De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 43
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, 787D–788B; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/43/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[787D–787E]
CHAPTER 43. It treats another response.

Then there are others, wanting to avoid so great a horror, who say that it is now possible that Christ never believed in his own kind, and that Paul was to be saved.[n1] But this response falls into Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis.[n2] For if what Christ believed in his own kind he can have in no way believed, then in like manner what he willed he can have in no way willed, and so too what he did outwardly he can have not done. He can therefore not have prayed, not have spoken, not have walked, not have suffered, and not have redeemed men. He can also never have instituted the sacraments of the Church, nor justified or saved anyone, as the series of arguments in 33 and 35 of this book shows more fully. All of this plainly destroys the principal hypothesis. Again, on this view the created act of believing or willing of Christ, present or past in its own kind, can now not be, and never have been, which is manifestly against the hypothesis. Moreover, if Christ according to his manhood can do this, then another mere man such as Paul can also, especially since they are of the same nature, at least

[788A–788B]
through the omnipotence of the great God and his cooperation, or special assistance. Paul the wayfarer, then, who believed anything, or willed it, and did it, and merited or sinned, can have done none of these things and never have had such operations, against the principal hypothesis.[n3] Further, if it is so, it is possible for Christ to lie, to perjure himself, and to sin. For let Christ now assert, with the firmest oath, without any express or tacit condition, as simply and absolutely as he can, that Paul the wayfarer will bear his name before men, or will freely do this or that, or that this will be future, or that that will happen contingently. Still, according to the hypothesis, it is possible that it should in no way happen. So it is consequently possible that Christ neither be ignorant of it nor believe it, since by what was shown in the preceding chapter he cannot be deceived or err.[n4] Indeed, since he always knows all true things, it is possible that he now knows distinctly the opposite of what he now asserts on oath. It is therefore possible that Christ as man now asserts on oath what is against his mind. And so it would be in the free power of the wayfarer to render the Lord his God a liar, a perjurer, wretched and infamous. Though this is of itself quite absurd and incongruous, it has also been truly refuted by what was shown earlier in 30 of the second book.

NOTES

1. Tantum horrorem: the horror of the conclusion, argued in the preceding paragraphs of the chapter, that Christ's human soul could have erred or been deceived. The "others" avoid it by denying that Christ's belief in Paul's salvation was necessary at all. In proprio genere ("in its own kind") refers to the act of believing taken as a created reality in its own category of being, as distinct from its being known or foreknown by God.
2. The proverbial pair: Scylla the rock, Charybdis the whirlpool. Bradwardine's wording is incidit in Scyllam volens vitare Charybdin, the usual form of the saying.
3. The Latin is qui credidit quicquid vel voluit atque fecit in the print, as I read it. The keyed text has quicquam et voluit. The sense is the same either way: Paul, in whatever he believed, willed and did, can have done none of it.
4. Nec nescire nec credere: that Christ would neither be ignorant of the thing sworn nor believe it. Since he cannot be deceived, he would not believe it, and since he knows all truths, he would not be ignorant either. He would therefore know the opposite while swearing to the thing itself, which is what the next sentence concludes.