De peste quaestiones duae explicatae

than the ministry of angels. But are lice and flies, therefore, not born from putrefaction, hail not from vapors suddenly solidified by ἀντιθείσασιν counter-positioning or opposition, and ulcers also not arisen from the putrefaction of humors? Satan, having received permission from God, with a wind suddenly stirred up and celestial fire brandished, destroyed the house of Job along with all his children. Does it follow from that, that this happened without any natural causes intervening, and would we not rather say that those princes of the air (as the Apostle does not rashly call them) created those truly natural aerial impressions in a moment? The devil sends the pious into prison, Apocalypse 2:10, but through tyrants and oppressors of the Church. In the same book, 6:8, that pale horse, upon which Death as a rider sits, receives the power of killing by sword, famine, and plague, and by the sending of wild beasts. Here, if we understand that rider to be an angel, why shall we not equally say that he used natural matter to stir up famine and plague just as he used the sword and wild beasts, which are themselves natural instruments? For afterwards, 9:1, the angels are ordered to stand at the four corners of the earth and to restrain the winds, so that they might not harm the earth and sea by blowing. From which it follows that, with God commanding, the winds are in turn sent out by them, from which it is certain that many affections of the air, and especially contagion, proceed. Finally, whether natural causes are moved slowly by their own inherent power, or are snatched to their effects in a moment from elsewhere, with God so commanding, they are natural, and their effects are deservedly considered natural thus far, a thing which no one can deny with reason. Then, if no natural causes intervene in the plague, those whom the plague has touched can certainly not be alleviated, much less cured, by natural remedies. And yet, experience and the senses themselves demonstrate that this is most false.