De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 27
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618, 704A–715C; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/27/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

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Chapter XXVII. He answers, according to the opinion of the Philosophers and Theologians, that all future things will come about from a certain necessity with respect to higher causes, a necessity not contrary to freedom but consonant with it.

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So that, on this question, before I withdraw, I may set forth my own opinion (or rather not my own, but the common opinion of our Fathers), supposing the distinction between antecedent and consequent necessity premised in the second of this [book],[n1] I say that antecedent necessity is twofold: one wholly absolute, and the other in a way relative. This relative necessity is itself twofold: either with respect to some or to all inferior or secondary causes, or only with respect to higher and primary causes, namely the highest and first cause of all, who is God. This way of speaking about higher and lower causes can be found in Augustine, On Genesis according to the Letter 6, ch. 22, where he says, that according to inferior causes Hezekiah had ended his life at the term foretold by Isaiah, but according to other causes, namely the higher ones, which, as he says, are in the will and foreknowledge of God, he was to end his life at the time when he did end it. Lombard, too, in Sentences 2, dist. 17, speaking of higher and lower causes, says that the higher causes are the will and power of God. The Gloss on Isaiah 38, where the foretelling of death and the addition of years to the life of Hezekiah is treated, hints at the same distinction in different words, saying that God considers certain things in two ways: according to the merits and nature of the thing, which are called inferior causes, and according to his own counsel. On this account, then, God's counsel is the higher cause, or comprises the higher causes, while the inferior causes are merit and nature. The same way of speaking, as regards its other part, namely concerning first causes (or the first cause) and secondary ones, is well known from Philosophy, where God is very often called the first cause, that is, in comparison with posterior and secondary causes; and this is also sufficiently expressed in the first proposition of the Book on Causes.[n2]

According to this distinction, then, it seems to me that one must say this. Not all things that will come about will come about from wholly absolute necessity, as the twelfth of this [book] proves, nor yet from relative necessity with respect to some or to all inferior or secondary causes, as the fifth, eighth and ninth of this show; but all things that will come about will come about from relative necessity, namely with respect to the higher or primary causes, which are the will and power of God most high. It is not to be understood that all inferior causes, or any of them (rational ones, for example), could, so far as lies in themselves, act freely in this way or that, and that the higher cause, God himself, acts purely of necessity outwardly and so necessitates them to act.[n3] For it would involve a contradiction that any inferior cause should do anything without the first cause specially and properly co-acting, and indeed naturally pre-acting, as the twentieth, twenty-eighth and thirty-second of the second proved. The act of the divine will outwardly is, moreover, subject to no preceding necessity, but alone is simply contingent to either alternative, and free without qualification with the freedom of contradiction,[n4] as the fifth of this [book] taught. But it is to be understood in this way: that all things that will come about will come about from the necessity of the higher causes. That is, all things that will come about will come about causally from the power and will of God, which are higher and naturally prior in causing to any others whatever, and it is not simply and antecedently in the power of any inferior cause or causes that all those things not come about. Or more briefly, in this way: all things that will come about will come about from the necessity of the first cause, the necessity, that is, of agency or activity or efficacy in acting. That is, all those things will come about from the divine will, which with respect to all things willed is unimpedable and cannot be turned aside by anyone, since it is in no one else's power, and therefore is necessary and inevitable in causing; indeed it is itself the antecedent necessity. The whole preceding chapter makes this manifest, and I am not loath to recount its demonstration briefly. The will of God is a higher cause, and prior naturally; so whatever future thing will come about comes about from it (by the fourteenth and the corollary of the ninth of the first, with the thirty-second of the second),[n5] and it is not to be frustrated, but necessary in causing (by the tenth of the first), and is not simply in the power of an inferior cause or causes (by the eighth of this). For how could God's willing beforehand

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any future thing whatever be placed, antecedently, sufficiently and simply, in the power of anyone else? Indeed, by the ninth of this [book], nothing at all is in our simply free power. Moreover, if the non-occurrence of some future thing were placed in our power, this would be by resisting the divine will, or impeding or changing it, or making it not will beforehand in that way; and this is against the chapters just cited. For a cause that is higher and naturally prior does not follow, in causing, the inferior and posterior cause, any more than the craftsman follows his tool. Every inferior thing, too, in each of its actions and passions, is in a certain way necessitated antecedently and naturally by the divine will; for that will is, for all things, a naturally antecedent necessity, as the second of this [book] with its corollary makes manifest. Just as, therefore, all things that are, come to be and come about in the present, are, come to be and come about from a certain necessity naturally preceding all these in the divine will, so also those that will be, will come to be and will come about in the future.

All this can be briefly reduced to one syllogistic argument, thus. All things that will come about from a naturally preceding necessity will come about from some necessity; all things that will come about will come about from a naturally preceding necessity, because from the divine will, which is a naturally antecedent necessity for all the things it wills; therefore all things that will come about will come about from some necessity. Or more briefly, thus. All things that will come about from this necessity (the divine will being indicated) will come about from some necessity; all things that will come about will come about from this necessity; therefore all things that will come about will come about from some necessity. But since excessive brevity is the mother of obscurity and doubt, here is, for the same conclusion, a somewhat fuller and clearer syllogism. All things that will come about from a cause such that, once it is posited, it necessarily follows that they will come about, and whose positing is not, and will not be, antecedently in another's power according to contradiction, will come about from necessity with respect to that cause, so that it is not, and will not be, antecedently in another's power according to contradiction that they not come about; all things that will come about will come about from a cause of this kind. Or still more expressly, thus. All things that will come about from the divine will in this way, that once it is posited it necessarily follows that they will come about, and that its being posited is not, and will not be, antecedently in another's free power according to contradiction, will come about from necessity with respect to the divine will, so that it is not, and will not be, antecedently in another's free power according to contradiction that they not come about; all things that will come about will come about from the divine will in the way just stated.

The major can be shown through the definition of naturally preceding necessity and of its effect, premised in the second of this [book]. One further point is assumed, which is notorious: the future effect of a cause that is necessary in causing, and is an antecedent necessity in the sense of the definition just touched on, cannot otherwise be antecedently in another's free power according to contradiction except as regards the positing or non-positing of the cause. So the future illumination of this transparent medium by this lamp is in my free power, because I can freely remove or not remove, extinguish or not extinguish, this lamp. For otherwise, namely if, while such a cause stands, it were in another's power according to contradiction that the effect come about or not, this manifestly implies contradictories. It implies, that is, that some cause is a naturally antecedent necessity in the sense of the definition premised in the second of this [book], and that the same cause, in the same sense, is not a naturally antecedent necessity. For if, while a cause of this kind stands, it were in another's power of contradiction that its effect not come about at all, then from that cause fully posited it would not follow necessarily or indefectibly that its effect is caused. Therefore by the definition just touched on that cause is not a naturally antecedent necessity, although by hypothesis it is posited as a naturally antecedent necessity. The minor is demonstrated by the corollary of the ninth of the first, with the tenth, and by the eighth of this. Furthermore, according to what was premised in the fifteenth and twenty-third of the second, the divine will in a certain way necessitates, by a certain spontaneous necessity, the angels and the blessed among men, and those finally confirmed, to preserve their beatific act eternally, never to sin, and to all the other things that pertain to beatitude; and this will is so efficacious and firm with respect to all others, as the foregoing have taught, because it is of infinite power, simply and in every respect.

But lest, in so great a matter, I, so small, seem in any way to think less than soberly, to act wrongly, or to affirm rashly, here are the great and fitting testimonies of my elders on this very point. The wise man says in Ecclesiasticus 42: "The Lord knew all knowledge, and looked into the sign of the age, announcing the things that have passed and those that are to come, revealing the traces of hidden things. No thought escapes him, and no word is hidden from him. He has adorned the great works of his wisdom, which is before the age and to the age; nothing has been added, nothing will be taken away, and he needs no one's counsel. How desirable are all his works, and like a spark to behold! All these things live and remain for ever, and in every necessity all things obey him." Hence also Augustine, On Genesis according to the Letter 6, ch. 21, speaking of the making of the first man from clay in adult age, says: "It is manifest that man was thus not made contrary to what was in that first constitution, of causes

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namely the inferior ones, since there it was also possible for him to be so made, although it was not there necessary that he be so made. For this was not in the condition of the creature but in the good pleasure of the Creator, whose will is the necessity of things." And in chapter 22: "It is in the nature of this young man that he will grow old, but whether this is also in God's will we do not know; yet it would not be in nature unless it had first been in God's will. And certainly the reason for old age in the youthful body is hidden. For it is not seen by the eyes but is gathered by some other kind of knowledge; hidden, then, is that reason by which it comes about that this can be, but it is hidden from the eyes, not from the mind. Whether, however, this is also necessary in every way, we do not know. The reason by which it comes about that it can be, we know in the nature of the body itself; but the reason by which it comes about that it is necessary, it is manifest is not there. Perhaps, however, it is in the world that it be necessary for this man to grow old. But if it is not in the world either, it is in God; for that is necessarily future which he himself wills, and those things are truly future which he foreknew. For many things are future according to inferior causes, but if they are so in God's foreknowledge, they are truly future; if, however, they are otherwise there, they are rather future as they are there, where he who foreknows cannot be deceived. For old age is said to be future in youth;[n6] yet it is not future if he is to die beforehand. This will be as the other causes stand, whether woven together in the world or reserved in God's foreknowledge. For according to certain causes of future things Hezekiah was about to die, and God added fifteen years to his life, doing this very thing which he foreknew before the establishment of the world that he would do, and kept in his will. Nor would those years rightly be said to be added unless they were added to something that had stood otherwise in other causes. According to some inferior causes, then, he had already ended his life; but according to those that are in the will and foreknowledge of God, who from eternity had known what he was going to do at that time (and this was truly future), he was to end his life at the time when he did end it. For even if it was granted to one praying, he foresaw even this: that he would pray in such a way that it should be granted him by such a prayer; he whose foreknowledge could not be deceived foresaw it: and therefore what he foreknew was necessarily future." Lombard also, in Sentences 2, dist. 18, cites Augustine saying that the woman's being made from the man's rib

was necessary; this was not laid up in created things but hidden in God; and this can be gathered in substance from book 9 of the same on Genesis, ch. 28. Likewise Ambrose,[n7] on that text of Romans 9, "that the purpose of God according to election might stand," etc., says: "In him whom he chose the purpose of God stands, because nothing else can come about than what he knew and proposed in him, that he be worthy of salvation; and in him whom he spurns the purpose that he proposed about him likewise stands, because he will be unworthy." The same, on that text of 1 Corinthians 7, "For how do you know, woman, whether you will save your husband?" etc., says: "He says this because perhaps they can believe; as the Lord has apportioned to each, the Lord has apportioned to each when he shall be saved. That is, he knows when he can believe, and he waits for him." Likewise blessed Cyprian, in his letter 3, entitled On the Lapsed, says: "Since the crown of martyrdom descends from God's gracious deigning, and cannot be received unless the hour of receiving has come, whoever, remaining in Christ, yields for the time being does not deny the faith but awaits the time." Likewise 1 Esdras 5: "The eye of their God came upon the elders of the Jews,[n8]

and they could not hinder them." Blessed Job shows this necessity, premised according to the higher causes, evidently in various places, both by not doing and by doing.[n9] In chapter 5, speaking of God, he says: "Who scatters the thoughts of the wicked, so that their hands cannot fulfil what they had begun." And below, 14: "The days of man are short, the number of his months is with you." And to show how it is with him, namely by way of the necessity stated, he adds: "You have set his limits, which cannot be passed." And further below, 23: "No one can turn aside his thoughts; and his soul, whatever it wished, this it did." On the first of these, blessed Gregory, Moralia 6, 12, speaks thus: "Our action ought devoutly to serve the will from above, once it is known, and to follow it as the guide of its journey, lest it serve it even unwillingly, if in pride it turns away from it; for the force of the counsel from on high can by no means be avoided." With this the passage of Tobias 3 also agrees well: "Your counsel is not in the power of man"; and Isaiah 14: "The Lord of hosts has decreed, and who can annul it?"; and Jeremiah 47, about the sword of the Lord that cannot rest when the Lord has commanded it to a movement of vengeance, as is more fully cited in the thirty-second of the first.

And that passage above, of the same, 10:[n10] "I know, Lord, that the way of man is not his own, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps." Gloss: "Let them blush who say that each is ruled by his own choice; for the way of man is not his own. Whence David: By the Lord the steps of a man will be directed; and Proverbs 20: By the Lord the steps of a man are directed." Gloss: "Not by freedom of choice." Nor can anyone explain these passages as being about good ways, or good steps, only, as the thirty-second of the first shows. On the second authority of Job premised, blessed Gregory, Moralia 12, 1, says that in the advance of the virtues a man strives to lay hold of the good, and cannot, because almighty God has set limits for man which cannot be passed, as the forty-sixth of the first cited more fully. The same Gregory, further on in the same, 16, on that text of Job 15, "Before his days are fulfilled he will perish,"

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says thus: "Days have been fixed for each by God's inner foreknowledge, and they can neither be increased nor diminished, unless it happens that they are so foreknown as to be longer with the best works, or shorter with the worst; as Hezekiah merited an increase of days by the outpouring of tears." But lest anyone believe that Gregory affirms that God's preordination or foreknowledge depends on future works, let him hear him saying earlier in the same (1) of the same Hezekiah: "The Lord said through the Prophet at what time he himself deserved to die, but by the largesse of his mercy he postponed his death at that time, which he himself foreknew before the ages. The Prophet, then, was not deceptive, because he made known the time of death at which that man deserved to die; nor have the Lord's decrees been overturned, because that the years of life should grow by God's largesse was also fixed before the ages, and the span of life that was unexpectedly added outwardly was established inwardly without any increase of foreknowledge." The same, again, in Moralia 16, 4, on that text of Job 22, "Who were taken away before their time," says thus: "Almighty God foreknows for each person that time for death at which his life is ended,

and no one could die at any other time than that at which he dies. For if fifteen years are recorded as added to Hezekiah's life, the time of life indeed grew beyond that limit at which he himself deserved to die; for the divine disposition foreknew then the time at which it would afterwards remove him from the present life. Since this is so, what is meant by saying that the wicked are taken away before their time, except that all who love the present life promise themselves longer spans of that same life? But when death coming upon them withdraws them from the present life, it cuts off the spans of their life, which they had been accustomed to stretch out, as it were, longer in their thought." The same further on, in the same, 15, on that text of Job 23 cited above, "No one can turn aside his thoughts," says thus: "Of his immutability it is fittingly added at once, And no one can turn aside his thoughts. For as his nature is immutable, so he is immutable in thought; for no one will turn aside his thought, since no one can prevail to resist his hidden judgments. For even if there were some who seemed by their entreaties to have turned aside his thought, his

inner thought was such that by entreating they could turn aside his sentence, and they received from him what they should do in his presence. Let him say, therefore, And no one can turn aside his thought, because judgments once fixed can by no means be changed; whence it is written, He has set a decree, and it will not pass away; and again, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away; and again, For my thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways. When, therefore, the sentence seems outwardly to be changed, the counsel inwardly is not changed, because inwardly everything is established concerning each thing immutably, whatever is done outwardly in a mutable way." Nor should it trouble anyone that he says that the divine sentence can be turned aside by entreaties; for this is sufficiently explained in the twenty-fifth of the first; and because here he says that God's thought, judgments and counsel cannot be changed, just as above, in the same (4), on the authority of Job 22 premised, he says that God often changes his sentence, but never his counsel. The authority of the same, Moralia 27, 22, which the thirtieth of the second cited more fully, testifies to this same view most plainly. This

necessity of future things according to higher causes, and not according to inferior causes, Anselm also shows in On Concord,[n11] though in other words. For he shows that future things come about in one way from necessity and in another way from freedom: namely, that with respect to the divine will they will come about necessarily, but with respect to the created will not at all; and that with God, and in eternity, they are established immutably, but with the creature, and in time, mutably. Whence, in chapter 2: "As it is necessary that whatever God wills be, so it is necessary that what man wills be, in those things which God so subjects to the human will that if he wills, they happen, and if he does not will, they do not happen. For since what God wills cannot not be, when he wills that man's will be compelled or prevented by no necessity to will or not to will, and wills that the effect follow the will, then it is necessary that the will be free and that what it wills be." And further on: "The work of a will to which it has been given that what it wills be and what it does not will not be, is voluntary or spontaneous, since it is done by spontaneous will, and it is necessary in two ways, because it is compelled by the will to be done, and what is done cannot at the same time

not be done." He also says further on, in 3, thus: "Nothing prevents something in our wills and actions from being known or foreknown by God to be done or to be future through free choice, so that although what he knows or foreknows must be, many things nevertheless are by no necessity (supply: unwilled), but by free will. And what wonder is it if something is in this way both from freedom, namely with respect to ourselves, and from necessity, namely with respect to divine foreknowledge or knowledge, since there are things that admit opposites for different reasons, as the same going is approaching and departing with respect to different places?" And he continues: "But if someone wishes to show, by what Job says to God about man, 'You have set his limits, which cannot be passed,' that no one could hasten or postpone the day on which he dies, although at times someone seems to us to do, by free will, that from which he dies, this is no objection to what we said above. For since God is not deceived and sees nothing but the truth, whether it come about from freedom or from necessity, he is said to have established with himself

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unchangeably what, with man, can be changed before it comes to be. Such also is what the Apostle Paul says of those who are called saints according to purpose: 'Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom he predestined, these he also called, and those whom he called, these he also justified, and those whom he justified, these he also magnified.'[n12] For this purpose according to which the saints were called, in eternity, in which there is neither past nor future but only present, is immutable; but in the men themselves, by freedom of choice, it is at times mutable. For just as, although in eternity nothing was or will be but only is, yet in time something was and will be without contradiction, so what cannot be changed in eternity is shown, without inconsistency, to be changeable in time, at some point, through free will, before it comes to be. And to show that the same Apostle had not used those words with a temporal signification, he pronounced even the things that are future with a verb of past time. For those whom he foreknew

as still to be born he had not yet, in that way, already called, justified, [magnified] in time. Hence it can be known that, for want of a word signifying eternal presence, he used a verb of past meaning; since things that are past in time are wholly immutable, in likeness to the eternal present. In this respect, indeed, things past in time are more like the eternal present than are present things, since what is there, namely in eternity, can never not be present, just as things past in time can never not be past; but things present in time, all that pass away, become not present." And in chapter 4 he adds: "In this way, therefore, whatever Sacred Scripture pronounces as if necessary about things that come about by free choice speaks according to eternity, in which every truth is present, and nothing but truth immutably, and not according to time, in which our actions and wills are not always. And since a thing is known to be so differently in time than in eternity, that at times it is true because something is not in time which is in eternity, and because something was in time which was not there, and will be temporally what will not be there,

it seems that by no reason can it be denied that something can likewise be mutable in time which there is immutable. For 'mutable in time' and 'immutable in eternity' are no more opposed than 'not to be at some time' and 'to be always in eternity,' or 'to have been or to be going to be according to time' and 'not to have been or not to be going to be in eternity.' So, certainly without any contradiction, something is said to be mutable in time before it is, which in eternity remains immutably, not before it is or after it is, but unceasingly, because nothing there is according to time." Do not many distinguished Prophets also confirm this view, as the sequence of the Old Testament teaches most clearly? Does not the Sibyl too, prophesying of Christ and of many things concerning him, say thus, "O Jews, it is necessary that these things happen," as the thirty-second part of the first corollary of the first set out more fully? Ten Sibyls, indeed, are read of, all Gentiles, all famous prophetesses. This Sibyl was surnamed in Greek the Tiburtine, in Latin the

Ebulnean;[n13] yet Augustine, City of God 18, 23 and 24, calls her the Erythraean, or, according to some, the Cumaean. Under this surname Virgil also seems to have made mention of her in the Bucolics, eclogue 4, saying: "Now has come the last age of the Cumaean song," that is, of the song of the Cumaean Sibyl, according to Servius in his commentary; and there follows, consecutively: "The great order of the ages is born anew; now the Virgin returns, the Saturnian reign returns; now a new offspring is sent down from high heaven," etc. All of this can fairly be applied to Christ, as Jerome also does in the prefatory letter to the Bible, already touched upon. Augustine, City of God 18, 23 and 24, says that she lived in the time of Ahaz or Hezekiah, king of Judah, and of Romulus and the founding of Rome, or, as some have written, in the time of the Trojan War. Some of her prophecies about Christ, as they are written in her book, Lactantius cites in his book of Divine Institutes against the Gentiles; and Augustine also, City of God 18, worthily records it. Of this Sibyl's verses, in the thirty-third part of the first corollary of the first of the writings,[n14] the most holy Church also makes mention, in a certain sequence for the Nativity, singing thus: "If he will not believe his own prophets, let him believe the Gentiles: these things were foretold in Sibylline verses."[n15] I have set these out the more abundantly so that the authority of this wise Sibyl might not perhaps be thought contemptible. This Sibyl, therefore, prophesying many things about Christ, says: "It is necessary that these things happen." Does not the Lord of the prophets himself, and the faithful Author of faith, faithfully authorize this view, when he says, "It is necessary that all things be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms about me" (Luke 24)? Wherefore by like reason it is necessary that all things be fulfilled that are written in the book of life, in the divine mind and will; and there all future things are written down, eternally and immutably, most distinctly and most certainly, as the foregoing have taught. Moreover, unless such a necessity is supposed,

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it is possible that the whole holy Church of God collapse, fall, fail and perish; that the whole boat of Peter suffer shipwreck and be sunk; that the whole faith of Christ fail and cease before the consummation of the age, even tomorrow or today. Nay more, it is possible that as regards all its articles about the future it is, and always has been, erroneous, false, foolish and deceitful; that Christ was a false prophet, a seducer, a liar and a deceiver; that the holy Apostles of Christ, the Martyrs, [the Confessors] who in former times passed on faithfully in this faith, are not, and never were, saved, but were always damned; or that a feigned faith suffices for salvation. Which disciple of Christ (nay rather, of Antichrist), which son of holy mother Church (nay rather, of the synagogue of Satan), which Catholic (nay rather, heretic), would have presumed to affirm this, when it is so dissonant, so absurd, so horrible, so execrable to Christian ears? What Christian, moreover, does not know that Christ is the cornerstone and the foundation of the Church militant? And what kind of foundation would that be: weak, unstable and infirm! Far be it from a Christian's mind even lightly to dream of it.

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Does not Christ, for this reason, compare the faithful Christian to a man building his house upon the rock, which no storm undermines or overturns? He gives the cause of this: that the house had been built upon the rock, as Matthew 7 recounts. On this passage Chrysostom says: "The Church, built by Christ, cannot be pulled down." Hence also Augustine, On the Words of the Lord, sermon 13: "This name, that he should be called Peter, was given him by the Lord, and given in that figure, to signify the Church. For since Christ is the rock, Peter is the Christian people. 'Rock' is the principal name; therefore Peter is named from the rock, not the rock from Peter, just as Christ is not named from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. 'You are therefore,' he says, 'Peter, and upon this rock, which you have confessed, I will build my Church': I will build you upon myself, not myself upon you. Let us distinguish what belongs to God and what belongs to us. For then we shall not be troubled; then we shall be founded on the rock, fixed and steady against winds, rains and rivers, that is, against the temptations of the present age. Yet look at that Peter, who was then a figure of ourselves: now he trusts, now he wavers, now he confesses the immortal one, now he fears lest he die." Accordingly, because the Church of Christ has the firm and has the weak, it can exist neither without the firm nor without the weak. Wherefore the Apostle too says: "No one can lay another foundation than that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus," 1 Corinthians 3; and again: "The firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: God knows who are his." The Lord knows, I say, who are his, by knowing and willing, by building and guarding, and this infallibly, insuperably and immutably; and therefore the firm foundation of God stands. And how firm? Without doubt firmer than any other foundation whatever, weak, slipping, corruptible, temporal, earthly or heavenly, as the foregoing passages testify. Hence the gloss also: "The firm foundation of God stands," that is, those whom God has chosen and has founded immovably in the faith. Is not this also what the Prophet foretold in figure: "You who founded the earth upon its stability: it shall not be inclined for ever and ever," Psalm 103 [104]; and again: "He built his sanctuary like a unicorn's, on the earth which he founded for ever," Psalm 77 [78]; and again: "He has made firm the orb of the earth, which shall not be moved," Psalm 92 [93].

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Giving the cause of all this, Psalm 118 [119] says: "Forever, Lord, your word remains in heaven; your truth is from generation to generation; you founded the earth, and it remains; by your ordinance the day continues, for all things serve you." Blessed Augustine, indeed, understands the earth in these passages as the Church, which is still on pilgrimage on earth; and on that verse of Psalm 103 [104] cited above, in sermon 1, he says: "By the earth I understand the Church. What is its firmness, upon which it is founded, if not its foundation? Or do we understand it unfittingly, if we take the firmness upon which the earth is founded to be the foundation where the Church is established? What is that foundation? 'A foundation,' he says, 'no one can lay, other than what has been laid, which is Christ Jesus.' There, then, we are made firm deservedly, because, made firm there, we are not inclined for ever and ever. For nothing is firmer than that foundation. You were weak, but a firm foundation carries you: in yourself you could not be firm; you will be firm always, if you do not withdraw from that firm foundation; it will not be inclined for ever and ever. It is the predestined pillar and firmament of the truth." And further on, in sermon 2: "He founded the earth upon its firmness," that is, "he made the Church firm upon the foundation, Christ. The Church will totter, if the foundation totters. And how will Christ change? Before he came to us and took flesh, all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made; he holds all things together by his majesty, and us by his goodness. If Christ does not totter, it will not be inclined for ever and ever. Where are those who say that the Church has perished from the world, when it cannot even be inclined?" So too Cassiodorus: "Mystically," he says, "it can be understood that the Church, founded upon him, cannot be inclined."[n16] Is not this also what Christ himself intimates, saying: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish for ever, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand"? "My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father: I and the Father are one," John 10. Is not this also what the Apostle teaches in Romans 8 when he says: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?" etc. "But in all these things we overcome through him who loved us." Through him, he says, not through ourselves. And it continues: "For I am certain that neither death nor life," etc., "will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And 2 Timothy 2: "The saying is trustworthy: for if we have died together, we shall also live together; if we endure, we shall also reign together"; he, who remains faithful, cannot deny himself. Can Christ's promise too be false, deceitful and lying, in which he said, "I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age," Matthew, last chapter? Can that great prayer of Christ to the Father, in which he asked on behalf of his own that he would keep them, and that in which he prayed for Peter that his faith not fail, and that appointment by which he appointed the chosen disciples that they should go and bear fruit, and that their fruit should remain, John 17, Luke 22 and John 15, as recited, be void, empty and vain? Far be it

[710B–710E]
even to think this lightly, because then Christ could be and could have been not Christ, that is, not the true Christ, but a false Christ and a counterfeit, or nothing. Did not the true Christ also say truthfully: "False Christs and false prophets will arise, and will give great signs and wonders, so that, if it can be, even the elect will be led into error," as Matthew 24 makes clear? Behold a true consequence from the true Christ: if it can be, the elect will be led into error. Hence also, according to the true discipline of Logic, from the opposite of the consequent the opposite of the antecedent is truly inferred. It follows truly, therefore: no elect will be led into error, as Christ there intimated; therefore this can never happen, since Christ, their chooser, keeps them insuperably. Hence also blessed Gregory, in book 1 on Ezekiel, homily 9, treating this consequence of Christ just reviewed, says: "One of two things holds, that if they are elect, it cannot happen; but if it can happen, they are not elect." And in Moralia 14, 8, on that verse of Job 18, "In his days the last will be astonished, and horror will seize the first," treating the consequence stated by Christ, he says: "Even if they are elect, so that they cannot be overcome[n17] by torments, yet by the fact that they are men they fear even the torments which they see." And in Moralia 33, 31, on that verse of Job 41, "Smoke comes forth from his nostrils," treating that consequence, he says: "'If it can happen' is added, because without doubt it cannot happen that the elect be wholly caught in error." With him Augustine agrees, On Faith, to Peter, 67:[n18] "Hold most firmly and in no way doubt that all whom God, by gratuitous goodness, made vessels of his mercy before the foundation of the world for adoption as sons of God, were predestined by God; and that none of those whom God has predestined to the kingdom can perish, and that none of those whom God has not predestined to life can by any reasoning be saved." The same, On Rebuke and Grace, 21: "Those are the elect," he says, "who are called according to the purpose, who are also predestined and foreknown. If any of these perishes, God is deceived; but none of them perishes, because God is not deceived. If any of these perishes generally, God is overcome by human fault; but none of them perishes, because God is overcome by nothing." The same, also, at 26: "What will you contrive against the words of him who says, 'I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith not fail'? Will you dare to say that, even with Christ praying that Peter's faith not fail, it would have failed if Peter had willed it to fail, that is, if he had been unwilling to persevere in it to the end, as though Peter could in any way will anything other than what Christ had prayed for him to will? For who does not know that Peter's faith would then have perished, if the very will by which he was faithful had failed, and would have remained, if that same will had remained? But because the will is prepared by the Lord, Christ's prayer for him could not be empty. When, therefore, he prayed that his faith not fail, what else did he pray for, except that Peter might have in faith a most free, most strong, most unconquerable and most persevering will? Behold how the freedom of the will is defended in accordance with the grace of God, not against it: for the human will does not obtain grace by freedom, but rather grace obtains freedom, and, that it may persevere, a delightful perpetuity and insuperable strength." The same, at 34: "Whoever, in God's most provident disposition, are foreknown, predestined, called, justified and glorified, I do not say even not yet reborn, but even not yet born, are already sons of God, and therefore cannot perish at all." The same, at 35: Peter had been called according to the purpose, so that no one could snatch him from the hand of Christ, to whom he had been given. The same, at 53: Christ so appointing the disciples that they go and bear fruit, and that their fruit remain, who would dare to say, perhaps it will not remain? "For the gifts of God and the calling are without repentance"; but this is the calling of those who are called according to the purpose. And further, the same, in sermon 14 On the Words of the Lord, treating that passage of Matthew 14, how while Christ was praying on the mountain the little boat was tossed by the waves on the sea, says: "While he prays on high, the little boat is troubled by the waves in the deep. Because the waves rise, that little boat can be troubled; but because Christ prays, it cannot be sunk. Think of that little boat, brothers, as the Church; this age is the turbulent sea." Furthermore, by the 28th of the first, all things will come to pass by fate, so named from the divine utterance;[n19] and fate imports necessity, as is plain from all who speak of it, and from the authorities adduced there. And Boethius says, on On Interpretation 1, last chapter:

[711A–711D]
"All things which fatal reason brings about come about, without doubt, from necessity." Ammonius too affirms this on the same passage, as was cited in the tenth of this book. Josephus also, in Jewish War 7, 8: "Men," he says, "cannot escape fate, even if they have foreseen it." Hence also the Poet:[n20] "Cease to hope that the fates of the gods can be bent by prayer." The authorities of Augustine, City of God 5, 9, and of Isidore, Ethics 8, 45, plainly testify to the same, expounding that verse of Psalm 61 [62]: "God has spoken once," that is, immovably, that is, unchangeably has he spoken, as he knows unchangeably all things that are to be and all that he is to do, as the 28th of the first recited more fully. The same, On the Spirit and the Letter, 29: "It is written," he says, "'God has spoken once,' that is, unchangeably, although it can also be understood of the one Word." Boethius also, Consolation of Philosophy 4, prose 6, says: "This series of fate, or providence, binds the acts and fortunes of men by an indissoluble connection of causes; and since these causes proceed from the beginnings of an immovable providence, the causes themselves must also be immutable. For things are best governed if the simplicity abiding in the divine mind puts forth an unswerving order of causes; and this order, in its turn, restrains changeable things by its own unchangeability." And further on: "God removes every evil from the bounds of his commonwealth through the series of fatal necessity." Moreover, Hermes too, father of the Philosophers,[n21] in On the Eternal Word 43, answers Asclepius when he asked about heimarmene: "O Asclepius, that is the necessity of all things that are done, joined together always in linked bonds. This therefore is either the maker of things, or God supreme, or the god who, next under God himself, has been made a second god, or the discipline of all heavenly and earthly things established by divine laws. In this way, therefore, heimarmene and necessity are joined to each other by a divine glue. Of these the first, heimarmene, begets the beginnings of all things; necessity compels to their effect what depends on those first origins; order follows them, that is, the weaving and disposition of time and of the things to be accomplished. For nothing exists without the composition of order, whether the world is borne along in order in all things, or consists wholly of order. These three, therefore, heimarmene, necessity and order, are brought about most of all by the nod of God, and govern the world by his law and divine reason. From these, therefore, every willing or unwilling is, so far as it is divine, wholly adverse.[n22] These are not moved by anger, nor bent by favour, but serve the necessity of eternal reason, which eternity is inconvertible, immovable and indissoluble. First, then, is heimarmene, which, as though by casting the seed of all future things, supplies their offspring; next follows necessity, by which all things are compelled to their effect; third is order, preserving the weave of all things which heimarmene and necessity dispose." The same Hermes, in On the World and Heaven 1, treating of the first cause, reason and divine mind, says: "It rules and arranges all things. There are joined together in kind, inscribed in individual singularity, whatever hyle is, whatever the world, whatever the machine of the world, whatever time, whatever the elements bring forth in temporal things; there is the text of the work, the series of fate, the disposition of the ages, the boundary of all temporal things, marked out by the finger of the supreme Disposer; there is the knot of perpetuity." His son Aristotle imitated him in On the World, last chapter, showing why God, though one, has many names; and having set out his many names with their causes, as the third of the first cites, he assigns the cause of these four divine names: Necessity, Heimarmene, Nemesis, Adrastia. For one must know, according to Damascene in his Sentences 39, that among the Greeks six famous principles were posited, namely God, necessity, heimarmene, which according to him is rendered fortune, nature, event and chance.[n23] The Philosopher therefore says, where he said it before: "I think that necessity too is said to be nothing other than this, an insuperable substance, as it were; heimarmene, because it couples and uncouples; Nemesis, from the distribution made to each; Adrastia, an inescapable cause." And in what follows, expounding the three fatal ordinances, namely Atropos of the past, Lachesis of the future, and Clotho of the present, he says: "The tale is completed not without order; and all these things are nothing other than God, as the vigorous Plato also says." Fate, then, or divine utterance, by which he disposes all things by speaking,

[711E–712C]
according to Augustine, Isidore, Hermes, Aristotle and Plato, and other authors, imports immutability, unchangeability, indissolubility, inflexibility, necessity and inevitability. The faithful word of the Author of faith also bears witness to this: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (or, "shall not pass"), Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21; which Luke 16 also expresses thus: "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the law to fall." And Matthew 5: "Amen I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one iota or one stroke will not pass from the law, until all things are accomplished." Hence also John 10: "Scripture cannot be dissolved." With these the passage of Jeremiah 31 also agrees: "Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day, the order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; if these laws fail before me, then also the seed of Israel will fail, so as not to be before me all days." The gloss: "Just as the order of the heavenly stars above all cannot be changed, and the wave of the sea rolls to the shores, and the terrible roar of the deeps is heard, and it does not pass beyond the command whereby you set a boundary which they shall not cross, so the seed of Israel will be perpetual by the will of the Lord, and will never cease." And the Prophet continues: "Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below be searched out, then I too will cast away all the seed of Israel for all that they have done." The gloss: "As this is impossible, so is that." Further on also, chapter 33: "Thus," says the Prophet, "says the Lord: If my covenant with the day can be made void, and my covenant with the night, so that day and night are not in their time, then my covenant also with David my servant can be made void, so that there be no son of his to reign on his throne, and no Levites and priests, my ministers." On this the gloss said above, concerning the creation of the Sun, Moon and stars and their course, that their laws cannot be changed; now likewise it says that the covenant of day and night cannot be made void, nor the covenant of the Lord with David. For when the legal priesthood is ended, Christ's Kingdom and Priesthood will remain for ever. That passage of Isaiah 54 also agrees with these: "The mountains shall be moved, and the hills shall tremble, but my mercy shall not depart from you, and the covenant of my peace shall not be moved, says the Lord, who has compassion on you." On this Jerome, in book 15 on Isaiah, says: "Sooner will mountains and hills be moved than my sentence be changed, as he says in the Gospel: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." He is also cited thus, on that Gospel passage, Matthew 24, in the gloss of Thomas:[n24] "That he might lead them more to faith in the things set forth he adds, 'Heaven and earth will pass away,' etc., as if he were saying: It is easier for fixed and immovable things to be destroyed than for any of my words to fall." Here Hilary too: "Heaven and earth, by the condition of creation, have no necessity in themselves that they should not be;[n25] but the words of Christ, drawn from eternity, contain in themselves the power to remain." And on that verse of John 10 cited above, he says in On the Trinity 7, as the gloss there recites, that the word of God is indissoluble. Theophilus also, on that passage of Mark 13, as recited in the gloss, says: "The immovable elements will fail sooner than the words of Christ," which Gregory also plainly attests in Moralia 16, 15, cited above. Blessed Ambrose also, on that passage of Luke 16 just mentioned, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the law to fall," says that in this Christ said of the law that one stroke cannot fall. Chrysostom also, on that passage of Matthew 5 set out above, in the tenth homily of the Unfinished Work,[n26] says: "Since all things that were to be from the beginning of the world to its end were prophesied mystically in the law, so that God might not seem not to have known beforehand any of the things that happen, therefore he says: 'It cannot be that heaven and earth pass away, until all that was prophesied in the law has been fulfilled in the things themselves.' A man of good birth, if he is found in even a mean lie, blushes; and how could God fail to do what he promised in the law, or do it otherwise? A wise man does not leave in vain the word he has spoken, and how could the divine words remain void and without effect? God punishes a man if what he teaches another, he himself

[712D–712E]
has not done; how would Christ not fulfil in work what he spoke in the Prophets? This, therefore, is what he says: 'Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,' etc." These, according to Remigius in the gloss there, will remain in essence, but will pass away by renewal. In agreement with these the Philosopher says, in On the World 13, that God, immovable, moves and carries all things wherever he wills, as the law of a city, being immovable, disposes in the souls of those who use it all things that belong to civic life. And having shown this, as it were through the city's several works, he concludes by adding: "So it must certainly be judged also of the greater city, I mean the world. For the law to us, impartial and unswerving, is God, who admits no corruption or correction, or, according to another translation, transposition; greater and more certain than the writings which are on the cyrbes (in the other translation, firmer than those on stones)."[n27] Balaam testifies to the same, Numbers 22: "I cannot," he says, "change the word of the Lord my God, so as to speak more or less"; and 23 [20]: "I am not able to forbid the blessing." On which the gloss says: "For the word of God cannot be turned aside by a human tongue, even if it wished," as the eighth of this book alleged more fully. And behold, one greater than Balaam on this very point, namely holy Isaiah, who says: "The Lord of hosts has decreed, and who can annul it?" Isaiah 14. Gloss: "This cannot be changed." Fate, therefore, or divine utterance, by which he speaks, orders and disposes all things, according to theological and philosophical writings alike, introduces and imports necessity, at least according to the higher and first causes. Holy Thomas, in On the Christian Religion 137, attests this in reality,[n28] although, as it seems, he contradicts it in words. For he says: "Although the order of divine providence applied to things is certain (by reason of which Boethius says that Fate is an immovable disposition inhering in movable things), it does not follow on that account that all things happen by necessity; for effects are called necessary or contingent according to the condition of the proximate causes

[713A–713C]
of the proximate causes. For it is evident that if the first cause is necessary and the second cause contingent, the effect will follow as contingent," as he shows by the example of celestial motion and of generation and corruption here below. And he adds: "It has been shown that God carries out the order of his providence through lower causes; there will therefore be some effects of divine providence that are contingent according to the condition of the lower causes." The same Doctor, on the first book of the Sentences, distinction 38, question 5, asks whether God's knowledge is of contingents; arguing that it is not, because the effect of a necessary and immutable cause seems to be necessary, so that, since God's knowledge is the cause of things and is immutable, it does not seem that it can be of contingents, he replies thus: "Since there are many ordered causes, the ultimate effect does not follow the first cause in necessity and contingency, but the proximate cause, as is plain in the flowering of a tree, whose remote cause is the motion of the sun, but whose proximate cause is the generative power of the plant. Flowering, however, can be impeded by an impediment to the generative power, although the motion of the sun is invariable. Similarly God's knowledge is the immutable cause of all things, but effects are produced by it through the operations of secondary causes; and therefore, through necessary secondary causes it produces necessary effects, such as the motion of the sun and the like, but through contingent secondary causes it produces contingent effects." Consequently, on distinctions 39 and 40, inquiring about providence and predestination, he makes similar arguments and replies similarly. The same, in Against the Gentiles 1, 67 and 85, shows the same by the same example. The view of this Doctor, then, stands in this: that necessity and contingency are spoken of not in respect of the higher causes but of the lower. So although the higher causes are necessary in respect of all causes, it does not follow that all things happen necessarily, because the lower and proximate co-causes, from which an effect is denominated necessary or contingent, are not all necessary, but some are contingent. But this cannot be soundly understood except according to the common manner of speaking of philosophers and of the vulgar, who consider natural things only according to natural and lower causes, and speak as they consider, as the fifth of this book shows. And such a necessary or contingent is not called such wholly absolutely, but only in a certain respect and within a certain kind of causes, namely the lower. Since, then, names are by convention, they can be extended so as to be said most absolutely, namely with respect to higher causes as well as lower. Indeed the necessity of speaking in Theology especially requires this, as is shown in the fifth of this book. For who would presume to deny that it is necessary that God be omnipotent and good, and impossible that God not be such, and possible that God illuminate the blind, raise the dead, make the sun stand still or go back, and the like? Hence also Luke 18: "What is impossible with men is possible with God"; and earlier, in chapter 1: "No word will be impossible with God." Wherefore blessed Ambrose also, on that verse of 1 Corinthians 3, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,"[n29] says: "When God does what the world denies can be done, he proves the folly of its wisdom."

[713D–713E]
Who, whether Catholic or profane, has ever denied that God is omnipotent, that is, able to do all things, and that all things can be done by him? Who, even a madman, would deny that all things which are done by God can be done by him, and are possible in respect of him? And all things which are done are done by him of necessity, as the third of the first teaches. Following also the philosophical account: from what, or in respect of what, will anything in any genus be better denominated than from the principle and in respect of the first in that genus? But the first potent, and the first potency, is the highest and first cause; hence the Philosopher too, in Metaphysics 9, 2, says that in all terms, that is, in the definitions of potencies, the account of the first potency, that is, its definition, is present. Here also the text, which Averroes expounds more expressly, says thus: "All these definitions have the definition of the first potency." On which he himself says: "These potencies are not said equivocally, because all have the definition of the first potency." And he means that when these potencies have been considered, they appear to be attributed to the first potency, "for in the definition of every active potency the definition of the action of the first form, which is separate from matter, is taken." Hence also at Paris an article is condemned asserting that the possible or impossible simply, that is, in all ways, is possible or impossible according to Philosophy, namely according to natural and lower causes, with which Philosophy is concerned. Moreover, the example of the Doctor does not help. For he says that although celestial motion is necessary, its effects in lower things are nevertheless contingent because of the contingency of the lower causes; and thus, he says, it must be understood of God's knowledge or will and its effects. For if the motion of heaven were necessary and perfectly embraced all lower causes, for example if there were only irrational agent causes, wholly subject to heaven in all their action, then all things that came about would come about of necessity. That it is not so, happens because some lower causes, for example rational ones, in their free acts are not subject to heaven, as the third of the second showed,

[714A–714B]
and by means of such acts they can help or hinder the heavenly operation in other things, as is plain of the cultivators of trees and fields, and of the generation and nourishment of animals and the like. The divine will, however, perfectly embraces all lower causes, rational as well as irrational, in whatever their actions, as the 9th and 22nd of the first, with the 20th and 30th of the second, joined with the 10th of the first, teach. So if the first cause acts necessarily, all second causes will likewise co-act. For all second causes in all their causation are joined with the first cause more immediately, more essentially and more inseparably than any one of them is joined with another, and all their effects likewise, as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th corollaries of the chapter of the first teach. Wherefore also Stephen, Bishop of Paris, condemned an article asserting that beings decline from the order of the first cause considered in itself, but not from their order to the remaining agent causes in the universe. "An error," he said, "because the order of beings to the first cause is more essential and more inseparable than their order to the lower causes." And again he condemned another, asserting that for all effects to be necessary in respect of the first cause, it is not enough that the first cause itself be unimpedible, but it is required that the intermediate causes be unimpedible also. "An error," he said, "because then God could not make any effect necessary without posterior causes." Wherefore the same Doctor, treating these matters more distinctly in On the Power of God, question 4, asking whether something is to be judged possible or impossible according to lower or higher causes, says in reply that the judgment about the possible and impossible can be considered on the side of those judging. For if there are two sciences, of which one considers higher causes and the other less high, the judgment in each would not be taken in the same way, but according to the causes which each considers. Now there is a twofold wisdom: the worldly, which is called Philosophy, which considers lower causes and judges according to them, as medicine judges about health; and the divine, which is called Theology, which considers higher causes, that is, divine ones, according to which it judges what the divine attributes are, such as wisdom, goodness, the divine will and the like. So that, according to the consideration of the Theologian—[n30]

[714C–714E]
…all those things which are not impossible in themselves are called possible. Since, then, on this Doctor's view nothing stands in the way of all things that will come about coming about of necessity, except this, that necessity is not spoken of in respect of higher causes (and this is no obstacle, but rather a help, since it is most true when one speaks theologically, as has been taught), [n31] it follows manifestly that all things that will come about will come about of necessity in respect of the higher causes. Moreover, many future things will come to be immediately from God, without any compulsion from lower causes. These therefore cannot be called future contingents on account of the contingency of lower causes; so his answer has no place with regard to them. Hence on his own account at least all such things will come about of necessity, and so all things without qualification. For the divine will stands in a freer and more contingent relation to every effect of its own outside itself than any secondary cause does to its own, as the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth parts of the fifth corollary of this [book] show. From all this, then, I judge it to have been demonstrated, not obscurely, that fate, or the divine utterance, [n32] brings and imposes such necessity upon all things.

Hence Stephen, Bishop of Paris, also condemned the article which said that Fate, which is the disposition of the universe, proceeds from divine providence not immediately but by means of the motion of the higher bodies, and that this fate does not impose necessity on lower things, because they have the contrary, but only on the higher ones. It follows, then, that all things that will come about will come about of necessity from higher causes, and the other two articles recited immediately before bear plain witness to this as well. The authorities of Augustine, City of God 5, chapters 9 and 10, adduced in the proof of the first corollary of this [book], profess this same view expressly. The authorities of the same Augustine from On Rebuke and Grace, 69 and 70, which the twentieth [chapter] of the second [book] recites, intend the same. For in 69 he says that no choice resists God when he wills to make a man safe; and, adding the reason at once, he says: "For in this way, whether to will or not to will lies in the power of the one who wills or does not will, so that he fulfils the divine will and does not overcome [his] power." And in 70: "When God wished to give Saul the kingdom, it was not in the power of the Israelites to submit to him or not to submit (which indeed lay in their will), so that they were even able to resist God, who nevertheless did this only through their very wills, [n33] having without doubt over human hearts a most omnipotent power of inclining them where he pleases." And further on, concerning a certain Shimei, who is nonetheless called Abishai in 1 Chronicles 12 [n34], whom the Spirit of the Lord clothed so that he would promise and bring help to David the King, he says: "Could this man have opposed the will of God, and not rather do his will, since the Spirit of God, with which he was clothed, worked in his heart that he should wish, say and do these things?" The authority of Avicenna testifies most clearly to this same thing, in Metaphysics 10 of his work, 1, written out in the twenty-ninth chapter of the first [book]. [n35] Boethius too, in Consolation of Philosophy 5, last prose, after a very full discussion of this problem, finally answers thus: "I shall admit a matter of most solid truth, but one that hardly anyone

[715A–715C]
…can approach unless he is a contemplator of the divine mind. For I shall answer that the same future thing appears necessary when it is referred to divine knowledge, but when it is weighed in its own nature, wholly free and absolute." And further on: "If providence sees anything as present, it is necessary that it be so, even though it has no necessity of nature; but God beholds as present those future things which come forth from freedom of choice. These things, therefore, when referred to the divine intuition, become necessary through the condition or disposition of the divine knowledge; but considered in themselves they do not abandon the absolute freedom of their nature." Gratian relies on this answer in canon 23, question four, where, after a preliminary disputation on the same matter, he replies definitively, and says: "Although it is fittingly said that if these things are predestined or foreknown they will come about necessarily, it is not on that account absolutely true that things which are predestined or foreknown will come about necessarily, because here necessity is referred to the outcome of things, there to the intuition of divine foreknowledge." He confirms this answer by the authority of Boethius cited above, although he cites it not from Boethius but from Augustine. It is no wonder if among so many authorities, and so often cited, he errs once in the name of one author. Nevertheless, whether Augustine wrote down the same authority I do not know, I do not recall, nor do I believe that it can be found in Augustine's books; yet if it is found in them, it is all the more authentic and accepted. Saint Thomas also follows him, in his commentary on Sentences 1, distinction 38, the last question, which asks whether God's knowledge is of contingent things. There, answering a certain argument, he says: "It must be said that the act of divine cognition passes over the contingent, even though it is future for us, just as our sight passes over it while it is; and because what is, when it is, is necessarily so, though that is not absolutely necessary, therefore it is said that considered in itself it is contingent, but related to God's cognition it is necessary, because it is referred to that cognition according as it is in actual being." And he relies on this answer consistently throughout this whole matter. Again, no man is freer than Jesus Christ; yet all things that happened around him happened of necessity from higher causes, that is, from the divine will, as had been demonstrated in the first of this [book]. [n36]

NOTES

1. Bradwardine's cross-references are kept as he wrote them (Conventions §5.4). "Of this" (huius) with an ordinal means that chapter of this Book III ("the second of this" = III.2); "of the first" and "of the second" (primi, secundi) mean chapters of Books I and II ("the corollary of the ninth of the first" = the corollary of I.9). Where "the thirty-second part of the first corollary" occurs, the reference is to a numbered part of a corollary of Book I.
2. Liber de causis, prop. 1: "Every primary cause exerts more influence upon its effect than the universal secondary cause does."
3. The Latin runs Non est autem intelligendum, quod … possent agere libere hoc vel illud; et quod causa superior … agat ad extra, with the quoniam clause giving the reason for the denial. I have kept the double "that … and that …" and not resolved it into "nor". The sense is that Bradwardine rejects both a creaturely freedom independent of God and a divine necessity that coerces the creature.
4. Libertas contradictionis is the power to do or not to do, to posit or not to posit. "In another's power according to contradiction" (in alterius potestate secundum contradictionem), which recurs through the syllogisms, means that it is in another's power to posit it or not.
5. The Latin gives no governing verb for et non frustrabilis, sed necessaria in causando … nec simpliciter in potestate. The subject must be God's will, taken up from Voluntas quippe Dei. I have supplied "comes about from it" after eueniet and left the rest as written.
6. The print has iuuentus in senectute ("youth … in old age"), with a † in the margin giving senectus in iuuentute. The main reading cannot be construed with what follows ("yet it is not future if he is to die beforehand"), since one can die before old age but not before youth is past. The margin gives Augustine's sense, and I have adopted it (Conventions §2).
7. The commentaries on Romans and 1 Corinthians that circulated under Ambrose's name are by the anonymous Ambrosiaster (CPL 184).
8. "1 Esdras 5" is Ezra 5:5 (Vulgate 1 Esd). The Vulgate reads Oculus autem Dei eorum, "the eye of their God."
9. Tam non faciendo, quam etiam faciendo: the Latin does not say what is not done and what is done. Presumably it is the necessity of God's will that is shown in what God prevents (the plans of the wicked, Job 5) as well as in what he brings about (the fixed limits, Job 14).
10. Supra eiusdem 10: "the same" is Jeremiah, whose ch. 47 has just been cited. The text is Jer 10:23. Elsewhere in this chapter eiusdem followed by a number cites a book or chapter of the author or work last named (Gregory's Moralia). I keep Savile's numbers and do not resolve them.
11. Anselm, De concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis et gratiae Dei cum libero arbitrio.
12. Rom 8:29–30. Savile (and the Anselm text he follows) has magnificauit where the Vulgate has glorificauit; I translate what is printed.
13. The names are as printed. Lactantius calls the Tiburtine Sibyl Albunea, so Ebulnea is presumably a corruption of Albunea, and the contrast "in Greek … in Latin" is odd as it stands.
14. primi scriptorum is obscure. I take it as the first book (the first of the "writings") of this work, with corollarii primi the first corollary of Book I, the same corollary cited above as "the thirty-second part of the first corollary of the first."
15. The sequence is Laetabundus, for the Nativity.
16. Savile prints a question mark after "inclinari non potest" although the clause is a plain statement, and the sentence has no question in it. I have punctuated as a statement. The question mark after "de manu mea" in the quotation of John 10 is kept in effect: it closes Bradwardine's "Nonne et hoc est…?", and the verse "Pater meus…" follows as a further citation.
17. Print and keyed text both read vnici ("tormentis vnici nequeant"). Gregory, Moralia 14, reads vinci, "cannot be overcome by torments", which is the sense required by "per hoc tamen quod homines sunt…". I translate that.
18. De fide ad Petrum is not by Augustine but by Fulgentius of Ruspe (CPL 826). Bradwardine, like the whole medieval tradition, cites it as Augustine's, and I keep his attribution.
19. Fatum is derived from fari, "to speak", hence "divine famen" (utterance) and "fando" (by speaking) here and in the lines that follow. Bradwardine's argument depends on the derivation, so I render "fate, so named from the divine utterance", and later "divine utterance, by which he disposes all things by speaking".
20. Virgil, Aeneid 6.376.
21. The Hermes of this passage and of "On the World and Heaven" below is the Latin Asclepius, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (the passage on heimarmene, necessity and order is Asclepius 39–40). The titles Savile's text gives ("de verbo aeterno", "De mundo et coelo") are Bradwardine's own.
22. "ab his ergo omne velle aut nolle diuinitus aduersum est totum": the Latin is hard. I take it to mean that every wish or aversion, so far as it is divine, stands wholly opposed to (that is, has no hold against) these three. The sense required by the context is that no willing or unwilling, even a divine one, alters them. The Asclepius appears to have abest penitus, "is wholly absent", where this text has aduersum est totum.
23. Savile's punctuation ("Deus, necessitas heimarmene, quod…interpretatur fortuna, natura, euentus, et casus") does not yield six distinct principles whichever way it is read. I keep the Latin as printed and do not emend.
24. The "gloss of Thomas" is Aquinas's Catena aurea on Matthew 24, which cites Jerome in this form.
25. "nihil habent in se necessitatis, vt non sint": taken literally, "no necessity that they should not be". Since Hilary is contrasting them with Christ's words, which have in themselves the power "that they remain", he presumably means that heaven and earth have in themselves no necessity of continuing to be. The literal wording is kept because the Latin is ambiguous.
26. The "tenth homily in imperfecto" is the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, a Latin work of the fifth century wrongly attributed to Chrysostom. I translate Bradwardine's attribution.
27. The passage comes from the Latin versions of Ps.-Aristotle, On the World (400b). Bradwardine merges two Latin versions and signals the alternative renderings with "secundum aliam translationem". Cyrbes (kyrbeis) are the revolving tablets on which the early Greek laws were inscribed; the second version has "stones". "Lex enim nobis aeque declinans" literally says "the law, equally swerving, for us", which cannot be right against the context ("greater and more certain"). I translate the evident sense, "impartial and unswerving", and have not altered the Latin. The "aut transpositionem" in the first clause is the second version's term, which Bradwardine has run into the first.
28. The Aquinas text cited is probably the Compendium theologiae (here called De Christiana religione); I have not verified the chapter number "137". The wording corresponds to Aquinas's treatment of fate in his Summa contra Gentiles III and the Compendium.
29. The commentary on 1 Corinthians cited as Ambrose's is the work known as Ambrosiaster. Bradwardine, like all medieval writers, gives it to Ambrose.
30. The sentence is cut off at the end of Savile's 714B and continues in the next unit (714C: "omnia illa quae non sunt in se impossibilia, possibilia dicuntur"). The last word Theologi is printed as "Theolo-" at the line end, completed by "gi" at the head of the next line.
31. The sentence is awkward. "This" (hoc) in "this is no obstacle" most likely refers to the exception just named: that the Doctor (Aquinas) does not speak of necessity "according to higher causes". Bradwardine says this silence does not block his conclusion, since speaking theologically necessity does follow from the higher causes. I have translated the Latin as it stands.
32. Famen is a rare word, formed from fari "to speak" as fatum is. It is probably a deliberate gloss on fatum ("what has been spoken"), so I render it "utterance". The print has famen, not an error for fatum.
33. The antecedent of qui is God (Deus). The sense is that it lay in the Israelites' will to submit or not, so that they could even resist God, yet God brought about his purpose only through their wills. Savile's text is Augustine's Corrept. 45, as Bradwardine cites it, and I have not smoothed the syntax.
34. The Vulgate (1 Par 12:18 [1 Chr 12:18]) names the man on whom the Spirit came as Amasai, not Abishai. The identification with "Shimei" is also Savile's text as printed. I translate it as it stands.
35. The citation is compressed and ambiguous: I take "10. Met. suae 1." as Avicenna's Metaphysics, book 10, chapter or tractate 1, and "capitulo primi" as chapter 29 of Book I of this work. Both are rendered literally.
36. Primo huius ("in the first of this") is left as Bradwardine wrote it. Compare "corollarii primi huius" above, where huius seems to mean "of this [work]", presumably the first corollary of Book I, chapter 1. Cross-references stay unexpanded (Conventions §5.4).