De peste quaestiones duae explicatae

Response.

and the type of death and the secondary causes for each person. And who, I pray, was ever so foolish as to call the sentence of God itself contagious? But what we are saying is something quite different, namely that contagion must also be numbered among the secondary causes, if indeed anyone dares to deny that many diseases, some lethal and others lighter, are contracted by contact and friction, unless he were to contend that the sun does not shine at noon. The sin, certainly, with which we are all born infected, and from which all this mortality arose, was derived from a certain spiritual contagion, not without the decree of God, and propagated to all the descendants of Adam. Therefore, there is absolutely no strength in that argument.

3rd Arg.

But they ask afterwards if contagion is referred to as one of the secondary causes established by God, how we can flee what has been established by God: namely, to conclude from this that a remedy through flight is sought in vain against the plague, even if it is established that it is contagious.

Response.

But that argument is also completely leaden. Why, if that conclusion is true, would it not be permitted to affirm the same regarding all secondary causes of death? Come then, let us neither eat nor drink, nor seek remedies against any diseases, and let soldiers go unarmed into battle, since death established by God cannot be avoided. But the matter is this. Certainly neither death nor the time or type of death established by God can be avoided; yet we do not for that reason fail to eat or seek remedies against diseases.