De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 40
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, 770E–783D; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/40/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

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CHAPTER XL.

He rebukes those who deny revelation in the Word.

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Having thus far argued against those who concede revelation in the Word,[n1] it remains for me to affirm that same revelation, with some words (as the Word himself shall grant)[n2], against those who deny it to the injury of the Word and to our misery. For there are some defenders of this hypothesis who, unable to refute the premises already laid down about revelation in the Word, and unwilling to abandon their hypothesis, turn to the other branch, the left, that is, of this fork in the road, saying that no complex about a future contingent can be revealed in the Word. For how does it not redound to the injury of the Word to strip him of omnipotence, and to say that he cannot show himself, through himself, to those who love him most dearly? How, too, does it not redound to our misery, depriving us of final beatitude? For this consists in such a vision, as not only the theologians but the philosophers too attest in very many places.

But these men will perhaps reply that our final felicity and beatitude consists in an incomplex vision of God, not a complex one. That is, the blessed will see incomplexly, in the essence of God and in the Word, the very essence of God and each of the persons, and the incomplex things that shine forth in it. But a complexion, or composition, or imaginary proposition, that is, an affirmation or negation about future contingents (God affirming inwardly, as the Father affirms to the Son, that something will be or will not be), cannot be revealed in the Word or essence, though it can well be in its own genus. And so they say that all such things are revealed through created propositions, habits and acts, in their own genus, that is, and cannot be revealed otherwise.

But if a future contingent cannot be revealed to a creature in the essence of God or in the Word, this is either because of an incapacity in God, or an incapacity in the future thing, or an incapacity in the creature. It is not because of an incapacity in God, since he is omnipotent, and since the Father moreover reveals such things to the Son in his clear essence, as is plain from 34 of this book. And God can thus reveal incomplex things, and so by a like reason complex things too: for he is not of measured or restricted power. Nor is it because of an incapacity in that future thing; for that can be revealed in the essence of God, since in it it is revealed to the Son. That truth about the future, moreover, is written most truly, most certainly and most clearly in the book of divine foreknowledge; why then can it not be likewise revealed there? Since that truth is, besides, more certain and truer there than in any created proposition, it can also be revealed more certainly and more truly there. Nor is it because of an incapacity of the creature; for if it were so, let omnipotent God increase the creature's power as much as is needed. And the creature can see in the Word a thing incomparably higher, subtler and more difficult, in a way infinitely so, namely the Trinity of persons in the unity of essence. For what we now believe we shall then see in clear light, as the Catholic Fathers attest with one voice; and the creature can see in the Word any incomplex things whatever. Why then not complex things, by a like reason?

But if it is said that a creature cannot see future things in the Word on account of its excessive disproportion, distance and remoteness from the Word, this can be contradicted as before. For omnipotent God can raise a creature, in natural or supernatural things, as far as is needed. And so many Doctors, not unlearnedly, posit a certain created supernatural light, which they call the light of glory, raising the created intellect to the beatific vision of the beatific uncreated light; and the Prophet also seems clearly to teach this when he says, "With you is the fountain of life; in your light we shall see light," Ps 35 [36]. Despite this disproportion and distance, the creature can see in the Word any incomplex things whatever; why then not these complex ones?

Again, a creature can see in the Word that a contingently future thing exists when it exists, and existed once it has passed; why then not that it will be when it is future? This is especially so since a truth of this kind is always, in every same way, intrinsically true, and written and shining in the Word, whether the thing be future, or present, or passed into the past. Otherwise God would be changed intrinsically, contrary to the fifth and twenty-third of the first book, which is also evidently shown from 30, 31 and 32 of this book.

Again, necessary complexes about the future, and any other necessary complexes whatever, can be revealed in the Word; why then no future contingent, since all truths are likewise written there? It will perhaps be said that all necessary truths, and all truths about the present and the past, have a determinate and certain cause, and are true in a like manner; and so they can be determinately and certainly revealed in the Word;

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but future contingents are not so disposed, nor so true, and so cannot be so revealed in the Word. But this is not true: for the divine will, which is immutable, is the determinate and certain cause of all contingent future things. Through it they are thus determinately and certainly known by God, and are thus determinate and certain in him when they are future, as when they are present or have flowed away into the past, as appears from 14, 18 and 23 of the first book, and from 30 and 32 of this book. And God can show a creature in the Word that he wills such a future thing to be, and so cause it to foreknow in the Word that this will be; indeed also to know it most truly and in a way demonstratively, because through a most true and infallible cause, namely the divine will.

Again, the divine essence is more like, nearer and more proportionate to our mind than created qualities, propositions or habits; for both are substances, immaterial substances, and very closely akin. So too the Philosopher, Ethics 10, 13:[n3] "If," he says, "some care for human affairs is taken by the gods, as it seems, it will certainly be reasonable that they rejoice in what is best and most akin to them; and this is the intellect." Man, too, as Genesis attests, was made to the image and likeness of God, and this most of all in the rational soul, as very many Catholic Fathers testify; and so it is the most natural and most desired end of our mind. If these things are so, then in the divine essence itself all complex truths, as well as incomplex ones, are written and shine more clearly, truly and certainly than in any created proposition, any habit, any creature. Why then will our mind not see there more clearly, truly and certainly, and be able to see any complex truths whatever as it sees incomplex ones, than in any creature? This is especially so when our mind has been most fully purged of every weight of the burdening body, of all clouding phantasms, of all rust and gloom, of all dross and misery, and has been deifically transformed beyond the splendour of the sun.

The same, or perhaps something stronger, can be argued of all the angels, or of any one of them, of whom Ezekiel 28 says, "You are the seal of likeness," etc., since the angel seems to have been made nearer to the likeness of God. So Gregory says, Moralia 32, 23, on that text of Job 40, "He is the beginning of the ways of God": although man was created to the likeness of God, yet it, ascribing as it were something greater to the angel, says that he was not made to the likeness of God but is himself the seal of God's likeness, so that the subtler the nature, the more fully the likeness of God is believed to be expressed in it. And Isidore says, On the Highest Good 1, 10: "The condition of the angel differs from that of man: man was made to the likeness of God, but the archangel, who fell, was called the seal of God's likeness, as God testifies through Ezekiel, 'You are the seal of likeness, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty; you were in the delights of paradise'; for the subtler his nature, the more fully it came to be expressed to the likeness of divine truth."

Since moreover God is the most natural end of our mind, and it cannot be perfected except in perfect union with him, how will it be perfected, united perfectly with God, according to one power of it, which is apprehensive of simple things? Perfectly, because it contemplates incomplex and simple things through the essence of God. But according to its other power, the nobler too, which composes and divides simple things into complexes, will it remain imperfect for eternity? Nay, it cannot be perfected for eternity, or at least will not be perfected to such an extent; nor can it be perfected as its other power, its sister and less noble than it,[n4] since it could see no true complex in God. Nay, these two powers of the created intellect appear proportionate to the power of the divine intellect that apprehends simple things, and to the power that composes the simple things apprehended (speaking very improperly of a composing power in God, as stammering we can scarcely echo even faintly the great deeds of God, as was more fully touched on in 18 of the first book). And so, as this power, so also that one will be finally perfected, by contemplating in it incomplex things incomplexly, in a way; so too the other, by contemplating in it complex things complexly, in a way. For thus the one part of the image is finally perfectible as the other, and so will attain its natural and proper end.

Again, otherwise omnipotent God cannot assure any blessed person of his beatitude lasting eternally, nor of any future contingent. For if he can, suppose it done; then either what is thus certainly revealed will come about necessarily, or not at all. It will not come about necessarily, as this position posits; so it can by no means come about. And so this blessed person can be deceived and err, and now not be blessed, and never have been before, but now be wretched and have been so always before, with many other great absurdities, as can be seen from 34 of this book. Whose mind, moreover, does not desire infallible certitude that its beatitude will last eternally? To say, then, that no one can have such certitude is to deprive every rational creature of its beatitude, as is plain from the same 34. According to this, too, the blessed now in heaven are not certain of the final judgment, the resurrection of the dead and their own future beatitude, except with the certitude of faith or hope, contrary to what was shown earlier in 34 of this book. These men also strive to deceive the Truth, our Lord Jesus Christ, at least according to his human nature. For if he sees contingently future things only in their own genus, then, since those things could fail to be, Christ too can be deceived and err;

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and what Christian would presume to affirm that, unless perhaps himself deceived and in error? Nor can anyone avoid the deception by saying that such a vision in Christ and the other blessed, being of one of two opposites, could have been of the other and not of that one, as is plain from the thirty-sixth of this book. These men likewise deprive the blessed not only of certitude of knowledge but also of its multitude: for perfect knowledge is required for perfect beatitude, not only as to the clarity of knowledge but also as to the multitude of things known; the blessed man therefore knows all things perfectly. For how otherwise could he fail to be deceived? How otherwise would he not have evil and the darkness of ignorance? How otherwise could he not always study, progress and labour further? But this belongs not to the nature of the end but to that of the way.

Hence Augustine too, On the Trinity 15, 16: "Since there is now," he says, "so great a dissimilarity from God in this enigma, in which nevertheless some similarity has been found, this also must be confessed: that even when we shall be like him, when we shall see him as he is (which he who said it surely said with a view to the dissimilarity that now is), not even then shall we be equal to him by nature (for the thing made is always less in nature than the maker). And then indeed our word will not be false, because we shall neither lie nor be deceived; perhaps also our thoughts will not be changeable, going from one thing to another and returning, but we shall see all our knowledge in one simultaneous glance." And how otherwise would the appetite of the blessed be satisfied, by which, whatever question were proposed, he would at least prefer to know rather than not know the truth? And how otherwise will beatitude be a good perfect in every respect, as all this appears more plainly from the thirty-fourth of this book? For how can the blessed man know all things, actually or habitually, in his own genus? He could not do so except through infinite propositions and acts and habits; but he cannot do so in that way. Therefore he cannot know all things clearly except through the divine essence most clearly demonstrating all things, through the book of divine knowledge most clearly containing all things, through the mirror of the divine majesty, in which all things shine clearly, through the eye of divine power, to which all things lie clearly open.

Hence also the Philosopher, De anima 1, 65:[n5] "If," he says, "an older man were to take a young eye, he would certainly see as a young man does." Here the text, which Averroes expounds, says: "The old man," he says, "if he received the eye of a young man, would see as a young man"; and so if a man or an angel takes the eye of God, he will see in a way as God does. May not the prophetic saying be understood thus, "They shall see eye to eye," Isaiah 52? And that other, "Eye has not seen, O God, apart from you, what you have prepared for those who wait for you," below, 64? And "The Lord is my light," Ps 26 [27], and many similar sayings in many places? For this reason the Philosophers too assert that man must at last know all things through the substance of the agent intellect, through the very substance of God, and that this is his last and perfect felicity. For Averroes, on De anima 3, comment 36, speaking of the conjunction and continuation of the agent intellect with us, says that "we are sometimes said to be moved toward the continuation of this," and adds: "and it is manifest that when this motion is completed, that intellect will at once be conjoined with us in every way; and then it is manifest that its proportion to us in that disposition is as the disposition of the intellect which is in habit to us; and since this is so, it is necessary that man understand through the intellect proper to him all beings, and perform the action proper to him on all beings, as he understands through the intellect which is in habit, when it has been continued with imaginable forms, all beings by an understanding proper to him." Man, then, in this way, as Themistius says, is made like God, namely in that he is all beings in a certain way, and knows them in a certain way. For beings are nothing other than his knowledge, nor is the cause of beings anything but his knowledge; and how marvellous is this order, and how strange this mode of being!

With this Augustine agrees, in On the Joys of the Just and the Punishments of the Wicked, or On the Threefold Dwelling,[n6] saying that in the life to come, in the royal city, the just will shine like the Sun, as the Lord says. There will be the highest peace, the highest rest; no labour, no pain, no poverty; neither old age, nor any night, nor any death; no desire for food, no burning of thirst; but the food and drink of all will be the vision of Christ and of the holy Trinity, and the contemplation of the divinity itself by the eye of a pure heart, and the assiduous reading, so to speak, of the book of life, that is, of eternal truth and highest wisdom and of the Word of God, which is the vision of Jesus Christ. Whatever is now hidden from us will then be manifest; the reason will be manifest why this man is chosen and that one rejected, why this one has been taken into the kingdom and that one reduced to servitude, why one dies in the womb, another in infancy, another in youth, another in old age, why one is poor and another rich, why the son of an adulteress is baptized, and sometimes the son of a lawful wife dies before baptism, why he who begins to live well sometimes ends badly, and he who begins badly often ends well. All these things, and many such, will be plain and open in the book of life. And further on: In the vision of God a threefold knowledge is gained, that is, the man who sees, the God who is seen, and all the others; all things will be seen

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and understood. For as through a glass mirror a threefold vision is afforded us, because we see ourselves, and the mirror itself, and whatever is present nearby; so through the mirror of divine clarity we shall see God himself as he is, as far as is possible for a creature, and shall know ourselves and all others by true and certain knowledge. The same Augustine, in the last book of the City of God, 28:[n7] "If," he says, "the Prophet Elisha, absent in body, saw his servant Gehazi receiving gifts, how much more will the saints see all things in that spiritual body?" Is not this what the Lord promised to Moses, who desired to see the face and glory of the Lord: "I will show you all good," Exodus 33? The Gloss says: eternal rest, in which is all good in the vision of God, as the Psalmist says, "I shall be satisfied when your glory appears."

Blessed Gregory also, Dialogues 4, 22, speaking of the saints in heaven, says: "What is it that they do not know there, where they know him who knows all things?" It will perhaps be answered, as it seems Peter answers in Sentences 2, dist. 11, last chapter,[n8] that Gregory is speaking there of angels, and that when he intimates that they know all things he means only all those things the knowledge of which makes the knower blessed, namely those the knowledge of which belongs to the substance of beatitude, of which sort is the mystery of the Trinity. But to those who look at the course of Gregory's argument it is plain that he is speaking there of men and of the knowledge of men; indeed of men who are in this life always strangers and unknown to one another. For Peter asks whether the good recognize the good in the kingdom, or the wicked the wicked in punishment, and he speaks plainly of men. Gregory, answering, shows that it is so, of the good as of the wicked, and this of men only, and adds: "In the elect, however, something more wonderful happens, for they recognize not only those whom they knew in this world, but they recognize as if they were their neighbours and acquaintances good men whom they had never seen. For when they have seen the ancient Fathers in that eternal inheritance, they will not be unknown to them through vision, whom they have always known in their works. For since all there behold God in common clarity, what is it that they do not know there, where they know him who knows all things?"

Anselm moreover, On Similitudes 57, says that the eighth part of beatitude is wisdom, and adds: "For the good man will be filled with perfect wisdom, which is God, and will look upon it face to face; and when he has so beheld it, he will see the nature of the whole creature, which subsists better in God than in itself. For then the just will know all things that God has made knowable, both those that are past and those that are to be thereafter: there all will be known by each, and each by all, nor will anything at all be hidden from anyone, of what country or stock a man was born, or what he did in his life."

Again, what theologian would presume to deny that Christ, according to the assumed nature, truly knows all things, since reason as well as the manifold authority of the Fathers attests it? For to him was given the Spirit not by measure, John 3, and that according to all his gifts; in him also, as the Apostle testifies, it pleased all the fullness of divinity to dwell bodily, Colossians 1. In him also, according to the same Apostle, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, below, 2. Hugh of St Victor too, in a certain reply-letter to Master Walter of Mortagne,[n9] strives in many ways to prove this same thing, and affirms it obstinately. For Walter asked whether the soul of Christ has altogether as much knowledge and wisdom as the divinity has.

He held and argued that it does not, because beatitude consists in knowledge, the Lord saying, "This is eternal life, that they know," etc. If, therefore, the soul of Christ had knowledge equal to the divinity, it would also have equal beatitude, equal charity, and the other goods in which beatitude consists. Again, otherwise it would be false that God has in every good a greater sufficiency than his creature. Notwithstanding all this, Hugh holds plainly that it does have it; because the soul of Christ thus knows all things not through habits, acts, or any act, but through God himself, through the very essence of God. He thinks the same also of our beatitude; whence he says thus: "This is life," he says, "that they know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ": knowledge of God is therefore eternal life. And what is knowledge of God? Is it an accident? Then love of God is an accident, and beatitude is an accident, and our beatitude is in accidents. Why then should God not rather be our beatitude: he himself the wisdom by which we know, he himself the love by which we love, he himself the joy in which we exult? Therefore there is one wisdom by which all are wise; yet they are not wise in one way, because they are wise by participating. And if all who are wise are wise by this wisdom, much more was that soul wise with this wisdom which was united to the Wisdom itself.

And further on: The Apostle testifies that the fullness is there, and we say that, since the whole of wisdom is not in its own house, therefore half dwells within and half outside. And where is it sought, if it is not found at home, in him in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells bodily? Where fullness is, nothing is lacking; where nothing is lacking, the whole is present; or is it perhaps that the fullness of divinity is there, and the fullness of wisdom is not there? He says again, "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." But you say well, "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are there, but they are hidden": he carries them, and does not see.[n10] Far be it from our understanding that we should so think; but they are hidden, not that they may be hidden from him, but that they may not be seen in him by the impious;[n11] they are hidden and stored away; stored away so that they may be brought forth at the opportune time.

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And further on, "Christ saw in the divinity, and saw also in the humanity, yet from the divinity; for the fullness of the divinity was in the soul of Christ, and from the fullness of wisdom the soul of Christ was fully wise. Therefore," they say, "the soul of Christ has as much wisdom as God has. What does the comparison achieve? There is one alone, one wisdom of God, by which the soul of Christ is wise. It is not wise by participating, so that it might be wise in this or that thing in it and through it; it has the fullness, so that it possesses the whole. Let us not, then, say 'so much' or 'how much'. Let us say that the whole wisdom of God is in the soul of Christ, and that from the whole wisdom of God the soul of Christ is wise. Yet the soul of Christ is not equal to God, because it is not the wisdom of God. There it is grace, here nature; and what there is grace is the same as what here is nature." And further on, replying to the first argument of Walter,[n12] he says that even if the soul of Christ has knowledge equal to the divinity, it need not on that account have equal beatitude. For it is more blessed to have a good by nature and from oneself, and to be that good, than to have it by grace and from another, and not to be it. And further on, replying to the second, he says: "You added next: if the soul of Christ has knowledge equal to God's, it will be false that God has in every good a greater sufficiency than his creature, and so on. As a creature cannot be made equal to the Creator, so neither can the good of one be equal to the good of another. But this is rightly and truly said where the good of the creature is found to be other than, and different from, the good of the Creator. Where it is one and the same, how can there be a greater or a less? For what is the true good of a creature, especially a rational one, other than God? Or what is the good of God other than himself? If, therefore, God is the true and only good of the creature, and the good of God cannot be anything other than himself, is God therefore less or greater than himself, because he is, equally, both his creature's good and his own? Let this so frequent repetition of the comparison cease at last, where there is the singularity of unity." And further on, at the end: "What need is there to go through every point? I will show you briefly what seems to me to be held in this matter. We believe that the full and perfect and whole wisdom of God was in the soul of Christ, and that from that wisdom the same soul was fully and perfectly wise, not by participating in it but by possessing the whole, because it received according to fullness. John, however, who was a burning and shining lamp, had grasped it in part; the soul of John therefore received of the fullness, while the soul of Christ comprehended the fullness. As for those who persist in this, and contend to assert that the wisdom by which the soul of Christ was wise was one thing, and the wisdom that was united to the soul of Christ another, I wish to prejudice no one. Let them see in what sense they assert it, lest their pronouncement turn out to be carnal, and more their own than true. This one thing I affirm without doubt: either there was no other wisdom than the divine in the soul of Christ, or, if there was another, it was not equal to that. For one who believes this, he who does not believe it does not believe well;[n13] as to the rest I do not compel, I only persuade." Peter shows the same, Sentences 3, dist. 13 and 14, by reasons and authorities of the Doctors. There, in dist. 14, he answers some who object as follows: "In reply we say that the soul of Christ, through the wisdom freely given in the Word of God to which it is united, and which it also understands perfectly, knows all that God knows. The blessed angels, too, all or some of them, know all things in the Word, or at least will know them when final beatitude is consummated. For otherwise blessed angels and men could always advance by learning, as much through their own study as through divine revelation, and so would never be perfectly blessed. And no one grants this." Robert of Lincoln says, on Posterior Analytics 1, 14, that the intelligences, receiving illumination from the first light, see in it all things knowable, universal and particular. And Gregory says, on that passage of Luke 15, "What woman having ten drachmas?" etc., homily 34: "Cherubim means 'fullness of knowledge', and those loftier hosts are rightly called Cherubim, because they are full of knowledge, more perfect in proportion as they contemplate the clarity of God more nearly. So, in the manner of a creature, they know all things the more fully, the nearer they come to the vision of their Maker through the merit of their dignity." And further on, showing that the gifts of the orders are so special to each that they are nonetheless common to all, he says: "We have said that the Cherubim are the fullness of knowledge; and yet who there could be ignorant of anything, where all together see God himself, the fountain of knowledge?" Isidore also, in On the Highest Good 1, 10, says: "The angels of God know all things before they come to pass in themselves; and the things that are still future among men, the angels already know, by God's revelation." Likewise the blessed Augustine, On Genesis according to the Letter 8, 48, says that God himself speaks with the angels, illuminating their minds with immutable truth, where understanding consists in knowing at once whatever things do not happen at once even through time.

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Therefore these men deprive all the blessed angels and men, indeed even the beatific Lord of the blessed, the Lord Jesus Christ, of the certitude and multitude of knowledge required for beatitude, as the preceding shows. And not only this: they deprive them also of all knowledge or foreknowledge, of all, I say, knowledge or foreknowledge of future contingents and of whatever other knowables, except perhaps things known per se, or those of which they have demonstration or sense-perception. Much more, then, do they so deprive Christ and all the prophets while on the way. For where there is no clear certitude, there can be, not knowledge properly speaking, but faith, opinion, or rather estimation, as appears from 18 of the first. Hence also the Apostle: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that do not appear," Hebrews 11. Hence also Augustine, in the first part, on John, homily 40: "We believe," he says, "in order that we may know. For what is faith but to believe what you do not see? Faith, then, is to believe what you do not see; truth, to see what you have believed." The same Augustine, in his letter to Paulina[n14] on seeing God, 3, and afterwards at length, shows that seeing and believing differ in this: to see is to know, or to be aware of, something with certainty and evidence, by some sense of the body or the mind, to perceive anything with certainty or to remember having perceived it; but to believe is to assent to other things not known in this way. Where, in 4, he says: "Hold this distinction: if in the course of discussion I point out to you something that you so see with the eyes of the flesh, or perceive by any other sense of it, or recall having perceived, as sounds, colours, crashes, odours, tastes, heats are perceived, and whatever else we perceive through the body by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching; or something that you do not so see, but see by the gaze of the mind (your life, will, thought, memory, understanding, knowledge, faith); and whatever else you behold with the mind, and have no doubt that it is so, not merely by believing but by plainly seeing, judge that I have shown it. But whatever I show not in such a way that it is held by the sense, sight or perception of body or mind, and when I say something that is seen in neither of those two ways, it remains only that it be believed."

And further on, 5: "Some think that what we call believing, when a true thing is believed, is only this: to behold with the mind. If that is so, this utterance of ours is mistaken, in which we distinguished that it is one thing to perceive something by the bodily sense, as the Sun in the heavens, and on earth a mountain, a tree, or any body whatever; and another thing, no less evident, to perceive by the gaze of the mind, as our will is looked upon inwardly by ourselves when we will something, or thought when we think, or memory when we remember, or some such thing in the soul or in the body; and a further thing, to believe[n15] what is neither present to the view of body or mind nor remembered as having been present, as that Adam was created without parents, and that Christ, born of a Virgin and having suffered, rose again."

And further on, 6: "Is it enough that we believe the difference between seeing and believing to be this, that present things are seen and absent things believed? Perhaps indeed it is enough, if we understand 'present' in this place to mean those things that are at hand to the senses, whether of the soul or of the body, whence also they are called 'present', a name derived from 'at hand'.[n16] For as I plainly see this light by bodily sense, so also I plainly see my own will, because it is at hand to the senses of my soul and is present to me within. But if someone discloses to me his will, whose mouth and voice are present to me, then, because the will itself that he discloses to me is hidden from the senses of my body and soul, I believe, I do not see, even if perhaps it is as he says. Those things, then, are believed that are absent from our senses, if the testimony given to them seems suitable; but those things are seen that are at hand, whence they are also called present, to the senses either of the soul or of the body. For though the senses of the body are five (of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching), sight is indeed attributed especially to the eyes; nevertheless we use this word in the others also. For we say not only, 'See what shines,' but also, 'See what sounds, see what smells, see what tastes, see what is hot.' And because I said that things absent from our senses are believed, let it not be taken to mean that among them are counted things that we once saw and retain having seen, and of which we are sure, though they are not at hand when we recall them. These are counted not among things believed but among things seen, and are therefore known, not because we had faith in other witnesses, but because we remember without doubt that we saw them, and know it."

Someone, perhaps, will reply, saying that these things do not follow, because God can so illuminate someone's mind, and propositions or habits in his mind, and thus will reveal such truths to him that he will know and behold them with certainty. But if that illumination takes place through some created light, however brilliant, or through some creature, such a revelation about the future can be erroneous, deceptive and false; for the opposite can happen. In the same way also any revelation about the present or about the past that is not known per se or demonstrated, nor perceived by sense, can, notwithstanding such illumination, be deceptive and false. For why not about such present and past things as about future things? Indeed, suppose such a revelation were made to someone who is in London, that tomorrow at the first hour A, a future contingent, will happen in Rome, and he believes it continually. Just as from that revelation he can be deceived and err, before the first hour of tomorrow's day, in believing that A will then be (because, notwithstanding such a revelation, it is possible that A will not be), so too, from the same revelation, in substance, he can be deceived about the present, believing that tomorrow at the first hour A is; and when the first hour has elapsed, he can likewise be deceived about the past, believing correspondingly that A has been.

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The reason for this is that by whatever created light, and however great, any proposition is illuminated whose truth is not known per se, nor evidently demonstrated by the light of a habit through things known per se and in a consequence known per se, nor indubitably perceived by sense, that proposition is not certain, because, notwithstanding such illumination, the thing could be otherwise. For as such a proposition is illuminated when true, so it could be when false. Indeed the Sun and the Moon and the other luminaries shine as brightly upon a false writing as upon a true one, upon one that lies as upon one that speaks truly. Where, then, can these be told apart? Certainly in no created light, which is fallible, but in the uncreated, infallible light.[n17] Hence no truth of this kind can be seen certainly and infallibly except in the intrinsic light of infallible truth, in the brightness of the eternal light and the spotless mirror of the divine majesty, in the book of life, in the Word of God, who and which cannot lie, in the clear essence of God, where all things, as they are, are inscribed eternally, immutably and infallibly, where there is no error, nor can there be, as there is none in God. And this too, whoever has perfectly seen, read and known that book inwardly will see, read and know there most certainly, as appears from the thirty-fourth of this. Did not that whole crowd of Philosophers mean to say this, uttering some things obscurely and some clearly about the agent intellect? And how God is the light for knowing all things, as the sixth of the first and the twentieth of the second have recounted more fully? Did not the most illustrious Isaiah think this, when he promised the congregation of the faithful: "The Sun will no longer be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the Moon give you light, but the Lord will be your light for ever"? Isaiah 60. Did not Peter, the prince of the Apostles, think this, when he wrote to the faithful: "We have the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the daystar rises in your hearts"? 2 Peter 1. Did not Paul, the vessel of election, think this, writing thus to the Corinthians: "We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away. We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known"? Did not the most beloved among the Disciples think this, who also drew from the Lord's breast all that he poured out to his thirsting servants, when he said, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all"? 1 John 1. And further on, 3: "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." And how? Hear: "No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared it," John 1; which, according to Bede in the gloss, can be referred to the past and likewise to the future. Did not the Truth himself think this, when he says, "I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star"? Apocalypse, last chapter. And again: "Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him"? John 14. Are not these passages, and very many others like them in the Old Testament as in the New, to be understood in this way? If anyone doubts, let him look at the Catholic expositions and glosses, and he will doubtless become certain. I know, however, that there is a certain knowledge, and even certitude, spoken of in another way: probable and firm, that is, a vehement credulity, an undoubting adherence, and firm hope. For so we know who our parents, brothers and sisters were and are; so we know what we have learned on the testimony of trustworthy men, or of books (books, I say, of sacred histories and of others too). So we know that Troy was a noble city and was destroyed by the Greeks, that Alexander, Charlemagne, Edward and other princes performed many great deeds, and that Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and other Philosophers taught very many things. Hence Ieber also, in the prologue of the first,[n18] says that the better knowledge after the knowledge of faith is that whose principles are certain and firm. And the Philosopher, in On Memory and Recollection, says: "Nor does it happen that future things are remembered; they are matters of opinion and hope; there will also be a certain science of hope, as some speak of a science of divination." And in Ethics 7, 3: "Some of those who hold opinions do not doubt, but think they know with certainty. If, then, those who hold opinions and believe, on account of their calm,[n19] will act contrary to opinion more than those who know, knowledge will differ in nothing from opinion; for some believe what they opine no less than others what they know; Heraclitus makes this plain." He[n20] also says, in Topics 4, that faith is vehement opinion, where he also reports it said by some that faith is vehemence of opinion. Hence Augustine too, to Paulina on seeing God, 4: "If," he says, "we had believed nothing at all of the things that we have not seen, that is, have not perceived in presence by mind or by body, nor learned from the holy Scriptures by reading or hearing, whence would we know that there are cities where we have never been, or that Rome was founded by Romulus, or (to speak of nearer things) Constantinople by Constantine? Whence, finally, would we know who the parents were who begot us, from what fathers, grandfathers and forebears we were born? For though we know very many such things, we have learned them not as present to any sense, as the Sun, as the will of our own mind, as the authority of the canonical utterances; but, as we have learned that Adam was the first man, or that Christ was incarnate, suffered and rose again, on the report of others, of whose testimony in this kind of matter at least we have had no doubt."

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And further on, 6, alluding to the distinction about knowledge touched on above: "It is agreed," he says, "that our knowledge consists of things seen and things believed. But in what we have seen or see, we ourselves are witnesses; in what we believe, we are moved by other witnesses. Yet for faith in those things that we neither recall having seen nor see, signs are given, whether in words or in letters or in any documents whatever, by the sight of which things unseen may be believed. Not without reason, moreover, do we say that we know not only what we have seen or see, but also what we believe, moved by suitable testimonies or witnesses for each matter. Further, if we say, not inappropriately, that we know even what we believe with the greatest certainty, hence it has come about that things rightly believed, even if they are not present to our senses, are said to be seen by the mind. For knowledge is attributed to the mind, whether it retains something perceived and known through the senses of the body or through the soul itself; and faith itself is certainly seen by the mind, although what is believed by faith is what is not seen. Hence the Apostle Peter says, 'in whom you believe, though you do not now see'; and the Lord himself, 'Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.'"

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But far be it that the perfectly blessed should have only such knowledge, an improper, fallible, imperfect cognition or certitude, as is clear from what has been laid down here and from 34 of this book. Not so, then, not so. They will have a most certain vision in the most radiant Word of God, just as Christ too had it here on the way. Peter bears clear witness to this in Sentences 3, dist. 26 [n21], as is more fully recited in 34 of this book. Hence the Prophet also says, "I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living" (Ps 26 [27]). He did not say "to opine," "to suppose," or "to believe," but "to see." It was shown above how great is the distance between believing and seeing. Those, therefore, who take such vision away from the blessed take away at the same time from the faithful the reward of faith, for it is agreed that this is the reward of our faith. Hence Jesus also said to those Jews who had believed him, "If you remain in me, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth" (Jn 8), as if to say plainly, "You who now believe in a riddle, if by believing you remain, will at last know the truth most certainly." Augustine expounds this in homily 40 of the first part [n22], and says: "For what you said, is that not truth? It is truth, but as yet it is believed, it is not yet seen. If one remains in what is believed, one comes to what may be seen. Hence John himself, the holy Evangelist, says in his letter: 'Beloved, we are children of God, but it has not yet appeared what we shall be.' We already are, and we shall yet be: what more shall we be than we are? Listen: 'it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when it appears we shall be like him.' Whence? 'Because we shall see him as he is.' A great promise, but it is the reward of faith."

The same Augustine says in the last book of the City of God, 28 [n23]: "We must consider how great a man it was who said, 'We know in part and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect comes; and now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face.' So the holy angels see already, and as they see there, so shall we see the reward, and this vision is kept for us in return for faith." Blessed also are those who here have humbly believed that God is one and three. If in heaven they will not see this clearly and certainly, how will that faith be worthily and fully rewarded? Or if they will see this clearly and certainly, as they thirstily desire, in what will they see it? Certainly not sufficiently in any creature;

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For no creature can show this clearly and certainly, as he is, because of its infinite dissimilarity. But if they will see this clearly and certainly, and will read and know it in the Word of God, in the book of life, in the clear essence of God, why not other complex truths likewise [n24], since that complex truth seems the highest, the most excellent and the most difficult of all those written there? And how can the blessed man not, in that most clear and most certain book of God, see and read most clearly and most certainly whatever complex truth is written there? Why, I ask, can he not do this, especially when the eyes of his heart have been fully cleansed and made perfect in every respect, when even now, with his weak and infirm eyes, he can see and read such things in other, obscure books, far less visible and legible? If you say that it is because of the excessive excellence of that book, which is beyond the eye of the angelic and the human mind, this was rejected above. For how can the blessed man there see and read most perfectly that God is one and three, which seems the most excellent thing written there, and yet not be able to see and read the lesser things?

How, again, as you yourself concede, can the blessed man, that greatest excellence notwithstanding, see and read there any incomplex things whatever, and yet not be able to see and read complex ones? In this you seem to make the blessed man like a boy who knows simple letters but does not know how to make syllables or a syllable from them; or who knows syllables but does not know how to join them into words or a word; or who knows how to read words but does not know how to understand sentences or a sentence. Indeed, what seems much harder, he is never able to learn any of these things. Yet how can anyone endowed with the highest talent, seeing, reading and understanding in some book the single words, the single incomplex things, be unable to see, read and understand in the same book any proposition or sentence whatever, indeed even any that is quite easy to understand? How, then, will the blessed man not see, read and understand in the book of divine knowledge any complex things whatever, as he does incomplex ones? Not so, then, not so: for blessed Augustine, cited above, does not so think, when he says that the blessed will have the unceasing reading of the book of life. He also, on

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the words of the Apostle in sermon 20, speaking of the time of the way and of the homeland, says: "Now we walk by faith, then by sight [n25]. What is 'by sight'? 'Fairest in beauty among the sons of men,' because 'in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' 'He who loves me,' he says, 'keeps my commandments, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father; and I will love him.' And what will you give him? 'And I will show myself to him.' This will be the sight when he does what he said, 'and I will show myself to him.' There you will see the justice of God, there you will read in the Word without a book. Therefore when we have seen him as he is, our pilgrimage will already be over." "Without a book," he says, "you will read": without a created book, I mean, in the uncreated book, in the eternal book of the eternal knowledge of God. And he continues: "The way is to believe; let us keep to this way, and we shall come to sight. When we have come to sight, we shall see the justice of God, and there will no longer be room to say: Why does he help this man and not that one? Why was this one brought by the governance of God to be baptized, while that one, though he had lived well as a catechumen, died by a sudden collapse and did not reach baptism, and another, though he had lived wickedly, a profligate, an adulterer, an actor, a hunter, fell sick, was baptized, and departed; sin was joined to him, sin was destroyed in him? Why will you find no merits, only punishment? Why grace? [n26] O the depth of riches! Peter denies, the robber believes. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"

In like manner, as it has been argued about the book, so it can be argued about the Word. How can the blessed man not hear and know complex truths in the Word and through the Word of God, in which and through which all things true are expressed most truly, most distinctly and most certainly, and the truest and most certain reasons of all true things? And who would presume to call so eloquent a Word mute? Who would presume this, unless he were deaf? And who would dare to say that the Word of the Lord in no way expresses, nor can express, any complex truths, but only incomplex things? Or, if it does express complex truths, that the creature nevertheless cannot hear or understand complex truths in that Word, but only incomplex things, nor can that omnipotent Word of itself express complex truths to the creature as it does incomplex ones, sentences as it does words? Who, I say, would presume to affirm this, unless perhaps he were spiritually deaf, one who has ears and will not hear the Word of God? Not so the Prophet, not so; but he says, "I will hear what God speaks in me" (Ps 84 [85]). On this Augustine says: "God was speaking within him, and the world was making a din outside for him. Restraining himself, then, somewhat from the din of the world, and turning to himself, and from himself to the one whose voice he heard within, as though [n27] stopping his ear against the tumult of the restlessness of this life, and against the soul weighed down by the body that is corrupted, and with the earthly dwelling pressing down the mind that thinks many things [n28], he says, 'I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me'; and he heard. What? 'That he will speak peace to his people.' And having shown that that peace will not be perfect in the present but in the future, he concludes thus: 'There will be, then, a purified peace among the children of God, all loving one another, seeing one another full of God, when God will be all in all. We shall have God as a common spectacle, as a common possession; we shall have God as our common peace.

"For whatever it is that he now gives us, he who gives will be for us in place of all things: that very thing will be perfect and full peace. This he speaks to his people; this he wished to hear, who says, 'I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me, for he will speak peace to his people.'" The same Augustine says in the last book of the City of God, 29: "How great will that happiness be, where there will be no evil, where no good will lie hidden! There will be leisure for the praises of God, who will be all in all. I am also reminded by the holy Canticle, where I read or hear, 'Blessed are they who dwell in your house, Lord; for ever and ever they will praise you.' All those sinews of the body's harmony, which now lie hidden, will not lie hidden, arranged within and without throughout the whole body, and together with the other things that will appear great and wonderful there, they will kindle rational minds to the praise of so great an Artificer by the delight of rational beauty. There is true glory, true honor, true peace, where no one will suffer anything adverse, either from himself or from anyone. The reward of virtue will be he himself who gave virtue, and he promised himself to it, than whom nothing better or greater can be. For what else is the meaning of what he said through the Prophet, 'I will be their God, and they will be my people,' than this: I shall be that from which they will be satisfied; I shall be whatever is honorably desired by all, both life and health and sustenance and plenty and glory and honor and peace and all good things? For so too is rightly understood what the Apostle says, 'that God may be all in all': he himself will be the end of our desires, who will be seen without end, loved without weariness, praised without fatigue. This office, this affection, this act will surely belong to all, as eternal life itself is common to all."

Nor should it be thought that hearing, seeing with the mind, and reading in consummate beatitude are really different, as it seems from the authority set out above. Indeed, perhaps not even perfect beatitude has really different parts. For either some one of those parts would be perfect and sufficient to make blessed, and then that one alone would suffice; or each

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would be imperfect. And how then would perfect beatitude result from such imperfect parts, especially since all those parts are finite in number and in power? What, moreover, could be the perfect beatitude of an angel or a man short of God, when God and beatitude alike are the end of both? Hence Boethius too, in book 3 of the Consolation of Philosophy, prose 10, by way of dialogue between Philosophy and himself, proves at length and holds expressly that human beatitude is the highest good, and hence God, indeed divinity itself. Anselm agrees with this in Monologion 70: "If the rational creature, which is useless to itself without the persevering love of God [n29], so stands out above all creatures, then surely nothing can be the reward of this love except what stands above all natures. For the very good that demands to be loved in this way compels no less that it be desired by the lover. Who could so love justice, truth, beatitude, incorruptibility, as not to long to enjoy them? What, then, will the highest goodness repay to the one who loves and desires it, except itself? For whatever else it repaid, it would not repay, because it would neither compensate the love, nor console the lover, nor satisfy the one who desires. Or if it wishes to be loved and desired in order to repay something else, it does not wish to be loved and desired for its own sake but for the sake of something else, and so it does not wish itself to be loved, but something else; which it is wicked to think. Nothing is truer, therefore, than that every rational soul, if it strives, as it ought, to desire the highest beatitude by loving it, should at some time receive it to enjoy, so that what it now sees as through a mirror and in a riddle it should then see face to face. Whether it will enjoy it without end, it is utterly foolish to doubt, since one who enjoys it can neither be tormented by fear nor deceived by false security."

Augustine agrees with this in the Sentences of Prosper, 20: "God is to be worshipped with this affection, that his worship should itself be the reward. For whoever worships God in order to earn something else [n30] rather than God himself does not worship God, but what he longs to attain." Boethius too, in the place cited before: "Since, by the attainment of beatitude, men become blessed, and beatitude is divinity itself, it is manifest that by the attainment of divinity they become blessed. But as by the attainment of justice men become just, and by that of wisdom wise, so by a like reason it is necessary that those who have attained divinity become gods. Every blessed man, therefore, is a god; by nature, indeed, there is one only, but by participation nothing prevents there being very many." And further on he shows that those diverse things which seem to be contained in beatitude, such as sufficiency, power, reverence, renown, pleasure, and other such things, are one and the same; and that all these goods are situated in the substance of the highest good, in the very substance of God.

Augustine agrees with this on the text of Psalm 84 [85], "Give us your salvation," understanding Christ by "salvation": "He has already given us his Christ," he says; "yet let us still say to him, 'Give us your Christ,' since we say to him, 'Give us this day our daily bread.' And who is our bread, if not he who said, 'I am the living bread who came down from heaven'? Let us say to him, 'Give us your Christ.' For he gave us Christ, but as man, whom we knew; the man he gave us, that same one he is going to give us as God. For he gave a man to men, because he gave him to men such as could be grasped by men; for no man could grasp Christ as God. He became man for men; he kept himself as God for gods. Have I perhaps spoken arrogantly? Truly arrogantly, unless he himself had said, 'I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.'"

He also says on Psalm 35 [36], "They will be inebriated with the abundance of your house": "When that ineffable joy has been received, the human mind in a certain way perishes and becomes divine, and is made drunk with the abundance of the house of God." And further on, on the text "for with you is the fountain of life," and so on: "Here the fountain is one thing, the light another; there it is not so. For what is the fountain is also the light, and whatever you wish to call it, it is not what you call it, because you cannot find a fitting name. It does not remain in one name. If you said that it is light alone, it would be said to you, 'Then it was said to me for no reason that I should hunger and thirst'; for who is there that would eat that light? Quite rightly it was said to me, 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.' If it is light, I would prepare my eyes; prepare the throat as well, because what is light is also a fountain: a fountain that satisfies the thirsty, a light that illuminates the blind."

He also, in the second part on John, homily 45 or 99 of the whole, treating that text of John 16 which the Lord said of the Holy Spirit, "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak," says: "In that incorporeal and immutable nature, hearing and seeing are the same thing. For when 'to know' is said, all are there: both seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching. Nor should you wonder that the ineffable knowledge of God, by which he knows all things, is called, by the various ways of human speech, by the names of all these bodily senses, since our own mind too, that is, the inner man, to whom, knowing uniformly, different things are announced through these five, as it were, messengers of the body, when it understands, chooses and loves the immutable truth, both sees the light, of which it is said, 'That was the true light,' and hears the Word, of which it is said, 'In the beginning was the Word,' and catches the fragrance, of which it is said, 'After the fragrance of your ointments we run,' and drinks the fountain, of which it is said, 'With you is the fountain of life,' and enjoys by touch, of which it is said, 'But it is good for me to cling to God': not one thing and then another, but one understanding is called by the names of so many senses." This too is attested by the words of Hugh, above

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quoted. Those, therefore, who strive to maintain the opposite of this labor to deprive the blessed not only of the perfection of sight and hearing but of all their senses and of all the spiritual powers of their mind, and also of the greatest sweetness and highest delights of that great supper, that heavenly banquet prepared for all the blessed. They try, moreover, like grasping stewards, to draw in the liberal hand of the Lord, to curtail his infinite power, to put the infinite abundance of his magnificence under a bushel, and to confine it in a tiny measure. Who, moreover, having even slightly crossed the threshold of theological learning [n31], would be ignorant of that common distinction between morning and evening knowledge, or day and night knowledge? And that morning knowledge is the knowledge of things in the Word, evening knowledge the knowledge of things in their own kind [n32]? For this distinction is held so common among the Doctors and their disciples that it scarcely needs a foundation. Nevertheless, over and above, behold blessed Augustine, who in book 4 of On Genesis according to the Letter, 27 and following, sets it out at length and clearly, and says that the angels knew

things to be made in the Word, and things made in their own kind. He calls the first knowledge morning and day, the second evening and night, on account of the surpassing clarity of this over that. Where in 29 he also says thus: "There is indeed a great difference between the knowledge of a thing in the Word of God and the knowledge of it in its own nature, so that the one rightly belongs to the day, the other to the evening. For in comparison with that light which is beheld in the Word of God, all knowledge by which we know any creature in itself can with justice be called night, which in turn [n33] differs so greatly from the error or ignorance of those who do not know even the creature itself that in comparison with it it may not unfittingly be called day. Yet that day, unless in turn it were itself night too in comparison with that day on which, made equal to the angels, we shall see God as he is [n34], we should not need here the lamp of prophecy." Hence the Apostle Peter says, "We have the more certain prophetic word, to which you do well to attend as to a lamp in a dark place, until the day dawns and the daystar rises in your hearts."

Therefore, since the holy angels (to whom after the resurrection we shall be made equal, if we hold to the end the way which Christ has become for us) always see the face of God, and fully enjoy his Word, the only-begotten Son, as he is equal to the Father, and since wisdom was created first of all in them, they undoubtedly knew the whole creature, in which they themselves were principally founded, first in the very Word of God, in which are the eternal reasons even of all the things that were made in time, as in that through whom all things were made. Then they knew it in the creature itself, which they thus knew, looking down upon it as on what lies beneath them, and referring it to the praise of him in whose immutable truth they see the reasons according to which it was principally made. And further on, in 32, he writes thus: "Let no one suppose that what I said about the spiritual light, and about the day founded in the spiritual and angelic creature, and about the contemplation which it has in the Word of God, and about the knowledge by which the creature is known in itself and in its relation to the praise of immutable truth (where first the reason of the thing to be made was seen, which, once known, was made) corresponds, no longer properly, but

as it were figuratively and allegorically, to the understanding of day and evening and morning. It corresponds differently, to be sure, than in this customary experience of the daily bodily light, but not as if it were proper here and figurative there. For where it is better and more certain, there the day is also truer: why then not also a truer evening, and a truer morning?" And further on, in 35: "The angelic mind, clinging in pure charity to the Word of God, after it was created in that order, so as to precede the rest, saw things in the Word of God, as to be made, before they were made, and so they came to be first in its knowledge, when God said that they should be made, before they came to be in their own nature. Those same things, once made, it also knew in themselves, with lesser knowledge indeed, which is called evening."

Very many authorities also attest the aforesaid opinion. Does not Averroes himself seem to hold this, in Metaphysics 12, comment 18, when he says thus [n35]: "We have already examined these two opinions in the book On the Soul, and we said that the agent intelligence is as it were a form in the material intellect, and that it itself acts the things understood and receives them according to the material intellect, and that the material intellect is not generable and corruptible; and we declared there that this is the opinion of Aristotle, and that the intellect in habit has a generable part and a corruptible part. That which is corrupted, however, is its action; in itself it is not corrupted; and it enters us from within. And if the action of that intellect, insofar as it is joined with the material intellect, were not generable, then its action would be its substance, and it would have no necessity in this action of being joined with the material intellect. But when it has been joined with the material intellect through action, its action, insofar as it is joined with it, will be an action other than its substance, and that which acts was substance, and is for another and not for itself; and therefore it is possible that something eternal should understand something generable and corruptible. If, therefore, the intellect is stripped of potency at human perfection, it is necessary that this action, which is other than it, be done away with in it, and then either

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we shall not understand at all through this intellect, or we shall understand insofar as its action is its substance; and it is impossible that at some hour we should not understand through it. It remains, therefore, when this intellect has been stripped of potency, that we understand through it insofar as the action is its substance, and this is the ultimate prosperity."

The Philosopher also, in Metaphysics 12, 38, after briefly describing the first principle of things, concludes thus: "On such a principle, then, depend heaven and nature. For its manner of life [n36] is such as the best is for us for a short time; for it is always so." On this Averroes says: "From this it clearly appears that Aristotle holds that the good fortune of men, in that they are men, is only through their union with the intellect which, it has been declared in the book On the Soul, is the agent principle and mover of us. For abstract intelligences must be principles of those things of which they are principles in two ways, namely as movers and as end. For the agent intelligence, insofar as it is abstract and a principle for us, necessarily moves us as the beloved moves the lover; and if every motion must be continuous with that from which it comes as end, we must in the end be joined with this abstract intellect, so that we shall be dependent on such a principle on which the heaven depends, though this is in us for a short time, as Aristotle said. For Aristotle and Averroes hold that felicity is possible to man in the present life, and that for a short time near its end."

Does not the Lord himself teach this, when he says, "If there be a prophet of the Lord among you, I will appear to him in a vision, or speak to him in a dream? But not so is my servant Moses, who is faithful in all my house: for I will speak to him mouth to mouth, and openly, not through riddles and figures does he see God" (Num 12), and elsewhere, "Their angels always see the face of my Father" (Mt 18)? Does not his Evangelist Mark teach this when he says, "And Jesus, having immediately perceived in the Holy Spirit that they were thinking thus within themselves, says to them," and the rest (Mk 2)? If, therefore, Jesus perceived that in the Holy Spirit, why not other things also? Does not his Apostle Paul teach this when he says, "I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago, whether in the body

or outside the body I do not know, God knows, caught up in this way as far as the third heaven"; and further on, "that he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words" (2 Cor 12)? Do not these and many similar texts suggest the opinion previously broached? Hear blessed Augustine, in book 12 of On Genesis according to the Letter, discussing the rapture of Paul and the third heaven, and understanding by the three heavens three kinds of vision, namely bodily, spiritual and intellectual vision, and, in setting out the difference among them, saying that in bodily and spiritual vision there can be deception, in intellectual by no means. After he has shown in 49 the manner of deception in both bodily and spiritual vision, he adds in 50 as a consequence: "But in those intellectual visions the soul is not deceived: for either it understands, and it is true; or if it is not true, it does not understand." And further on, in 52, indicating a twofold manner of rapture, one from the bodily senses to likenesses of bodies and spiritual vision, the other from such likenesses and from spiritual vision to intellectual vision, he says: "Now, as someone is caught up from the bodily senses so as to be in these likenesses of

bodies, which are seen [without] the spirit [n37], so may he also be caught up from them, so as to be carried up into that region, as it were, of intellectual or intelligible things, where truth is discerned clearly without any likeness of body, and is obscured by no mists of false opinions; where the soul's virtues are not toilsome and laborious, where the one and whole virtue is to love what you see, and the highest happiness to have what you love. For there the blessed life is drunk at its own fountain. For it is to attain this, where there will be secure rest and the ineffable vision of truth, that the labor is undertaken of restraining oneself from the temptations of the world. There the glory [n38] of the Lord is seen, not through a signifying vision, whether bodily, as it was seen on Mount Sinai, or spiritual, as Isaiah saw, or John in the Apocalypse, but by sight, not through riddles, as far as the human mind can grasp it, according to the grace of God who takes him up, so that God may speak mouth to mouth to the one whom he has made worthy of such colloquy: not the mouth of the body, but of the mind." Where in 53 he adds thus: "I think that what is written of Moses is to be understood in this way. For he desired, as we read in Exodus, to see God, not as he had

seen on the mountain, nor as he saw in the tabernacle, but in that substance in which God is, with no corporeal creature taken up that might be presented to the senses of mortal flesh, nor in the spirit in figured likenesses of bodies, but by his own sight, as far as a rational and intellectual creature can grasp it, called back from every sense of the body, from every signifying riddle of the spirit. For thus it is written, 'If therefore I have found grace in your sight, show me yourself manifestly, that I may see you,' although a little earlier it is read, 'And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a friend speaks to his friend.' He perceived, then, what he saw, and he longed for what he did not see. For a little later too, when God had said to him, 'For you have found grace in my sight, and I know you above all,' he replied, 'Show me your glory'; and then indeed he received from the Lord a figurative answer, about

[782A]
which it would be long to dispute, when he said to him, 'You will not be able to see my face and live: for man will not see my face and live.' Unless, however, Moses had deserved to see the glory of God that he longed for and desired, God would not say in the book of Numbers to Aaron and Miriam his brethren: 'Hear my words: if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will be made known to him in a vision, and I will speak to him in a dream; not so in any way is my servant Moses, who is faithful in my whole house; mouth to mouth I will speak to him, in sight, and not through riddles, and he sees the glory of the Lord.' For this is not to be understood according to the substance of a body, which is presented to the senses of the flesh. And it continues in 54: In that manner, then, in that form in which God is, he speaks far more ineffably, more secretly and more present, with ineffable speech, where no one who sees him will live this life, since one lives [n39] mortally in these bodily senses; but unless each one in some way dies to this life, whether wholly departing from the body or so turned away and estranged from the carnal senses that he rightly does not know, as the Apostle says, whether he is in the body or outside the body, when he is caught up into that"

[782B–782E]
and is borne up into that vision. And it follows (55): Therefore, if this third kind of vision, which is higher than every bodily and spiritual vision, is what the Apostle called the third heaven, then in it the brightness of God is seen, and hearts are cleansed that they may see it. Hence it was said, "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." They shall see him not through some signification figured in bodily or spiritual form, "as through a mirror in a riddle," but "face to face"; and what was said of Moses, "mouth to mouth," means by that form by which God is whatever he is[n40], so far as a mind can grasp him. That mind is not what he is; yet it is cleansed of every earthly stain and withdrawn and set apart from every body and likeness of body. From him, that is, from God, we live as exiles, weighed down by a mortal and corruptible burden, so long as we "walk by faith, not by sight." Why, then, should we not believe that God wished to show to so great an Apostle, the Teacher of the Gentiles, caught up as far as this most exalted vision, the life in which, after this life, we are to see for eternity? And why should this not be called Paradise, setting aside the one in which Adam lived bodily? The same Augustine says in book 8 of On Genesis {literally},

(782C) chapter 34: We must hold most certainly that God speaks either through his own substance or through a creature subject to him. But through his own substance he speaks only to create all natures. With spiritual and intellectual natures he speaks not only to create but also to illuminate, when they can already grasp his speech, such as it is in his Word, which "in the beginning was with God, and God was the Word, through whom all things were made." But to those who cannot grasp it, when God speaks, he speaks only through a creature. It is either a spiritual creature alone, whether in dreams or in ecstasy, in the likeness of bodily things; or it is the bodily creature itself, when some appearance shows itself to the bodily senses or voices sound in the ears. And in City of God 10, chapter 14, he says: It pleased divine providence so to order the course of the ages that the law concerning the worship of the one true God should be given in the edicts of Angels. In these the person of God himself would appear visibly (not through his own substance, which always remains invisible to corruptible eyes, but by sure signs, through a creature subject to the Creator) and would speak, syllable by syllable, through the passing moments of time

(782D) in the sounds of the human tongue. In his own nature he speaks not bodily but spiritually, not perceptibly but intelligibly, not in time but, so to say, eternally; he neither begins to speak nor ceases. This is heard more purely in his presence, not by the ears of the body but by those of the mind[n41]: his ministers and messengers, who enjoy his unchangeable truth and are immortally blessed. Gregory also, in Moralia 28, chapter 2, says: It must be known that divine speech is distinguished in two ways. Either the Lord speaks through himself, or his words to us are formed through an Angelic creature. And below, chapter 3: Hearing does not grasp all at once what is said to it, since it perceives matters[n42] through words, and the words piecemeal through syllables. But our sight, in what it turns itself to, takes in the whole suddenly and at once. The speech of God made to us from within seems to be seen rather than heard, because while it makes itself known without the delay of discourse, it lights up the darkness of our ignorance with a sudden light. Hence also Baruch the son of Neriah, when asked to explain how he had heard the words of Jeremiah prophesying,

(782E) said: "He was speaking from his own mouth as if reading, and I was writing." For one who speaks as he reads directs his attention to one thing but makes the word with another, because he says what he sees. So the prophets of God, because they see his words in the heart rather than hear them, speak like readers. But when the Lord makes his will known through an Angel, he sometimes shows it by words, sometimes by things, sometimes by words and things together. Sometimes he shows it by images displayed to the eyes of the heart, sometimes by images taken for a time from the air before bodily eyes. Sometimes it is by heavenly substances, sometimes by earthly ones, sometimes by earthly and heavenly together. And at times God even speaks through an Angel to human hearts in such a way that the Angel himself is also presented to the gaze of the mind.

[783A–783D]
(783A) The same Gregory, in Moralia 18, chapter 33, on that text of Job 28: "Whence, then, does wisdom come, and where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all the living." He says: As long as one lives here mortally, God can be seen through certain images, but cannot be seen through the very form of his nature. So the soul, breathed upon by the grace of the Spirit, may see God through certain figures but does not reach the very power of his essence. For this is why Jacob, who testifies that he saw God, saw only an Angel. This is why Moses, who speaks with God "face to face," as a man is accustomed to speak with his friend, says to him in the very words of his speech, "If I have found grace in your sight, show me yourself openly, that I may see you." Surely, if God were not the one with whom he was speaking, he would have said, "show me God," and not "show me yourself." But if it was God with whom he was speaking face to face, why did he ask to see the one he was seeing? From his petition we gather this: since he thirsted to behold, through the brightness of his uncircumscribed nature, the one whom he had already begun to see through certain

(783B) images, he wished the supernal essence to be present to the eyes of his mind in such a way that, for the vision of eternity, no created image should intervene in time. And below, chapter 34: It must be known, he says, that there have been some who said that even in that region of blessedness God is perceived in his brightness but is not seen at all in his nature. A lack of subtlety in inquiry has deceived them. For in that simple and unchangeable essence brightness is not one thing and nature another; his nature is itself his brightness, and his brightness is his nature. For he promises that this wisdom of God will at some time show itself to those who love it, saying: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and I will show myself to him." It is as if he said plainly: you who now discern me in yours, it remains that you see me in my own nature. Hence again he says, "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." Hence Paul says, "Now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face[n43]; now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known." And earlier in the same place he says: The Fathers of the Old Testament saw the Lord, and yet, according to the word of John,

(783C) "No one has ever seen God"; and according to the saying of blessed Job, "Wisdom, which is God, is hidden from the eyes of all the living," because they are in this mortal flesh. And he could be seen through certain circumscribed images, but could not be seen through the uncircumscribed light of eternity. But if the eternal brightness of God can be seen by some who still live in this corruptible flesh, yet are growing by an inestimable power through a certain keenness of contemplation, even this does not conflict with the saying of blessed Job, "It is hidden from the eyes of all the living." For whoever sees the wisdom which is God dies utterly to this life, so that he is no longer held by love of it. No one, indeed, sees it who still lives carnally, because no one can embrace both God and the world. For whoever sees God dies by the very fact that, whether in the intention of his heart or in the effect of his work, he is wholly separated in mind from the delights of this life. Hence it is said to Moses himself also: "For man shall not see me and live." All the Catholic Doctors also seem to attest the same opinion with one accord, and so does the general faith of the Church.

NOTES

1. Translated as the Latin stands. The "hypothesis" is the position the preceding chapters have been refuting. Its defenders, unable to answer the arguments for revelation in the Word and unwilling to give the position up, are said to take the "left" branch of the fork and deny that any complex about a future contingent can be revealed in the Word. The opening clause (contra concedentes) is compressed, and I have not emended it.
2. Verbis aliquibus, prout ipsum verbum dederit: "with some words, as the Word himself shall grant." The play on verbum (words / the Word, the Son) continues in in verbi iniuriam. "Word" is capitalized throughout where the Son is meant, as in in verbo.
3. Savile's "10 Eth. 13" is Nicomachean Ethics X.8, 1179a24–29, in the numbering Bradwardine used (cf. convention 4). In the Latin text "the best and most akin" refers to the intellect, as the next clause says.
4. The verb is left to be supplied: nec potest [perfici] sicut alia potentia. The sense is that the nobler power (composing and dividing) cannot be perfected as the less noble apprehensive power is, if it can see no true complex in God. The subjunctive possit gives the opponents' premise, hence "could see."
5. "1. de Anima 65": Aristotle, De anima I.4, 408b21–22, in the Latin translation commented on by Averroes. The number 65 is the comment number in Averroes's commentary, which the next sentence calls "the text, which Averroes expounds." "Comment 36" on De anima III below is likewise Averroes's.
6. Bradwardine and Savile's margin give this as Augustine. The work circulated as De triplici habitaculo (also De gaudiis iustorum et poenis malorum) and is generally regarded as pseudonymous. I have not traced the quotation.
7. Augustine, City of God 22.29 (Savile's "28"), on Elisha and Gehazi (4 Kgs [2 Kgs] 5:26). The text keeps Savile's number.
8. Two different Peters appear in this passage. "Peter" in the reply to Gregory (Petrum respondere) is Peter Lombard, Sentences II, dist. 11. "Peter" in the next sentence, who "asks" and "speaks of men," is Peter the deacon, Gregory's interlocutor in the Dialogues.
9. Magistro Gualtero de Mauritania is Walter of Mortagne. The letter is Hugh's answer to Walter's question about the soul of Christ's knowledge.
10. Portat, et non videt is as printed. It looks like Hugh's objection in compressed form, that on the opponents' view the soul of Christ would carry the hidden treasures without seeing them. Hugh rejects this in the next sentence (Absit autem ab intellectu nostro). I have kept the Latin's abruptness.
11. The final sentence (from sed ne ab impijs in eo onward) falls on Savile p. 774, which was not among the images supplied. It is translated from the keyed text and not checked against the print.
12. The long extract is from Hugh of St Victor, De sapientia animae Christi, answering objections from Walter of Mortagne; Savile's margin has only "Hugo". Bradwardine takes Hugh's replies as support for the full knowledge of Christ's soul in the Word.
13. hoc credenti qui non credit, non bene credit. The dative credenti is awkward. I take it as a dative of the person judging ("for one who believes this"): in the view of a believer in this doctrine, whoever does not believe it does not believe rightly.
14. Print has ad Paulinum at 775A and ad Paulinam at 776D. Ep. 147, De videndo Deo, is addressed to Paulina, so I read "Paulina" in both places.
15. vel aliud ante credere. Ante does not construe; it is probably a misprint for autem ("and another thing, to believe"). The sense is clear from the parallel with the two preceding members, and I translate it so.
16. Augustine derives praesentia from praesto (esse), "to be at hand". English "present" cannot show the connection; I render praesto as "at hand" throughout.
17. Certe in nullo lumine creato fallibili siue lumine infallibili increato. As printed, "in no created fallible light or uncreated infallible light" would contradict the next clause, which says that these things are seen in the uncreated light. I take siue in the sense "or rather", "but", and translate "in no created light, which is fallible, but in the uncreated, infallible light". The text may be corrupt (a nisi has perhaps dropped out), but the sense is secured by what follows.
18. Ieber is Geber, presumably Jābir ibn Aflaḥ, cited for the prologue of Book 1 of his astronomical work. I have not verified the passage.
19. propter quietem renders Aristotle's ἠρεμαίως (Eth. Nic. VII.3, 1146b), meaning "mildly", "with weak conviction": those who merely opine hold their view less firmly and so act against it. "Calm" keeps Savile's Latin. The Philosopher's De memoria is 449b; Savile's "7. Eth. 3" is Eth. Nic. VII, chapter 3.
20. Grammatically the antecedent of qui is Heraclitus, but the Topics are Aristotle's; "he" here means the Philosopher.
21. "Peter": Savile's margin gives only Petrus. Peter Lombard, Sentences III, dist. 26 (on faith), is evidently meant; the thesis that Christ had vision, not faith, "on the way" belongs there.
22. Augustine, Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium 40, on Jn 8:31–32 (Savile: "homily 40 of the first part"). The quotation of 1 Jn 3:1–2 is in the same homily.
23. Savile's numbers for the last book of the City of God (28 here; 29 at 778D) are each one lower than the modern chapter numbers (XXII.29 and XXII.30).
24. Complexum is what is expressed by a proposition, a "complex truth"; incomplexum is what is signified by a simple term. The boy analogy that follows (letters, syllables, words, sentences) trades on the grammarians' vocabulary: dictiones are "words" and orationes are "sentences." I keep "complex" and "incomplex" throughout.
25. Species means both "sight, vision" (2 Cor 5:7, per speciem) and "beauty, appearance" (Ps 44:3 [45:2], speciosus forma). Augustine uses the second to explain the first. English cannot keep both: "by sight" for the Pauline phrase, "fairest in beauty" for the Psalm. Later species and in specie (781D–782A) are "sight"; per speciem suam (781E) is "by his own sight."
26. Savile prints Quare ("Why") in both questions. I translate as printed. If Augustine wrote Quaere ("Seek"), the sense would be "Seek merits: you will find only punishment. Seek grace?"
27. Savile prints quam obturans aurem. The sense requires quasi ("as though stopping his ear"), and I translate that.
28. The ablatives sensu ... deprimente do not construe cleanly as printed. The phrase echoes Wis 9:15, et terrena inhabitatio deprimit sensum multa cogitantem ("the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things"), and I translate the Wisdom sense.
29. Savile's comma falls after inutilis est, so sine perseuerante Dei amore would qualify sic eminet, which gives no sense. I take it with inutilis: the rational creature, useless to itself without the persevering love of God, is nonetheless raised above all creatures by being capable of that love.
30. Print: alium ("another"). The evident reading is aliud ("something else"), which I translate.
31. ne limen ... vel parum ingressus is awkward Latin. The rhetorical sense must be that even the slightest acquaintance with theology suffices to know the distinction, and I translate that.
32. In proprio genere ("in their own kind"), here and in the next lines, is Augustine's term for knowledge of things in their own natures. At 780B and 780D he writes in natura eius and in sua propria natura, and I render those "nature."
33. Print: quod rursus tantum differt. The relative must refer to cognitio (Augustine has quae), and I translate "which in turn."
34. The print nisi rursus in comparatione illius dici potest, quo coaequales does not construe. I take dici as a corruption of diei ("in comparison with that day, on which ..."), and potest remains unplaced. The keyed text's duo is the print's quo. The evident sense is that the day of knowing creatures in themselves would itself be night beside the vision of God. Otherwise we should not need the lamp of prophecy.
35. Averroes, In Metaph. XII, comm. 18 (Savile's reference), in a compressed form. The print ends the sentence "generabile et corruptibile" with a question mark; the sentence is a statement and I punctuate it so. Quod ab intrinseco intrat nos is translated as printed ("from within").
36. Aristotle, Metaph. XII (Λ 7, 1072b13–15). Deductio renders Greek diagoge, "way of life, passing of time." "38" is the text number in the Latin Averroes numbering. Fortuna in Averroes's comment is "good fortune, happiness"; prosperitas (781A) is kept as "prosperity," and faelicitas as "felicity."
37. The print has "[sine]" in Savile's brackets, so "without" the spirit. Augustine has quae spiritu videntur, "seen by the spirit," which is the evident sense; the bracket seems to mark sine as intrusive. I keep the bracketed word as Savile gives it.
38. Claritas Domini renders biblical gloria (Ex 33:18, "show me your glory"), so "glory" here and at 782A. Where claritas means brightness of knowledge (780B, 777B–D) it is "clarity" or "radiant."
39. Print: viuitis ("you live"). The impersonal viuitur ("one lives") is the evident sense, and I translate that.
40. species in this passage plays on 2 Cor 5:7, "we walk by faith, not by speciem" ("by sight"). In Augustine's gloss and in Gregory below ("the very speciem of his nature") it also means the "form" or intelligible appearance in which God is seen. I use "form" for it in the gloss and keep "sight" only for the Pauline text, which is where the two senses meet.
41. Construed as "not the ears of the body but those of the mind (mentis [aures]), his ministers and messengers". The sentence does not repeat aures after mentis, and ministri eius et nuntii stand in apposition to the hearers. The other possible reading, "ministers of his mind", would make God's mind the source, and the context (the angels hearing) does not favour it.
42. causas per verba: here causa is "matter, subject of discourse", not "cause". The word is the same one that carries the double sense of the title, but I do not force it here.
43. The print has facie d faciem, evidently ad misset (1 Cor 13:12, "face to face"). The sense is not in doubt.