Book II, Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30. That in every common action of uncreated and created wills, the uncreated naturally precedes the created.

Now that the first part of the division proposed above has been demolished, and therefore the second built up, we must inquire into the third. Most arrogant Pelagius, being prouder than Lucifer (who wished to be made equal to God), is compelled to confess that God is a co-effector of human acts. Yet he claims for himself priority and superiority over God. In the common action he makes man prior by nature and superior, and God posterior by nature and subject. He sets the human will over the divine will, as was touched on in the treatise of the first book on grace. Hence the humble Augustine too, in On the Predestination of the Saints, to Prosper and Hilary, 3, after destroying by the testimonies of sacred Scripture the error of Pelagius, who affirmed faith B1, namely that the act of faith is ours, from ourselves alone, without God, adds: "Unwilling, then, to oppose these testimonies, so clear, and yet wishing that what he believes should be from himself, man in a manner strikes a bargain with God, so as to claim for himself a part of faith and leave a part to him. And, what is more arrogant, he takes the first part himself and gives the following part to God, and in what he says belongs to both he makes himself the prior and God the posterior." The same, in On Heresies 88, says: "Finally Pelagius, rebuked by the brethren for ascribing nothing to the help of God's grace in the doing of his commands, yielded to their correction only so far that he did not put grace before free choice, but, with faithless cunning, put it beneath." But

what philosopher, in the common action or motion of agents or movers, first by nature and second, would reverse the order and put what is second by nature before what is first by nature? And what philosopher doubts that God is by nature the first of all who act or move together with him? He is commonly called by the Philosophers first cause, first agent or efficient, first mover or even prime mover, as the twentieth of this book recounted from Philosophers and Theologians alike. For what theologian or Catholic, indeed what heretic, schismatic or pagan, would dare to set himself before his God? Would he call himself Lord in acting, and his God the servant; himself superior, God inferior; himself the architect and principal craftsman, God subservient and in a way his instrument; himself leading, and God led? Would he call his own will first, and the divine its attendant; his own will mistress, and the divine a maidservant; his own commanding, and the divine obeying; his own drawing, and the divine drawn; his own put in charge, and the divine subject? This is contrary to the first supposition of the first chapter of the first book, which is admitted by all who worship any god whatever, since no one is unaware that something else is more perfect than this 1, as the second supposition and the third part of the first corollary also teach. But although it is rationally doubtful to no one that God precedes the creature, and the divine will the human, naturally in acting, in any action common to them; nevertheless, for the sake of some who perhaps would tremble with fear where there is no fear, I shall take care to make this certain in a few brief points.

Moreover, the divine volition by which he wills the created will to produce its act, and that will's producing its act, are convertible according to the consequence of being. Whenever one of them is, the other is too, and conversely, as is clear from the twentieth of the second and the tenth of the first. And that divine volition is the cause of the other, because it is an efficient cause, as is clear from the ninth of the first and the twentieth of the second. Therefore it is prior by nature, as the Philosopher says in the Categories 2, where, having distinguished four modes of "prior," he adds this fifth: of things that are convertible according to the consequence of being, that which is in any way the cause of the other is rightly called prior by nature.

Again, otherwise the human will would be freer than the divine. The human will, like a mistress, would always go before, and the divine, like a handmaid, would follow. The human will would freely choose in advance, from all things possible to it, to do this or that; the divine would necessarily consent. The human would rule through all things; the divine would be ruled through all things. Again, otherwise the human will would necessitate the divine to act, which seems to detract too much from the freedom of the divine will and to subject it to too great a servitude. For when the human will produces its act, its producing that act is then, and for that time it is necessary that it be. For according to the Philosopher, Peri hermeneias 3 1, last chapter, it is necessary that what is, when it is, be. Therefore by the twentieth of the second it is necessary for that time that God by willing co-effect that act, and that necessity befalls the divine will from the action of the human will, as from

a prior cause. And similarly it follows that the human will necessitates the divine not to act toward a certain action and not to will that action. Indeed it even makes it impossible, and necessarily prohibits him from performing or willing such an action. For if a man, at the instant at which he could perform A (a volition in respect of object B), performs a volition in respect of the same object 4, or does nothing at all, then A is not, and it is necessary that A not be at that time. For according to the Philosopher in the place cited before, that what is not, when it is not, not be, is necessary. Therefore it is necessary that God at that time not do A, nor will A to be done or to be, as is clear from the tenth of the first. It is impossible that God at that time do A, or will A to be done or to be; and all this necessity and impossibility befalls God and the divine will from man, and from the human will as from a prior cause 5. His supreme freedom and omnipotent power in no way permit this. Further, to the same effect: if the human will thus precedes the divine, the human will could antecedently necessitate the divine to act, to continue, to cease, to rest, and to resume again, as often

and whenever it wishes. For any man, as often and whenever he wishes, can perform a free act of his own will, continue it, cease, rest, and resume it again. If a man so acts, it follows necessarily by the twentieth of the second that God does likewise. The antecedent, as prior cause, is naturally in man's power, and from this it necessarily follows that something else, as a later effect, is naturally in man's free power. If it is said that this does not follow, because God could freely resist and hinder any man from any of the aforesaid things, it can easily be answered against this. For at the instant in which God does these things with man, he cannot resist or even hinder, as the preceding arguments taught. Again, this reply meets the point only in ‖B1 action and continuation, not in cessation and rest. For God cannot resist or hinder a man who is acting from ceasing, or one who is not acting from resting, since in so doing he would make him continue or newly act. But God cannot do this, because if he did, he would go before man naturally by thus acting. For if man there went before God naturally, man would rather be said

to make God continue or newly do something than the converse. For the naturally principal and first cause rather makes the instrumental and secondary cause act than the converse. If, then, in such free action or continuation God naturally goes before man, and the divine will the human, since this can happen in any species of free acts, then in any free act, according to species, the divine will can naturally go before the human; therefore it so goes before now in fact. For absolutely no reason can be given why, of two free acts of the same species in respect of the same object, from the same two causes of the agents, and (to say much briefly) having all causes and circumstances alike in species, in the action of one the divine will should naturally go before, and in that of the other the human. Again, whatever is natural to some singular of some species is essential to it, that is, its whole essence, or part of it, or something that follows it essentially and inseparably, if it is so in its most natural disposition. And whatever is thus essential to some singular is thus

essential to the species and to any singular of it. Otherwise it would not be essential to the species, nor to any singular, but accidental and extraneous. For with the species remaining, and each of its singulars in its most natural disposition, it could be now present, now absent. Hence a threefold conclusion can follow. First: whatever is natural to some singular of some species is natural to that species. Second: whatever is natural to some species is natural to any singular of it. Third: whatever is natural to some singular of some species is natural to any singular of it. Again, a species and any singular of it have the same nature; therefore whatever is natural to one of them is natural also to any of them. Hence the Philosopher, De caelo 2, 48 and 49 6, argues that if one star is moved with a motion of revolution or rolling, every star is so moved; and if one is not so moved, neither is any other. And 59: from the fact that one star is of spherical shape, he argues the same universally of any star whatever. On this Averroes says in that comment 59: "He gave a natural demonstration and said: If, then, one of the stars is found to be spherical, it is necessary that all be spherical.

And this is not manifest, but the demonstration is founded on this: that all heavenly bodies are of the same nature in species, and that heavenly bodies are many individuals in a species, and it is necessary that what exists in some individual of the species from among essential things exist in all individuals of the same species; and that shape is among the essential things in heavenly bodies, because they are animate. It is according to these propositions, then, that his statement is verified, and it is not, as we said, by way of example." Therefore, if in any free act it is natural that God go before man, and the divine will the human, this will be natural in every one. Again, the aforesaid reply does not meet the point in acting either. For suppose the human will, performing its free act, does not necessitate God to co-act with it, because he could freely hinder it. Then God freely does not hinder it from acting; therefore God voluntarily does not hinder it; therefore he wills not to hinder it. For by the twenty-second

of the first, God has some act of will concerning not-hindering, and not a non-volition 7. For by the tenth of the first, then not-hindering would not be, and so hindering would then be; therefore a volition. When the human will acts, then, God co-acts by willing to co-act and by willing not to hinder. Either, therefore, the human will in acting, as it naturally precedes the divine volition by which he wills to act, so also precedes that divine volition by which he wills not to hinder; or the converse. If the former, then each of those volitions necessarily follows the human will as it acts. And by the tenth of the first, if God wills not to hinder but to co-act, he necessarily does not hinder but co-acts, etc., as was argued at the beginning. If the converse, and the whole action of the human will depends on that divine volition by which he wills not to hinder, as on a naturally preceding cause, then the divine volition, concausing its free act with the human will, naturally precedes it in causing. And if that volition of God by which he wills not to hinder man's will from acting precedes it naturally in acting, why not that volition of his by which he wills to co-act

with it? Again, suppose the human will naturally precedes the divine in their common action, and the created or human will of Christ follows his divine will of necessity in all things. Then the will of any mere man whatever would be freer than the human will of the Lord Jesus Christ, which no reason permits. For how would it be fitting that a servant be freer than the Lord, or a disciple than the Master? It would be a most corrupt polity, or rather the very corruption of polity B1, as nearly the whole book of Aristotle's Politics makes manifest. Hence also Luke 6: "The disciple is not above the Master." And John 13: "The servant is not greater than his lord." And above in the same chapter: "You call me Master and Lord, and you do well 8; for so I am." That there is a twofold will in Christ, divine namely and human, no Catholic doubts. For if Christ had two perfect natures, divine and human, as the ‖B2 gospel creeds and all the Catholic Doctors attest, he had also, perfectly, operations, and consequently the volitions of those natures. And conversely, if Christ had only one operation

and a single will, he consequently had only one nature, which is the Eutychian heresy, as Isidore says, Etymologies 8, 5 or 14 9. It is also recited in the Canon 24, last question, Quidam autem. Therefore that heresy must also posit, as a consequence, this further heresy, that in Christ there is only one will. Hence Jerome, on that text of Mark 14, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak," says that this is against the Eutychians, who posit only one will in Christ. Macarius the archbishop, because he had conceded this too, had been condemned in the metropolitan synod 10. C1 Lombard also, Sentences III, dist. 17, proves at length by very many authorities that in Christ there was a twofold will, divine and human. Moreover Damascene in his Sentences 36 11 proves the same. C2 That Christ's human will necessarily followed his divine can easily be shown to Catholics. For who would doubt that this is more fitting and more natural than the converse? Again, otherwise Christ could by his human will will the contrary of his divine will. So Christ could by his divine will

will that Christ by his human will go to the East, and could by his human will will that by the same will he go to the West. These wills standing, then, he could not go to the West, because then the human will would overcome the divine, contrary to the tenth of the first. Nor could he go to the East, because then this supposit would go voluntarily, yet against his will and unwilling. And so the same whole supposit would do the same deed voluntarily and involuntarily in respect of the same whole supposit, and, freely willing, would freely also be unwilling, and this even according to the same nature. Nor would he stay in the middle, because then the human will would hinder the divine, although the divine is infinitely more powerful; and the divine will itself would be frustrated of its purpose, contrary to the tenth of the first book. D1 Otherwise also Christ, Son of God and God, could have willed unduly and consequently have sinned, which is utterly erroneous and absurd. For according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 1 and 7, acts and operations concern singulars, and belong to singulars or supposits; but Christ was supposited only by divine supposition, namely

that of the Word of God, as Lombard shows by sufficiently authoritative testimonies, Sentences III, dist. 5. If, then, Christ had sinned according to his human will by willing anything unjustly, that whole supposit, namely the Word of God, and God, would have sinned by so unjustly willing. And so ‖E1 supreme justice would be unjust, supreme rectitude distorted, and supreme goodness bad, and supreme beatitude or felicity would lie under supreme misery, with infinite other absurdities. Again, if God could sin, he could lie, and so supreme truth would be false. Hence the Apostle, Hebrews 9 12, speaking of God, says: "Wishing more abundantly to show to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, he interposed an oath, that through two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, E2 we may have the strongest comfort." Gloss: "through two immutable things,

that is, through promise and oath." Again, 2 Timothy 3 13: "He, namely Christ, remains faithful; he cannot deny himself." Gloss: "He who is truth, what would he be doing, if he did not fulfil his words?" But that he cannot deny himself is a praise of the divine will. And Numbers 23: "God is not as man, that he should lie." A1 Hence to you who suppose that God can lie, one can well say that line of Psalm 49 [50]: "You thought wickedly that I will be like you, since every man is a liar 14; therefore I will reprove you, and set myself against your face." Hence also the Truth itself, Jesus Christ, refuting such liars, leads them to this as to a manifest impossibility, that he himself would be a liar like them, John 7 15. Again Anselm, A2 Cur Deus homo 2, 10, treating that text of John touched on above, asks whether Christ could lie, and says that he had the power but did not have, and could not have, the will. Hence he says: "All power follows will. For when I say that I can speak or walk, it is understood, if I will;

for if will is not understood, it is not power but necessity. We can therefore say of Christ that he could lie, if it is understood, if he were willing. And since he could not lie if unwilling, nor could he will to lie, it can be said no less that he was unable to lie: so he both could and could not lie." Again, if Christ could have lied, he could have preached mendaciously, and likewise taught by word and deed. Whoever concedes this will drench the whole Catholic faith with excessive hesitation and ferment it with excessive suspicion. B1 Again Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 19, speaking of Christ, says: "Was it to be feared that, as age advanced, that man would sin by free choice? Or was his will therefore not free 16 in him? Was it not rather all the freer, the less it was able to serve sin?" The same, On Rebuke and Grace 46: "For it was not to be feared that human nature, taken up by the Word God into unity of person in this inestimable way, would sin through free choice of will, since the taking up was itself such that the nature of the man, taken up by God, admitted in itself no motion of an evil will." B2 The same, Enchiridion 45: "This manner," he says,

"in which Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, not as a son, commends to us the grace of God. By it that man, with no preceding merits, in the very beginning of his nature, by which he began to be, was joined to the Word in so great a unity of person that the same would be the Son of God who is the son of man, and the son of man who is the Son of God. Thus in the taking up of human nature that very grace would become in a manner natural to that man, by which he could admit no sin." C1 Again Lombard, Sentences III, dist. 12, writes thus: "Not undeservedly it is asked whether that man could sin, or not be God. For if he could sin, he could be damned; if he could be damned, he could not be God; therefore, if he could sin, he could not be God. For to be God and to be able to will iniquity cannot be together. Here a distinction is needed, whether the question concerns the person or the nature. For if it concerns the person, it is manifest that he could not sin, nor could he not be God. But if it concerns the nature, we must discuss whether it concerns that nature as united to the Word, or as not united to the Word, and yet existing,

that is, either that nature according as it was united to the Word, or that nature according as it could be, and not united to the Word. For it is not ambiguous that that soul, existing united to the Word, cannot sin; and it is without ambiguity true that the same soul, if it existed and were not united to the Word, could sin." Again, if Christ according to his human will could sin, he could also be deceived and err according to his human intellect. For to be so deceived is less than to sin. So supreme truth would be false and supreme wisdom would be deceived, with many other unfitting consequences 17. By these premised reasons Damascene proves the same conclusions in his Sentences 36, saying: "It is fitting to know that in God we do speak of will, but properly we do not speak of choice. For God does not deliberate: to deliberate is of ignorance, since no one deliberates about what he knows. If counsel is of ignorance, so entirely is choice; but God, knowing all things simply, does not deliberate. Nor do we seek counsel or choice in the divine soul, for it did not have ignorance. Even if its nature was that of one ignorant of future things, yet according to hypostasis, being united to God the Word,

it had knowledge of all things, not by grace but, as was said, because of that union which is according to hypostasis. For the same was God and man, and therefore he had a sententious will 18. For he had a simple natural will, the kind that is considered alike in all the hypostases of men. A sentence, that is, theleton, that is, voluntable, his holy soul did not have, contrary to his divine will, or anything apart from his divine will. For a sentence is divided together with the hypostases, except in the holy and simple and uncomposite and indivisible Trinity and Deity. There, indeed, the hypostases are not wholly divided and standing apart, nor is the voluntable divided. There, because there is one nature, there is also one natural will; and because the hypostases are inseparable, the voluntable is one, and there is one motion of the three hypostases. But in men, because the nature is one, there is one natural will; but because the hypostases are separate, and stand apart from one another in place and time, and in their disposition toward things, and in very many other respects, there are

different wills and sentences. But in our Lord Jesus Christ, because the natures are indeed different, there are also different natural wills, of his divinity and [of his] humanity, namely volitional powers. But because there is one hypostasis, and one willer willing one thing, even the voluntable (namely the gnomic, that is, the sentential, human will), following its own will, namely his divine will, and this [human will] willing what his divine will wished it to will: behold, Christ's human will follows his divine will." And if you will not believe Damascene and me, believe Christ himself, who says thus in John 12: "I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me, he himself gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak." And John 5: "I cannot do anything from myself; but as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is true, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father." Therefore his human will follows the will of the Father, and so necessarily followed in all things also the divine will of Christ. A1 Hence Augustine on John, book 2,

homily 45, or 49 of the whole, says: "On account of the person of the Son, one, consisting of two substances, divine and human, he speaks sometimes according to what he is as God, as in that which he says, 'I and the Father are one'; sometimes according to what he is as man, as in that, 'The Father is greater than I'; and according to what we have received as said by him, and this on which I am now disputing, B1 'I cannot do anything from myself, but as I hear, I judge.'" Again Augustine, 1, on John, homily 20: "The Son walked upon the sea, he set the feet of flesh on the waves: the flesh walked and the divinity governed." Is it not also written thus of Christ in Isaiah 11? "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." "Upon," he says, "not beneath, nor beside." And below, 41: "Who," says the Lord, "has raised up the just one from the East?" Gloss: that is, Christ. "He called him that he might follow him." Gloss: "who but I?" And below, ‖B2 49 19: "They shall fear the name of the Lord from the West, and those from the rising of the sun his glory, when he shall come, like a violent river which the Spirit of the Lord drives." This is plainly understood of Christ. And below, 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," etc. This

was undoubtedly said in the person of Christ, as Christ himself most clearly attests in Luke 4. Hence also above, in the same ‖C1 [passages] 20: "He was being led into the desert by the spirit." And Matthew 4: "Jesus was led into the desert by the spirit." And Mark 1: "The spirit drove him out into the desert." The Doctors understand all of these of the Holy Spirit, God. Hence also Chrysostom, on that text of Mark 1 already cited, says that the Evangelist does not show him simply going into the desert, but driven out, so that you may understand this to happen according to the word of the divine disposition. Again Anselm, Cur Deus homo 1, 9, says: "But what he himself says, 'I came not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me,' is like that other, 'My teaching is not mine.' For what someone does not have from himself but from God, this he ought to say is not so much his own as God's. But no ‖C2 man has from himself the truth which he teaches, or a just will, but from God. Therefore Christ did not come to do his own will but the Father's, because the just will which he had was not from the humanity but from the divinity." And below, 10.

"It can rightly be understood," he says, "that through that holy will by which the Son willed to die for the salvation of the world, the Father gave him, though not by compelling him, the commandment and the cup of the passion, and did not spare him but handed him over for us, and willed his death. It can also be understood that the Son himself was obedient even to death, and learned obedience from the things that he suffered. For just as, according to his humanity, he did not have from himself the will to live justly, but from the Father, so too he could not have had from anyone but the Father of lights, from whom comes every best gift and every perfect gift, that will by which he willed to die in order to do so great a good. And as the Father is said to draw by giving the will, so it is not unfitting if he is said to impel. For just as the Son says [of the Father], 'No one comes to me unless the Father has drawn him,' so he could have said, 'unless he has impelled him.' Likewise he could have put it in this way: 'No one runs to death for my name's sake unless the Father has impelled or drawn him.' For since each person is drawn or impelled by his will toward what he wills unswervingly, God, who gives such a will, is affirmed, and not unfittingly, to draw or to impel. In this drawing or impelling no necessity of violence is understood,

but the spontaneous and beloved tenacity of a good will received." E1 Likewise the Prophet says, "You have held my right hand, and in your will you have led me," Psalm 72 [73]. He says this to God in the person of Christ as man, as the expositions of the saints teach; the Church also bears witness to it, for in the season of the Lord's passion, namely on Palm Sunday, she sings this verse in the Mass 21. The divine will of Christ, then, holds and leads his human will, and therefore naturally precedes it. E2 Likewise the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 15, speaking of the Father and of his Son Christ according to the form of a servant, says: "He has put all things under his feet." But when he says, "All things are subject to him," it is doubtless with the exception of him who subjected all things to him. But when all things have been subjected to him, E3 then the Son himself will be subject to him who subjected all things to himself. The Gloss: "except him," that is,

his divinity, who, as he is from no one, so can in no way be subject to anyone; for he himself is the principle of all things. Therefore God is not subject to him, but rather he himself to God as man. And when he says, "He himself will be subject," he does not say this as if he were not subject even now; he uses a kind of expression that Scripture commonly uses, so that what always is, is said then to come about in someone when it begins to be recognized. Moreover, these men who set themselves above God not only want to be freer than Christ as to his human will, but even as to his divine will [his own], and likewise freer than the Holy Spirit. For neither the Son of God nor the Holy Spirit can have any willing except what the Father has in some way first caused and given to them, and to the Holy Spirit the Father together with the Son. Indeed they cannot have understanding, or being, or anything at all, except what flows to them from their principle and is derived causally; for they have being from their causative principles, and hence also the power to understand, to will, and everything else. And who in that most blessed Trinity will presume to assert a Trinity of persons wholly confused,

and with no order at all among them? Is not the Father called among theologians the principle of the Son? Is not the Father also called the principle of the whole divinity? Is not the Father also called the first person? Does not the cause that produces, begets, and gives being in some way precede the thing caused, produced, ‖B1 begotten, and that to which it gives being? What philosopher or theologian would deny it? Whence also Hermes, On the World and the Heaven, 1, teaching that there are three principles of things, namely cause, reason, and nature, says that the caused is preceded by its cause 22. By "cause" he understands there the first cause, simply and wholly uncaused, namely God the Father, who first causes reason proceeding from him (that is, the Son), and through him the whole of nature. Therefore he also says: "Reason is from the cause, and nature from both." And further on: "Reason is a certain power proceeding from the cause, ordering all things from the beginning." Here he takes these three, reason, nous, and the divine mind, indifferently and interchangeably for the same thing, as was briefly touched on in the second of the first. It is clear, too, that many other philosophical and poetic writings bear witness to this opinion, B2 some of which were recited in the second

of the first. Does not Paul also seem to have felt this when he said that God, namely the Father, "in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, through whom he also made the ages, C1 and who is the splendor of his glory and the figure of his substance," etc.? Hebrews 1. Therefore Chrysostom too, on that epistle, homily 2, says: "He is said to work through the Son, because it is agreed that he begot the maker; for if the Father is his cause as Father, much more is he the cause of the things that are declared to have been made through the Son." Chrysostom, when Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, cites him in On Free Choice 9 23, also says on "In the beginning was the Word": "The Father precedes the Word, C2 not by nature but by cause; the Father precedes the Word causally, the Son precedes by nature all things that were made through him." In agreement with him Augustine also writes in the Eighty-Three Questions, the sixteenth: "God is the cause of all things that are. And because he is the cause of all things, he is also the cause of his own wisdom, nor was God ever without wisdom; therefore he is the everlasting cause of his own everlasting wisdom, and is not prior to his wisdom in time. Then, if being Father everlastingly belongs to God,

and he was never not Father, he was never without the Son." The same author, on the threefold dwelling, or on the joys of the just and the punishments of the wicked, says that the Father does not precede the Son in time but in origin. So too Richard, On the Trinity 5, chapter 6, distinguishes a threefold procession, D1 namely the merely immediate, the merely mediate, and the mediate and immediate together. Further on, in chapters 7, 8, and 9 of the same book, he shows that the first and the third procession are in the divine persons, but the second not at all. He says that the procession of the Son from the Father is merely immediate, while the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is mediate and immediate together; that this procession is naturally prior to the other; and that one person is prior causally, D2 and therefore naturally, to the other 24. Whence in that chapter 7 he writes thus: "The duality is naturally prior to the trinity: for the former can be without the latter, but the latter never without the former. And so naturally that procession which can subsist in a duality of persons is prior to that which cannot be without a *D3 Trinity of persons. But in that plurality of persons and true eternity nothing

there precedes another, nothing there succeeds another, and by that very fact nothing there is prior in time, nothing posterior in time. But what cannot be prior temporally can be prior causally, and by that very fact naturally. For, as we said far above, E1 the perfection of one person requires the fellowship of another, and so it comes about that one is the cause of another." Does not Augustine too, On the Trinity 15, chapter 17, say that the Holy Spirit proceeds principally from the Father? But the sublimity of this matter is inaccessible, and the words of the Doctors set out above, both because of their depth and because of the contrariety that appears on their surface, require a pious and religious hearer or reader, E2 humble and prudent. Does not the Son himself also say, "My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all"? John 10. This must be understood of the Son according to his divinity, as Augustine attests, part 1 on John, sermon 48, and Hilary, On the Trinity 7; E3 and Pope Innocent III in the General Council (Extra, On the Highest Trinity and the Catholic Faith, the chapter Damnamus) 25: namely that

the Father, in begetting the Son, gave him his substance, his essence, and the full being of ‖A1 divinity. He gave him to be God, to be coeternal with the Father, to be equal to the Father, and this is greater than all creatures and all creatable things. And is not some priority of origin or of cause designated by the past-tense verb "gave"? Does not the Son, then, in a similar way receive and have from the Father (and the Holy Spirit likewise from both) his whole knowing and willing? A2 Is it not written in John 5, from the mouth of the Son, in this way: "The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it; for whatever he does, these things the Son also does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does"? And further on, 8: "I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me, these things I speak." And 16: "The Spirit of truth will teach you all truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatever he will hear,

B1 he will speak." Therefore Augustine also, on John, Homily 20, expounding the first of these authorities, says: "This is what it means: the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it; because for the Son to see is to be born of the Father. His seeing is not one thing and his substance another, nor is his power one thing and his substance another; all that he is, is from the Father; all that he can do is from the Father, B2 since what he can do and what he is is one thing, and the whole is from the Father." He also, in Homily 40, expounding the second, says: "The Father spoke incorporeally to the Son, because the Father begot the Son incorporeally, nor did he teach him as if he had begotten him untaught; but to have taught him is to have begotten him knowing; and 'the Father taught me' means 'the Father begot me knowing.' For if, as few understand, the nature of truth is simple, then for the ‖B3 Son to be is the same as to know. He has from him, therefore, that he knows, from whom he has that he is; not that he was first from him and afterward knew from him; but just as in begetting he gave him to be, so in begetting he gave him to know, because for the simple nature of truth, as has been said, to be and to know are not one thing and another thing, but

C1 this very same thing." Whence the 351st proposition of the Sentences of Prosper 26 also seems to be drawn out in the form of a sentence, which says: "The Father did not teach the Son as if he had begotten him untaught and conferred knowledge on one who did not know, but a timeless essence belongs to timeless teaching; to be taught by the Father is to be begotten by the Father, because for a simple nature to be and to know are not one thing and another thing, but the same." Hence the 374th also says: "Whatever God the Father gave to [God] the Son, he gave by begetting. For the Father gave the Son those things without which the Son could not be, as he gave him to be; therefore how would he give him some words, in whom he ineffably said all things?" Augustine too, on that verse of Psalm 118 [119], "I have understood more than all my teachers," treating the same authority, says: "The Son himself says, 'As the Father taught me, these things I speak.' This is very hard to understand from the person of the Word, unless one can somehow grasp that the Son's being taught by the Father is the same as his being begotten. For to one for whom being is not one thing and being taught another, but what being is for him, that being taught is, surely from whom he has being, C2 from him likewise he has being taught. But from the person of the man, where he took the form of a servant, it is easier to understand that he learned from the Father what he said." He also, on John, part 2,

homily 45, or ‖D1 49 of the whole 27, expounding the third authority set out above, says: "'He will not speak,' he says, 'from himself,' because he is not from himself, 'but whatever he will hear, he will speak': he will hear from him from whom he proceeds; for him to hear is to know, and to know is to be, as was argued above. Since therefore he is not from himself but from him from whom he proceeds, from whom he has essence, from him he has knowledge, and from him therefore hearing, which is nothing other than knowledge." From this passage too the 368th proposition of the Sentences of Prosper seems to be drawn. Moreover, if the Son or the Holy Spirit could have from himself some willing, that is, a willing of his own, which the Father did not give him, there could be, in that most blessed and most concordant Trinity, discord and contrariety of wills. D2 Whence also one of the persons, or any of them, could be not most blessed, indeed even wretched, as is clear from the eighth part of the first corollary of the first. And blessed Augustine says, On the Trinity 13, chapter 5: "No one is blessed except him who both has everything he wills and wills nothing wrongly." One of the persons could also fail to be omnipotent, and could lack a universally efficacious will:

for of contrary wills one is necessarily impeded, or both. Whence he could also fail to be God, against the first supposition, and the third part, sixth, seventh, and eighth of the first corollary of the first. Moreover, even if it were so, one person could create while another did not create, which is agreed by all theologians to be utterly false, as I shall therefore confirm briefly. For the Son of God himself ‖E1 says: "My Father works even until now, and I work," John 5; and further on: "Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it; E2 for whatever he does, these things the Son also does likewise." On this Augustine says, on John 1, homily 20: "The Catholic faith has this, established by the Spirit of God in his saints against every heretical perversity: that the works of the Father and the Son are inseparable." And further on: "Not only of the Father and the Son, but also of the Holy Spirit; as there is equality and inseparability

of the persons, so too the works are inseparable." He shows this chiefly and almost singularly, but diffusely, throughout that whole twentieth homily. All this too is against the authority of Damascene cited above. It is also manifestly destroyed by the authority of Christ cited just now: "The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it; for the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does." This was said for the reason, clear at length in Augustine in that twentieth homily, that just as the Son is not, and cannot be, from himself but from the Father, so he neither does nor can do anything from himself alone, A1 but from the Father. Likewise John 5: "I cannot do anything of myself; but as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is true, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father." Augustine, on John 1, A2 homily 22, expounds this of the Son not according to his human nature but according to his divine, in the manner stated; although perhaps it could more fittingly be expounded of him according to his human nature, especially since there a diversity of wills in the Son and in the Father is expressed;

which, as regards his divine nature, cannot be understood in any way, as is clear from what has been set out, and because otherwise, B1 that most blessed Trinity would not be supremely one. Augustine says in that homily 22: "This Trinity has one will, one power, one majesty." Therefore in part 2 on John, homily forty-five, he expounds this authority of Christ according to his human nature, as was cited above. From this it can be gathered clearly that such authorities, said of Christ, can be understood and expounded in both ways; the same author also attests this on that verse of Psalm 118 [119], "I have understood more than all my teachers," cited above. B2 Likewise John 12: "I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me himself gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak; and I know that his commandment is eternal life. The things, therefore, that I speak, as the Father has told me, so I speak"; and further on, 14: "The words that I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father abiding in me does the works." Augustine also expounds these of the Son in the manner stated, on John 1, homily 54, that is, the last; B3 and in the second part, homily 17 28,

he expounds them of the Son in the manner set out, namely according to his divine nature. Whence in that homily 17 he says: "No, the Son does not speak from himself, because he is not from himself; and therefore the Father abiding in him does the works, because he through whom, and with whom, he does them is not other than from him." In the sermon on the words of the Lord, 56, he also expounds the same authority in the same way, and says: "To him he assigns whatever he does, from whom he himself is who does it." Moreover, if the human will naturally precedes the divine in a common action, the human will is a naturally prior cause of why God's will acts, and therefore of why it wills, as is clear from the corollary of the tenth of the first, which is contrary to the twentieth of the first book. Likewise, if the divine will, by which God wills to act presently, depended on the present human will as on a prior cause, then by the same reasoning his eternal will, by which he eternally willed to act now, depended eternally on the human will that is eternally going to be now, as on a prior cause. And since God does not know these posterior complexes except through his will, as the eighteenth of the first proved, it plainly follows that these posterior things

are causes of the divine ‖D1 essence 29, against the fifteenth of the first and the others that follow. Indeed it also manifestly follows that God does not know these future things with certitude, nor present things, and hence not past things, as will easily appear from the eighteenth of the first. For God does not know future things determinately and certainly except through something determinate and certain to himself; but a will that is free in respect of contradiction, and equally disposed toward its contingently future act, is not determinate and certain in respect of that act. Otherwise that act would be determinately and certainly future, and not contingent to either side. Nor is God certain of that future act through his own will, because his divine will wills and does nothing in such matters unless it is forestalled by the human will; but such forestalling is wholly indeterminate and uncertain. Moreover, if the human will's acting now is naturally prior to the divine will's acting now, then its acting now is a naturally prior cause of why the divine will acts now. Therefore its being always about to act now was always a naturally prior cause; whence the divine will always willed to act now.

For according to the Philosopher, Posterior Analytics 2, 3, whatever is truly the cause of a thing's being is the same as the cause of its coming to be, that is, of its being and of its being future. Therefore this being future was a naturally prior cause of why God willed it to be future, and not the reverse, against the fourteenth of the first book, which the arguments of that chapter also reject and condemn. Likewise, if, some future thing being pointed out, its being future is the cause why God wills it to be future, and by the same fourteenth God's willing it to be future is the cause why it is future, then its being future is the cause why it is future. And in the same way it can be deduced that a thing's being present is the cause why it is present, with the ninth of the first and the authority of the Philosopher cited above helping. Likewise, if the human will's being about to do anything were the cause of a prior eternal divine willing, its being about to act would be a naturally prior cause of divine predestination and reprobation. Whence also its acting presently would be a cause naturally prior to the effect of predestination, namely the conferral of grace

in the present. Each of these is the heresy of Pelagius, condemned by the Fathers, as is clear from 45 and 35 of the first, with the others that follow, which chapters also condemned both. Moreover, if the human will naturally preceded the divine in acting, human affairs would not be subject to divine providence, against the twenty-seventh of the first and the others that follow. Indeed, and what is far more unworthy, if it were so, the divine volitions would be governed by human providence and would be subject to it, which is wholly contrary to reason. For according to the true judgment of reason, it belongs to the wise and good to rule the foolish and wicked, and to the wiser and better to rule the less wise, A1 and to provide for them in all things. Whence the Philosopher, Metaphysics 1, in the Prologue: "We judge that wisdom is ‖A2 more principal than the subservient science: for it is not for the wise man to be ordered, but to order, nor to be persuaded by another, but the less wise by him." And Ethics 5, 11 30: "We do not allow man to rule, but reason." And Politics 1, 1: "What can foresee with the mind, this by nature rules and is master." And further on, in the third, ninth: "He who bids the intellect

rule seems to bid God and the laws rule; but he who bids man rule adds the beast also." B1 And Tullius, On the Republic 3: "Do we not see that dominion has been given by nature itself to every best man, with the highest advantage to inferiors?" Whence also Wisdom 7 and 8, according to the numbering of some 31: "But malice does not overcome wisdom; it reaches from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly." But who does not know that all this is found far more fully and perfectly, indeed infinitely, in God than in man? He himself, then, according to the opinion of the Philosopher, Metaphysics 12, at the end, B2 is the one supreme ruler of all. Likewise, man acting in anything would then be the principal artisan, and God in some way his instrument, whereas naturally it is the reverse, as the very many philosophical and theological authorities cited in the twentieth of the second most plainly attest. B3 Whence also in Jeremiah 18 the Lord says: "Behold, as clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel." Moreover, God would then not be omnipotent: for he could not make a man will, however much God himself willed it; for if he could, let him do it 32:

so then God would make a man will at some hour in which the man himself has determined that he will least will, and in which he would least have willed unless God had done this. Either, then, in that willing the human will naturally comes first, or the divine. If the human, then God does not make this man will, but rather the reverse, as was argued above; if the divine, then so it is in all things, as was shown above. Indeed, according to the hypothesis, however much God wills this naturally before, or antecedently to, the human will, it 33 will produce no action, because then the human will would naturally forestall it, as that hypothesis posits. Nor is he rightly reckoned omnipotent who, in acting at all, necessarily needs the help of a prior agent who naturally forestalls him in the acting. Nor can anyone pretend that this is in no way contained under omnipotence; for this is one thing truly doable. Indeed, then man would be more powerful than God in this respect. For though God willed that man will something, and did toward this as much as he could, to the utmost,

man could freely resist him and not will. For all human affairs are preordained and provided for by the eternal providence of the divine will, as the twenty-seventh of the first, with the chapters that follow, makes manifest. Therefore all lower causes, executing this preordination and provision in any motion or rest of theirs, are necessarily subject to this divine will, and by necessity obey it as it commands. For it would seem altogether foolish 34 for him to provide or preordain anything unless he could carry it out in effect. Therefore the Philosopher also says, Ethics 3, 8, that counsel is of possible things that will indeed be done through us. D1 Whence also the supreme Philosopher says in Isaiah 46: "My counsel will stand, and all my will shall be done: D2 I have spoken, and I will bring it about; I have created, and I will do it." And Isaiah 51 35: "The Lord has devised, and has done whatever he has spoken." Otherwise too the human will could frustrate the divine, and so render our most blessed God ‖D3 wretched, against the tenth of the first book and against all the happy, and even the wretched, to whatever degree. Whence also Proverbs 21: "There is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord; the horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the Lord grants

salvation." E1 Likewise Ecclesiasticus 42: "He has adorned the great works of his wisdom, which is before the age and unto the age; nothing has been added, nothing will be taken away, and he needs no one's ‖E2 counsel. How desirable are all his works, and like a spark, which it is to consider! All these things live and remain forever [and ever], and in every need all ‖E3 obey him." And Proverbs 21: "As the divisions of waters, so is the heart of the king in the hand of the Lord; wherever he wills, he will turn it." Many other passages like these are more fully cited in the twentieth of the second. E4 And Augustine says, Enchiridion 77: "Who, then, would be so impiously foolish as to say that God cannot turn to good the evil wills of men, whichever he wishes, and when he wishes, and where he wishes?" And On Rebuke and Grace 69: "For so whether to will or not to will lies in the power of the one who wills or does not will, that it may fulfill the divine will, and not surpass his power." And 71: "God has the wills of men more in his power than they themselves have their own."

Likewise human volition is a gift of God, as is clear from the twentieth of the second; therefore, by the seventh of the second, it is not antecedently from man but from God. Likewise the faithful reasonably ask God to make men will this or that, as is clear from the twentieth of the second; therefore God antecedently does this, as is clear from the forty-sixth of the first. Likewise the human will would then naturally precede God and the divine will in meriting, in being contrite, in rising again from sin, and in doing any good whatever; and so much more would it precede the action of grace. All of which is false and bound up with the Pelagian heresy, as is clear from 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and the 41st of the first, and from the authorities of Scripture and of the Doctors cited there more copiously. Whence also the Apostle in Romans 11: "Who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him? A1 For from him, and through him, and in him are all things." And Job 41: "Who has given to me, that I may repay him? A2

All things that are under heaven are mine." On this Gregory, Moralia 33, chapter 22, writes thus: "No one, in order that divine grace may follow him, has first conferred anything on God. For if we forestall God by working well, where is what the Prophet says, 'His mercy will come before me'? If we gave anything of good work that we might deserve his grace, where is what the Apostle Paul says, 'By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God, not from your works'? If our love forestalls God, where is what the Apostle John says, 'Not as though we had loved God, but because he first loved us'? Where is what the Lord says through Hosea, 'I will love them freely'? If without his gift we follow God by our own power, where is what the Truth proclaims in the Gospel, saying, 'Without me you can do nothing'? Where is what he says, 'No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me has drawn him'? Where is what he says again, 'You did not choose me, but I chose you'? If at least we forestall the gifts of good works by thinking well by our own power, where is what is said again through Paul so subtly,

that all confidence of the human mind in itself is cut off at the very root of the heart, when he says: 'Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as if from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God'? No one, then, forestalls God by merits so as to be able to hold him as it were a debtor. But in a wondrous manner the Creator, just toward all, both chose some beforehand and justly abandoned others in their own reprobate ways; yet he neither shows piety to the elect without justice, because here he presses them down with hard afflictions, nor again exercises justice on the reprobate without mercy, because he patiently bears with those whom at some time he condemns forever. If, then, both the elect follow the grace that comes before [them], and the reprobate receive according to what they deserve, the elect find in mercy something to praise, and the reprobate have nothing in justice to accuse. It is therefore well said, 'Who has first given to me, that I may repay him?' It is as if it were said openly: I am compelled by no reason to spare the reprobate, because I am not held to them as a debtor by any action of theirs. For it is for this reason that the rewards of the heavenly homeland—

…receive the eternal ones, because they despised them by free choice at the time when they could have earned them. Free choice, ‖D1 of course, is formed toward the good in the elect when their mind, with grace breathing upon it, is lifted away from earthly desires. For the good that we do is both God's and ours: God's through prevenient grace; ours through the free will that follows and obeys. If it is not God's, why do we give him thanks forever? Again, if it is not ours, why do we hope to be repaid with rewards? Since, then, our thanks are not grounded in merit, we know that we are forestalled by his gift; and again, since we do not seek repayment as something merited, we know that by a free choice that followed we chose the good things we were to do. And further on: It is clear to all that not only the things that are under heaven, but even ‖D2 those that were made above the heavens and are called heavenly, serve his will. D3 Augustine agrees with this, Against Julian, the son and follower of Pelagius, 4, 5: When, he says, a man is divinely helped, he is not helped merely to take hold of perfection (which is what you have posited, plainly wishing it understood that he begins this by himself without grace, and grace completes it); he is helped rather as the Apostle says, that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion even to the end:

in which you want a man, as you put it, to be spurred on to something praiseworthy by the goads of a generous heart, in that very thing you do not want him to glory in the Lord but in free choice, and so to give first, that it may be repaid to him. O you who are thankless toward the grace of God! 36 O enemies of the grace of God, Christians by the name alone! Does not the Church pray for her enemies? What does she pray? That a bad will may be turned to the good, since the will is prepared by the Lord, and it is God, as the Apostle says, who works in us even to will. And further on, in the eleventh of the same work: How great the arrogance, and how great the presumption of your virtue, in what you have said ("Through zeal for holiness, which God helps, a man can very easily be free of sins")—he does not recognize it who does not know your doctrines. For you want even zeal for holiness to come first, without God's help and in the human will, so that God ought to help it as something deserved, not freely. Moreover, those who set their own will above the divine will act more proudly than the first proud angel, who, in seeking equality with God, said: I will be like the Most High, E1 Isaiah 14. For these are by no means content with equality with God or likeness to him,

but claim greater standing and superiority over God. But let them take care not to descend to him, or rather beneath him, as is added in Isaiah: But yet you will be dragged down to Hell, into the depth of the pit: those who see you will bow toward you, and will gaze upon you. These people also speak more proudly against the Lord their God than did those uncivil citizens against that noble man their lord, saying: A1 We do not want this man to reign over us, Luke 19. For they do not merely say, We do not want this man to reign over us; they say, We want to reign over him. They want to precede God by nature, and consequently to lead him and to rule him in all his deeds. But let them fear and take care about what is said next in that passage: Bring here those enemies of mine, who would not have me reign over them, and kill them ‖A2 before me. Nor is that surprising: for they had conspired against royal majesty, and so for the crime of treason they were to be punished most justly. Hence Anselm, On Similitudes 8: Pride (superbia) is so called because it steps above (super) what it ought; for superbia is called an over-stepping (supergressio). 37 So one's own will, because it is not subjected to God's will but exalted above it, is for this reason rightly called Pride; it is also the beginning of every sin, because from it every sin is born. And since a man has that will from himself, with no will of God that it follows, and wishes to have none above himself, he takes from God himself what God alone properly and uniquely ought to have. B1 And it continues, 9: For God alone, whatever he wills, ought to will by his own will, so that he has no other above him that he follows. When, therefore, a man wills something by his own will, he takes away from God, as it were, his crown. For as the crown belongs to the King alone, so one's own will belongs to God alone; and as one would dishonor a king if he took his crown from him when he was crowned, so a man dishonors God who takes his own will from him, by holding a privilege B2 that God alone ought to hold. Hence Aristotle too, in the third of his riddles, exhorts thus: Do not take the king's crown. The twenty-four elders, prudently heeding this, in no way set their crowns or their wills proudly above the divine crown or will, but humbly laid them beneath. B3 Hence Revelation 4: The twenty-four elders fell down before him who sits on the throne,

and worshiped him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, because you created all things, and on account of your will they existed, and were created. So too that most renowned of kings and most distinguished of the Prophets says: C1 Shall not my soul be subject to God? Psalm 61 [62]. And further on: Yet be subject to God, my soul. So too that Antiochus, at first the proudest of princes, at the last humbly acknowledged that it is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal should not think himself on a level with God, 2 Maccabees 9. C2 If not on a level with him, how then above him? For the Lord is exalted over all nations, Psalm 112 [113]. Hence also Romans 4 38: Let every mouth be stopped, and let the whole world be made subject to God. Likewise Psalm 22 [23]: The Lord rules me. And Psalm 79 [80]: You who rule Israel, give heed; you who lead Joseph like a sheep. And Isaiah 49: He who has mercy on them rules them. And Revelation 7: The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will rule them, and will lead them. And Esther 15 it is written thus: And when she had called upon God, ruler of all, and Savior God, etc. And

Psalm 46 [47]: For God is king of all the earth, and the Lord will reign over the nations. And Psalm 102 [103]: His kingdom will rule over all; and countless similar texts. These people speak more impiously D1 than those impious men who said, Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? Job 21. For those ‖D2 merely refused to serve the Almighty; but these, not only that, but, what is more exalted still, want the Almighty to serve them, since human will commands and goes before as mistress, while the divine obeys and follows after as handmaid. D3 Not so the Prophet, not so, but By your ordinance (he says) the day continues, for all things serve you, Psalm 118 [119]. Not so did Jacob think of his lord, but Let my lord go before his servant, he says, and I will follow slowly in his footsteps.

Again, then divine will would rather bend itself in obeying the human than the reverse, which no reason allows, and he himself teaches the contrary. By myself, he says, I have sworn, the word of justice has gone out of my mouth and will not return, that to me every knee will be bent, Isaiah 45; or otherwise: D4 To me all will bend the knee; or in a third form: To me all will bend their knees; or in a fourth: To me all knees will be bent. 39 The Apostle cites this Scripture in Romans 14 thus: For it is written: E2 As I live, says the Lord, every knee will be bent to me. Moreover, then human will would lead the divine wherever it wished, though it is more reasonable the other way round, E3 since the divine will sees, hears and is able better. Hence Job 37: The clouds scatter their light, they that go round about all things, wherever the will of the one who governs has led them, to everything he has commanded them upon the face of the whole earth, whether in one tribe, or in [his own] land, or in whatever place of his mercy he has ordered them to be found. On which Gregory, Moralia 27, 22, says thus: To scatter light as clouds is for holy preachers to spread the examples of life, both by speaking and by acting;

but *A1 holy preachers wish to exhort some, and cannot; often they wish to avoid some, and yet by the pressure of an inward prompting they are most urgently compelled to exhort them. Let us see the cloud of God, how by the hand of the one who governs it is led even to things it does not desire, and is again held back from its own impulse by the governor's hand. And he gives an example from Paul, who when he wished to leave the Corinthians was held among them by the Lord; and who also, when he wished to go on to the Thessalonians, was not able, as he says, nor could he withdraw from those with whom he then was, being hindered, as he says, by the Lord. He therefore concludes thus: The clouds of God, then, go about all things, because by the light of preaching they illuminate the ends of the world; but because, subject to the divine nods, they cannot fulfill what they wish, they cannot go except where the will of the one who governs has led them. Hence it is further added, To everything he has commanded them upon the face of the earth. For often, when they are led on by the governor's will, they wish to act otherwise, but are otherwise arranged. For very often they are eager to correct some of their hearers gently, and yet their speech is drawn into harshness; very often they wish to cut some off harshly, but the force, or severity, of their speech is reined in by the spirit of gentleness. Just as they cannot go where they wish, so they cannot act as they wish. For since the inner judge holds them, when he sends them out, so too, tempering them, he takes them up, when he leads them on, so that sometimes they plan one thing in thought but carry out another in deed; sometimes they begin one way but complete another. Because, then, they serve according to what is commanded them, it may rightly be said, Wherever the will of the one who governs has led them, to everything he has commanded them upon the face of the earth. B1 Likewise Deuteronomy 31: The Lord your God, he himself is your leader. And Isaiah 63: The Spirit of the Lord was his leader. And 2 Chronicles 13: In our army God is the leader. And Psalm 54 [55]: My leader and my familiar friend. And Wisdom 10: The Lord led the just man by right ways. And Psalm 72 [73]: You held my right hand, and in your will you led me; with many similar texts, very frequent in Scripture.

The divine will, therefore, leads the human, by naturally preceding it. Hence also that ‖C1 Annicius Seneca, as Augustine cites him, City of God 5, 8, says in a kind of verse thus: 40 Lead me, highest Father, and ruler of the lofty heaven, wherever you have pleased; there is no delay in obeying: I am here, eager; make me [unwilling], I shall follow, groaning, 41 and, wicked, I shall endure to do what a good man was allowed to do; the fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling. Here Augustine adds, C2 that in this last verse he most evidently called "the fates" what he had earlier called the will of the supreme Father. Blessed Gregory agrees with this, Moralia 6, 12, on that text of Job 5, Who catches the wise in their craftiness, etc.; he speaks thus: For God's works are so great that through everything done by men his will is sought out, and our action ought devoutly to serve that will once it is known, and as it were to follow it as the Leader of its road, lest even unwillingly it serve him, if in pride it turns from it; for the force of the heavenly counsel can by no means be avoided. Again, otherwise human will would draw the divine after itself,

when the reverse is more reasonable, as is clear from the authority of Seneca just cited. Likewise, if it were so, human will would rather govern the divine by acting than the divine the human, which is contrary to reason and to the authority of Job set forth above: The clouds scatter their light, they that go round about all things, wherever the will of the one who governs has led them. And Wisdom 14: But you, Father, govern by providence; and it speaks of seafaring D1 and such human affairs. And Isaiah 48: I, the Lord your God, teaching you what is useful, governing you in the way you walk. Hence also Canticles 1: Draw me after you. And John 6: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him. And further on, 12: I will draw all things to myself. And Isaiah 10: Will the axe glory against him who cuts with it, or the saw exalt itself against him by whom it is drawn? This is understood of Sennacherib and of God, as the twentieth of the first cited more fully. Likewise, otherwise human will would rather rouse the divine to do something than the reverse, which is contrary to Holy Scripture very often, in evil acts as in good. D2 Hence 1 Chronicles 5: The Lord God of Israel stirred up the spirit ‖D3 of Pul king of the Assyrians, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser

king of Assur, and he carried away the Reubenites and the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh, etc. And 2 Chronicles 21: The Lord stirred up against Joram the spirit of the Philistines and of the Arabs, who border on the Ethiopians, and they went up into the land of Judah and laid it waste, etc. E1 And Ezekiel 23: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will stir up all your lovers against you, with whom your soul has been sated, and I will gather them against you round about, the sons of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, nobles and tyrants, and all the princes, the sons of the Assyrians, young men of striking beauty, captains, and all the magistrates, princes of princes, and renowned riders of horses, and they will come upon you, etc. And Amos 6: Behold, I will stir up against you, house of Israel, E2 says the Lord God of hosts, a nation, and it will crush you. These and many other texts speak of the evil acts of the will; of good ones it is written in 2 Chronicles [last chapter] and 1 Esdras 1: The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus the king, etc. And Isaiah 41: Who (the Gloss: 42 if not I) has stirred up the just man from the east? He called him E3 to follow him. He will give nations before his face, etc. And it continues: Who has done and accomplished these things,

calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the first and the last; I am. And further on, 45: I, says the Lord, have stirred him up for justice, and I will direct all his ways. And Haggai 1: The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, and the spirit of Josedech, and the spirit of the rest of all the people, and they went in, and did the work in the house of the Lord. Likewise, if human will naturally precedes the divine in an action common to both, then the human rather inclines the divine and determines it to act than the divine the human, which is against what was shown and cited before, A1 in the twentieth of this second; hence also Proverbs 21: Like divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: wherever he wills, he will incline it. With the reasons set forth here, moreover, the authorities of Augustine from On Grace and Free Choice and On Rebuke and Grace, cited more fully in the twentieth of the second, are in good agreement. Again, then it would rather be said that man makes God will, and makes or does something, than the reverse; for in these matters the one who makes is the prior and superior cause. This is against many authorities cited more fully in the twentieth of the second. A2 Hence also the Apostle in Philippians 2: It is God, he says, who works in us both to will and to accomplish (or, in other readings, to work) for good will. And Romans 15: I dare not speak of anything but what Christ has accomplished through me. And Isaiah 45: B1 I am the Lord, and there is no other, forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil; I, the Lord, do all these things. So the Lord is prior and superior in such action. And Ezekiel 36: I will make you walk in my precepts, and keep my judgments and do them. And Romans 8: Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. On this text the 310th proposition of the Sentences of Prosper, which is Augustine's and is cited in the Gloss, 43 speaks thus: To be driven is undoubtedly more than to be ruled. 44 For he who is ruled does something, and is ruled in order to do rightly; but he who is driven is scarcely understood to do anything himself. And the grace of the Savior gives so much to our wills that the Apostle does not hesitate to say, Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Nor can free will do anything in us better than to commend itself to him who *B2 cannot do evil.

Likewise Augustine, On the Words of the Apostle, sermon 13, treating the same authority, speaks thus: Someone says to me, "So we are driven; we do not act." I answer: Rather, you both act and are driven, and you act well when you are driven by the good. For the Spirit who drives you is the helper of those who act, because, as the Lord says, Without me you can do nothing. Now therefore what you have heard, Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God—do not abandon yourselves. For God does not build his temple of you as if of stones that have no motion of their own and are lifted and set in place by a builder. Living stones are not like that, and you, as living stones, are built up together into the temple of God. Be led, but run yourselves too; be led, but follow, because even when you have followed, this will be true, that without him you can do nothing: for it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. This is above all because the whole course of the Apostle's and the Prophets' teaching plainly tends to this, that God in such acts is not merely an agent, but even the first agent. For through this teaching of his the Apostle intends chiefly to implant and nourish humility in human hearts, as the twenty-third of this book teaches. This he would not only fail to do, but he would even raise men to a greater pride,

if he taught that God works in us to will and to accomplish, not antecedently as Lord, but subsequently as servant. For how would he cut away from men—how would he no longer furnish—the matter for pride, 45 by teaching them that they always have God, most readily, as a mere servant at every nod of their will, complying with their wishes in all things? D1 Hence the Apostle too fittingly prefaced it: With fear and trembling work out your salvation; for it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish for good will. On this Augustine, On the Words of the Apostle, sermon 1, speaks thus: Lest they should claim anything for themselves from this, because he said, Work out, he immediately added, For it is God who works in you both to will and ‖D2 to accomplish. It is God ‖D3 who works in you; therefore with fear and trembling. Where the Gloss says: With fear, that is, with humility, not in pride; and he is therefore to be feared, because not you, but God works, etc., for good will, that is, by his own will. For how can it be truly understood that not you but God works in you to will and to accomplish, when it is sufficiently established from the foregoing that acts of this kind are human acts, unless it means that not you but God acts antecedently, or principally, or prior by nature, while you act subsequently, instrumentally and subserviently? It is as if one were to say, not the stick, but the man strikes; not the axe, but the man builds.

The same Apostle also speaks thus in Romans 9: It is not (he says) of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy, which cannot be explained otherwise. E1 Hence Augustine, Enchiridion 23: 46 Again, lest anyone, even if not on account of works, should glory in the free choice of the will itself, as though merit began from it, and the reward of good working were repaid to it as a debt: let that freedom itself hear the same herald of grace saying, For it is God who works in us both to will and to work for good will. And elsewhere: So it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy; though undoubtedly, if a man is of an age to use reason already, he cannot believe, hope or love unless he wills, nor

reach the palm of God's supernal calling unless he has run by will. How then is it "not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy"? Only because the will itself, as it is written, is prepared by the Lord. Otherwise, suppose it was said, Not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy, because it comes about from both, that is, from the will of man and the mercy of God; so that we take it as said thus, Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy, as if one said, The will of man alone is not enough, unless the mercy of God is also there. Then the mercy of God alone is not enough either, unless the ‖A1 willing man's is also there. And by this reckoning, just as it is rightly said, Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy, because the will of man alone does not fulfill it, why is it not rightly said on the contrary, Not of God who has mercy, but of man who wills, because the mercy of God alone does not fulfill it? Furthermore, if no Christian will dare to say, Not of God who has mercy, but of man who wills, lest he flatly contradict the Apostle, it remains that it be rightly understood to have been said for this reason, Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy, so that the whole may be

given to God, who both prepares the good will of man to be helped, and helps it when prepared. For a man's good will precedes many of God's gifts, but not all; and for those that it does not precede, it is itself among them. For both are read in the Holy Scriptures: And his mercy will go before me, and his mercy will follow me. It goes before the unwilling that he may will; it follows the willing that he may not will in vain. For why are we admonished to pray for our enemies, who surely do not wish to live piously, unless it is that the Lord may work in them that they may will? And again, why are we admonished to ask in order to receive, unless it is that what we will may be brought about by him by whom it was brought about that we will? We pray, then, for our enemies, that the mercy of God may go before them, as it went before us; and we pray for ourselves, that his mercy may follow us. Augustine, On Grace and Free Choice 17, treats the same authority to the same effect. B1 Anselm also, On Concord 9: It is neither of him who wills, he says, that he wills, nor of him who runs that he runs, but of God who has mercy. For to all, God alone excepted, it is said, What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

So John 11 speaks: But one of them, C1 Caiaphas by name, said to them, It is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and the whole nation not perish. He did not say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied. And so the Teacher himself, and the truth, speaks to his disciples, saying: C2 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you, Matthew 10; and John 15: You did not choose me, but I chose you. And 1 John 4: In this is the love of God, not that we loved God, C3 but that he first loved us. And Tobit 3: Your counsel is not in the power of man; C4 and Jeremiah 10: I know, Lord, that the way of man is not his own, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps. On this the Gloss: Let them blush who say that each one is ruled by his own choice; for the way of man is not his own, etc. Hence David: By the Lord the steps of a man are directed; and the second Gloss of falsigraphy is evidently refuted by the thirty-second of the first. 47 Let those Pelagians blush, then, and let me not blush, a Christian, a follower of Paul, of Augustine and of Gregory. Let them tremble

and let me not tremble, those who in dealing with you, Lord my God, so shamelessly and fearlessly, by ruling you, make themselves higher. Fill their faces, I pray, with shame, and let them seek your name, Lord. Let them blush, and be troubled forever and ever, and be confounded, and perish, that they may know that your name is Lord, that you alone are most high over all the earth, Psalm 82 [83]. Moreover, that even in the common action of God and man, God precedes man, and the divine will the human, by nature, very many authorities of the Philosophers, of Holy Scripture and of the Catholic Doctors agree in attesting. For all the Philosophers agree in this one thing, that among essentially ordered causes one cannot proceed to infinity, but one must come to a single supreme cause, naturally first of all, regulating and moving all the others, as an artisan his instruments, as was cited sufficiently in the fourth of the first and the twentieth of the second. D1 Hence also Avicenna, Metaphysics 10, 1, speaking of the disposition of beings, says [thus]: This whole flows from above, nor does this whole follow from the imagination of the heavenly ones

alone; but because the true First willed this whole, therefore from him begins to be every ‖E1 thing that was, but through another as mediator. For these reasons, therefore, prayers and sacrifices profit men, and especially litanies for rain, and the like. Likewise Aristotle in On the World 11 says thus: 48 As in a chorus, when the choir-leader begins, the whole chorus of men and women sings along, with various high and low voices making one continuous harmony, so it is also with God, who disposes all things. And further on in the same work, comparing God and the World to a leader and an army, he says thus: All things are moved under one commander by the nod of the leader who holds power; so too must we think of the universe. For from a single impulse, when all are roused, each does what is its own, and this by an invisible and hidden being, which is no hindrance, either to it in acting or to us in believing, etc.; cited more fully in the third of the first. E2 The Commentator also, 49 on the first proposition of the Causes, which says, Every first cause is more influential upon its effect

than the second universal cause, speaks thus: What is it, that the first universal cause acts upon the effect of the second cause before the second universal cause, which follows it, acts upon it, etc.? Quite plain. 50 For this reason also certain articles asserting the contrary of this were condemned at Paris, as the twentieth of the second recited more fully. Nor do the Philosophers understand this only of the action of nature, but also of the intellect, and likewise of the will, as is clear from the Philosopher in On Good Fortune and from all who speak of the agent intellect, as the same twentieth likewise recited. A1 Hence Avicenna, Metaphysics 10, 1, a little after the authority cited above, speaking of the disposition of the parts of animals and plants, says thus: There is no ‖A2 natural cause there in any way, but its principle is without doubt from divine care. Believe likewise that these intentions depend on divine care. Know also that the common people more nearly approve, or come near, and hold it, and say it is true, and none shrink from it except those who wish to seem Philosophers, because they are ignorant of the causes and occasions of these things. Now therefore, in this matter, we have made 51

a book on sin and its opposite. Therefore attend from that to the disposition of all things, and believe what is said about the divine scourges that descend upon the cities of the shameless, and upon injurious men, and the like, and how the truth is defended. Know also that the cause of prayer here, and of almsgiving and the like, likewise of events, of injury and of sin, are only from there. For the principles of all these reach as far as nature, or will, or chance; but the principle of nature is from there; and the wills that are in us come to be after they were not. But whatever is after it was not has a cause; therefore every will that is in us has a cause. But the cause of this will does not extend to infinity, but to certain things that happen from outside, namely the earthly and the heavenly; but the earthly ones reach back to the heavenly. The sum of all these, then, comes necessarily from the necessity of the divine will; and chance occurs from the concurrence of all these. And when you have resolved all things, indeed, they will be reduced to principles, whose necessity descends from God; and the judgment of God is the first simple position.

See what he says: that the common people approve this, and that those who wish to appear philosophers alone shrink from it, C1 as the Prophet says: "Because I have not known learning, I will enter into the powers of the Lord" (Psalm 70 [71]). And this reasoning of Avicenna is the reasoning of Saint Thomas for this same conclusion, in On the Christian Religion, chapter 120, as the twenty-second of the second cited more fully.52 For this same view one can bring forward nearly, or rather truly, all those authorities, philosophical and theological, that were cited more fully in chapters 28 and 29 of the first, on fate, chance, and fortune. Hence also a certain article condemned by Lord Stephen, Bishop of Paris, runs thus: "That all voluntary motions are reduced to the first mover." This is an error, unless it be understood of a first mover simply uncaused, and with the motion understood according to its substance, not according to its deformity. Canonical Scripture bears witness to the same thing in many places. Some of these were cited above; of the rest I shall now briefly cite a few. That most eloquent man

Isaiah says, in chapter 26: D1 "From your face, Lord, we have conceived, and as it were been in labor, and we have brought forth the spirit of our salvation." And the Lord says through the same prophet, in chapter 45: "I will go before you." And in Ecclesiasticus 33: "As clay in the potter's hand, to mold it and fashion it, all his ways are according to his ordering; so is man in the hand of him who made him." For when they asked the Lord, "Who are you?", D2 he himself answered, "The Beginning" (John 8); and in Revelation 1: "I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God." Moreover, according to the opinion of the wise man in Ecclesiasticus 25: "If a woman has primacy, she is opposed to her husband," which he judges unseemly. How much more unseemly, then, if the human soul or will were to have primacy over God! Surely by as much as the disparity between God and man is greater than that between husband and wife. Hence above, in chapter 24, uncreated Wisdom herself says: "In every people and in every nation I have held primacy, and by my power I have trodden down the hearts of all the excellent and the lowly." Hence also the Apostle, in his letter to the Colossians, speaking of the Son, D3 who is this supreme Wisdom of God, says: "All things were created through him and in him, and he is before ‖D4 all, and in him all things hold together; and he is the head of the body, the Church, who

is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold primacy."53 And in Colossians 2: "Let no one seduce you, wishing it in humility and the worship of the angels, which he has not seen as he walks, puffed up in vain by the sense of his flesh, and not holding the head, from which the whole body, supplied and built up through its joints and bonds, E1 grows with the growth of God." The Gloss: "The Head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole body, that is, the Church," etc. Therefore the Church, growing in merit, supplies for Christ the head as for the first and acting head, and not the other way round. Likewise Exodus 14: "The Lord will fight for you, E2 and you shall hold your peace." And further on, in chapter 17, it is written that when Amalek had been defeated Moses built an altar and called its name "The Lord is my exaltation," saying that it was the hand of the Lord alone, and the war of God. The Gloss: He who works all our works in us, as holy

Church too sings to God: "There is no other who fights for us, but you, our God." And Wisdom 6 reads thus of Wisdom: "She anticipates those who desire her, to show herself to them first"; and further on: "The beginning of her is the truest desire of instruction"; and she herself anticipates and forestalls that beginning; and so also whatever is begun.54 There are many other authorities of sacred Scripture besides, which I do not recite on this occasion, lest they perhaps bring too much weariness, or provoke nausea, in those who are filled daily with such things as with their daily bread. I shall further add a few authorities of approved Doctors. Blessed Augustine, in the Hypognosticon, 42, says: A1 "In every holy work the will of God is prior, and that of free choice posterior; that is, God works and man cooperates.55 But if you say (you, that is, Pelagian, as you are accustomed to say), 'Because I willed first, God willed,' you are already making a merit, so that grace from works is no longer grace but a wage." At this point the Apostle rebukes you, saying, "If therefore grace is now not from works, otherwise grace is now not grace"; grace therefore is given, not repaid. The same Augustine, in On the Predestination of the Saints, 3, after citing authorities of sacred Scripture against Pelagius, who says that man believes from himself, B1 sets out the substance of Pelagius's reply in these words: "Unwilling, then, to resist such clear testimonies, and yet wishing that what he believes should come from himself, man in a way makes a bargain with God, claiming a part of faith for himself and leaving a part to him; and, what is more arrogant, he takes the first part himself and gives the next to him, and in what he says belongs to both he makes himself the prior and God the posterior." Him he at once refutes, adding: "That pious and humble Doctor did not think thus (I mean the most blessed Cyprian), who said, 'We must glory in nothing, since nothing is ours.' To show this he called on the Apostle as witness, who says, 'What have you that you have not received? But if you have received, why do you glory as though you had not received?'" And in chapter 4 he adds: "By this chief testimony I too, struck, was convinced,

when I erred in the same way, supposing that faith, by which we believe in God, is not a gift of God but comes from us and is in us. For I did not think that faith was anticipated by the grace of God, except in that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not come first; but that we should consent to the Gospel when it was preached to us, I thought to be our own, and to come to us from ourselves." From which it clearly appears that this opinion contains the Pelagian heresy. And he continues: "Several of my little works sufficiently show this error of mine, among them the exposition of certain propositions of the Letter to the Romans. Finally, when I was reviewing my little works, and had come to retract this free choice,56 I spoke of it thus: 'What I said, that to believe and to will is ours, but to give to those who believe the ability to work well through the Holy Spirit is his, is indeed true; but by the same rule both are his, because he himself prepares the will, and both are ours, because it comes about only by those who will, and by us.'"

And this retraction is set down in Retractations 1, 23. The same Augustine, on that verse of Psalm 126 [127], D1 "It is vain for you to rise before light," says: "The disciples who wished to be above the Master, and servants above their Lord, wished to rise before the light; they went in vain, because they were not going after the light. To them, then, this Psalm says, 'It is vain for you to rise before light.' Such were the sons of Zebedee, who, before they were humbled according to the passion of the Lord, were already choosing for themselves the places where they would sit, one at the right, the other at the left. And Peter had risen before the light when he wished to give counsel to the Lord, that he should not suffer for us, when he said, 'Far be it from you, Lord; be merciful to yourself; this shall not happen.' He wished to rise before the light, and to give counsel to the Light. But what did the Lord do? He made him rise after the light: 'Return behind me, Satan.' He is Satan precisely because you ‖D2 wish to rise before the light. 'Return behind me,' that I may go before, and you may follow where I go, and go there; not that you may wish to lead me where you wish to go." D3 And on that verse of Psalm 55 [56], "My enemies shall be turned backward," treating the words of Peter and Christ mentioned above, he says: "Peter was called Satan.

Why? Because he wished to go before the Lord, and to give earthly counsel to the heavenly Leader. 'Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen.' You say, 'Far be it,' and you say, 'Lord.' Surely if he is Lord, he acts by power; if he is Master, he knows what he is doing. But you wish to lead the leader, to teach the master, to command the Lord, to wish things upon God; you go far ahead, but you will be turned backward." The same, in the first sermon on John, homily 49, expounding that verse of John 11, E1 "Are there not twelve hours in the day?", and treating incidentally the aforesaid counsel of Peter and the Lord's reply, says the same. Among other things he speaks in the person of the Lord to Peter: "But as for what I said, 'Return behind me, Satan'? Hear also the reason for this: 'For you do not savor the things that are of God, but the things that are of man.' Let no one, then, flatter himself; from what is his own he is Satan, from God he is blessed. For what is from his own, if not from his sin? Take away sin, and what is yours? 'Righteousness,' you say,

'is from what is mine.' But what have you that you have not received?" Understanding by the day the Lord, and by the twelve hours his twelve Apostles, who were giving counsel to the Lord not to go into Judea, he goes on thus in his exposition: "When, therefore, men wished to give counsel to God, disciples to the Master, servants to the Lord, the sick to the physician, he rebuked them and said, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he will not stumble.' Follow me, if you do not wish to stumble; do not give counsel to me, you who ought to receive counsel from me. Why then 'Are there not twelve hours in the day?' Because, to show that he was the day, he chose twelve disciples. 'If I am the day,' he says, 'and you the hours, do the hours of the day give counsel? The hours follow the day, not the day the hours.'" If, however, God were always to work all our works with us, and naturally afterwards,57 then in all our works, at least those done with deliberation, he follows our counsel, and we do not follow his,

non nos suum is the end of that sentence; here it is in order: and not we his own. It is also evident from what has been said that to any such heretic who puts himself before God, and his own will before the divine, one can say, in the person of God, in a catholic manner, "Return behind me, Satan"; or, according to Jerome's translation, "Go behind me, Satan, for you do not savor the things that are of God, B1 but the things that are of men" (Mark 8 and Matthew 16): "Go behind me, Satan; you are a scandal to me," etc. Likewise the Lombard, in the second book of the Sentences, distinction 18, says: "It must be known that the causes of all things are in God from eternity, and these are called primordial causes, because others do not precede them, but they precede the others, being the causes of causes. And although the divine power, disposition, or will is one, and therefore the one principal cause of all, nevertheless, on account of the diversity of effects, Augustine says in the plural that the primordial causes of all things are in God, introducing the likeness of a craftsman, in whose disposition lies what shape the chest is to have; so too in God the cause of each future thing came first. In creatures, however, there are causes of some things, though not of all, as Augustine says, because God also implanted seminal reasons in things, according to which some things come from others,

as from this seed such a grain, from this tree such a fruit, and the like. These too are called primordial causes, though not properly so in relation to God,58 because they have before them an eternal cause, which is properly and universally first; but those are called first in relation to the remaining things, namely those that come from them. They are also called primordial causes [of things] because they were implanted in things by God in the first establishment of things; and as creatures are changeable, so these causes too can be changed. C1 But what is a cause belonging to the immutable God cannot be changed." Likewise Hugh, in On the Sacraments, book 1, part 2, chapter 2, says: "The order and disposition of all things, from the highest to the lowest, in the framework of this universe, so follows itself out through certain causes and begettings of reasons that, of all things that are, nothing is found unconnected, or by nature separable and standing apart. Some things, indeed, are only causes and not effects, like the first of all; others only effects and not causes, like the last of all; others again are both causes in respect of the later things they generate, and effects in respect of the earlier things by which they are generated. And as nothing later is perceived beyond those that are last and only effects, so indeed nothing earlier is found before those that are first and only causes of what follows them.

Of first causes, some are generated, being first in their own kind, and others uncreated, being first universally. For in this universe of all things, with all things so cohering causally, something first is found, such that nothing can be before it among all these, since it is itself first of all; and for these causes that are first universally nothing is prior, since they themselves are first of all, nor do they have other causes prior to themselves, D1 since they themselves are the causes of all things." And in chapter 6 he shows that these first causes are the will, wisdom, and power of God, which the earlier chapters there also intend. Hence he says in the fifth chapter: "In the predestination, then, of things to be created, goodness operated; in the creation, again, of the predestined, power operated; in the beatification of the created,59 power together with goodness." And in the last chapter he says: "Since, then, there are in God three primordial causes, wisdom, power, and will; from the will they proceed, through wisdom they are directed, through power they are carried through. For will moves, wisdom disposes, power

carries out. E1 These are the eternal foundations of all causes, and the first beginning." The same, in part 4, chapter 1, says: "The first cause of all things is the will of the Creator, which no preceding cause moved, because it is eternal, nor does any subsequent cause confirm it, since it is just of itself. For he did not will justly for the reason that what he willed was going to be just; rather, what he willed was by right just because he himself willed it." And in the last chapter: "Thus, then, he says, the order of things stands, E2 that the later things follow the first: the first of all is the will of the Creator, since all things are from it." Likewise Anselm, in the Monologion, chapter 10, writes thus: "In this they differ from one another, those inner utterances in the creating Wisdom and in the craftsman of the works he is to make: that the former, neither taken up nor helped from elsewhere, could as first and sole cause suffice its craftsman for completing his work; the latter is neither first, nor sole, nor sufficient for beginning its work."

For this reason, the things that were created through that one are in no way anything that they are not through it; but the things that come to be through this one would not exist at all, unless they were something that they are not through that one.60 Likewise the most eloquent Doctor and most glorious Martyr Cyprian, in his thirteenth letter, entitled On the Discipline of the Christian Religion, to Quirinus, shows at length in the fourth chapter that we may glory in nothing, since nothing is ours.61 And in chapter 10 he shows that we must trust in the Lord alone and glory in him, which he confirms from many places of Scripture. Through Jeremiah he says: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this: to understand and know that I am the Lord, who work mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth; for in these is my will, says the Lord." And afterwards: "My soul is subject to none but God alone." A1 Likewise Jerome, book 12 on Isaiah, treating that word of Isaiah 45, I girded you, and you did not know me, speaks thus as a churchman:62 "God has given you speech and wisdom"; he must take care lest he think that what he says is his own, and should instead refer it all to the glory of the giver, lest he himself deserve to hear, "I girded you, and you did not know me."

Likewise blessed Prosper, in his Against Cassian,63 chapter 1, recites his first definition, which says: "Not only of good acts but also of good thoughts is God the source, B1 who inspires in us both the beginnings of a holy will, and grants the power and the opportunity to carry out the things we rightly desire. For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who both begins the things that are good, and carries them out and brings them to completion in us, as the Apostle says: He who gives seed to the sower will also supply bread to eat, and will make the fruits of your justice grow"; B2 and this definition Prosper very often approves and confirms as most true. In chapter 8 the same author recites blessed Pope Zosimus writing thus to the whole world: "We, at the prompting of God (for all things must be referred to their author, from whom they are born), have referred everything to the knowledge of our brothers and fellow bishops." Therefore, according to him, all our good works are born of God as author; therefore of God willing. For according to Augustine, 83 Questions, q. 3, when it is said "by him as author," it is said "by him willing"; therefore works of men of this kind are born and proceed from the divine will in priority to the human. For if they were born in priority from the human will, they would be referred to it more principally and more fittingly; and man himself, rather than God, and more truly, would be the Author of such works. No one will say this, except one who contradicts the Author of all and all orthodox authorities; as was also shown briefly in the ninth of the first. C1 Therefore the same Prosper, immediately afterwards in the same chapter, recites the following words from the synodal letter of the African bishops written in reply to that Pope: "As for what you put in your letter, which you took care to have sent to all the provinces, saying, We, at the prompting of God (for all good things must be referred to their Author, from whom they are born), have referred everything to the knowledge of our brothers and fellow bishops: we have understood this saying to mean that you were cutting off, with the drawn sword of truth, as though in passing, those who exalt the freedom of human choice against the help of God. For what have you done in such favor of free choice as this, that you referred everything to the knowledge of our lowliness, and yet saw faithfully and wisely, and said truly and confidently, that it was done at the prompting of God? Surely it is because the will is prepared by the Lord, and because he himself touches the hearts of his children with fatherly inspirations, that they may do some good? For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God; so that we neither perceive our own choice to be lacking, nor doubt that his help prevails more in each of the single movements of the human will in any of these good things."

Saint Thomas and John Scotus clearly testify to this, as quoted more fully in the twentieth of this book. Likewise Lombard, Sentences 4, dist. 5, last [chapter]: "In our good works," he says, "God himself works the good things, and we do; not we only, nor he only, but he also with us and in us; and yet in doing them we are his ministers, we are not authors." The same author, Sentences 1, dist. 45, asserts and shows through very many authorities that the will of God is the first and highest cause of all things, namely of all species and of all motions; and this is also sufficiently shown in the twentieth chapter of the first book. Likewise, if man were to act before God, and the human will in meriting were to act prior in nature to grace and the Holy Spirit, and likewise in repenting, this would be contrary to the forty-first, forty-second and forty-third of the first book.64 This too is the faith and general profession of the Church, which prays thus: "We beseech you, Lord, go before our actions by inspiring them, and follow them by helping, so that all our working may always begin from you, and, begun, be finished through you." And again: "Our vows, which you inspire by going before, follow also by helping." And once more: "God, from whom come holy desires, and right counsels, and just works, give your servants that peace which the world cannot give," etc. The Church likewise implores the Holy Spirit when she says: "Drive the enemy farther away, and grant peace at once; with you thus as leader before us, may we avoid every harm."65

From all that has now been premised it is, I judge, sufficiently clear to anyone who is [soberly] wise that, in every action or motion common to God and a rational creature, God acts or moves first in the order of nature, and that the will of God, in making anything together with the created will, precedes that will in the order of nature by the very making.

Corollary

The corollary has a threefold porism:66 one natural, that in every causation common to God and a secondary cause, God causes first in the order of nature, before the secondary cause; another theological, that God wills nothing conditionally; a third logical, that no proposition assigning any causation whatever to any cause inferior and posterior to the divine will, or any other positive thing lower to anything whatever under God, is of the first simply,67 unless perhaps a proposition be said to be of the first simply by reason of the primacy of the subject, not of the cause. Very many such propositions, however, are of the first in a qualified sense and within a certain genus.

But from these things a threefold porism manifestly follows. One is natural: that in every causation common to God and a secondary cause, God causes first in the order of nature, before the secondary cause. Another is theological: that God wills nothing conditionally. The third is logical: that no proposition assigning any causation whatever to any cause inferior and posterior to the divine will, or any other positive thing lower to anything whatever under God, is of the first simply, unless perhaps a proposition be said to be of the first simply by reason of the primacy of the subject, not of the cause; very many such propositions, however, are of the first in a qualified sense and within a certain genus. B1 The first part appears evidently. For if, as the chapter demonstrated, in every causation of a rational creature, which is the first, most worthy and highest among all secondary causes, God always causes first in the order of nature and the creature itself afterwards, much more is this so in every causation of a secondary cause; and this can be shown concerning those causes themselves, as it has been shown concerning the others.

The second part is plainly inferred. C1 For if God wills something under a condition, either that thing is past, present or future. It is not past or present, because he wills every past thing determinately, absolutely and certainly to be past, and every present thing ‖C2 likewise to be present. But if it is said (as seems more likely) that he wills something future to be under a condition, how can this reasonably be so? For by the thirtieth of this [book], and the preceding part of the corollary, and the sixth of the first, God knows absolutely that no thing, nor any condition of a thing, can be, unless he himself, antecedently to any secondary cause, independently of the secondary cause and in a way it cannot hinder, wills and makes it; and he wills nothing in vain or foolishly. Likewise, if he were to will anything conditionally to be, the existence or positing of the condition, when it existed, would be antecedently determining, moving and actuating the divine will to will then determinately, absolutely and simply, contrary to the chapter and the preceding part of the corollary. Likewise, that condition is either past, present or future. Namely: is the fulfilment, or existence, of that condition past, present or future? It is neither past nor present, because then that condition is determinate, absolute and certain to God; so he likewise wills the thing to be, and therefore not under any condition. But if, as seems more likely, he wills something future to be under a future condition, he either wills that condition to be, or he does not. If not, then neither does he otherwise will the thing to be; so he vainly and foolishly wills that it be conditionally, as if he were to will conditionally all inconvenient and impossible things, for instance that he himself not exist if he were a Chimaera. If, moreover, he does not will that condition to be, then by the twenty-second of the first and its corollary he wills it not to be; for in the same way he could will all impossible things to be, and himself tomorrow to be a Chimaera. By a similar ‖D1 irrational reasoning he could will, and would likewise will, that nothing be. But if he wills that condition to be, he wills it either absolutely or under another condition. If absolutely, then by the tenth of the first it will be absolutely fulfilled and will exist, and God knows this well and wills it; therefore, since he wills nothing in vain or foolishly, he wills the thing to be not conditionally but absolutely, determinately and simply, especially since his willing or action neither depends antecedently on any other nor can be hindered by anyone else. But if it is said that God wills that condition to be under another condition, we must ask further about that other condition, whether he wills it to be or not, and so on, as before, since no one would dare to imagine an infinite chaos, that is, an infinite regress in such conditions in the divine will, with respect to a single thing willed. Likewise, if God wills some future thing only conditionally, this seems to hold most of all of such a future thing as depends on the freedom of the human will; why not likewise of that which depends on the freedom of his own will? And so God would will no future thing absolutely, determinately or simply, but only conditionally.

And if anyone should answer: No, because it is settled for him determinately concerning his own will, certainly so also concerning the human will, since nothing can be without his specially, and first in the order of nature, willing the same and acting likewise, as the twentieth and thirtieth of this book teach. Likewise, since an absolute and simple will is more determinate, more certain and more actual than a conditional one, God would more determinately, more certainly and more actually, and therefore more perfectly, intrinsically, will one future thing than another; wherefore he would likewise know that one, as can be shown by the eighteenth of the first. But this can be refuted by the first supposition, and by the third part of the corollary of the first of the first. Likewise, when that thing will be present or past, God will will it determinately, absolutely and simply, just as he ‖A1 always wills all things present and past; therefore, according to the turnings of times and of temporal things too, he wills and will will, intrinsically, now in one way and now in another, changeably, contrary to the twenty-third of the first and also its corollary. Likewise, some such thing willed by God concerning the future can fail to be: suppose it; then God wills absolutely that it not be, as he also knows; for so he will will afterwards, and will know. Why then does he vainly will that it be conditionally?

The third part follows evidently, A2 since no proposition is of the first simply that has an extrinsic cause, prior simply, of this attribution of the inherence of the extremes, and of its truth. But any proposition attributing any causation to any cause has a cause of this that is prior simply, namely God, or the divine will, as the first part of the corollary makes clear. Moreover, any proposition that truly affirms any positive lower thing of anything whatever under God has a higher cause, prior simply, namely God and the divine will, as can clearly be demonstrated from what has been premised in this [chapter] and in the ninth of the first. But if anyone should wish to say that a proposition is of the first simply because it attributes a proper property, or any accident, to its first subject, even though it has a prior cause, he speaks simply enough.68 For the first simply excludes not only a prior subject but also a prior cause, indeed universally everything prior. Still, let men speak as they wish: for one must not quarrel about words, so long as the matter is agreed. But it is certain that a proposition attributing any accident to its first subject under God is of the first by the primacy of the subject, since God is the subject of no accident but its cause, as is clear from the corollary of the first of the first. Very many propositions, however, are first in a qualified sense and within a certain genus, namely with respect to inferior and natural causes or things. Such, for example, are those that attribute a proper effect to its proper cause, which is first in the genus of all natural causes, or in some limited genus, and in some determinate science, namely natural, or another subalternate science; or those that attribute a proper property to its first subject, or to the definition of its first subject, in the ways stated above. In accordance with these things I think that the Philosopher, in Posterior Analytics 1, where he treats this matter, is to be expounded, not unreasonably.69