De peste quaestiones duae explicatae

from the time that He assumed our flesh, all Christians confess that He was endowed with a mortal body. Therefore, by its own nature, it could have been killed by Herod along with the other little children: but by the decree of God, it could not. Therefore, the fact that He was not killed then happened contingently if you look at the nature of the body itself, since it could have happened otherwise: but by the decree of God, it could no more be killed than the will of God could be changed. The same is true when He was dragged to the cross; He certainly had the health such that it was not necessary for Him to die then. Therefore, He died contingently if you dwell on the natural cause of death, and yet necessarily, if you ascend to the invariable ordination of the Father; since His hour had come: and at the same time voluntarily, since He laid down His soul for us. Thus, neither contingency nor will is repugnant to the most certain divine decree.

Arg. 9. There remains an argument taken from experience itself, which, although it seems most valid on the surface, is of no moment for removing the contagion. If the plague, they say, arises from natural causes or from a certain constellation or corrupted air, certainly all those who were situated under that constellation or who breathed that air would be seized by it, which is discovered to be false. But reason itself refutes the falsity of that consequence. For who is so unskilled that he does not know that one and the same cause does not always act similarly, let alone equally, and indeed that effects vary according to the variety of the passive objects? The sun certainly hardens mud and melts wax. One and the same North Wind does not infest everyone equally with cold. Therefore, everyone sees how weak that argumentation is. But let us grant that individuals are equally disposed everywhere to catch the corrupted air; many things can still occur as to why the same effect does not follow: for example, because one may have taken a prophylactic medicine, while another has not: one has used a convenient remedy immediately, another either late or never. Finally, that must also be observed which is the most important: that God, the Best and Greatest, rules and moderates natural causes and their effects as it pleases Him, and from this it happens that the contagion does not touch all those exposed to it, as is written in Psalm 91:6, nor is it lethal to all those whom it has seized, just as even drunk poisons were not, as is written in Mark 16:18. Therefore, the argument that there is no contagion is no more valid because many who sit with the sick are not touched by the plague, and conversely, those who are absent are seized by that evil. As if the viper’s poison were not lethal, even though Paul felt no harm at all from its bite, Acts 28:5. And so much for the matter of contagion.