Book II, Chapter 3

CHAPTER III. That no inferior cause can necessitate the created will to its rational and free act, toward merit, properly speaking, or sin.

It remains, then, to show that no inferior or secondary cause can necessitate the created will to its rational and free act, to merit, properly speaking, or to sin. For, as was shown in the first of this book, a rational creature is possessed of free choice and is free by nature; indeed it is free to the very degree that an irrational creature is naturally necessary, that is, necessitable, or servile. But the latter is so necessitable and so naturally servile that it can be necessitated by a secondary cause; therefore the former also is so free that it cannot be necessitated by any secondary cause. For if a beast is necessitated by some secondary cause, it will be necessitated by any stronger one. Therefore the created will will be necessitated neither by that cause nor by any stronger secondary cause, and much less by any weaker one whatever.

Again, if the human will could be necessitated through some secondary cause, this would seem most of all to be done through the stars and celestial powers. These appear to have the greatest efficacy upon subject things, even upon men, so much so that those expert in astrology and in the other judicial sciences founded on celestial influence seem often to predict men's characters and acts. But this does not accord with reason. The stars and celestial powers are material and irrational things, whereas the human soul is rational and immaterial, as philosophers and theologians attest, and therefore by nature more perfect and higher than those things. Now it is evidently contrary to the natural order that the immaterial be necessarily subjected to the material, the rational to the irrational, the more perfect to the less perfect, the higher to the lower, and that it be ordered and ruled in all things through the latter's irrational motion, especially in its own proper act, namely the rational and free one. For who, unless perhaps an ass, would say that an ass ought by nature to rule a man, and not the contrary? Or who more irrational than an ass would say that an inanimate thing, more imperfect than an ass, ought by nature to govern a man? But not so, not so; rather we experience by nature the contrary natural order, which all the Philosophers attest and which is also plainly expressed in Genesis 1. And we see not only that man ought by nature to govern insensible and irrational things themselves, but that among men themselves the wise ought, in fitting order, to govern the unwise, and the wiser the less wise.

Hence the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 1 1 that wisdom belongs more to the ruler than to the one who serves. The wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he is not to be persuaded by another, but the less wise by him. And in Ethics 6, 6 he says that wisdom is, as it were, knowledge having a head, ‖D1 of the most honorable things. And in Politics 1, 1 he says, "Ruler and ruled by nature, for the sake of safety." For what can foresee with the mind is by nature ruling and by nature master, as he also makes plain subsequently in 2 and 3.6. And further on, in 3.9: "He who bids intellect rule seems to bid God and the laws rule; but he who bids a man rule adds the beast also." He also says in Ethics 5, 11: "We do not allow 2," he says, "a man to rule, but reason." In the Secret of Secrets also, part 3.5 3, it is said that there was found written on a certain stone in the Chaldean tongue: "King and Intellect are brothers." Hence the wisest of the kings of the earth says, "The intelligent man will possess the helm" (Proverbs 1). And Augustine, On Free Choice 1, 16: "When reason rules the irrational movements of the soul, the man is to be called ordered. For neither is it to be called right order, or order at all, where better things are subjected to worse." So reason, or mind, or spirit, when it governs the irrational movements of the soul, is what rules in man, to which rule is owed by eternal law.

And further on, 19, having shown that no vicious mind can overcome a virtuous mind, he adds: "Now I do not think you will deny that any mind whatever is better and more powerful than any body whatever. No one denies this who sees what is easy to see: that a living substance is to be preferred to a non-living one, or that which gives life to that which receives it. Much less, then, does a body, of whatever kind, overcome a mind endowed with virtue 4." Someone will perhaps imagine, in reply, that the celestial bodies are animate and more perfect than animate men, and so that it is quite consistent with the natural order that they rule men. But if they are animate, then it is either by a material and extended soul, or by an immaterial and indivisible one. If by a material soul, that soul is necessarily irrational and less perfect than the soul of man, which is immaterial and rational, as very much of philosophy testifies; hence the celestial bodies themselves are less perfect than men. Moreover, such a soul in a celestial sphere or star is rejected in philosophy. But if they are said to be animated by a rational soul, namely an intelligence, the difficulty is still not avoided. For ‖A1 they act upon lower things and upon men not immediately through that soul, since it is only in heaven; they act only through some material and irrational power flowing from them into the medium and into men and human souls, for instance through light or motion. And the intelligence itself, even if it were immediately applied to the soul of a man, could not necessitate it to will, since it could do so neither through its substance alone nor through any act of its own. Not through its substance alone, since that is of itself indifferent to causing willing and not willing, and one willing and another. Nor through any act of its own, since any act of it is an accident, and therefore by nature more imperfect, lower, and less powerful than the soul of man. Also, one intelligence cannot necessitate another to will; hence neither can it necessitate a man.

Moreover, if heaven could, through a soul of this kind, necessitate a man to good, it could do so to evil as well. For many are inclined to evil through certain stars as strongly as others are inclined to good through other stars, and so the holy Angels, since there are no others in heaven, would impel men to sin. B1 Hence Augustine too proves and holds, in On Free Choice 3, 19 5, that neither lust, nor a vicious mind, nor a body, nor a mind or spirit possessing virtue can cast another, virtuous mind down from the citadel of virtue and subject it to lust. And he adds: "So what remains is for you to answer, if you can, whether anything seems to you more excellent than a rational and wise mind. Nothing, I judge, besides God; and that is my opinion." Again, in that case the Angels would be souls 6. And heaven too could, or could have, merited and sinned, been saved and damned, been beatified and made wretched; and so it would also be our neighbor, and to be loved by men as a neighbor. But who, whether of philosophers or theologians or the common people, does not know that these are ravings and empty phantasms? Hence Stephen, Bishop of Paris 7, condemned the article affirming that the celestial bodies are moved by an intrinsic principle which is a Soul, and that they are moved by a soul and by an appetitive power, like an animal. He condemned another, which maintains that the soul of heaven is an intelligence, and that the celestial orbs are not instruments of the intelligences but organs, as the ear, and the eye, is an instrument of the sensitive power. And he condemned another, which asserts that the nature which is the principle of motion in the celestial bodies is a moving intelligence; "an error," he says, "if it is understood of intrinsic nature, which is act or form."

Experience too teaches the contrary. Take the conception or nativity of someone, best or worst as to morals: he can be educated in the contrary way by his parents, by his friends, by himself, and be confirmed in contrary morals. Anyone who wished could easily test this, and many astrologers have tested it in many ways. Hence Hermes, the Father of the Philosophers, in On Heaven and the World 9, dealing with the power of the Planets over man from the time of conception to the time of birth, and from then to the time of death, says: "This natural power, apt from the beginning, forms and works, and governs human nature not by a law of compulsion but of friendship. For human nature is made, by the very power of the higher bodies, neither such nor such, but receives a natural aptitude only; whence afterward nature or life receives more powerfully such or such qualities or acts." Hence Ptolemy too says in the Centiloquium 8, in the first saying: "These indications which I hand on to you stand between the necessary and the possible, that is, with the one who considers the natures of things and the work of the stars." And in the fifth: "A most excellent astrologer will be able to prevent much of the evil that is to come according to the stars, when he has foreknowledge of the man's nature." And in the ninety-fifth: "It almost always happens that what ascends in each face of these figures is like its work. The faces of the individual figures, that is, of the individual signs, are three, distributed according to as many tens of degrees." D1 On which Haly says thus in his commentary: "The figures that ascend with the faces are written in Dazange 9, ‖D2 and the Indians also commend them and prefer them to other indications. For my part I have seen some who judged by them in the things that befall; and I knew also a certain man whose nativity had as its Ascendant the first face of Aries, and several of whose significators were in the terms of Saturn 10. His garments were splendid and clean, sweet-smelling, and he himself lived splendidly. Now it happened that one day, as I was sitting with him (for he was a familiar friend of mine), I said to him: 'These garments, indeed, are contrary to your significators.' And he said: 'Whatever you see, I do for the sake of men's eyes; and if I were to lay bare to you my desire, you would learn that I strive hard against the will of my mind, and that I am in the greatest distress.' And I said to him: 'There is no disgrace in doing what his nature demands; but then it is the greatest disgrace, when bad habit overcomes nature.' And he said to me: 'I do nothing that sits well with my mind. ‖E1 Now I long to embrace some dark woman or man, with whom I would be wrapped in a white guadagna 11 woven of goat hair, and to lie with him through the night. Yet God knows I have always abhorred intercourse with a man; and although I desire this, I am unwilling to reveal the will of my mind because of my soldiers and the men standing around.' And this confirms the way of the indications, because in the first face of Aries certain things ascend, one of which is a dark man wrapped in a white guadagna."

Again, all Catholic Doctors reject starry fate, or the fate of the stars, especially if it imports necessity, as the twenty-eighth of the first has to some extent recounted. Hence Stephen too, Bishop of Paris, condemned the article affirming A1 that our will is subject to the power of the supercelestial bodies. He condemned another, which asserts that will and intellect are not moved to act by themselves but by an everlasting cause, namely by the celestial bodies; and another, which maintains that the orb is the cause of the physician's will to heal, and

many others like these. Moreover, if the human will could be necessitated to its free act through some secondary cause, it would seem that it could be so through vehement temptation. But however great the temptation, there could be as great an incitement from the stars and celestial powers, since it is most certain that they greatly incite and incline men; and yet no incitement from the stars can necessitate the human will, as has been shown above. Likewise, as much as any temptation excites, so much can some disposition in the body, resulting from the stars and from the temperament. But this is proved false by the experience recounted above from Haly. It can also be proved by the experience concerning Hippocrates, recounted by Aristotle in the Secret of Secrets, 4 of part 1, where it is written thus: "The disciples of Hippocrates the wise drew his likeness on parchment and carried it to Philemon, saying: 'Consider this figure, and tell us the quality of his temperament.' And he, looking at the composition and disposition of the figure, compared its parts and said: 'This man is lustful, a deceiver, a lover of intercourse.' For this reason they wanted to kill him, saying: 'O fool, this is the figure of the worthiest and best man who is in this world.' But Philemon pacified them and set them right, saying: 'This is indeed the figure of a wise man; but what you asked of my science I have shown you, and what I conclude from it according to that.' When they came to Hippocrates, they told him what they had done, and what Philemon had answered them, and his judgment; and Hippocrates said to them: 'Philemon has surely told the truth; he did not omit a single letter. Nevertheless, from the time I looked upon these things and considered them base and to be rejected, I resolved that my soul should rule over them; and I drew it back from them, and triumphed in the restraint of my concupiscence.'" This, then, is the praise and wisdom of Hippocrates; for philosophy is nothing other than abstinence, and victory over the objects of desire.

Hence Aristotle in the book of the Ethics, almost throughout, and Plato, Socrates, Seneca, and all the moral philosophers in their moral philosophy, frequently show, and still more often presuppose, that acting well and acting ill, and virtues and vices, lie in man's free power. The Author of human nature also expressed this plainly in the very institution of man. For when Cain had been vehemently angry with his brother Abel, the Lord said to him: "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not receive? But if ill, sin will at once be at the door; its appetite will be under you, and you will have dominion over it." Hence Augustine too, On Free Choice 1, 18: D1 "Now," he says, "it has been established that human wisdom is the reign of the human mind, and that it can also fail to reign"; and he goes on, 19: "Do you think that lust is more powerful than this mind, to which we know that rule over ‖D2 the lusts has been granted by eternal law? For I do not think so by any means; it would not be well ordered at all that the less powerful should command the more powerful. Hence I judge it necessary that the mind be able to do more than desire, by the very fact that it rightly and justly rules desire." Augustine also, in On Free Choice 5 12, proves at length that no temptation can conquer the will. Thus he says: "Who can say that the will is not free to keep rectitude, and free from temptation and from sin? If no temptation can turn it from rectitude to sin,

that is, to willing what it ought not, unless it is willing: when, therefore, one lies, one lies not by another's power but by one's own. Do you not see that it follows from what has been said that no temptation can overcome a right ‖451E·1 will? For if it can, it has the power of overcoming, and overcomes by its own power; but this cannot be, since the will is conquered only by its own power; therefore temptation can in no way overcome a right will. And when it is said to, it is said improperly: for nothing else is understood than that the will can subject itself to temptation." And further on, 7: "Understand," he says, "that the will has a strength that cannot be conquered, and that no other force can overcome." You see, therefore, that when a man, under the onset of some temptation, abandons the rectitude of will which he had, he is drawn away by no alien force, but the will itself turns itself away. If anyone should perhaps think that it is the same with beasts, behold, how very great the dissimilarity is. For beasts follow appetite by natural necessity, pursuing pleasant things and fleeing painful ones, but man is subjected to no natural necessity. 452E·1 Hence Anselm too, in On Free Choice 5, in dialogue form, writes thus: "How is the will not free, which no alien power can subject without its own assent? By similar reasoning, could we not say that the horse's will is free, since it does not serve the appetite of the flesh unless willing? N. 13 It is not similar here. For in the horse the will does not itself subject itself, but, subject by nature, it always serves the appetite of the flesh by necessity. In man, however, as long as the will itself is right, it neither serves nor is subject to what it ought not, nor is it turned away from rectitude itself by any alien force, unless the will itself willingly consents to what it ought not; and this consent it plainly appears to have not by nature, nor from necessity, like the horse, but from itself."

Moreover, temptation is twofold: through painful things, or through pleasant; through adversity, or through prosperity; and universally, through fear of evil and through love of good. Of these the first is the stronger and greater; for everyone by nature shrinks from and flees a painful evil more than he desires a pleasant good, as we experience in ourselves as in beasts. For by nature we seem to love more the good that we have, and to fear that it be taken away through a painful evil, than we desire a good not possessed and not yet ours. For everyone by nature loves himself and what is his own more than he desires or loves what is not his, since he naturally neither desires nor loves other things except for his own sake, B1 as is clear from the thirty-ninth of the first. Hence the Philosopher too, Ethics 3, 18: "It is harder," he says, "to endure painful things than to abstain from pleasant ones." With him Augustine in the Eighty-Three Questions, 36, agrees: "There is no one," he says, "who does not flee pain more than he seeks pleasure. For we see that certain most savage beasts are deterred from pleasures chiefly by fear of pain." Temptation through painful things is therefore the stronger of the two, and this cannot ‖B2 subdue the human will; hence neither can the other. That the former cannot conquer the human will appears plainly: the strongest temptation of this kind cannot subject the human will, and therefore none can. For the strongest temptation through painful things is through death, above all through the most grievous death, as the Philosopher says in Ethics 3, 14, that the brave man is concerned with the greatest terrors; for no one endures dangers more, and death is the most terrible. But even this does not overcome the human will. For how many faithful, heretics, and unbelievers have chosen and willingly endured the harshest death rather than change their profession, will, or action, as very many histories attest! How many Gentile philosophers, too, by living morally and according to the rule of honorable conduct, have overcome the strongest temptations and subjected their warlike appetites to the command of reason, as the histories written of their lives clearly show!

Moreover, if some secondary cause could subject the human will, this would seem most true of the devil, whose power is very great. Of it Job 41 says: "There is no power upon earth that can be compared to him." Yet he cannot overcome the will of man, as the preceding makes plain, and as Augustine, cited above, attests in On Free Choice 1, 19. Nor can he overcome the will of man by his essence alone, as was shown above of the good Angels; nor by any act of his, because that act would be some temptation, and no temptation can conquer the human will, as has just now been shown. How great evils, too, would that evil spirit do in the world, if he had dominion over the wills of men!

How many men and women, too, have most invincibly resisted his temptations, among the faithful as also among unbelievers! Yet one can reasonably object against what has been said 14. An object, whether pleasant or painful, has some power in moving the human will to will or not to will; and the will itself is of finite power in resisting, as in being. It is therefore either of less power than the object, or equal, or greater. If less, it is necessarily overcome; if equal or greater, let the object be increased until it is of greater power in moving than the human will is in resisting, or let ‖D1 another object be taken, as much more powerful than the human will as the will is more powerful than the first object, and by that object it will be necessitated to will or not to will. Moreover, the human will in resisting allurement suffers difficulty, as we only too surely and often experience, and as the Philosophers and Theologians also attest. For the Philosopher says in Ethics 2, 3 that it is harder to fight pleasure than anger; and art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder. And in Ethics 3, ‖E2 2, he says: "It is sometimes difficult to judge what is to be chosen in place of what, and what endured in place of what; harder still to abide by what is ‖E3 known 15. For as for the most part, what is expected is painful, but what is compelled is shameful." And further on, ‖E4 18: "It is harder to endure painful things than to abstain from pleasant ones." And Anselm, in On Free Choice 5, says that it is difficult not to lie in order to avoid death; and in 6 he says that it is difficult for us to keep rectitude of will when we consent to temptations 16, which he himself and others also attest quite often. Hence moral philosophers, theologians, and canonists alike hold that the greater or lesser quantity of temptation diminishes or increases, lightens or aggravates, the guilt of the one who consents, and his penalty. Since, therefore, the human will in resisting

allurement suffers some difficulty, and yet is of finite power as it is of finite essence, the allurement can be so strong and cause so great a difficulty that the human will cannot overcome it, but will necessarily ‖A1 yield to it.

Again, a pleasant or painful object irresistibly overcomes the wills of small children, of fools, of madmen, and perhaps of the perfectly drunk; but the well-disposed will of adults is not infinitely more powerful, either essentially or accidentally, than the wills of those aforesaid; therefore it can be overcome by some object. It is also agreed that the will of a sane man 17 and the will of a madman or of another such are essentially and naturally equipotent; and that passion in the body of the madman, together with the external object, is of finite power to move. If, therefore, a temptation or any object so powerful 18 moves the sound will of a sound man, it will necessarily overcome it, because of the equality of proportion on both sides.

Again, beasts are necessitated by objects, and man is not infinitely stronger than a beast; he too, therefore, can similarly be necessitated by some object to will.

Again, final beatitude is some creature, and it necessitates the will of the blessed to its beatific act, and to not sinning. For the very nature of beatitude proves this perfectly, and all the Doctors hold with one accord that one who is blessed, perfectly and finally confirmed, cannot become wretched or sin.

Again, some strong temptation can overcome the tempted, and sometimes does, as many say they have experienced. Hence the Philosopher, Ethics 7, 7: "It is not astonishing," he says, "if someone is overcome by strong B1 and exceeding delights or griefs, but it is pardonable, if he strains against them, like those who, trying to hold in laughter, suddenly burst out." The Apostle seems to have expressed this well, B2 in 1 Corinthians 10, saying: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above ‖B3 what you can, but will make with the temptation also the outcome, that you may be able to bear it." Hence Anselm too, in On Free Choice 6, in the person of the disciple: "I cannot conceal," he says, "that there is a certain impotence in the will, which almost all of us experience when we are overcome by the violence of temptation." And Augustine, in On True and False Penance 14, 19 advises that the penitent consider how great the force was in the assault. There are some who are not only not conquered but offer themselves to sin of their own accord, B4 nor do they seek

temptation but anticipate pleasure. This authority of Augustine's is also cited in On Penance, Dist. 5, "Consideret," and in the Sentences of Peter [Lombard], book 4, Dist. 16. Gregory too, Moralia 2, 8, on that text of Job 1: "Behold, all that he has is in your hand; C1 only upon him do not stretch out your hand." "The dispensation of holy mercy," he says, "is to be considered in the Lord's words: how he permits and holds back our enemy, lets him loose and restrains him; some things he gives him to tempt with, but from others he binds him. All that he has is in your hand; only upon him do not stretch out your hand: he loses his substance, but his body is protected, which indeed will afterward be handed over to the tempter. Yet he does not let the enemy loose on everything at once, lest, striking from every side, he break him. For though many evils befall the elect, by the wondrous grace of the Creator they are dispensed over time, so that what would destroy them if heaped together may be borne when divided." Hence Paul says: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you can, but will make with the temptation also the way out, that you may be able to bear it." Hence David says: "Prove me, Lord, and try me," as if he were to say openly: First inspect my strength, and then, as I am able to bear it, permit me to be tried. The same Gregory, in Moralia 3, 2, on that text of Job 2: "Behold, he is in your hand; but keep his soul," says again: "Behold, the permission of the lash is accompanied by the guard of protection, and the divine dispensation, in guarding, abandons its elect, and in abandoning, guards. Some things it ‖D1 gives up 20, others it protects. For if it abandoned the whole of Job into the hand of so great an adversary, what would man be? In the very justice of permission, therefore, a certain balance of mercy is mingled, so that in one and the same contest the humble servant may profit by being pressed, and the proud enemy may succumb through the permission." The same, in Moralia 34, 16, on that text of Job 41, "There is no power upon earth that can be compared to him," says thus: "His power upon earth is reported to be higher than all, because, although by the merit of his own action he has fallen below men, yet he surpasses the whole race of men by the condition of angelic nature. For though he lost the blessedness of inner felicity, he did not lose the greatness of his nature, by whose powers he still overcomes all human things, although through the casting down of his own merits he lies subject to holy men."

Again, someone out of fear of one great evil, say imminent death (unless perhaps he is lying), may throw treasure or merchandise into the sea, or do something of the kind; he is compelled necessarily to act thus in this case. Hence in Daniel 14 21, after it is related how the Babylonians, gathered against the King, said, "Hand Daniel over to us, or else we will kill you and your house," it is added: "The King therefore saw that they pressed hard upon him, and, compelled by necessity, handed Daniel over to them." Hence both civil and canon law decree in many places that whatever is done through force or through fear should stand with no firmness, but be recalled to nullity. For this reason the Philosopher too says, Ethics 3, 2, E1 that in some forced acts pardon is given, when because of these things someone does what he should not, things that exceed human nature and that no one at all could endure.

In addition, if the will were so free, it would be possible for it knowingly not to will the good, and to will, to choose, and to do evil knowingly. This seems contrary to the Philosopher, Ethics 3, 3, who says: "Every bad man is ignorant of what he must do and of what he must flee, and on account of such a fault men become unjust and universally evil." He also cites in Ethics 7, 2, from Socrates, that no one who supposes a thing best acts contrary to the best, except through ignorance. He also, further on in 3, distinguishing about knowing, namely in use or act, and in habit, and in the universal and in the part or particular, says that one who knows in act, or in use and in the particular, A1 cannot do what he should not. And further on in the same place: "When," he says, "one results from them, the conclusion is necessary; where indeed (that is, in speculative matters) the soul must assert, but in practical matters must act at once; for example, if it is necessary to taste everything sweet, and this is sweet, like wine or some particular thing, then he who is able and not prevented must necessarily do this at the same time." He shows the same at greater length also in the book On the Cause of the Motion of Animals, which is the twelfth of On Animals according to the new translation. A2

Again, the judgments of astrologers, and of physiognomists of the same kind, and of others like them, concerning human characters and acts, are true and certain; therefore human characters and acts necessarily follow the stars and the temperament.

B1 As to the first of these, in resolving it: it is to be known, according to the Natural Philosophers and the Physicians, that the delight of any perceptive power or faculty is caused by the fittingness and a certain proportion, or natural habitude, of the delightful created object to the delighted faculty. Of any created delightful thing, in relation to any faculty born to be delighted in it, there is some greatest fittingness and some most fitting natural proportion or habitude. Say that A is the delightful thing, B a free faculty, and C the most fitting habitude. B can resist A, the delightful thing, at the degree C, and be ‖B2 of greater strength in resisting than that is in moving, as the preceding makes plain. Hence, with A increased however much, B can resist more easily then than before. For although A is more delightful absolutely, and stronger and more motive than before, it is not so with respect to B; rather it then moves it less delightfully, or perhaps undelightfully or distressingly, because of the dissolution of that most fitting proportion which preceded. A fitting example of this is in the visible and in sight. It is certain that sight sees light, and does so best and most delightfully in a certain proportion and fittingness, and if the light is intensified or lessened beyond or short of this, it will not be seen so well, nor will it cause so great a delight, but perhaps distress; and this is likewise clear in the other senses and sensibles. Hence it plainly appears that such arguments are fallacious: "This delightful thing moves this man so much; therefore double moves him twice as much, or more strongly, and quadruple four times as much, and so on," for the aforesaid reason. It is also clear by a similar case that this form of arguing does not hold, as neither does ‖C1 this: "A larger luminous sphere illuminates, by incidence, half of a dark one and some part beyond; therefore a luminous sphere twice as large as the former illuminates the dark one twice as much, or beyond ‖C2 the half of the dark one's …"

…a part double the former, and a quadruple sphere a quadruple part; and so on. For in that way a finite luminous sphere would illuminate another, dark one by incidence over its whole surface. Anyone who has so much as glanced a little into the outer court of optics 23 sees most clearly that this is false and manifestly impossible. The same holds of an eye that sees a sphere larger than itself in respect of some part of it at a given fixed distance. At a greater distance it sees more, that is, a greater part of it, and at a still greater distance always more, though not always more in proportion. For then, at some given fixed distance, it would see the whole of its hemisphere, at a still greater distance something beyond that, and so at some distance the whole surface of such a sphere. Anyone who has looked a little into optics perceives that these are great impossibilities. Indeed it is perfectly clear that such an ingenious argument deceives. "This delightful object attracts and moves this man only to this extent; therefore a more delightful object attracts and moves him more." For if a given delightful object is posited in the most fitting proportion for moving this man, and the proportion is dissolved by intensification of the delightful object, it moves him less delightfully, or perhaps then undelightfully, indeed even in a saddening way.

From this it is likewise clear that in this most fitting proportion there is the greatest difficulty in resisting; and so, if the proportion is dissolved by an increase of the delightful object, the difficulty diminishes. The same is to be thought of the saddening as of the delightful. It is therefore clear that no created delightful or saddening thing can necessitate a man to will or to refuse to will, E1 especially as long as free choice remains sound. Perhaps an objection is raised against what has been said. Let A be the most delightful degree for B, a preceptive power, and let A be in some natural species, which let be C. Then C will be the species most delightful to such a power, so that no species more delightful to such a power could exist, even by the great omnipotence of God. To this, in keeping with ‖E2 what was said earlier, it seems one must reply that, just as among all the degrees

possible of a single species there is some degree most delightful to the assigned power B, because it is most proportioned and fitting in natural relation, so too there is some species among all possible species, for a like reason. Nor is this repugnant to the great omnipotence of God, just as it is not repugnant to it that, when A is posited perfectly equal or similar to B, it cannot fashion anything more equal or more similar to it. Furthermore an objection can be raised, and plausibly, in this way: A wayfarer can advance in merit and in grace, in sin and in malice, beyond any assigned limit. For at what instant of present life, at what age, or at what term will you fix the boundary? This will appear most clearly if the wayfarer's present life is prolonged as long as you like, even beyond the natural term, by the power of him who holds command of life and death, as Enoch and Elijah are believed to have been. A1 Otherwise the heresy of the Beguards would return, condemned in Extra, De haereticis, Ad nostrum 24. It said that a man in the present life can acquire so great and such a degree of perfection that he will be rendered wholly impeccable and

will be unable to advance further in grace; for, as they say, if anyone could always advance, someone more perfect than Christ could be found. And if a man can advance in merit and in sin, in grace and in malice, beyond any assigned limit, he can also, by consequence, advance in reward and in punishment, in delight and in affliction, in joy and in sadness, since God will render to each according to his works. Furthermore every rational creature is of simply infinite capacity, and capable of grace of any size. For since this creature is capable of grace of so great a size, it is capable also of any greater, since whatever is greater is subtler, more perfect and more fitting in nature, and a greater grace does not require a greater place or position. Why, then, could almighty God not have created in some smaller creature, even in an ass or in a log, the greatest grace which he created in some very great rational creature? And if, further, this small soul is not capable of this great grace, almighty God, the Author of all nature, can enlarge it so that it becomes capable of it; for almighty God can increase any finite thing as much as he likes,

and if any soul is capable of grace of any size, it is consequently capable of glory of any size, and therefore of delight of any size in the present. Furthermore every rational soul and every man seems to have in the present life a goodness in a certain way infinite, intensively and also extensively, that is, in number. Intensively, it has innocence, freedom and immunity from sin to any degree; and extensively, it has them with respect to sins as many and as numerous as you like, even infinite ones, of which it has committed none, though it could have committed any one of them, or all of them, or could commit them in the future, especially if the state of present life were prolonged without limit, even to eternity. Therefore any rational soul is capable of simply infinite goodness or innocence, and by a like reasoning of delight and of glory. For the sincere rational soul that passes to heaven by an unspotted path should reasonably delight over this one innocence of its own, this purity and freedom of the kind finally kept inviolate, and more over two, and this twice as much. For why more over this one than over that one,

especially if they are posited as equal? Indeed more than twice as much, if the second is greater than the first; and correspondingly with three and with four, and so on, and so with infinitely many, simply infinitely. Indeed any such innocence, freedom, and immunity from any sin seems to be of simply infinite goodness and choiceworthiness. For it is of greater choiceworthiness than any goods whatever of nature, fortune, grace, or glory, positive or even privative, such as are the privations of evils, even of infinite and infinitely infinite evils, the non-choice, rejection, or contempt of which does not include sin 25, as is clear from the thirtieth part of the first Corollary 26. Hence it is also, correspondingly, of delight, and proportionally of greater delight. For what delights anyone more than what he more desires and longs for? So the Philosopher, Ethics 1, 13 27: "To each man that is delightful in respect of which he is called a lover of such things: a horse, for instance, to one who loves horses, a spectacle to one who loves spectacles; and in the same way just things to one who loves the just, and so things according to virtue to one who loves

virtue." The Delian inscription also bears witness to this, defining as most delightful that which one wishes to enjoy. Hence also the Wise Man: "Desire fulfilled delights the soul," Proverbs 13 [:19]. Furthermore, whatever is of finite capacity can be fully satisfied by some finite good; but the rational soul cannot be. For with whatever good possessed, or however many and however great goods possessed short of the simply infinite God, it is by no means finally at rest. It always longs for a greater and greater good, and for God, the greatest possible good, spurning the others. Indeed even if God were of merely finite goodness, it would not be fully satisfied with him, but would long for a better. Furthermore every blessed one in the homeland will have clear and distinct knowledge of all things; otherwise he could be deceived, which seems repugnant to perfect beatitude, and this can be confirmed by many Catholic testimonies. Every blessed one in the homeland will therefore have infinite knowledge, and therefore now every wayfarer who is to be beatified,

and universally every man, is capable of infinite knowledge and of simply infinite capacity. A1 Moreover, in particular, the soul of Christ is of finite entity, as appears from the fortieth part of the first Corollary and from 39 of the first; yet it is and was of simply infinite capacity, of knowledge, grace, and glory, and so, therefore, is every other soul. For it has, and has always had, clear knowledge of all things. A2 For Luke says that the boy himself was full of wisdom, Luke 2 [:40]; and John 3 [:34] says, "God does not give the Spirit by measure"; and to whom, if not to Christ? The Doctors in their glosses also attest this; and Anselm, Cur Deus homo 2, 13, shows it by reasons, and Peter, Sentences 3, distinctions 13 and 14, by authorities 28. Christ therefore had, and has according to the soul, infinite wisdom and knowledge, and consequently grace and glory. Otherwise it would seem that God could reward him more fully and beatify him more perfectly, and by more than he now is. A3 And Peter says, Sentences 3, distinction 13, that Christ, according to John, received from his conception such a fullness of wisdom and grace that God could not confer more fully on him.

B1 To this, however, under the correction of my betters, one can answer not improbably, after some distinctions have been laid out. Beatitude and glory can be taken for uncreated beatitude and glory, B2 and for created. The first is God, by whom both he himself and the blessed are beatified and glorified, though unequally, as he himself testifies: "I am your protector and your reward exceeding great," B3 Genesis 15 [:1]. Hence the whole Church also prays, "Be our joy, who will be our reward" 29, which the foregoing in the first Corollary of the first also urges. Created beatitude and glory is some created good, simple or compounded of many, derived from the first beatitude and glory, B4 that is, created by God. Grace or charity can likewise be taken in two ways, namely as uncreated and as created, as is more fully explained in 42 of the first. To advance in merit also has a twofold meaning. One concerns the force or power of the merit, in the sense that the one who advances becomes better intensively; the other concerns the number of merits. And this is Peter's distinction, Sentences 3, distinction 18, on the merit of Christ our head. Speaking, then,

of uncreated beatitude, glory, or grace, the rational creature is in a certain way capable of infinite beatitude, glory, and grace, namely of God, who is infinite beatitude, glory and grace, but in a finite manner and unequally in different creatures; and so the objection does not go against what was said. Speaking of created beatitude, glory, or grace, one must say in accord with the foregoing that, given the measure and degree of the entity of any created rational substance, there is some species of glory and grace corresponding to it most naturally, most fittingly, and most proportionately, and some fixed degree of that species, and why, as above. As to what is objected about the wayfarer, that he can advance in merit and in grace beyond any assigned limit, the foregoing answers it as regards advance in grace. Likewise as to capacity for grace, about which the later argument was made. For just as the outer sight is capable of some light, and of some species of light or color, greater and greater to any extent without end, like air and water, though not for seeing better and infinitely better, so for every eye there is some

most fitting and most proportionate degree by which it can best make use of it for the act of seeing, and likewise with taste in respect of flavors and the species of the tasteable. In the same way the inner gaze and the inner affection seem in a way capable of some light of glory and grace, as regards the very essence of the thing, and of greater and greater without limit, as perhaps the ass or the log was argued above to be, but not for greater and better use, nor for infinitely greater and better use beyond that. But for any rational creature there is some degree of light, glory, or grace most fitting, most proportionate and most apt for seeing and tasting God, that is, for loving God freely and enjoying him blessedly. For to these effects the rational soul needs the light of glory D1 and the gift of grace, as Pope Clement testifies, Extra, De haereticis, as before, and 39 of the first. Having a degree of grace of this kind in the present, any wayfarer cannot advance further in grace, in the sense that his grace would be further increased, although it can be preserved as long as you like in the state of present life. And this seems to be the degree of grace which an adult wayfarer

established in grace, exercising himself in the best way for the whole time of his life, that is, through his whole natural period, would have at the end of it, or which his soul would have through the whole time assigned to merit 30. According to Peter, Sentences 2, distinctions 5 and 11, that time in the angels lasts until the day of judgment. Hence it might perhaps also seem that one would have to say the same of human souls, E1 or that there is some degree known to God 31. But an objection is raised against these things: A wayfarer who has a degree of grace of this kind is in the best disposition for meriting, and if his life is preserved further, he can do good and merit in many further ways, and so can acquire a fuller grace. Otherwise, when an opportunity for doing good was given, it would be worth as much to him to rest as to work in the best way. Such a man can also sin, fail, and fall from his great grace, and so can advance in

merit, and consequently in grace. Otherwise, too, the aforementioned heresy of the Beguards would return. A1 To resolve these points it can be said, not unreasonably, that a degree of grace of this kind is not had in the present life according to the common course, but at the end of this life or in future felicity. If you suppose that God miraculously preserves such a man, one can reply further that God, by whose grace it is that we merit anything good from him, sets at that degree the limit of merits. So the works of such a man are from then on not meritorious, but rather rewarding and glorifying to the one who performs them, and fruitful for others, as is the case with the pious works of the perfectly blessed (of whom, as some believe, Christ, Mary, John, and the confirmed angels are examples), which are shown to the wretched. Or it can be said otherwise that such a man can advance in merit as to the number of merits, and perhaps merit many goods for others, but not according to the force or power of merit, nor even for himself, so that his grace or glory be increased 32. For he actually has in the present such a fullness of ‖A2 grace, and there is owed to him even in the present such a fullness of glory for the future, as he is capable of in the manner stated, namely as much as he can use most excellently and most delightfully.

And if perhaps you reply, B1 that if such a man had been sanctified in the womb to the aforesaid degree of grace, he could never in his whole life have merited anything, it must be said that he could and could not, in the ways stated. And let no petty servant think this hard; for so it was with our Lord Christ, as Gregory the First says on Ezekiel, homily 6: B2 "Our Redeemer, who from conception and birth exists as perfect God and man, had, in the virtues of the soul, nothing at all by which he could have advanced; but in his members, which we are, he advances daily." Peter also attests this most plainly, Sentences 3, distinction 18. B3 Nor do the holy confirmed angels now merit anything by the services rendered to us, as it seems to many; and this also appears to some in the case of Enoch and Elijah. And it is most certain that after the day of judgment and the attainment of consummated beatitude, neither angels nor men will merit anything by loving God, by praising God in turn, and by serving him in all things. Otherwise the beatitude of the rational creature would never be perfect, never finally consummated. Furthermore some subtle person perhaps 33

will answer more subtly, though not more truly, that to become better can be understood in two ways: in one way through absolute and really positive goodness, such as is the goodness of grace and virtue, in another way somewhat relatively. For it seems that a man who has grace and the moral virtues, not to the highest degree, would become better by acting well, even if God, as regards what is absolutely possible, did not give him an increase of grace or of virtue. He would be better, I say, relatively, by relation to the good works he has done; and he will perhaps say consequently that a man having the aforesaid degree of grace becomes better by acting well in the second way, not in the first. But how does anyone become better unless he grows in some good, acquires and has a greater good, which by hypothesis he does not do here? And Augustine says, Enchiridion 127: "The greater charity is in anyone, the better is the one in whom it is." According to this opinion too Christ advanced in goodness and became continually better, nor has he yet ceased to become better, in lending aid to the wretched.

Indeed God himself would become continually better, by continually acting well. This response, moreover, does not much touch our difficulty. For although such goodness can be increased in a man to any extent, yet neither grace nor virtue, habit nor act, delight nor glory would be increased beyond a fixed limit. As for what was objected, that if one who has a degree of grace of this kind would by no means merit an increase of grace by acting well, it would be as worthwhile for him to rest as to work in the best way, this nowhere follows, nor does it hold, as the foregoing make clear. Even in the case supposed, unless such a man acted well by helping his neighbor or guarding the law of God, he would justly lose all his grace; so his good action would be worth something to him for preserving the grace he has. Nor does what was argued next carry weight: "Such a man can sin and fall from grace, therefore he can also advance in merit and in grace." That follows only if it is understood of advance in merit as to the number of merits, and in grace as to the doing of works pleasing to God and the preserving of grace 34. Nor does the aforesaid heresy of the Beguards return. For they wished

to assert that a man in the present life, supposing the common age and the common conduct of the religious life, without any other excellent privilege of holiness, could acquire and have such a degree of perfection that he would be rendered altogether impeccable and would be unable to advance further in grace, and that he could go on living so for a long time. Accordingly they said, as the Decretal recites in the place before, that a man need not fast or pray after he has attained a degree of perfection of this kind, because then sensuality is so perfectly subject to spirit and reason that the man can freely grant the body whatever pleases it. They said too that those who are in the aforesaid degree of perfection and of the spirit of freedom are not subject to human obedience, nor bound to any precepts of the Church, because, as they assert, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom [2 Cor 3:17]. They said, furthermore, that a man can in the present life attain final beatitude according to every degree of perfection, just as he will obtain it in the blessed life. But

it is plain that these are empty and false ravings, and they do not follow from what went before. But perhaps someone, muttering, will still think that, even if these things are true of merit, grace and glory, they are not true of sin, malice, and punishment. For in these no limit possible to man can be assigned beyond which, however long he lives, he could not sin further, and further without end, namely by knowingly and freely doing what is evil; and therefore he can always become worse and worse, and more and more deserving of punishment. About this there can be a twofold responsive opinion. A2 One is that there is some greatest degree of sin, malice and punishment possible to any rational creature, and once that is attained he cannot advance further in these intensively. This seems to be the degree which the demons will have after the final judgment, and the reprobate men. Otherwise the city of Babylon and of the devil would not then at all receive its end, but would still be on the way, with the city of God finally consummated; yet it seems fitting, and in accord with the sayings of the Fathers, that God perfects the whole world at once. And Augustine, Enchiridion 121, says 35: after the resurrection

has truly taken place, the universe been made and the judgment completed, the two cities will have their ends, one of Christ, the other of the devil, one of the good, the other of the wicked, each of them both of angels and of men; for the former there will be no will to sin, for the latter no ability. But this opinion does not answer fully enough. For if every rational creature is capable of a fixed degree of sin and malice and no further, and the damned will advance up to that degree inclusive, as it supposes, then some of the damned will sin for a long time after the completed judgment: those, namely, who die with one small mortal sin a short time before the judgment, and will not reach that degree before the judgment. Moreover, let it be posited, through the great omnipotence of God, that some man lives so long in the present life, always sinning, until he reaches and has that degree of sin and malice; and if his life and strength are still further prolonged, he can sin further, [and sin further still]. For he can steal, kill, and commit adultery knowingly, that is, knowing that it is against God and against God's commandment. It will perhaps be said that such a man, having such a degree, can no longer act freely but only necessarily and under compulsion. For then he fully loses the use

of free choice and is necessarily subjected to the servitude of sin, of the devil, and of any temptation, so that he should not properly be reckoned even to sin. But this is not necessary absolutely. For almighty God could keep full freedom of choice in him, or restore it if taken away, without preservation from sin or remission of sin; and if that is done he can sin further, as before. Otherwise it is perhaps said that every rational creature is of finite and fixed capacity, and so, having the greatest degree of sin and malice of which it is capable, it cannot sin further; but this does not seem so, for the reason given above. Malice, too, is not any positive thing, as 26 of the first testifies, like grace and the virtues, but only a privation. And it is the privation not of charity or of grace, speaking immediately, essentially, and properly, but of freedom from sin and from all possible sins not committed, of purity, immunity, and natural innocence; and this seems to be as great naturally in anyone as are the sins he could commit and has not

committed. The second opinion, however, holds that a man can sin infinitely, beyond any possible limit that can be assigned, and that the wicked after the final judgment will so sin, and likewise with regard to being punished, namely with the punishment of sense. But the second part of this opinion D1 is destroyed by the foregoing 36. If, moreover, the wicked will sin further after the final judgment, by what reasoning will the good not likewise merit, contrary to the foregoing? Its third part, too, is refuted by the earlier points. For every created perceptive power, material or immaterial, as it is of determinate, finite, and fixed entity, so seems to be of determinate, finite, and fixed capacity, activity, and perceptivity. A rational creature therefore cannot perceive a perceptible or sensible thing, say fire, well, and another fire twice as well, and another four times as well, and so on further without end. That is, its sensation or perception, the act of sensing or perceiving, cannot become twice as intense, better and more perfect, and four times, and so on; and unless its sensation is multiplied in this way, its punishment, namely the punishment of sense, will not be multiplied in this way. For an animate thing, whatever it suffers, is not punished if it does not feel; even a man, if he were put in fire and did not feel it, would suffer no punishment, as it was with the three boys in the furnace. And if two of unlike complexion were put in equal fire, and all were left to their natures, they would not be punished equally; the more tender and more susceptible would be punished more, not because of a greater extrinsic power, but because of a greater intrinsic penal sensation. If, moreover, someone is tortured by fire at some fixed, finite, and tiny degree, however much the fire is multiplied, if his sensation is in no way increased, he is not punished further. For in sensation or perception itself lies the whole affliction, the whole punishment, namely the punishment of sense. This too is plainly evident from the fact that if, by the great power of God, fire of any size whatever

is applied to anyone, he is not tortured or punished in anything without sensation; but if only the intrinsic penal sensation is kept, with the fire removed, he is punished equally as before. Furthermore, by the like reasoning by which anyone is capable of infinite punishment and sadness, or of infinite punishment, and of sadness, he is also capable of created delight, grace, glory, and infinite beatitude, against the foregoing 37. Therefore, under the correction of my betters, it seems one must say consequently A1 that, as there is for any rational creature some greatest possible created delight, so also some greatest sadness and some greatest punishment of sense, and this seems to consist in the greatest sensation of a thing most contrary and penal. Yet it seems, on account of the foregoing and against the former opinion, that a man can sin infinitely, beyond any possible limit that can be assigned. But perhaps you will object, supposing that someone has sinned A2 until he has merited the greatest degree of punishment of sense possible to him, and that he still sins further. Either he will then be punished with the punishment

of sense, and the response now set out is destroyed; or he will not be so punished further, and some sin will remain unpunished, against the thirty-first part of the first Corollary of the first, and against 39 of the first. Likewise the damned would then sin always, by hating and despising God and doing similar evils, against the earlier points. To this it can be said, not improbably, that every damned person will be punished with that punishment which he will have for all his sins not remitted. In the case mentioned, where two sin unequally, one until he has merited precisely that greatest degree, and the other, of equal capacity, sinning more, the latter would be punished equally with the punishment of sense, because the greater sinner cannot be punished more in this way. Yet they would not be punished simply equally; rather, the one who sins more would also be punished more. On this point it should be known that the punishment of sin is twofold. One is accidental, such as blows, chains, prisons, fires, loss of goods and damages, and other such things that may be present or absent in the sinner. Speaking of such punishment, it often seems to happen that those who sin equally are punished unequally. So it seems with two equally guilty murderers, of whom one, unrepentant, is put to death in the present, and the other, unrepentant, dies a natural death;

and moreover, if the first had great goods of that kind, riches and lands, all are confiscated, and he loses all that forever for himself and for his heirs. The other, though he has as great goods, if he has not been lawfully convicted and condemned, loses nothing; or if he has none, even lawfully condemned he loses none. Likewise it seems of one who has the greatest charity, to whom according to present justice the greatest beatitude in heaven is owed, sinning mortally equally with one who has lesser charity or none 38. The other kind is essential punishment, essentially annexed to sin and inseparably accompanying it: always being evil, the servitude of sin, the loss of former freedom, ‖C1 of purity, of immunity, and of previous innocence, as appears more clearly from the thirty-first part of the first Corollary of the first. And this punishment incomparably exceeds every other punishment of sense or of loss that does not imply sin, as is also clear from the same thirty-first part; and by this punishment he who sins more is necessarily punished more. And if you object that text of Apocalypse 18 [:7], "As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so much give her torment [and mourning]," it must be said that it is true

to the letter, indeed more so: for in return for glorification and temporal abundance of delights she will have eternal torment and mourning. And if by "so much and as much" you understand proportionally in intensity, it is true, other things being equal and if she is capable of it, just as that text of the law of retaliation, "He will render eye for eye," and the like, must be understood and explained. For if a blind man gouges out the eye of a sighted man, how will he render his own eye for that man's eye? Or it can be said that that text of the Apocalypse is true as a matter of fact, like many similar things in Scripture. For as a matter of fact, and according to the common law, as is plausibly believed, no one will merit a punishment of sense greater than he is capable of, indeed not so great. Nor does it follow from what was said earlier about the possible that, as a matter of actual fact, the damned will always sin, speaking properly of sin, which (according to Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 30) is committed by free will and by one who knows. For it seems that the damned after the final judgment will lose freedom of choice as to its free use, since then, as the Truth testifies, they will be sent into the outer darkness. And does not the same Truth teach that the light of the body is the eye ‖D1 39,

the inner, spiritual eye? They will therefore then become, as it seems, insane, blind, out of their minds, and utterly raving. For then, according to the prophetic voice, such an eye will be disturbed by fury 40, ‖459E·1 and this will perhaps happen then either because God, in punishment of the abuse of free choice, or for some other cause perhaps, will take it away from them, or because, through the excessive violence of the torments, they will lose all free exercise of reason. Hence Augustine, expounding Psalm 6: "There are the outer darkness," he says, "which are understood to pertain rather to the day of judgment, so that whoever, while there was time, was unwilling to be corrected will be wholly outside God; and what is it to be wholly outside God, if not to be in the utmost blindness?" As to what was argued above, that God can enlarge the capacity of the rational soul as much as he likes, it seems one must say that if he enlarges the capacity of the rational soul, he proportionally enlarges its power of resisting temptations, lest it succumb. Nevertheless, since the capacity of the soul is not for it ‖460E·1 accidental, but essential, it seems that no soul's capacity 41

…could be increased unless the essence of the soul were essentially increased; and that can never happen while the same soul remains numerically the same. Almighty God, however, can make, for any soul you assign, another soul of any greater capacity whatever, and again another of a still greater. As for what was argued, that every man at present has a goodness infinite without qualification, this is not true: for there is not, nor can there be, any goodness infinite without qualification except God, as the Corollary of the first, first, teaches. And if it were true, it would still be no obstacle: for such a goodness is not active, nor a mover of the will, as a delightful object moves it, and so it is neither coercive nor necessitating of the will. The proof, moreover, does not go any further. For even if a man had an infinite goodness of innocence of this kind, he would not delight in it with a delight simply and properly infinite. Just so, he does not delight in the infinite multitude of his own parts, or of the points or instants of the time in which he has lived, or will live, well, meritoriously and pleasantly; nor in an infinite treasure, held or to be held (intensively, extensively and numerically) either in truth or according to his firm opinion. Nor does he delight at once in each of infinitely many goodnesses of innocence, if they are posited, with a single, proper and distinct delight; but perhaps in some of them successively, or in all of them together with one common delight, as also in the other examples set out above.

But the further argument, that the good of freedom and of innocence from sin is better and more eligible42 than any other goods whatever, even infinite ones, whose non-possession does not entail sin, and that therefore the delight in it is greater and infinite without qualification: this fails, falls short, and does not go through, except perhaps in some extraneous sense. That is, he delights in the aforesaid good more firmly, constantly, lovingly and with greater preference than in any number of the other goods mentioned. And this is in a certain way infinite extensively, or even numerically, by comparison with other innumerable goods; but not infinite intensively without qualification. For then he would rejoice only as much in one smallest such good as in a greater good, and in all other similar and better goods, even in God himself. All the blessed, too, even infants, would then rejoice equally, and wayfarers and comprehensors alike; for each of them would rejoice with a delight infinite intensively without qualification.

C1 But perhaps you will reply, saying: If such a man does not rejoice in such a good of innocence with a joy infinite intensively without qualification, he rejoices under some finite degree; and let some good be taken which he could lack without sin, which may be called an indifferent good, and let him rejoice in having it. Then either he rejoices equally in these goods, or more in one of them. Not equally, because the good of innocence is infinitely more eligible and more lovable than the other, nor does he rejoice less in the good of innocence, for the same reason. He therefore rejoices less in that indifferent good he has received, and this not infinitely but only finitely. Hence that indifferent good can be increased so far that he rejoices equally in it, or even more, than in the other, which is contrary to what was said before. Again, let A be the finite degree of delight with which he rejoices in the aforesaid good of innocence, and B a much more intense degree of beatific delight of which he is capable, but which he can lack without sin. This man, then, desires, chooses and loves that good of his innocence more than that delight B, however much greater. So, according to what was said before, he rejoices more in it, which, as it seems, is contrary to the hypothesis, since one should seem to rejoice more in the greater joy.

To resolve these, one must know that a man's rejoicing more in this good than in that can be understood in two ways, as was touched on above. In the first way, more firmly, lovingly, with greater preference, and more extensively or numerously, that is, by comparison with another good or with other goods. In this way a man delights, in a certain manner more infinitely, in the good of his innocence than in an indifferent good, or in any number of indifferent goods, and yet under a degree of delight that is finite in intrinsic intensity, and perhaps very weak. So parents rejoice more in an only son than in infinitely many asses; so a virtuous man rejoices more in the good of virtue than in goods of fortune however much heaped up; and so, universally, other things being equal, one should rejoice more in a greater good than in any other. In the second way, more freshly, more fervently and more intensely. In this way someone often rejoices more in a lesser good than in a greater: for instance, in one little bird, one small plaything, the vigour of a single greyhound or falcon, than in something greater, such as an estate, a county or a kingdom. So a man rejoices more over one thing lost and found than over many better things preserved; so the general of an army rejoices more over one brave soldier coming back safe from danger than over a thousand others, or over the whole remaining army safely quartered inside the camp.

By this, I think, a certain answer to the objections is clear. ‖E2 But to what was objected above, that whatever is of finite capacity can be fully satisfied by some finite good, it seems we must say that this is true of the rational soul and of a created finite good, though not insofar as it is merely a created finite good, stopping there as its end. It is true insofar as that good joins the soul and unites it finally with the uncreated, eternal good, infinite without qualification, which fully satisfies it. And such a created finite good appears to be some God-formed disposition, some pure light purging and raising the soul to contemplate clearly a light so distant and inaccessible, and linking and joining the soul with this light, so that it may enjoy it beatifically. This disposition or light is called the light of glory by certain Doctors and by Pope Clement in the decree On Heretics, cited earlier,43 as appears from 39 of the first.

It could be put another way: although the soul is of finite capacity, it cannot be fully satisfied except by an infinite good. Yet it does not grasp that good infinitely without qualification, nor altogether as fully as that good grasps itself, but in a certain finite manner according to the measure of its capacity; and a soul more excellent in degree of essence, or nature, grasps it more excellently and more fully. No creature, however, can grasp it infinitely without qualification in every respect, as it grasps itself, as the divine persons grasp and enjoy one another. Nor is this peculiarly astonishing in the soul or rational creature. For not even the least irrational creature is fully satisfied except by God, infinite without qualification. For he is the ultimate final cause of all things, as appears from the Corollary of the first, first, which Philosophy too often attests. All things, then, desire him naturally.

Therefore they are not finally at rest without him, except by participating in him in their own ways, according to the measure and variety of their capacities naturally implanted in them. B1 Hence the Philosopher too, in On the Soul 2, 34,44 says: "It is most natural for all living things, whichever are perfect and not deficient, or have spontaneous generation, to make another like themselves, an animal an animal, a plant a plant, so that they may participate, as far as they can, in the ever-existing, divine and immortal. For all things desire that, and for its sake do everything they do according to nature." The same Philosopher, in Physics 3, 30, reciting and approving the opinions of all the ancient natural philosophers about the infinite (namely that it is a principle, B2 not from a principle; that it is ungenerated and incorruptible, containing and governing all things; and that this infinite is divine, or God), speaks thus: "And reasonably all posit it as a ‖B3 principle: for it is not possible that it exist in vain, nor that it have any other power than that of a principle. For all things are a principle, or from a principle; but of the infinite there is no principle: for then there would be a limit of it. Further, it is both ungenerated and incorruptible, ‖C1 if it is a principle; for whatever comes to be must receive an end, and finally everything is subject to corruption. Hence, as we say, there is no principle of it; but it seems to be the principle of other things, and to contain all things and govern all things, as they affirm who posit no cause outside the infinite, such as intellect or concord; and that this is the divine. For it is immortal and incorruptible, as Anaximander affirms, and most of the philosophers." And where this new translation and the old likewise say thus ("and that this is divine; for it is immortal and incorruptible"), the translation that Averroes has says: "And that this is God; for it is immortal and incorruptible." And note what he says, "as they affirm who posit no cause outside the infinite": supply, "an agent cause". These, as Averroes says, are all the Ancients except Anaxagoras, who posited an intelligence as agent cause, and Empedocles, who posited strife and friendship,

and Democritus. Nor should it move us that Averroes says there: "But, as it seems to me, he does not posit the infinite." For it is true that Aristotle does not posit the infinite quantitatively, but God infinite qualitatively and virtually, as the sequence of the text shows and the argument of the Ancients proves. For this seems to be the Ancients' argument: no generated or corruptible thing is the first principle; everything finite is corruptible, because all finality belongs to corruption. The reason for this can be traced further: nothing of finite entity, power and virtue is of itself necessary to be, but is possible to be according to contradiction, for its not being would not be repugnant, as the seventeenth part of the first Corollary and the second of the first also show. Hence it always needs something necessary to be through itself to sustain it continuously in being, as the same second showed. For this reason they wished to say, consequently, that the first principle of things is infinite, that is, of infinite entity, power and virtue, and therefore necessary to be purely through itself; and moreover that this principle contains and governs all other things possible according to contradiction: it contains all in being and governs all in acting, as the second, third and fourth of the first taught. Wherefore they also said well, going further, that this principle is divine, or God. For among the Greeks it is a very frequent way of speaking to use this concrete or denominative term "Divine" for this abstract or principal term "God". Hence one translation says "Divine," and the other says "God." And behold the Ancients' reason why they said that this principle is divine: "For it is immortal and incorruptible," that is, Divine. Hence the other translation too has it thus, "and that this is God: for it is immortal and incorruptible." This must be understood exclusively in this way: only God is of himself and through himself immortal and incorruptible, and necessary to be without qualification, as the seventeenth part of Corollary 1 of the first teaches; and the first principle of things is likewise such, as was said above: the first principle of things is God. And this, I think, is the true exposition of this passage, which Averroes, neglecting it, and (I fear) neglected by God, comments thus: "His discourse in this is manifest of itself."

A1 And if his discourse in this is manifest of itself, why do you say, without qualification, without any distinction or determination, "but, as it seems to me, he does not posit the infinite", when Aristotle himself approves the aforesaid opinion of the Ancients? For he says, "And reasonably all posit it as a principle"; and further on, in the new translation as in the old, he says: "Hence, as we say, there is no principle of it, but it seems to be the principle of other things; we say, he says, not 'they say'." He seems also to approve their arguments, as indeed he must necessarily approve them, as the preceding passages proved. And even if he had in no way approved their conclusion and arguments, then, since he recites them so exactly, it seems that according to his common custom he would have rejected them in some respect, as he often does in the same book and chapter, and elsewhere, with other opinions and arguments of the Ancients about the same matter. And if you do not believe me, believe Aristotle himself, your god. For he himself, in On the Heaven and the World 1, 100, says: "This name 'divine' was divinely uttered by the ancients. For the end containing the time of each one's life, outside which there is nothing according to nature, is called the eternal of each; and by the same reasoning the end of the whole heaven, and all time, and the perfection containing infinity, is eternal, taking its denomination from 'always to be', immortal and divine; whence it has been communicated also to others, to some more clearly, to others more obscurely, to be and to live. For just as it has been declared many times by arguments in our popular philosophical discourses on divine things that the divine is unchangeable, necessarily first and highest, the facts, being so, bear witness by the sayings;45 for there is no other better that will move it. For that would be more divine, and has nothing base, nor is it in need of any of the goods that are its own." B1 The same author also teaches expressly, in Physics 8, 78, and in what follows, that all power in a body is finite, and that what moves the heaven through infinite time is a power infinite, which you nevertheless understand and expound very badly, contradicting most plainly your Author Aristotle, Alexander, Plato, John the Grammarian, Avicenna, and even yourself, as comment 79 shows.

C1 For you ask whether this proposition, "The power of every body is finite," includes the celestial body. You say that this question is very difficult and very scrupulous, and stronger than all the doubts that can arise here; and in answering you say that from the force of Aristotle's words it appears that its passive power, that is, its power to receive motion, is finite. But here, without doubt, you grasp neither the force nor the strength of Aristotle's words. For it is perfectly clear that Aristotle is speaking there of active and motive power, which moves the celestial body through infinite time, as he says, and of the first and highest power of that kind; and that he proves that it has no bodily magnitude and is not in a bodily magnitude, since it is infinite and every power in a magnitude is finite: otherwise it would move and act in no time, in an instant. And because every power in a finite magnitude is likewise finite, and an infinite magnitude is not to be posited, this is most certainly the abbreviated sense of this passage. And who can doubt that there he is speaking of a corporeal, celestial46 magnitude? For who would even lightly dream that the power moving the heaven is in some element, or in something composed of elements, and not rather in the heaven itself, in the celestial body itself? For some, namely the Sabians, thought this, on your own testimony on Metaphysics 12, 41, but no one else. It seems, then, that Aristotle here relies virtually on that common conception and concordant opinion of the Ancients, already set out from Physics 3, 30: namely that all finality belongs to corruption. And he wishes to say that the celestial body, since it is of finite quantity and entity, is likewise of finite power and virtue; hence it is not of itself and through itself necessary to be, but possible to be according to contradiction; hence it needs something necessary to be through itself and of itself, and therefore of infinite power, continuously sustaining it in being and moving it, as the second and fourth of the first taught more fully. Hence the Ancients also said well, in Physics 3, 30, that the infinite, which is the principle of things, contains and governs all things. This, then, seems to be Aristotle's opinion in these passages and in several others, as the second of the first shows more fully. This is the opinion of Alexander, Plato,

John the Grammarian and Avicenna, on your own testimony, in that comment 79 mentioned above; indeed it is also your own opinion in On the Substance of the Orb and elsewhere, as the second of the first disclosed more diffusely. You raise there another question too: how it follows, if an infinite power were in a body, that it would move in an instant, E1 and does not follow if it were outside the body; and in answering you answer nothing. You say, however, that if you posit an infinite power in a body, it follows that its motion is not in time; but if you posit it not in a body, then it will be called neither finite nor infinite, because it is not in a body. It will not therefore follow that it moves in no time, since in these things one power cannot be understood to be greater than another: for greater and less belong only to quantity. But who is so dull as not to see palpably how contradictories are entangled here, and how vain, feigned, frivolous and empty is all this that is said? Not so, not so should that question be solved. Rather thus: if an infinite power were in some body, as a corporeal and extended form, it would not be a rational power but an irrational one, as the book On the Soul shows; hence it would not act from choice but from the necessity of nature, and always to the uttermost of its power, as is declared in Metaphysics 9, 10, and elsewhere. But if it is posited as separate from body, it is a rational power, acting and moving from freedom of choice, as the ninth of the first persuaded. Moreover Aristotle too, in Metaphysics 12, 41, proves in a similar way that the first and everlasting substance is separate from magnitude, since it has infinite power and no power in a magnitude has infinite power. Hence you yourself raise the same question there as before, but answer it in a different manner, and contrary to your former answer, saying that the celestial motion is composed of two movers, one of which is of finite motion, and is the soul existing in it, and the other of infinite motion, and is a power not in matter. Here, though you rave in many things, you seem nevertheless to concede

that the celestial mover, separate from matter, is of infinite power, not only in duration (since by your account that soul of the heaven which you fabricate is so) but also in strength and virtue. This I have said for the safety of the truth, against an exposition47 that drives out the truth and perverts the words of such great Doctors, such solemn witnesses to the truth. Perhaps it would have been more fittingly treated in the seventeenth part of the first Corollary, or in the second of the first; but what was passed over there through carelessness must be supplied here, more carefully.

As to what was objected above about the infinite knowledge of the blessed in the homeland, it seems we must reply that the knowledge of the Blessed is twofold: in their own genus, and in the Word; the one created, the other uncreated. The first does not seem to be posited as infinite without qualification, because of what was said in showing the last part of the Corollary of the first, first. And although the second is posited as infinite in them, this is no obstacle to what was said, nor does it seem in any way to follow that, if a Blessed one does not know all things in their own genus, or through created knowledge, he can therefore be deceived, because of the certain clarity of the knowledge that he enjoys uncreatedly. As for the knowledge of the soul of Christ, with the highest reverence for Christ, one can answer likewise; and as for his grace and glory, as above, since, as was touched on earlier, the soul of Christ seems a creature of finite entity, hence also of finite capacity, intellectivity, lovingness and every virtue, in respect of any habit and act, created or creatable, in the manner stated above. Nor does the absurdity of the Beghards follow from this, that someone more perfect than Christ could be found. For there is not, nor would it be fitting that there be, any member of Christ of such great capacity for spiritual gifts as the head. Yet here one must know that the grace of Christ is twofold, one of love, the other of union. The grace of love is a created habit infused in his soul, by which he loves God and neighbour, and this seems finite, as do his other habits and acts. The grace of union can be called that grace by which the divinity of the Word is so united to the humanity of Christ that God and man are one Christ in the unity of the same supposit, and this is in a certain way infinite. For the infinite gift of divine grace was freely bestowed on that man, that he might be, really and truly, God himself, infinite without qualification; and this grace was never granted to anyone else,

nor is it, nor will it be; and however much the grace of love were increased in others, they would never reach that grace of union. And so it can be understood that God gave him the Spirit not by measure. For he was so conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin, that he might be, truly, essentially and substantially, the same one, Son of God and of the virgin, God and man. Or else, understanding by "spirit" the gifts of the Holy Spirit: God gave him the Spirit to the full satiety of his capacity in every way, extensively, numerically and also intensively, not to some lesser measure, as he gave to the other members of Christ. Hence the Prophet seems to have said of him, by antonomasia and distinctively: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him" (Isaiah 11:2). Hence also Augustine,48 in the first part on John, sermon 14, writes thus: "What is this: 'For God does not give the Spirit by measure'? We find that God does give the Spirit by measure. Hear the Apostle saying, 'according to the measure of the gift of Christ'; to men he gives by measure, to the only Son he does not give by measure. How to men by measure? To one indeed through the Spirit is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits; to another kinds of tongues, to another the gift of healings. This one has one thing, and that one has another; and what this one has, that one does not have. Measure is a certain division of goods; therefore it is given to men by measure, and concord there makes one body. As the hand receives one thing in order to work, the eye another in order to see, the ear another in order to hear, the foot another in order to walk, so also there are diverse gifts of the faithful, distributed to the members, as it were, by the measure proper to each; but Christ, who gives, does not receive by measure." Moreover, understanding otherwise by "spirit" the works of the Spirit, it can be said that God gave him the Spirit not by measure. For Christ could, and can, exercise all the operations of the Holy Spirit in every way; and this, as it seems, the following text suggests: "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand";

for by "hand" operative power and works are commonly signified, whence Chrysostom too (and the Gloss recites it there) says: "Here he says 'Spirit' for the action of the Spirit: for he wishes to show that we all receive the actions of the Spirit in measure, but Christ receives every action of the Spirit." According to this too the saying of Peter Lombard cited above can be understood and expounded. From all this, then, it seems clear that no created delightful or distressing thing can necessitate a created rational will to its rational act of willing or not willing, especially so long as the judgment of reason and free choice remain sound; although it can necessitate it to a concupiscible act, that is, to sensual or carnal concupiscence, which is not subject to the law of the mind but rebels against the spirit.

Yet for these and the other objections that follow, one must know that, as experience teaches us only too surely, a delightful object actually moving a man and tickling him somewhat diminishes and obscures the judgment of reason, weakens it and swallows it up. Who would deny, having so often experienced this in himself? Who, to pass over other temptations, burning with fevers, with spring water offered, or some other drink most delightful to him, judges as equably that he should abstain as he would if free of fever, even if he is a wise and experienced physician? For the state of free choice in a man sound in health, it seems to have been otherwise: for it seems that before sin no enticement diminished the judgment of reason in any way; but this happens to man as a penalty of the prior sin. Hence for the state of free choice weakened and so wounded, it seems that although the judgment of reason would not be depressed by the delightful or useful object moving it, a man could choose that object even with reason actually forbidding. Nevertheless in fact it always happens, or, as I think, for the most part, in the manner stated, for the state of weakness of free choice, as we all commonly experience. In accordance with this, I think, is to be understood that saying of the Philosopher already cited, with its like, B1 "Every wicked man is ignorant of what he ought to do and of what he ought to flee, and through such sin men become unjust and, universally, wicked," in Ethics 3, 3; hence also in 6, 10: "Wickedness," he says, "perverts, and causes falsity about the practical principles";

and in 7, 3 and 10, he says that the incontinent man, existing in passion, has knowledge not in use, that is, not in perfect act, but in habit, like one asleep or drunk.49 And in the sixth he says that concupiscence lies in ambush, as they say of Venus: "For of the guileful Cyprus-born, and of the embroidered girdle, and Homer: 'deceit too stole the mind of one thickly wise.'" And further on, in the eleventh: "An impediment," he says, "to being prudent are pleasures, and the more so the more one rejoices, as in that50 which belongs to sexual pleasures: for no one at all can understand anything in it." C1 In agreement with this Daniel 1351 says: "Beauty has deceived you, and concupiscence has subverted your heart." Hence also Ecclesiasticus 9: "Turn away your face from a woman adorned, and do not look about at her beauty; many have perished because of a woman's beauty, and from it concupiscence burns like fire." And the Prophet says: "Fire fell upon them, and they did not see the Sun," C2 Psalm 57 [58]. "Fell upon them," I say, the fire of concupiscence, "and they did not see" clearly the Sun of understanding, of which Wisdom 5 says: "The Sun of understanding has not risen for us";

which Augustine's exposition also clearly attests. Hence the Philosopher too, in Ethics 2, last chapter, says that in everything one must guard most against the delightful, and against pleasure, 1.52 "What the elders of the people suffered towards Helen, the most beautiful, that is, the harlot, this we must suffer towards pleasure, and in all things say their word," namely "Flee, flee." Hence Job too says in agreement: "I made a covenant with my eyes that I would not so much as think upon a virgin" (Job 31), which Gregory, Moralia 21, expounds at length in the sense just touched. From all this, then, it appears evidently that delight and concupiscence can greatly cloud, infect and bind free choice and the judgment of reason; indeed it can be so vehement that it will swallow up all rational use of free choice, and make a man insane, like drunkards, children, fools and beasts of burden. For we experience this most certainly in the drunk and the sick, in children, fools and the insane, and in their opposites. D2 The Philosopher also proves, in On Philosophy,53 that souls follow bodies, namely bodily disposition.

I myself saw and knew a man, as it were stupid and demented, who was said to have fallen into such a state from the concupiscence of a certain woman. For who does not know the wondrous powers of the passion of the heart? Hence the Philosopher too says, in the seventh of the Ethics, third: "Anger and the concupiscence of sexual pleasures, and some such things, manifestly change the body, and in some even produce madness"; and in Posterior Analytics 2, 4,54 he says that Achilles was magnanimous, and would not tolerate injury, and so went mad. Accordingly it may perhaps be conceded that some delightful or sad object can necessitate a man to do something, though not to his rational and free act. For it can take away from a man the use of reason and of free choice, and make him demented, and then, like a ship deprived of its helmsman's guidance, he will be tossed about by the driving winds; like an untamed horse with broken reins he will be drawn along by pleasures; and, like a child, a fool or a madman, he will pursue concupiscence in everything. It can, however, be said, according to what has been laid down, that beasts, children, fools and the like are not altogether necessitated by their objects, but that they themselves, of themselves, by a certain natural necessity, necessarily pursue or flee their objects when known, as a stone falls and as a plant grows. Moreover, someone might perhaps answer otherwise, saying that children, fools, drunkards and madmen have a free will and a free use of it, although they lack the use and choice of reason; as if almighty God were to make a creature lacking intellect, but having another cognitive power along with free will. For this seems possible to the omnipotence of God, especially since intellect and will are different powers, at least in operation. Nor can it therefore be inferred that they can merit: for freedom alone does not suffice for meriting, but there is required rational cognition of the object, and a preceding end, and a fitting judgment of reason.

Nor can it be inferred that they have free choice, for the reason stated. For free choice, or rather choice that is free, according to what was shown in the first [chapter] of this book, involves two things: rational choice of judging, and free power of carrying out. It is no obstacle that the Philosopher says in Ethics 3, 5 that children do not share in choice 55. For choice, as is plain from the same author further on in the same book, 6, is with reason and intellect, and in 9 he defined it thus: "Choice is a deliberable desire of the things that are in our power." But deliberation, as no one is unaware, and as the Philosopher testifies there, exists only with reason and judgment of the intellect. Nor is it an obstacle that he says in Physics 2, 59 that an infant has no purpose. For purpose implies intellect and reason; B1 so the text which Averroes has says there too that an infant has no choice. Nor is it an obstacle that the Theologians say that little children do not have free choice, or the use of it, for the reason stated. It seems to me, however, rather that just as the reason and the rational use of the intellect are impeded and altogether suspended in a man's body through ‖B2 bad dispositions of the kind mentioned, so too the rational and free use of the affection [is impeded and suspended] 56. And just as at that time the intellective power is bound, so too is the volitional power, and the sensitive appetite and concupiscence wholly dominate, as was said above.

C1 Now as for what is argued next, it must be known, in line with what has been set down, that children, fools, beasts and the like have no power of resisting the motions of objects, but pursue them necessarily when they can, that is, if they have not been impeded. A man, however, in the same disposition, is not so, but has the power of contradiction, of freely resisting and freely pursuing, as the first and second [chapters] of this book show. Hence it is also evident that man does not have an infinitely greater power, indeed not even a greater power in the least degree, of resisting in this way, than they have. For they have no power of resisting in this way, unless perhaps someone is pleased to say, very improperly, that any quantum whatever is infinitely greater than a non-quantum, that everything powerful is infinitely more powerful than what is not powerful, and that every free creature is infinitely freer than a creature that is not free.

C2 As for the argument that final created beatitude necessitates the will of the blessed to the beatific act, and to not sinning, because such a blessed one cannot become wretched or sin: it concludes nothing. For it can likewise be argued that time and place, immortality, the beatific act, and whatever the condition of the blessed one may be, necessitates him in the same way. For although no blessed person can finally cease from the beatific act, or sin, it does not follow of necessity that this is because of ‖D1 the necessitation of created beatitude. Rather, as seems more likely, it holds that it comes from the necessity of the beatific object, of the end, and of the agent, namely God, who makes the blessed and confirms them. As for the objection that a strong temptation can overcome the one tempted, it is answered by what has been set down. For it can perhaps alienate the tempted person from the use of free choice, and so throw him down; but no temptation properly overcomes one who has not been alienated. It can, however, be said to overcome improperly, namely because it brings such great difficulty of resisting upon the tempted that he prefers to yield rather than endure it longer. So great, too, is the difficulty at times that it is called impossibility of resisting, just as "difficult" is sometimes called "impossible."

For so the Philosopher speaks in Topics 3, where he says that the possible is rather to be chosen than the impossible, E1 that is, the easy than the difficult, since the impossible, properly speaking, is not to be chosen, as he himself testifies in Ethics 3, 5. Hence Anselm too, On Free Choice 5: "There is," he says, "a reason, which common usage often shows, E2 why someone is said to do against his will, unwilling, and of necessity what he nevertheless does willingly. For what we can do only with difficulty, and therefore do not do, we say we cannot do, and that of necessity we forsake it, or forsake it against our will; and what we cannot give up without difficulty, and therefore do, this we assert we do against our will, unwilling, and of necessity. In this way, therefore, he who lies in order not to die is said to lie against his will, and unwilling, and of necessity, because he cannot avoid the lie without the difficulty of death. Just as, then, he who lies for the sake of life is said improperly to lie against his will, since he lies willingly, so it is not properly said that he is against his will in willing to lie, since he wills this only willingly." And further on, ch. 6: "You must not doubt," he says, "that this incapacity

to preserve rectitude, which you say is in our will when we consent to temptations, arises not from impossibility but from difficulty. For by frequent usage we say that we cannot do something, not because it is impossible for us, but because we cannot do it without difficulty; and this difficulty does not destroy the freedom of the will." By these considerations the objected Authorities are answered. If someone relies on the Authority of Job, who says that there is no power upon earth that can be compared to the devil, and on the Authority of Gregory expounding it, saying that in all movers and movables we experience that the stronger moves the weaker, even against its will, that is, against its natural appetite and inclination, it must be said that this is not true if it is understood universally of every mover and movable and of every kind of motion. For it is not because the earth is great, and of greater power in moving than the small air in resisting, that it therefore has greater power to raise or warm the air than the air has to resist. Its power is rather to press the air down and chill it; for these are the proper actions of earth upon air. In the same way, even if the devil is stronger than man for moving him locally, and for altering him in many ways, than man is for resisting these motions, he is not so for making a man will, that is, by the rational act of willing, just as a stronger cannot necessitate a weaker to will thus, as the foregoing also make plain. Nevertheless, in line with what has been set down, the devil can perhaps alienate a man from the use of free choice, and then lead him like a beast of burden.

Nor is anyone, through fear of an impending horrible evil, properly necessitated to *B1 will, or to do anything, as was shown above, but only improperly, in the manner stated, on account of the great difficulty inflicted. For such an action is voluntary in some way, but not simply: from the will proceed the motion and the operation of the limbs. Hence the Philosopher too, in Ethics 3, 1, speaking of such operations as in some way compelled, B2 says thus: "Such actions, then, are mixed, but are more like voluntary ones; for they are voluntary at the time when they are performed. But the end of the action is in accordance with the time, and the voluntary and the involuntary must be spoken of at the moment one acts; and one acts willingly. For the principle of moving the organic parts in such actions is in the agent himself; and where the principle is in him, in him also lies the acting. Such actions are therefore voluntary, but simply perhaps involuntary: for no one would choose any such thing in itself." With this Anselm agrees, in On Free Choice 5, cited above. As for what is alleged from the Philosopher, Ethics 3, 2, that in those compelled acts there is pardon, which exceed human nature and which no one would endure, it can be explained by the magnitude of the difficulty which man shrinks from enduring, as was touched on above; so that there is no necessity there, properly speaking, as the foregoing also taught. Hence the Philosopher immediately adds: "Some things perhaps one cannot be compelled to do, but rather must die after suffering the harshest things; for the things that compel Euripides' Alcmaeon to kill his mother seem ridiculous." C1 How every wicked person is ignorant was set out above; from which it is likewise plain how he acts, knowing or not knowing, in act and in the particular, what he ought not.

That saying of Socrates which was alleged was refuted above, and the Philosopher condemns it, unless perhaps that ancient Socratic saying, "This only I know, that I know nothing," can excuse it; yet that saying accuses it indefensibly and binds it inextricably. As for the practical syllogism, the answer is that he who has a syllogism of this kind, "Everything sweet is to be tasted; this is sweet; therefore this is to be tasted," if he has a conforming will and is not prevented, necessarily acts accordingly. Otherwise it is not true, for otherwise the Philosopher falls into that senseless proposition condemned at Paris, that man necessarily obeys reason in all things, as Socrates also seems to have fallen, to his damnation. As for the judgments of Astrologers, Physiognomists and other such, it must be noted that the stars and heavenly powers dispose much, and strongly incline the human body to pursue some suitable things and flee contrary ones; and this disposition is a natural virtue or vice, of which many natural philosophers, moral philosophers and astrologers often treat. It was also briefly touched on in the 34th of the first. This natural virtue or vice inclines to its own delights and operations as vehemently as moral virtue does to its own; indeed sometimes much more vehemently. For we plainly see some who from boyhood are so affected toward pursuing certain things that they are scarcely, and with the greatest difficulty, restrained, as the thirty-ninth of the first showed in some measure.

Hence the Philosopher too, in Politics 5, ‖E1 9, recounts Socrates as affirming that Nature sometimes produces depraved men, and *E2 better ones than education 57 58; depraved ones, namely those whose epitrite base, joined with five, exhibits two harmonies, when the number of this figure shall be solid. There too, according to his own view, he adds: "For it happens that there are some whom it is impossible to train and make

virtuous men." Hence the astrologers also say that if someone has a nativity strong toward some vice, however much he may be exercised in the opposite virtue, he will never be perfectly established in it, but will very easily relapse into a vice of that kind. This proneness, then, disposition, or natural concupiscence, so firmly clinging, so strongly driving, and so delightfully drawing, is not torn away, not conquered, not subdued, except with a stiff fight, a sad struggle, much toil and pain. But most men flee sadness and toil; they embrace delights and softness; hence they also pursue their natural concupiscences for the most part. And hence it is that Astrologers, Physiognomists and the like very often tell the truth; for concerning natural habits, dispositions and aptitudes they have sure judgments, but concerning human acts they do not have judgments so sure, because these are fixed by no necessity, as the foregoing taught. Anyone who wishes can also experience this often in the nativities of very many people, and in other customary judgments.

For let such a Judge say to me: "You will then take a wife, then beget a son, then receive riches and honors; tomorrow you will go to such a place and do this or that"; and for that time, and perhaps for always, I shall abstain from such things. Let him also say to me of my newborn little son: "This one will be so dishonorable, so wicked, given to so many and so great vices"; and I shall see to it that everything that can lead to vice is removed from him to that extent, that he is artificially altered to the contrary, so zealously educated in all the virtues, and guarded with such diligence, that I myself shall so ‖B1 fortify him in advance and bring him on that he will not be so wicked, indeed not wicked at all, but good, though perhaps not so good morally as if he had been born better disposed to the virtues. For as, according to Ptolemy in the Centiloquium, saying 8, "The wise soul helps the work of the stars, as the sower helps the natural strengths [of the soil]," so, according to the same, above in the same work, saying 5, "The best astrologer will be able to prevent much of the evil that is to come according to the stars, when he has foreknown its nature." For thus he will fortify in advance the one for whom evil is to come, so that he can endure something, as the experiments recited above also testify.

COROLLARY.

Corollary: that the will of a rational creature is not merely passive but active; and that the will, though most sufficiently disposed by secondary causes to act, can on one occasion not act, and on another freely perform its act. Hence also that, when unequal goods are set before the will, it will not necessarily will the greater; indeed, when an honorable good is set before it, and a dishonorable evil that is nevertheless very delightful or useful, it can knowingly neglect that good and choose that evil. Hence also that, with right reason in the intellect, error is possible in the affection. That irrational appetite does not necessitate a man to act; that the heavenly bodies do not necessitate the will; that the Devil does not necessitate the will; and that no temptation necessitates the will. That only pure evil shown to the will necessitates it to not willing, and pure good to not positively nilling, that is, to not hating; and the will itself, by natural necessity, necessarily cannot [do] these things 59. Here it is also shown, as a consequence, that it would perhaps be very fitting and most expedient for Theologians and perfect Catholics not to be ignorant of Astrology and other such sciences.

From these things, however, I judge it to shine forth that the will of a rational creature is not merely passive but active; and that the will, though most sufficiently disposed by secondary causes to act, can on one occasion not act, and on another freely perform its act. Hence also that, when unequal goods are set before the will, it will not necessarily will the greater; indeed, when an honorable good and a dishonorable evil, yet very delightful or useful, are set before it, it can knowingly neglect that good and choose that evil. Hence also that, with right reason in the intellect, error is possible in the affection; that irrational appetite also does not necessitate a man to act; that the heavenly bodies do not necessitate the will; that the devil does not necessitate the will; and that no temptation necessitates the will; and how the will is also of finite capacity, and how of infinite. That, however, pure evil shown to the will necessitates it to not willing, and pure good to not positively nilling, that is, to not hating, and the will itself by natural necessity necessarily cannot [do] these things; and that, moreover, it would perhaps be very fitting and most expedient for Theologians and perfect Catholics not to be ignorant of Astrology and other such sciences. These things follow so lucidly from what has been set down here and in the immediately preceding [chapter] that they need no other declaration. Through them many errors condemned by Stephen, Bishop of Paris 60, are also refuted: namely, that the will of itself is indeterminate to opposites, like matter; that it is determined

by the appetible, as matter by the agent; that the intellective appetite, when impediments cease, is necessarily moved by the appetible; that when the will is in the disposition in which it is by nature apt to be moved, and the mover is so disposed as to be by nature apt to move thus, it is impossible for the will not to will; that even after a conclusion has been reached about something to be done, the will does not remain free; that a man's will is necessitated by his cognition, like the appetite of a brute; that the will necessarily pursues what is principally believed by reason, and cannot abstain from what reason dictates; and that if reason is right, the will is right; that while passion and knowledge in the particular and in act persist, the will cannot act against it; that a man acting from passion acts under compulsion; and that a man in all his actions follows appetite, and always the greater. Together with these, certain other similar ones are recited above. There are also very many like them which it was needful to recite neither here nor there.

Now, when the foregoing has been carefully considered and duly weighed, and other similar matters passed over, would it not seem very fitting and most expedient for the Christian Commonwealth that Theologians and perfect Catholics not be ignorant of Astrology and the other doctrinal or Mathematical sciences? They would use them, should need arise, for their splendid benefits, or at least would refute more effectively those who abuse them, and who boast falsely in the name of the wise. For how will a non-logician refute a logician, or a non-Mathematician a Mathematician, an unskilled man a craftsman in his own craft, in a craftsmanlike way, B1 and convict him, without rather stirring up the laughter of the bystanders against himself?

The great Ptolemy also says thus in Almagest 1, Prologue 2: "O how good it was that Aristotle divided theoretical science, when he distributed it into three first kinds, the Natural, the Doctrinal, and the Theological." And having spoken of the Natural and the Theological, he adds of the Doctrinal, that is, the Mathematical, thus: "This too is of no small value for the comprehension of the other two modes of science, and especially of the science of God on high. For it is a science for knowing God the Most High, through reason with scrutiny and intellect, which, and its like, truly and manifestly signify God, who is not altered, and is not moved, and is not an accident, nor was made; since it, *C1 our knowledge which we have of the Most High himself, stands near 61, and because it is the path leading to *C2 him. Moreover, in the actions too and honorable qualities of praiseworthy morals its necessity is not small; indeed nothing helps more to sharpen the eyes of our mind, and of the intellect, to consider those things which are likened to divine works, on account of the goodness of [its] regulation and the smallness of arrogance. For it makes him who perseveringly inquires into it love this heavenly [science] most beautifully, leads him to perseverance in divine study, and joins him to it, which is like the soul on account of the goodness of form, C3 and makes him like his Creator."

Hence Avicenna too, Metaphysics 1, 3, writes thus: "The order of this science, namely the divine, is that it be learned after the natural and the disciplinal sciences 62: after the natural because many things that are granted here are proved there; after the disciplinal because the ultimate aim in this science is the knowledge of the governance of God the Most High, and knowledge of the several spiritual beings, and of the orders of his Angels, and knowledge of the ordering in the composition of the circles, to which science it is impossible to come except through knowledge of Astrology; and to the science of Astrology no one can come except through the science of Arithmetic and Geometry." In these sciences the sons of Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Daniel and other holy Fathers were most distinguished, as very many histories attest, as the proof of the 35th part of the first Corollary of the first also somewhat recounted.

D1 Did not the Creator himself, at the beginning of things, say: "Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, and let them divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs"? Does not Truth itself also say: "There will be signs in the sun, and moon, and stars"? And who does not know that a sign is referred to what it signifies? Why then should we not judge of what is signified by these signs? Did not the Lord himself also say: "When you see a cloud rising from the west, you say at once, A shower is coming, and so it happens; and when you see the south wind blowing, you say, There will be heat, and so it happens"? "Hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that you do not discern this time?" (Luke 12 and Matthew 16): "When evening has come you say, It will be fair, for the sky is red; and in the morning, Today there will be a storm, for the sullen sky glows red. You know how to judge the face of the sky; but the signs of the times you cannot?"

It is therefore permitted, and expedient, to judge by signs, lower and higher, of future fair weather and foul. For Christ, the Author of times, does not seem to reprove these judgments of times, but rather to approve them; but in this he especially rebukes them: that they could not, or did not know how, or were unwilling, to discern, or to judge, the time or times of his coming, and of the coming of his own. Hence blessed Jerome too, on that passage of Matthew set out above, E1 says: "The sense is plain: that from the order and harmony of the elements both fair and rainy days can be foreknown." The Scholastic History also, treating that verse of Genesis 1 set out above, says that the heavenly lights are signs of fair weather and of storm; E2 and blessed Basil also treats this in the sixth homily of his Hexameron:

"The necessity of human life," he says, "as longer usage teaches, will find you the callings and observations of signs 63, provided only that you do not inquire into them further than you should. For we can say many things about future rains, and very many about the vapors of the earth and the motions of the winds, whether they come from certain quarters or blow generally everywhere, and whether they will come violently or gently. One indication, then, is taken from the sun, which the Lord shows us when he says that a storm is coming when the sky begins to be saddened with a fiery red [above, on the morning, Matthew 16]." And further on: "Who is unaware, then, how much advantage the observation of these affords men? For those about to sail can keep their fleet within the harbor, foreseeing the dangers to come; the traveler likewise, made cautious by the gloom of the sky, waits for a time of calm; farmers also, giving solid diligence to seeds and plants, and instructed by the signs mentioned, await a suitable opportunity. Indeed the Lord proclaimed even the dissolutions of all things, prodigies to be seen in the sun and moon and stars, saying: 'The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon will not give its light.' But these are judgments of the consummation of the world."

The Scholastic History, too, dealing with the origin of the Jubilee, says: "Abraham was skilled in the stars, B1 in which, according to some, he also instructed Zoroaster, the inventor of the magical art; and he knew that the intemperateness of the air, which arises from planets being elevated or depressed, always returns to temperateness within fifty years, and what he saw happen in the stars he wished to imitate on earth." Does not the usefulness of sciences of this kind also appear evidently from the foreknowledge, promotion and repression that are possible of virtues and vices, moral and intellectual, in a certain way natural, as the foregoing here and the thirty-ninth of the first testify? B2 Hence the Philosopher too, in Ethics 2, 10, inquiring in what way ‖B3 one extreme is more contrary to virtue in the mean, shows that in some cases it is the one whose cause comes from the thing itself, in others the other, whose cause comes from us; and this is twofold, general and special. For the general he says thus: "For the things toward which we ourselves are in some way more naturally disposed seem more contrary to the mean; for example, we are more naturally disposed toward pleasures, and therefore are more easily moved toward intemperance than toward temperance." For the special, however, further on in 11, he says: "And one must also attend to the things toward which we ourselves are easily moved; for some of us are naturally apt for some things, others for others. This will be known from the pleasure and sorrow arising in us. And we must draw ourselves in the contrary direction: for by leading ourselves far away from sinning we shall come to the mean."

Do not the foregoing, in the 32nd, 35th and 39th parts of the first Corollary of the first, also show the usefulness of this science? Moreover, what learned man is unaware what power the artificial gathering and scattering of rays or lights has? Could not the qualities, conditions and customs of men, of cities, and of kingdoms be changed for the better and made firm through this craft? By what other craft could this be done? C1 On this it is written in the second prologue to the Secret of Secrets of Aristotle that Alexander sent his letter to Aristotle in this form: "O excellent Doctor, ruler of justice, I signify to your Prudence that I have found in the land of Persia certain peoples abounding in reason and in penetrating intellect, striving to dominate over others and to acquire a kingdom. Wherefore we propose to kill them all. Whatever you decide on this, signify to us in your writings." And it continues: "To whom Aristotle replied thus: If you cannot change the air and water of that land, and moreover the disposition of its cities, fulfil your purpose if you can 64, and rule over them with goodness and hear them with kindness. If you do so, have confidence, with God's help, that all will be subject to your good pleasure and command, and through the love they will have for you, you will rule over them peacefully with triumph." Alexander therefore, having received the letter, carried out his counsel diligently; and the Persians were more obedient to his rule than all other nations.

Did not the philosopher Artephius 65, too, assert that by the power of this Craft he had lived a thousand and twenty-five years and had accomplished other marvels, as others likewise affirm? Is it not also written of Moses in Acts 7 in this way: "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was powerful in his words and works"? Of him the Scholastic History on Exodus, having recounted how Moses, brought up in Egypt, passed over into Ethiopia, defeated the Ethiopians, and took Tharbis, the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians, as his wife, and how she in no way agreed to Moses' wish to return, adds: "Thereupon, like a man skilled in the stars, he carved images in gems of this efficacy, that one would confer memory, the other forgetfulness. When he had set them in matching rings, he gave one, namely the ring of forgetfulness, to his wife, and wore the other himself, so that, as they were joined in equal love, so they should be marked with matching rings. The woman therefore began to forget her husband's love, and at last he returned freely into Egypt." E1 He also, as the Hebrews say, handed down to them the quantity of the lunar month, by which they were to observe the legal feasts. This, as their reckoning attests, is 29 days, 12 hours, 793 points; a point, however, is a species of marvelous fraction, namely the 1080th part of an hour, which is 3 seconds and 20 thirds; so that the mean lunar month according to Moses contains 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 3

seconds, and 20 thirds. Moses set down its quantity better and more truly than Abrachis 66, who made his observation at Rhodes; than Ptolemy, who observed at Alexandria; than Arzachel, who composed canons and tables according to the years of the Arabs for Toledo; and than many others who followed him. For Abrachis, as Ptolemy recounts in Almagest 4, 2, set the quantity of the mean lunar month at 29 days, 31 minutes of a day, 50 seconds, 8 thirds, 9 fourths and nearly 30 fifths. But one minute of a day is 24 minutes of an hour, since as the day is to its minute, so the hour is to its minute, alternately. The quantity of the month according to him is therefore 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes of an hour, 3 seconds, 15 thirds, and nearly 48 fourths. Ptolemy, though much later than Abrachis, in Almagest 4, 3 agrees with him on the quantity of the month in everything, except the fifths of a day, which he sets at exactly 20. The quantity of the lunar month according to him is therefore in days, hours, minutes of an hour, seconds and thirds as before, and 44 fourths exactly. Arzachel, later than these, seems to set the quantity of the lunar month much smaller, namely 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, as his tables attest. He also seems bound to this of necessity, since according to him in his canons, and according to all by agreement, the common year of the Arabs contains exactly 354 days, and a fifth and a sixth part of a day, which are eleven thirtieths of a day; and since a thirtieth of a day is double one minute of a day, it contains 48 minutes of an hour, as is clear from what has been set down. Such a year therefore contains 354 days, 8 hours and 48 minutes of an hour, of which the twelfth part, that is, one lunar month, is 29 days, 12 hours, and exactly 44 minutes. This man therefore subtracts one point from the quantity of the month set down by Moses; Abrachis and Ptolemy also subtract from it, but not so much.

These men also contradict themselves, as appears from the quantities of the mean motion of the sun and of the mean motion of the moon in one day, which they set down, by extracting the center of the moon in a day and tabulating it continuously for 60 days, or for 15 days and 60 hours, deriving demonstratively the quantity of half or of a whole mean lunar month. Since at every mean conjunction and opposition the center of the moon is nothing at all, that is, exactly 12 signs, and from every mean conjunction to mean opposition and conversely it traverses exactly 12 signs, and from every mean conjunction or opposition to the next like one, exactly 24 signs, [this] can be most clearly demonstrated 67. By proceeding most correctly along this most direct path it has been demonstrated elsewhere that the quantity of the mean lunar month contains at least as much as Moses set down, and perhaps beyond that some fractions, which modern Astronomers also admit. From these things the defect of the lunations and lunar months in the Calendar of the Latins, by which Easter and the movable feasts of the Christians are regulated, evidently appears, and from them it is also plain how they ought to be rectified. And who, not aided by sciences of this kind, will presume to rectify these things, or to transfer the Calendar of the Jews to the easy use of the Latins, and so to bring back the Easter of the Christians so that, according to the statute of the Council of Nicaea and many other statutes of many Fathers, Sunday may always fall after the Passover

of the Jews; that is, on some day of Unleavened Bread, namely from the fourteenth day of the moon of the first lunar month up to the twenty-first day of the same. As things now stand, and have stood since the first creation of the Christian Calendar, Easter frequently falls later than this: sometimes by four whole weeks, sometimes by five, and sometimes it will always fall later by one month, sometimes always by two, and so on, until a whole year is thus run through, and then the earlier error will begin again. Who, moreover, ignorant of this science, will truly grasp the sun's entry into Aries, and the vernal equinox, or the beginning of the spring season, so that Easter may be kept according to the requirement of the next full moon, in keeping with the command of the law in Deuteronomy 16, in these words: D1 "Observe the month of the new grain, and the beginning of the spring season, that you may keep the Phase to the Lord your God." Solomon too, divinely inspired, as is clear from 3 Kgs 3 and 2 Chr 1, received from the Lord such wisdom, understanding and knowledge that none was like him before him, nor after him. Of him it is also written in 3 Kgs 3 68: "The Lord also gave wisdom to Solomon, and prudence exceedingly great, and the wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the Easterners and of the Egyptians," D2 and he was wiser than all men. Josephus also says of him, in Antiquities of the Jews, book 8, chapter 2 69, that God gave him understanding and wisdom such as no other man has had, whether among kings or private persons, so that he surpassed even the men of old; and the Egyptians, who are said to differ from all others in wisdom, would be little or less than little when compared with him, whose wisdom exceeded theirs exceedingly. He composed books, five and four thousand 70. For he passed over no nature unknown or unexamined 71, but philosophized about all things, and set forth their order and properties with distinction. God also granted him to learn the art against demons, for the benefit of men and for their cures, and he established incantations by which illnesses are wont to be mitigated. He also discovered the methods of exorcism by which demons, once driven out, are bound so that they do not return again, and this cure is still known among us to be very powerful. For I saw a certain Eleazar of our nation, in the presence of Vespasian and his sons and tribunes and the whole army besides, curing those who were troubled by demons. His method of healing was this: to the nostrils of the man who was troubled by a demon he held a ring having under its seal-stone a root shown by Solomon; then he drew the demon out through the nostrils of the man as he smelled it, and the man fell down at once. Afterwards he adjured the demon, setting before him the oath of Solomon, so that he would not return to him again, that is, reciting over him the songs which Solomon composed. And wishing to satisfy those present and prove to them that Eleazar had this power, he set before them either a cup full of water or a basin, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and so give those watching a proof that he had left the man; and when this was done the wisdom of Solomon became known to all. A1 Daniel, moreover, as is clear from Daniel 1, learned to excellence all the wisdom and knowledge of the Chaldeans concerning heavenly and earthly things, as

the Gloss testifies; yet he resolved in his heart not to be defiled by eating unclean food from the king's table. On this Jerome says, as the Gloss there recites 72, B1 that he who refuses to eat from the king's table and from the wine of the king's drink, lest he be defiled, would surely never agree to learn the wisdom and doctrine of the Babylonians, which were not lawful, if he knew it to be sin. But they learn it not to follow it but to judge and refute it; just as if some unskilled man should wish to write against the Mathematicians 73, he would lay himself open to ridicule if ignorant of mathematics, and so too one who disputes against the Philosophers if he is ignorant of the Philosophers' doctrines. They learn the Chaldean doctrine, therefore, in that frame of mind in which Moses had learned all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The same Jerome says in the Prologue on Isaiah: B2 "Let them first read, and afterwards despise, lest they seem to condemn what they do not know, not from judgment but from a presumption born of hatred." He also writes thus in his letter 74 to the monks Minervius and Alexander, on the resurrection 74: "It is my purpose to read the ancients, to test each thing, to hold what is good, and not to depart from the faith of the Catholic Church." B3 In the seventh book of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 7, it is likewise written 75 that Bishop Dionysius said: "I read the treatises of the heretics too, and search out their traditions, even if I seem for a time to be defiled by their words; but this very thing is of great use to me, that from their own words I can refute them. Indeed, when one of the brothers, together with some presbyters, tried to keep me from such reading, a divine vision strengthened me, speaking plainly in this manner: 'Read everything that comes into your hands, since you are able to test and discern each thing, seeing that from the beginning this was the cause of your believing.' I embraced the vision, which also agreed with the saying of the Apostle, who says, 'Read everything; hold what is good.'" That authority of Jerome on Daniel written above, together with many like it, is recited in the canon of distinction 37. Hence also Augustine, in Confessions 5, chapter 5, speaking of a certain Manichaean heretic 76 who most shamelessly asserted that he had the Holy Spirit and knew all things, says: "He did not wish to be thought of little account, but tried to persuade men that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter and Enricher of your faithful, was personally present in him with full authority. And so, when he was reproved for having said false things about heaven and the stars, and about the movements of the sun and moon, though these matters do not pertain to the doctrine of religion, his sacrilegious audacity was nevertheless quite evident, since he spoke of them not only in ignorance but even in falsehood, with such mad vanity of pride that he strove to ascribe them to himself as to a divine person." I too have known a certain notorious sorceress who, at an eclipse of the moon which very many onlookers marvelled at, according to the lay opinion of laymen who think that an eclipse occurs from the sorcery of some sorceress 77, said to her neighbors: "Behold what power I have over the moon! Unless you leave me in peace and make amends for the insults and reproaches heaped on me, I will take away from you the moon, the stars, and the sun, and the whole benefit of heaven." I had thought that the answer to her should be that she should do so to the moon the very next night, or in the next month, or the one after; or that she should do so to the sun tomorrow, or on some day of the following week; or at least that she should say when she would next do so to the moon or the sun, and how much of it she would take away, from what part the affliction of the other luminary would begin, and how long it would last,

and we should all do for her in all things whatever she wished. But if not, I should tell her when a like thing would first happen to the moon and the sun, how much of the light would be taken away, from what part the eclipse would begin, and how long it would last, even against her will, while she and all her sorceries resisted; and she could not answer 78. Among the Jews, moreover, from the time of Moses there were seventy ordinary judges, at the command of the Lord through Moses: "Gather to me seventy men," etc. (Num. 11). Indeed, according to their Talmud, seventy-one, because Moses established that number together with those seventy. Of these judges and their deeds there is one book, called in Hebrew Sanhedrim, that is, "The Court of the Ordinary Judges," in which it is written in this manner 79: "Only these were appointed to the Sanhedrin, that is, to the order or office of the seventy, or seventy-one, ordinary judges: masters of wisdom, of stature, of appearance and of age, and masters of incantations, and men who knew the seventy languages, so that they should not need to hear from the mouth of an interpreter." Stature and appearance were required so that they would be held in reverence; and they were to be masters of incantations, so as to convict and put to death sorcerers, or evildoers, who trust in their incantations and evil arts. Let it suffice to have touched briefly on these matters in a short digression, and not without cause.