul had not preached, he would not have been predestined, or elected, to preach; therefore because he preached, he had been predestined a preacher?" No; the converse. "If the Sun never shone, nor fire warmed, it would not have been predestined to act so; therefore because it so acts, it is predestined to act so?" No; but because it is predestined, or preordained, to act so, it so acts. Nor is it altogether perfectly clear that, if Adam had not sinned, no one would have been reprobated. For it seems to some that it would not have been necessary, even had Adam stood, that all his posterity be made at once impeccable and finally

confirmed; it would have been possible that his descendants have the freedom of contradiction toward good and evil. Holding nevertheless with Anselm, Cur Deus homo 1, 19, that if Adam had finally stood, all his posterity would have been confirmed impeccable, then, according to the opinion of Gregory, Moralia 4, premised in the 39th of this book, none of the reprobate would have been begotten, but only those who are now predestined to life. Nor is Adam's sin therefore the first cause of reprobation; if he had not sinned, God would have ordained otherwise, as was said above. And if you object against this that a predestined person is sometimes begotten by a reprobate, as a Christian by a non-Christian, and a good Christian by a bad one, and that such a one would not have been begotten by any such person if Adam had not sinned [n11], so that not only the now predestined would have been born then: you contradict not me but rather blessed Gregory. Yet in defense of blessed Gregory one can reply in many ways. In one way: if Adam had not sinned, only those would then have been born who are now elect; that is, only as many would then have been born as are now elect. Or otherwise: "only those, etc." is true as regards souls.

[439E]
For then God would have created only those souls which are now the souls of the elect, though perhaps He would have joined some to other bodies. Or perhaps it can yet be said otherwise: that only those would then have been born, in soul and in body, who are now elect; but someone elect, now begotten by one father, say a reprobate, would then have been begotten by another, namely an elect. But perhaps you object to me: if it were so, Isaac could have begotten Abraham his own father, which seems absurd; by equal reason, indeed greater, he could have begotten any other man, and infinite men, contrary to what was premised in the proof of the fortieth part of the first Corollary of this book. Moreover, if it was so, why did he beget Jacob rather than any other man, since he himself was indifferent, and the mother likewise? And further, if it is so, suppose two men equally capable of begetting a future John, and let them apply the requisite effort; then each will beget the same John in different places.

[440A–440B]
For why this one rather than that? And if this one alone or that one alone had acted, he would without doubt have begotten John; so also now, when each acts in the same way. By this opinion, too, a young man could newly beget his own aged grandfather, and make him a boy, a young man of one day; and at once decrepit and an infant, with very many other absurdities; indeed he could even raise the dead. For he could beget someone who was once dead and buried. The Philosophers also say that if the agent is the same and the patient the same, the effect will be the same; so conversely, if the agent or the patient is different, say the father or the mother, the effect will differ, say the offspring. To resolve these, it must be said that there are two opinions about the numerical identity of a man. One is that for the numerical identity of a man the numerical identity of the man's body is by no means required, neither as a whole nor as to any part of it, but only the numerical identity of the soul. So that if Peter's soul were placed in Paul's body, or in anyone else's, it would nonetheless be the same Peter. The other is that for the numerical identity of a man, there is required the numerical identity of the soul, and also of the body, either as a whole or as to some principal part, or some principal parts. According to the first opinion, however, all the objections can easily be resolved, by saying that it is not in the power of the man who begets to beget this A or that B, but in the power of God, who infuses whatever soul He wills. Supposing the second opinion, one may answer, not improbably, that the same son can be begotten of different fathers, but not of different seeds, which supply the son's principal matter of body. That the same seed which is shed by one could be shed by another is apparent. For that seed is the surplus of nourishment, left over from the third digestion; and if another, entirely similar, took the same nourishment, then, other things being equal, by digesting the same part of it he would convert into his own substance what the other did, and would leave the same surplus. Just as one fire applied to a given combustible generates one fire;

[440C–440D]
and if another, entirely similar, had been applied in the same way, and not the first, it would have generated the same fire in number as the first. This is because any combustible, or its matter, is in near, that is, proximate potency to one fire only, or a single form of fire; otherwise it would be in proximate potency simply to infinite fires or infinite forms. From these considerations the reply to the objections can easily be drawn. But that Philosophical maxim, "If the agent is the same and the patient the same, the effect will be the same," does not seem to be conceded at once and simply. For the same father and mother at different times beget different offspring; and the same Sun, in the same air or glass, and in the same Moon, at different times produces different light. Hence Averroes too, on the twelfth book of Aristotle's Metaphysics, 11 [n12], writes thus: "If the matter is one, and the begetter one, and the potency one, then what comes to be will be one. For when the subject is one, and the potency existing in it one, and the agent one, then there will be no cause of multitude." For the argument about injustice and cruelty, it must be known that not every penalty reasonably inflicted on a man by a man is inflicted on account of his own preceding fault. Sometimes it is inflicted as a precaution and for many a reason, as appears in many places in Scriptures divine and human alike. Hence a rule of Law also says, "Without fault, unless there is a cause, no one is to be punished," Extra, De Regulis Iuris, in the Sixth [n13], with which many civil and canonical laws agree. Peter, too, in Sentences 4, distinction 15, shows that scourges befall men in the present for five causes. Sometimes for the correction of sin; sometimes for the beginning of the penalty of sin; sometimes for the increase of merit, as with Job and Tobias; sometimes for the avoidance of sin, as is evident of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, from the angel of Satan; and sometimes for the glory of God, as is evident of the man born blind, John 9. Sometimes also someone is punished by public penance or penalty so that others may fear and thus be deterred from evil and confirmed in the good, as divine, canon, and civil law concordantly attest. If someone is punished temporally for the temporal advantage of others, why not temporally and eternally for the temporal and eternal advantage of the elect, so that in the present they may flee evil more and

[440E]
choose the good, and in the future rejoice more, love more strictly, and praise God more fully? For manifold is the usefulness, both in the present and in the future, that comes to the elect from the reprobate; indeed the reprobate themselves are created specially for the sake of the elect, as is clear from the 39th. What injustice or cruelty is there with God, then, if He predestines and makes one of His creatures for the service of another creature, and both for His own service, praise, glory, and honor? Especially since He punishes none eternally except one worthy of eternal penalty, his own sin worthily and justly demanding this eternally. This He always punishes most mercifully and most piously, since He punishes very much, indeed infinitely, in a way short of what is condign, as can be had from the 39th of this book. If, moreover, as seems to follow from the opinion of Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 11, and City of God 11, 27, to be wretched is more choiceworthy

[441A–441C]
than not to be, what injustice or cruelty is there with God, if He gives to some creature many and great goods, though He punishes it along with another good creature of His [n14], say by pain of sense, so long as its whole state is more choiceworthy than avoidable? Indeed, for that state, as for a benefit, it is bound to give thanks to God. Why, then, do they not argue against God that He punishes innocent beasts, and baptized infants with no slight pain of sense? He even handed over His most innocent Son and our Lord Christ to the bitterest pains and most cruel torments. And if almighty God, most free Lord of every subject creature, whose mere will is the most just law of every subject creature, as is clear from the 12th, were to punish an innocent one eternally, especially for the perfection of the universe, the usefulness of others, and His own honor, who would presume to quarrel with Him, to rebuke Him, and to say, "Why do you do so?" No one, I think, as is clear from the 12th and the 39th. "Does not the potter of clay have power, from the same lump, to make one vessel for honor and another for contumely?" Romans 9. It is true, however, that

God has eternally punished no one without his fault temporally preceding and eternally remaining. Yet He has reprobated no one from eternity on account of fault as a cause antecedently moving the divine will, but for certain final causes, as was shown more fully in the 20th and 39th. It is not so, however, but far otherwise, that one must think of man with respect to man. For man does not have sovereign authority [n15] over his neighbor, nor is his will the highest law, but he is subject to the higher divine law, by which he is bound to love his neighbor as himself. Some, however, such as Scotus on Sentences 1, distinction 41, wishing to avoid that reprobation be causally from the works of the reprobate, and also cruelty in God, say that Lucifer, or Judas, is first offered to the divine will in his pure natural endowments, without fault, and so He does not will to damn him. Secondly God wills, [n16] and from this knows that He will cooperate with him in the substance of the evil act, and so that he will sin mortally by committing it; or that He will not cooperate with him in the substance of the good act, and so that he will sin mortally by omitting it. And insofar as

He foresees him such, He wills for him damnation and penalty. Scotus's argument, however, by no means proves this evidently, as what precedes makes manifest, for it is like the argument about injustice and cruelty set out above. Nevertheless, if this position can stand with what has been premised here and in the 45th of this book, and plainly excuses God from all injustice and cruelty, and if it pleases the Satraps [n17], it pleases me. May the Spirit of truth teach us the truth. AMEN.

Here ends the first book.

NOTES

1. suis electoribus. Savile prints "electoribus" ("those who elect"), which does not suit God's promise of the crown. I translate "chosen ones", taking it for electis, and leave the text as printed.
2. The Extra is the Decretals of Gregory IX. The chapter Damnamus (X 1.1.2) is Lateran IV (1215), which condemned Joachim's attack on Peter Lombard's doctrine of the Trinity. "Damnamus" is the chapter's incipit ("We condemn"), not a verb in Bradwardine's sentence.
3. pelagus Pelagianum: the play on pelagus ("sea") and Pelagianus runs from "the perilous sea of the Pelagians" in 436C through the "shore", "precipice" and "whirlpool" imagery. Joachim is said to have steered clear of the Pelagian sea and then to have been swallowed by it.
4. The relative clause "quae insuper abiectio vel miseria fuit causa" is loosely attached. The sense is that the predestined angels and Christ were predestined with no abjection or misery at all. Joachim's theory, that abjection is the cause of election, therefore fails for them. I translate literally and leave the grammar as it stands.
5. reprobari here means "refuted, rejected". The word is the same as the one that elsewhere means "to be reprobated"; the chapter's argument is about reprobation, so the double sense is present in the Latin.
6. Savile's "5. Metaph. 17" and "9. Metaph. 2" are text numbers in the scholastic Latin Aristotle. I take them to be Metaphysics Δ (V) 12 and Θ (IX) 1, on the senses of "power". They are kept as Savile gives them (conventions §5.4).
7. The quotations of Chrysostom, Bede and Theophilus in this chapter are taken from the Glossa ordinaria on John 1:12–14. Bradwardine cites them "as alleged in the Gloss".
8. gratis operibus: gratis here may be the dative or ablative plural of gratus ("pleasing works", cf. grata opera in 437C), or the adverb ("freely", as in "gratiam gratis datam" just before). I take "pleasing works", but the gratia / gratis jingle runs through the passage.
9. "sicut septimum recitauit": the noun is omitted. "The seventh" presumably refers to an earlier numbered part of the work (chapter, corollary or supposition) in which God's "repenting" was discussed. The cross-reference is kept as Savile has it.
10. De bono perseuerantiae is Augustine's De dono perseverantiae. Savile's numbers (64, 7) are not the modern chapter numbers.
11. "nec fuisset ab aliquo genitus": the subject and the "aliquo" are not expressed. The sense is that such a predestined child would not have been begotten by any such (reprobate or bad) parent if Adam had not sinned. I have translated accordingly.
12. Averroes, on Metaphysics 12 (Λ). The final "11" is, I take it, the comment (or text) number. It is kept as Savile gives it.
13. "Sine culpa, nisi subsit causa, non est aliquis puniendus" is a Rule of Law in the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII (VI 5.12, reg. 23). Bradwardine cites it as "Extra de Regulis Iuris in Sexto".
14. "cum alia eius creatura bona, puta cum poena sensus": the Latin is awkward. I read cum as instrumental, "by means of another of His good creatures, namely pain of sense".
15. merum imperium is the Roman-law term for supreme jurisdiction, the power of the sword. Bradwardine's point is that a man has no such absolute power over his neighbor, unlike God over His creatures.
16. "secundo Deus vult" has no object in the Latin. Scotus's sense is presumably that God wills to permit the sin or to withhold grace. I give only what the text says.
17. Satrapae here means the great men or magnates, that is, the authorities of the schools.