Chapter 17.—In How Many Ways Things Future are Foreknown. Neither Philosophers, Nor Those Who Were Distinguished Among the Ancients, are to Be Consulted Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead.

22.—although the name of prophets, too, is not altogether foreign to their writings. But it makes the greatest possible difference, whether things future are conjectured by experience of things past (as physicians also have committed many things to writing in the way of foresight, which they themselves have noted by experience; or as again husbandmen, or sailors, too, foretell many things; for if such predictions are made a long while before, they are thought to be divinations), or whether such things have already started on their road to come to us, and being seen coming far off, are announced in proportion to the acuteness of the sense of those who see them, by doing which the aerial powers are thought to divine (just as if a person from the top of a mountain were to see far off some one coming, and were to announce it beforehand to those who dwelt close by in the plain); or whether they are either fore-announced to certain men, or are heard by them and again transmitted to other men, by means of holy angels, to whom God shows those things by His Word and His Wisdom, wherein both things future and things past consist: or whether the minds of certain men themselves are so far borne upwards by theHoly Spirit, as to behold, not through the angels, but of themselves, the immoveable causes of things future, in that very highest pinnacle of the universe itself. [And I say, behold,] for the aerial powers, too, hear these things, either by message through angels, or through men; and hear only so much as He judges to be fitting, to whom all things are subject. Many things, too, are foretold by a kind of instinct and inward impulse of such as know them not: as Caiaphas did not know what he said, but being the high priest, he prophesied.518    John xi. 51

23. Therefore, neither concerning the successions of ages, nor concerning the resurrection of the dead, ought we to consult those philosophers, who have understood as much as they could the eternity of the Creator, in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.”519    Acts xvii. 28 Since, knowing God through those things which are made, they have not glorified Him as God, neither were thankful but professing themselves wise, they became fools.520    Rom. i. 21, 22 And whereas they were not fit to fix the eye of the mind so firmly upon the eternity of the spiritual and unchangeable nature, as to be able to see, in the wisdom itself of the Creator and Governor of the universe, those revolutions of the ages, which in that wisdom were already and were always, but here were about to be so that as yet they were not; or, again, to see therein those changes for the better, not of the souls only, but also of the bodies of men, even to the perfection of their proper measure; whereas then, I say, they were in no way fit to see these things therein, they were not even judged worthy of receiving any announcement of them by the holy angels; whether externally through the senses of the body, or by interior revelations exhibited in the spirit; as these things actually were manifested to our fathers, who were gifted with true piety, and who by foretelling them, obtaining credence either by present signs, or by events close at hand, which turned out as they had foretold, earned authority to be believed respecting things remotely future, even to the end of the world. But the proud and deceitful powers of the air, even if they are found to have said through their soothsayers some things of the fellowship and citizenship of the saints, and of the true Mediator, which they heard from the holy prophets or the angels, did so with the purpose of seducing even the faithful ones of God, if they could, by these alien truths, to revolt to their own proper falsehoods. But God did this by those who knew not what they said, in order that the truth might sound abroad from all sides, to aid the faithful, to be a witness against the ungodly.

CAPUT XVII.

22. Futura quot modis praesciantur. Philosophi nec illi qui inter antiquos excelluerunt consulendi sunt de resurrectione mortuorum. Quanquam et Prophetarum nomen non omnino alienum est a litteris eorum: sed plurimum interest, utrum experimento praeteritorum futura conjiciantur; sicut medici multa praevidendo, etiam litteris mandaverunt, quae ipsi experta notaverunt; sicut denique agricolae vel etiam nautae multa praenuntiant (talia enim si ex longis intervallis temporum fiant, divinationes putantur): an vero jam ventura processerint, et longe visa venientia nuntientur pro acuto sensu videntium, quod cum faciunt aereae potestates divinare creduntur; tanquam si quisquam de montis vertice aliquem longe videat venientem, et proxime in campo habitantibus 0903 aute nuntiet: an ab Angelis sanctis, quibus ea Deus per Verbum Sapientiamque suam indicat, ubi et futura et praeterita stant, vel quibusdam praenuntientur hominibus, vel ab eis audita rursus ad alios homines transmittantur: an ipsorum hominum quorumdam mentes in tantum evehantur Spiritu sancto, ut non per Angelos, sed per se ipsas futurorum stantes causas in ipsa summa rerum arce conspiciant. Audiunt enim ista et aereae potestates, sive Angelis ea nuntiantibus, sive hominibus: et tantum audiunt, quantum opus esse ille judicat, cui subjecta sunt omnia. Multa etiam praedicuntur instinctu quodam et impulso spiritu nescientium: sicut Caiphas nescivit quid dixit, sed cum esset pontifex prophetavit (Joan. XI, 51).

23. Ergo de successionibus saeculorum et de resurrectione mortuorum philosophos nec illos consulere debemus, qui Creatoris aeternitatem, in quo vivimus, movemur et sumus (Act. XVII, 28), quantum potuerunt intellexerunt. Quia per ea quae facta sunt cognoscentes Deum, non sicut Deum glorificaverunt, aut gratias egerunt, sed dicentes se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt (Rom. I, 20-22). Et cum idonei non essent, in aeternitatem spiritualis incommutabilisque naturae aciem mentis tam constanter infigere, ut in ipsa sapientia Creatoris atque Rectoris universitatis viderent volumina saeculorum, quae ibi jam essent et semper essent, hic autem futura essent ut non essent; atque ut ibi viderent conversiones in melius, non solum animorum, sed etiam corporum humanorum usque ad sui modi perfectionem: cum ergo ad haec ibi videnda nullo modo essent idonei, ne ad illud quidem digni habiti sunt, ut eis ista per sanctos Angelos nuntiarentur; sive forinsecus per sensus corporis, sive interioribus revelationibus in spiritu expressis: sicut patribus nostris vera pietate praeditis haec demonstrata sunt, qui ea praedicentes, vel de praesentibus signis vel de proximis rebus, ita ut praedixerant, factis fidem facientes, auctoritatem cui de longe futuris usque in saeculi finem crederetur, habere meruerunt. Potestates autem aereae superbae atque fallaces, etiam si quaedam de societate et civitate sanctorum et de vero Mediatore a sanctis Prophetis vel Angelis audita per suos vates dixisse reperiuntur, id egerunt, ut per haec aliena vera etiam fideles Dei, si possent, ad sua falsa traducerent. Deus autem per nescientes id egit, ut veritas undique resonaret, fidelibus in adjutorium, impiis in testimonium.